New Trend Magazine (www.newtrendmag.org)

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URGENT MEETING: ROLE OF MUSLIMS IN AMERICA DURING WAR TIME:
Activists, community leaders are invited.
When: February 8
Where: Greensboro, North Carolina
Time: 1 to 8 PM
Purpose: Resolution on Role, Direction, Participation
For Invitation and Directions: email:
ksidd37398@aol.com or BADI323@aol.com or call: 410-638-5965
Sponsored by Jamaat al-Muslimeen
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Powerful Voice from Africa:
NELSON MANDELA BLASTS GEORGE BUSH

What do Africans think of Bush's plans for war on Iraq? The answer came in a devastating indictment of Bush by the South African leader Nelson Mandela. Bush is seen here as a racist and a warmonger who is about to inflict incalculable harm not only on the people of Iraq but on the whole world.
The moral position of Bush has been destroyed by the powerful voice of Mandela. Hail Mandela!
Hail the unity of Africa and Islam
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DEMONSTRATIONS IN EVERY PAKISTANI CITY AGAINST U.S. War Plans

On Friday, January 31, Pakistanis held rallies in Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Multan, Sukker, Quetta, and many other towns to condemn U.S. war plans against Iraq. Most of the rallies were organized by the Islamic coalition known as MMA.

The rallies were peaceful. In some rallies there was a call for Jihad against the U.S.

A surprise this time was that anti-U.S., anti-war rallies were also organized by Muslim League led by the exiled Nawaz Sharif in its stronghold in Lahore. [Another "Muslim League" was also fabricated by General but the original one is led by Nawaz Sharif.]

This time anti-U.S., anti-war rallies on a small scale were also organized by the Insaf (Justice) movement led by Imran Khan. During the fake "referendum" held by General Musharraf, Imran made the mistake of siding with the general. Since then, he has cleared himself of the taint of Musharraf and has come out with far reaching criticism of the corrupt military government. He has spoken out strongly against U.S. interference in Pakistan. Many people suspect him because he was a secularist and had married a Jewish woman in England. Gradually people are realizing his sincerity and that his wife's conversion to Islam is genuine. He is also known for his Cancer hospital and other medical facilities set up to help the poor.
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PAKISTANIS TO BOYCOTT U.S., BRITISH PRODUCTS to protest ANTI-MUSLIM POLICIES:

January 29: The Islamic coalition known as MMA has called on all imams and prayer leaders to prepare the masses of Pakistan to carry out a comprehensive boycott of U.S. and British goods to protest the anti-Muslims policies of these two countries. The decision was made by the supreme council of MMA attended by the entire Islamic spectrum involved in politics (not the Jihad movement). The leaders who made the decision were: Allama Shah Ahmad Noorani, Maulana Sami'ul Haq, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, Allama Sajid Naqvi and Prof. Sajid Mir.

Delegates of MMA will meet ambassadors of countries who are members of the Security Council to urge them to advise the U.S. to stop its war plans.

The MMA also urges Islamic movements around the world to raise their voices against America.
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"PAKISTANI RULERS HAVE BECOME SLAVES OF AMERICA": Nawaz Sharif

January 30: In a telephone message from his exile in Jeddah, Muslim League leader Nawaz Sharif gave this message to Syed Mushtaq Hussain Shah, General Secretary of the labor wing of Muslim League in Sheikhupura, Pakistan: "Pakistan's rulers have become the slaves of America and are willing to go to any extent to please their masters. However, these toadies and bootlickers will not escape the wrath of the people. The dummy new leadership (of Prime Minister Jamali) has emerged from the womb of dictatorship and will reach its natural downfall. Jamali cannot even stop the acts of sabotage which are going on in his home province of Baluchistan, let alone provide security and stability to the people of Pakistan."

[Nawaz Sharif was the last democratically elected prime minister of Pakistan and was removed in a coup engineered by General Musharraf. The general cooked up a weird story about how Nawaz Sharif was trying to get rid of him.]
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BLINDED CYCLOPS HURTING ITS BEST FRIENDS:
25 Pakistanis arrested

On January 30, while the Pakistani foreign minister Khurshid Qasuri was addressing a joint press conference with Colin Powell, urging the U.S. to be kind to its best friends, Pakistanis in USA, the FBI raided Pakistani businesses and travel agencies in Virginia, just outside Washington.

The FBI arrested 25 Pakistanis. The companies targeted are reported by U.S. authorities as: Metro International travel of Alexandria and Super Travel Agency of Arlington. Metro also publishes the two language Pakistani newspaper called EASTERN TIMES.

According to news reports, the U.S. authorities are alleging that those arrested are involved in credit card fraud and their leader, Shah Nawaz, has fled to Pakistan and the group's profits have been transferred to Canadian and Pakistani banks.

BROOKINGS INSITUTE fellow ARRESTED: In an even more bizarre incident, Aijaz Haider, a fellow of the Brookings Institute was arrested by armed immigration agents while he was walking down a street in Washington, DC. Aijaz is a news editor of the staunchly pro-U.S. and anti-Islam weekly FRIDAY TIMES (a major source of Pak news for NPR). He is also a friend of the Pakistani foreign minister Qasuri.

Aijaz was taken to the same detention center in Alexandria where the American Taliban (Walker Lindh) was kept. He was finger printed twice, photographed, told to post bond and that he would have to stay in prison overnight.

Fortunately Brookings Institute found out and pleaded for his release and he was let go. Foreign Minister Qasuri is shocked.

[Brookings Institute helps the power structure to investigate the Muslim world and gather information against Islam. Aijaz's supervisor is a Jew named Cohen]

Observers say that after the attacks on September 11 which destroyed the symbols of American power, the Bush administration has been behaving like a blinded cyclops. Unable to find the real culprits (who probably perished in the attacks), it is flailing around like the cyclops blinded by Ulysses, hurting its own friends in the process.
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IRRITATED PAKISTANIS SEND BACK FOUR AMERICANS:

On January 29, Pakistani immigration officers at Lahore's international air port sent back four Americans who had arrived without visas from Bangkok to go to Afghanistan. The four are named as: David Kenneth, Desenz Eberd, Tom Byrd and A. Byrd. They arrived by Thai airlines flight EG 506 and were not permitted to go outside the lounge before they were sent back.

[Pakistan's visa office in Washington has raised the cost of a visa for American citizens from $50 to $78.]
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SHOCKING DEVELOPMENT IN AFGHANISTAN.

Reports say that according to Roger King, spokesman of U.S. occupation forces in Afghanistan, three Afghans who were planning to blow up American installations in Kabul have been arrested. A fourth person escaped. Explosives and mines were recovered from the three.

What's shocking about this development is that the THREE WERE SOLDIERS IN THE NEWLY FORMULATED AFGHAN ARMY BEING TRAINED BY THE U.S. As New Trend pointed out earlier, history is repeating itself. The Soviets too had trained an "Afghan army" against the Afghan people. Many of its troops deserted or joined the mujahideen when the fightng began.

FRUSTRATED AMERICAN TROOPS ARREST 17 AFGHAN REFUGEES

On January 30, more than 300 U.S. troops barged into the refugee camp known as "Awami" at Spin Boldak (on the Afghan border with Pakistan). The camp is located 20 kilometers from Addi Nahr where the battle between 350 troops of the U.S. 82nd air borne and 80 Taliban took place.

The troops arrested 17 Afghan refugees. Those arrested were not identified and there does not seem to be any indication that they are Taliban.

[Pakistani sources are now conservatively putting the number of U.S. troops killed in the fighting at 16.]

BLACK HAWK DOWN: 4 Special Forces troops Killed

The helicopter went down near Bagram air base outside Kabul on January 30. The U.S. immediately claimed that it was an accident. The Black Hawk is a sturdy helicopter and is not known to go down in calm weather.

[Readers should look at reports of journalists visiting the northern alliance by helicopter. Even these rickety, falling apart, helicopters have not crashed "by accident" in Afghanistan. How a Black Hawk could go down without being shot down is difficult to understand. TWO U.S. drones have also crashed in Pakistan near Jacobabad, one in December and one in January. In each case it was an "accident." Observers say, such explanations don't make sense. More likely the drones were hit by Taliban fire while on operations in Afghanistan and then tried to make it back to their base in Pakistan.] [Musharref claims there is NO U.S. base in Pakistan!]

The U.S., observers say, admitted the crash of the Black Hawk because it came down very visibly just outside Kabul and was difficult to hide.
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Taking issue with the New Trend article criticizing the slogan "No blood for oil".
(by Shaikh Mohommed, London, England)

It is the American agenda that we are talking about. Is the attack on Iraq for oil? Is the attack on Iraq on the basis that the country is a Muslim country? We can only surmise because the American agenda is only known to the clique surrounding Bush.

However, the war on Iraq is perceived by many as unjust and un-called for and without any valid reasons and will undoubtedly result in death and destruction of Iraq and Iraqis. The people of the world have now come out of their closet and are demanding that untold sufferings to ordinary people should be stopped. And their perception of what is happening may differ from But Shaken's. Nevertheless what is important is that the people are against the policies pursued by US. Shouldn't we focus and spend our energy in preventing US to have a field day and destroy what little peace we have in this world? If, however, we try to air our differences then, we will be helping US in its aim – whatever that might be.

Here I give a report appearing in the Daily Independent London (UK) about a demonstration which I and my family participated.
"The voice of middle-class England was how Debbie Mainwaring described herself yesterday as she stood amid the clamour of one of the biggest anti-war demonstrations ever, and it was clear that she was not alone. The sheer numbers who turned out to express vociferous opposition to military action in Iraq – between 150,000 and 350,000 on the central London march – meant there was no way they could be dismissed as 'the usual suspects' of the hard left." Led by the Stop The War Coalition and the Muslim Association of Great Britain, protesters marched from the Embankment, made their way past the Houses of Parliament and through Piccadilly to Hyde Park.
Biggest protest in a generation hears calls for peace with Iraq By Andrew Johnson and Jonathan Thompson 29 September 2002 Independent on Sunday
Coming to the central theme of blood for oil slogan. Is it an accurate description? I for one think that US is out to grab the resources of the world whether they are in Muslim countries or non-Muslim countries. Regarding Iraq, I quote from an article appearing in the Daily Guardian , London (UK).

The US military has drawn up detailed plans to secure and protect Iraq's oilfields to prevent a repeat of 1991 when President Saddam set Kuwait's wells ablaze. The US state department and Pentagon disclosed the preparations during a meeting in Washington before Christmas with members of the Iraqi opposition parties. Iraq has the second biggest known oil reserves in the world producing, in their current run-down state, about 1.5m barrels a day. But experts contacted by the Guardian predict this could rise to 6m barrels a day within five years with the right investment and control. At the meeting, on the future of a post-Saddam Iraq - details of which have been disclosed to the Guardian - the state department stressed that protection of the oilfields was "issue number one". One of those at the meeting said the military claimed that a plan to protect the multibillion oil wells was "already in place", hinting that special forces will secure key installations at the start of any ground campaign. As well as immediate concern about the environmental impact of having hundreds of Iraqi wells on fire, US, British, Russian, French and other international oil companies are already taking soundings about Iraq's multibillion pound oil supply. The companies are reluctant to mention oil in public, fearing it will feed Arab suspicion that it is the main factor in the confrontation with Iraq. US begins secret talks to secure Iraq's oilfields Fears that wells will be torched if regime falls Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow, Julian Borger in Washington, Terry Macalister and Ewen MacAskill
Thursday January 23, 2003
The Guardian

In this very turbulent times, we must show unity of purpose – viz simply to stop US wage war against Iraq and any other country for that matter for whatever reason it might be.
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2003-02-01 Sat 20:07ct