Who was Dr. Muhammad Farooq Khan Shaheed?

Dr. Muhammad Farooq Khan was recognized as a writer, columnist, and intellectual throughout the country. He was also known as a religious scholar and competent TV compare. He was born at a village, in the district of Swabi. He obtained his elementary education at his hometown. Then he joined Cadet College, Hasanabdal, and later on the Cadet College, Kohat. After having acquired the degree in medicine, he decided to specialize in psychiatry. He established his private practice in Mardan. Some of his works include “Pakistan and the Twenty First Century (Urdu)”, “The Struggle for Islamic Revolution”, and “What is Islam”. God has bestowed upon him the quality of presenting his propositions in simple language and clarity of style.

Dr. Farooq Khan was an enlightened religious scholar and he served Islam well and he wanted to take Muslims out of the present and prevailing quagmire. He had a feeling for the Muslims and wanted to bring them at par with other nations of the world. His services for the Muslims will be remembered for a long time to come. He was a vice chancellor of the Swat Islamic University and had started to rehabilitate those children who were suffered from the menace of extremism and terrorism.

Dr Mohammad Farooq, along with his gunman were killed in an assassination attempt on Saturday. Dr Farooq, Who was always a rocky mountain against the provokers for insurgency, extremism, terrorism, fundamentalism in Pashtun Afghan watan and in the World, had nice knowledge of peace, love, religion, history, culture, democracy. He will be always in our ...memory. How many of us will be killed by our enemy on the name of Islam and strategic depth and how long the our so called leaders and the world will remain silent on the ongoing genocide of Pashtun intellectuals, and moderate political workers on both side of the border?

His death created a vacuum which will take a long time to be filled. We demand of the government to arrest the culprit and punish them for their such heinous crime against humanity. Dr. Farroq khan was a true son of this soil and his martyrdom exposed the true faces of terrorists who have only one agenda to kill.


(Dr. Farooq Khan’s mission in his own words)

My Vision and Mission

I am humanist, Muslim, Pakistani and a Pakhtun. To strive for the well being of the whole humanity, to uphold the cause of Muslim Ummah and to exalt the dignity of Pakistan and Pukhtoons is my mission. There is no contradiction between their interests, provided every issue is seen with justice and fair play.

In my opinion there are ten basic values which should be honored by every individual, community, country and the whole mankind. These essential and fundamental values are:

• Human equality and democratic culture
• Justice
• Honesty
• Merit
• Hard work and thorough struggle
• Law abiding mentality
• Wisdom and patience
• Education
• Health
• Strong and well-coordinated welfare institutions for the down trodden classes.

It is not possible for me to address the whole humanity so I address Muslim Ummah, Pakistan and Pukhtoons. In my opinion the degraded and helpless position of all the above three communities is because of the lack of the above ten fundamental values. We lagged behind in fulfilling and abiding all these values. Without honoring these values, we will not be able to survive as prestigious communities and nations.

The Muslims usually blame others for their plight, but in my view the internal factors are much more important than the external factors and once we overcome our weaknesses and shortcomings then the external world will become favorable slowly and steadily.

Development and dignity of Pakistan and the Ummah is based on the efforts to achieve these ideals and standards. It is very clear that a thorough struggle is needed in this regard. This struggle should be totally free from any kind of violence, sentimentalism and provocative rhetoric.

I always strictly follow the teachings of Quran, Sunnah, and my conscience in pondering over all the collective issues and problems facing us. In my opinion, the Muslim Ummah needs a comprehensive discussion and consensus on the following issues:

• Status of Women in Islamic Society
• The real instructions of Islam regarding Jihad and Qital
• The true perspective of Islamic teachings in crimes and punishment
• Islamic instructions regarding relations between Muslims and Non-Muslims

I have written a few books on these Issues e.g.:

• Jihad, Qital aur Aalam-e-Islam (Urdu)
• Islam Kya hai?(Urdu)
• Islam and Women (Urdu & English)
• Dialogue with the West (English)
• Kashmir Issue (Urdu & English)
• Ikkisween Saddi aur Pakistan (Urdu)
• Jadeed Zehan Kay Shubhat Aur Islam Ka Jawab (Urdu)
• Hudood aur Qisas wa Diyat Ordinance Ka Tanqeedi Jaiza (Urdu)

In my opinion Muslim states must proceed according to the following four important points.

• To bring democratic culture in Muslim states.
• To resolve all the disputes and conflicts through peaceful means.
• To dominate and inculcate the above mentioned ten basic collective values in their states.
• To make a serious and conscious advance in the field of science and technology.
• I have written extensively on the above issues.

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Swat University Vice Chancellor killed

Renowned Islamic scholar Dr Farooq Khan Vice Chancelloer of Swat Islamic University was killed in firing incident in Mardarn.

Dr Farooq Khan’s assistant was also killed in the attack.

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Pentagon says Pakistan border closure hasn't affected Afghanistan mission

U.S. Defense Department on Friday said U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan haven't been affected by Pakistan's closure of a major supply route a day before.
The closure of the crossing at Torkham Gate along the border of Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan came after U.S. helicopters "unknowingly killed several Pakistani border guards," said Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman.
"It is still the case, at last reports, that Torkham Gate remains closed," Lapan said. "We are still discussing with the Pakistan government that Pakistanis resolve this and get it re- opened, but in the meantime, there is still no immediate impact on our operations in Afghanistan."
About 50 percent of coalition forces' non-lethal supplies, such as water, food and fuel come into Afghanistan from Pakistan's Torkham and Shaman gates, he said.
The incident was not the first such attack this week where American aircraft killed Pakistanis that were not insurgents. Lapan said rising tensions among Pakistanis along the border prompted Pakistan's decision to close the gate.
"What the Pakistani military described to us was that the closure of the gate was due to their concerns over rising tensions, " he said. "It was to them a security issue; tensions in the area due to these incidents."

Such tensions led to a militant attack on a NATO convoy this morning in southern Afghanistan. The convoy was carrying fuel, traveling about 250 miles north of Karachi when militants torched more than two dozen trucks. Pakistani officials are investigating that attack.

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Signaling Tensions, Pakistan Shuts NATO Route

Pakistan angrily closed the crossing to protest the strikes on its side of the border, leaving American officials to use meetings and phone calls to try to soothe relations and get the route reopened. Both sides indicated that they might be able to resolve the dispute with a joint investigation.
But the border closing, and the exceptional series of strikes by piloted aircraft, as opposed to drones, signaled a general increase in tensions between Pakistan and the United States, already uncomfortable allies that are pursuing competing interests in the Afghan war.
The C.I.A. carried out a record number of drone attacks inside Pakistan last month, and new reports surfaced this week of unlawful executions by the Pakistani Army in areas where it has opened operations against Taliban forces threatening the government.
The Pakistani offensives have not extended to North Waziristan, the prime stronghold of the insurgents who infiltrate Afghanistan, a growing source of frustration for American officials who face a deadline this year to show progress in the Afghan war.
“We are clearly in the phase of our relationship where we’re trying to tell them we’re being diddled,” said Teresita C. Schaffer, director of the South Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
But, she added: “We have been trying for a couple of years to decrease our logistical dependence on Pakistan, and have only managed to get it to 80 percent from 90 percent. So, no, we clearly don’t have anyplace else to go.”
The border closing was a clear demonstration of the leverage Pakistan holds over the American war effort. It coincided with a previously scheduled visit by the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, who met Thursday with the Pakistani military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, part of a stream of American officials who have come to alternately cajole and coerce Pakistani cooperation.
On Friday, unidentified assailants in Pakistan attacked and set fire to tankers carrying supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan, officials told Reuters, apparently in retaliation for the incursions into Pakistani territory. No one was wounded, an official said.
After the border closing on Thursday, Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, trying to calm the tensions. That conversation followed a telephone call several days ago between Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Kayani, about the previous strikes.
The border closing signaled the limits of Pakistan’s tolerance for intrusions on its sovereignty and for the pressure it was willing to absorb from American officials on any range of issues, despite receiving nearly $2 billion a year in military aid from Washington.
The Pakistani government indicated Thursday that the cross-border strikes were more than it could bear without protest. “We will have to see whether we are allies or enemies,” said the Pakistani interior minister, Rehman Malik.
At the same time, Pakistani officials tried to contain the damage from a video that came to the attention of American officials in recent days showing the execution of six young men, bound and blindfolded, by Pakistani Army soldiers.
Responding to questions from American officials, Pakistani officials acknowledged Thursday that the video had not been faked, as they had first contended, an American official said, and that they had identified the soldiers and would take appropriate measures.
It is in both the American and the Pakistani interests to keep the relationship going, the official said. The Pakistanis, facing economic collapse after the devastating floods of the summer, need American military aid — some $10 billion since 2001 — which could be cut off from units committing atrocities, the official said.
American commanders are eager to continue C.I.A. drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal areas that have focused on militants from the Taliban and Al Qaeda who cross the border to attack NATO and American troops. The Pakistani government has agreed to the drone campaign, but could always suspend its permission or shrink the area in which the strikes are allowed.
The country is also the prime supply route for the Afghan war, a fact Pakistani and American officials are both keenly aware of. The vast majority of nonlethal supplies — water, food, vehicles — for the coalition forces in landlocked Afghanistan must travel the length of Pakistan, from the southern port of Karachi to the Afghan border.
Along that route, trucks and fuel tankers have at times been hijacked and attacked by Taliban forces. Pakistani authorities have closed the border crossings only occasionally, however, usually citing security concerns.
But they have rarely appeared to hold up supplies in retaliation for NATO or American actions. In 2008, the Pakistanis closed the border crossing for several days after American aircraft bombed a Pakistani paramilitary post in Mohmand, another tribal area. Eleven Pakistanis were killed in the attack.
American commanders in Afghanistan, long fearful that Pakistan could choke off the supply route more permanently, have been seeking alternate paths through Central Asia, but with little success.
On Thursday, Pakistani officials gave them a glimpse of how much harder they could make the Afghan war. Trucks and oil tankers bound for coalition forces sat idle at the border post of Torkham, just north of Peshawar, with no word on when the post, one of two major land crossings to Afghanistan, would reopen, a Pakistani security official said.
But American officials noted that Pakistan had shut only one of several supply routes to Afghanistan, a sign that the Pakistani government wanted to minimize the episode’s fallout.
“We have many different capabilities, routes, ways to resupply, so there’s no immediate impact,” Col. Dave Lapan told reporters in Washington. The blocked route, the Khyber Pass, connects the frontier city of Peshawar to Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan.
Colonel Lapan said American military officials were also looking into whether all procedures had been followed properly in the cross-border incidents. The Pakistani government took no similar action and made no such public protest after the earlier coalition airstrikes, even though they killed an estimated 55 people inside Pakistan.
Those strikes, on Sept. 24 and Sept. 25, took place on the border separating Khost Province in Afghanistan from North Waziristan. Coalition helicopters fired into Pakistan three times, with one helicopter briefly breaching Pakistani airspace, according to Maj. Sunset Belinsky, a NATO spokeswoman.
In the airstrike on Thursday, a NATO helicopter attacked a border post at Mandati Kandaw, a town close to Parachinar, in the Kurram tribal area, the Pakistani security official said. Three soldiers of Pakistan’s Frontier Corps were killed and three were wounded, he said.
Another border post, at Kharlachi, also in Kurram, was struck a few hours later, the official added. The two posts are about 15 miles apart and border Paktia Province, in Afghanistan.

Jane Perlez reported from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Helene Cooper from Washington. Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan; Eric Schmitt from Washington; and Alissa J. Rubin from Kabul, Afghanistan.

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