Pakistan prepares for Saudi royal to hunt 'protected' birds

Yahoo – AFP, 2 Feb 2015

A falcon (R) tries to catch a Houbara bustard during a falconry competition,

 part of the 2014 International Festival of Falconry, in Hameem, 150km west of

 Abu Dhabi, on December 9, 2014 (AFP Photo/Karim Sahib)

Quetta (Pakistan) (AFP) - Pakistani authorities are finalising arrangements for a Saudi prince to visit its southwestern desert region to hunt the Houbara bustard, a bird supposedly protected by law, officials said Monday.

An advance party has already been reached the Yak Much desert in the province of Baluchistan along with falcons which will be used to catch the bustard, officials said.

Saudi Prince Fahd bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz is expected to join the group in coming days. He led a hunting party to Baluchistan last year that officials said killed more than 2,000 bustards.

The birds are listed as "vulnerable" and declining in numbers by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's "Red List" of threatened species. Hunting them is banned in Pakistan.

But authorities issue special permits to wealthy visitors from Arab countries. Permit holders are in theory restricted to hunting a maximum of 100 of the protected birds over 10 days, but only in certain areas.

A Houbara bustard flies during a falconry competition -- part of the 2014

 International Festival of Falconry -- in Hameem, 150km west of Abu Dhabi,

on December 9, 2014 (AFP Photo/Karim Sahib)

Saifullah Zehri, district forest officer for wildlife in Chagai district of which Yak Much is a part, told AFP the advance party arrived on Sunday in a C-130 transport plane.

"They were fully equipped and had all the material which is required for bird hunting," Zehri said.

Arab sheikhs are known as enthusiastic hunters, travelling to Pakistan each year to hunt the bird using the traditional Arabian method. They arrive by private jets from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

According to conservative estimates, between 500,000 and a million birds of all species migrate through Pakistan each year -- flying south from Siberia to pass the winter in Central and South Asia.

Hunt: Fahd bin Sultan is said to have killed

1,977 houbara bustards in just 21 days while

on holiday

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Pakistani interfaith couples brave threats for forbidden love

Yahoo – AFP, Khurram Shahzad, 17 Aug 2014

Bushra Parveen (L) and her husband Riaz Masih pose with their children at

their home in Faisalabad, Pakistan, on May 9, 2014 (AFP Photo/Farooq Naeem)

Lahore (Pakistan) (AFP) - Thirteen years ago among the whirring looms of a garment factory in an eastern Pakistani city, a Muslim woman fell in love with a Christian co-worker.

Now married with three children, Kalsoom Bibi and her husband Yousuf Bhatti have been shunned by their communities, endured death threats and an abduction, all in the name of religious honour in this conservative Islamic country.

Marriage out of choice remains a taboo in Pakistan, particularly when it involves a partner outside one's own clan or faith group.

Video journalist Naadir Maan (L) and his 

wife Saba speak during an interview with

 AFP in Faisalabad, Pakistan, on May 9,

2014 (AFP Photo/Farooq Naeem)

While marriages between different members of Abrahamic faiths -- including Judaism, Christianity and Islam -- is permitted by law, a Muslim woman may not marry a non-Muslim man.

People who chose to convert out from Islam can be charged with blasphemy and face life in prison.

Kalsoom's first encounter with a member of another religion came at school, where the only Christian student was mercilessly bullied.

When she met Yousuf, she decided to question him about his faith to find out more. Long hours of discussion brought the two close together, and she eventually decided to convert.

It is a fact she hides to this day from her family.

"My mother died requesting me to leave my Christian husband," Kalsoom, a short woman in her twenties with deep brown eyes said, sitting on her bed in a modest two-room house with her husband and children.

"Had she known that I myself have been converted to Christianity, she would had died with grief or asked her family to kill me."

Such unions aren't officially recorded but rights activists believe there are thousands of such cases every year.

The couple say they now live among a more understanding community that provides them support and respect their choices -- but it wasn't always this way.

"The life after marriage was terrible. We went into hiding because the family and community threatened to kill us.

"We lived in hiding in Islamabad for several months and my son was born during that time," she said.

Yousuf said the most harrowing incident early on in their marriage when he was abducted by four Muslim militants and driven hours out of town to a deserted spot.

"They kept me there for several days and asked me why I married my wife.

"They wanted to kill me, but when I told them that I married my wife with her own will and because she also wanted to marry me -- and that I did not force her into this marriage -- they softened and released me after some days," he added.

Naveed Walter, President of Human Rights Focus Pakistan (HRFP), said the case was symptomatic of a wider problem, which remains largely hidden from sight.

"In such cases (inter-faith marriages) people try to attack the whole community," he said.

Walter added his organisation had estimated 10,000 cases nationwide over the past four years.

Honour killings

Legally, there are no provisions in the criminal code against leaving Islam, though the country's blasphemy law -- which carries a life sentence -- has been invoked in recent cases against apostates.

But even when members from the minority community convert to Islam, they can still face a backlash.

Sana, a Christian teacher from the same eastern city met and fell in love with cameraman Salman Khawaja who had come to record a show about Christmas festivities in 2006.

Drawn to Islamic traditions and culture since her childhood, Sana decided to embrace Islam.

The couple's lives became "hellish" after marriage and they said they had to leave their city to avoid death.

"We were threatened from both Christian and Muslim communities. So we decided to leave the city to save our lives," Sana told AFP holding her two-year-old son.

Shamaun Anwar and his wife Nadia pose for a photo with their young child during

 an interview with AFP, in Faisalabad, Pakistan, on May 9, 2014 (AFP Photo/

Farooq Naeem)

Despite being a journalist with connections to local government officials, Salman found himself helpless to fight back.

"We decided to get married in another city to avoid any attacks by our families and communities," he said.

"Back at our homes, our families were planning to kill us for marrying across religion as they thought we had stolen their pride and honour.

"It was very difficult period for us, we remained in hiding for six months to avoid any attacks. I had no career over there," he said, adding that he drove a taxi to earn a living.

"When the situation got better, we returned ... but my family refused to accept us. Then we rented a house in a low category residential area and started a new life."

Rising extremism

For some, the trauma never goes away.

Nadia, a petite, light-skinned 19-year-old former Muslim fell in love with 24-year-old Christian man Shamaun Anwar, an embroiderer, who used to smile at her in the street as they went to work.

They planned to marry in secret until Nadia's parents found out about them and forced her to marry her cousin instead. When she refused to move in with him, they began beating her.

"They used to beat me whenever I told them that I won't live with my husband and will marry Shamaun," she said.

"They still threaten me, even after I divorced my cousin and married Shamaun. I am now more scared because I have converted to Christianity," she added tearfully.

Some campaigners including lawyer Akmal Bhatti advocate the creation of a civil marriage code as is the case in India so that it is possible to keep faith out of the wedding ceremony.

Others are less hopeful, citing the rising number of attacks against the country's beleaguered minorities as a sign of rising intolerance.

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"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems  (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it),  Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse),  Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“… New Tolerance

Look for a softening of finger pointing and an awakening of new tolerance. There will remain many systems for different cultures, as traditions and history are important to sustaining the integrity of culture. So there are many in the Middle East who would follow the prophet and they will continue, but with an increase of awareness. It will be the increase of awareness of what the prophet really wanted all along - unity and tolerance. The angel in the cave instructed him to "unify the tribes and give them the God of Israel." You're going to start seeing a softening of intolerance and the beginning of a new way of being.

Eventually, this will create an acknowledgement that says, "You may not believe the way we believe, but we honor you and your God. We honor our prophet and we will love you according to his teachings. We don't have to agree in order to love." How would you like that? The earth is not going to turn into one belief system. It never will, for Humans don't do that. There must be variety, and there must be the beauty of cultural differences. But the systems will slowly update themselves with increased awareness of the truth of a new kind of balance. So that's the first thing. Watch for these changes, dear ones.  …”

Sudanese woman on death row gives birth

A Sudanese woman sitting on death row has given birth. The 27-year-old was sentenced to be hanged for converting from Islam to Christianity.

Deutsche Welle, 27 May 2014

Little over a week after receiving the death sentence, Sudanese inmate Meriam Ibrahim Ishag gave birth to a girl. The death row inmate, jailed for refusing to deny her Christian faith and convert to Islam, was eight months pregnant.

The woman's husband, Daniel Wani, saw them on Tuesday. In addition to his weekly permitted visits to the prison, located in Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman, Wani has not yet received special permission for an additional visit.

"I'm disappointed really," Wani told news agency AFP. "We weren't able to speak. There [was] a guard sitting there beside us."

The 27-year-old mother would continue to care for the newborn for the next two years, according to news agency DPA. Rights activists have told reporters that the inmate has already been caring for her 20-month old son in prison.

The case emerged last year when relatives of her father's family complained that she had been born Muslim but was married to a Christian man.

On May 15, a Sudanese court handed down the death sentence to the pregnant woman. Ishag was raised as a Christian in Sudan, where Sharia, or Islamic law, has applied since the early 1990s. Judge Abbas Mohammed al-Khalifa said that she would be hanged for not declaring Islam to be the religion of her birth.

One of Ibrahim Ashag's lawyers, Al-Shareef Ali al-Shareef Mohammed, has vowed to appeal the sentence before Sudan's constitutional court if necessary. According to Mohammed, Ishag's Muslim father had left her mother when she was a child and her mother - an Orthodox Christian from Ethiopia - had raised her as a Christian.

Under Sudanese President Omar Bashir, sharia prohibits Muslim women from marrying non-Muslims. Children must follow their father's religion.

kms/jm (AFP, dpa)

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Bustard act: Saudi prince accused of slaying 2,000 near-extinct birds while on safari in Pakistan

• Fahd bin Sultan is said to have killed 1,977 houbara bustards in 21 days
• He had been granted a permit to kill a certain number within a small area
• But it is claimed he far exceeded his allowance and hunted in banned zone
• Arab royals have long hunted houbara, considering its meat an aphrodisiac
• Bird is covered by protection laws but Pakistan can grant special permits
• Hunting sees global houbara population shrink by 30 per cent annually

Daily Mail, John Hall, 22 April 2014

Hunt: Fahd bin Sultan is said to have killed
1,977 houbara bustards in just 21 days while
on holiday

A Saudi prince has been accused of killing 2,000 birds that are on the verge of extinction while on a safari holiday in Pakistan earlier this year.

Prince Fahd bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud - who is commonly known as Fahd bin Sultan - is said to have killed 1,977 near-extinct houbara bustards while on a 21-day trip to Chagai in Pakistan's Balochistan province in January.

An additional 123 bustards - which are covered by laws to protect endangered species - were slaughtered by members of the prince's travelling party, bringing the total killed to 2,100.

Fahd bin Sultan, 63 -the governor of Saudi Arabia's Tabuk Province and the second eldest son of late Crown Prince Sultan - is accused of hunting illegally in protected areas, according to a report by Karachi-based Dawn News.

The website claims to have seen a document titled ‘Visit of Prince Fahd bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud regarding hunting of houbara bustard' which they say was prepared by Jaffar Baloch - a divisional officer in the local forest and wildlife department.

The report allegedly says the prince and his party hunted for 21 days - from Jan 11, 2014 to Jan 31 - and had been granted special permits by the Pakistani federal government which allow important visitors to bypass laws preventing the hunting of houbaras.

These permits still require the recipient to kill no more than 100 birds over a 10-day period however, and only allow them to do so in certain areas.

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It is not known if Fahd bin Sultan or any or his party will face punishments for violating the rules over how many birds they killed and for hunting with falcons outside the specified areas.

Houbaras are highly valued by Arab royals, who consider the meat to be an aphrodisiac.

For decades sheikhs have travelled to remote areas of Pakistan in time for the bird to make its winter migration from Central Asia. India banned the hunting of houbaras in early 1979.

At risk: Hunting in Pakistani sees the global houbara population shrink by
 between 20 and 30 per cent annually. Houbaras are highly valued by Arab royals,
who consider their meat to be an aphrodisiac

The ongoing hunting in Pakistan has seen global houbara numbers fall to around 110,000 - with that figure decreasing by between 20 and 30 per cent every year.

After a particularly aggressive hunting season last year, Pakistan introduced an interim ban on killing the birds.

The move proved popular with local environmental campaigners who have grown tired of Arab sheikhs flouting hunting laws, but the Pakistani government appears to have subsequently eased the restrictions, issuing at least 33 houbara hunting permits already this year.

One reason they are likely to have done so is because Arab royals bring a huge economic boost to the poor regions in which they hunt.

They are said to travel in a convoy of private jets while on safari, with some transport planes given over purely to falcons and hunting equipment.

The sheikhs also make large donations while travelling in Pakistan's poor rural areas - paying for new schools and mosques to be built, as well as funding the repair of rundown roads and airports.

Read more:

Arab royal hunts down 2,100 houbara bustards in three week safari

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Women in 15 nations need spouse's okay to work

Google – AFP, 25 Sep 2013

Women sell llama meat at a stall in a public market in La Paz, Bolivia

(AFP/File, Aizar Raldes)

WASHINGTON — At least 15 countries give husbands the power to prevent their wives from working, the World Bank said in a report on gender equality in business.

"Many societies have made progress, gradually moving to dismantle ingrained forms of discrimination against women. Yet a great deal remains to be done," said World Bank President Jim Yong Kim in the preface to the report.

Among 143 countries covered in the report "Women, Business and the Law 2014", 15 -- including Iran, Syria, Bolivia and Gabon -- give men the right to object to and prevent their wives from taking jobs.

In 79 countries, laws restrict the kind of work women can do, the report said.

Fifteen countries, including Iran, give

 men the right to object to and prevent

 their wives from taking jobs (AFP/File,

Atta Kenare)

"The most extensive restrictions on women's employment are in Eastern Europe and Central Asia," the report said.

In the Republic of Guinea, it said, a wife can fight her husband's decision in court, but she must prove that it is unjustified to have his decision overturned.

Such rules remain in part due to history.

"Vestiges of history remain codified in certain economies simply because legislation such as the Code Napoleon was adopted wholesale and not regularly reviewed or updated.

"The notion of head of household, for example, was removed from France's Civil Code in 1970 but persists in many civil codes throughout West Africa."

In Russia, women are banned from 456 professions, including drivers of farm trucks, conducting freight trains and woodworking.

Many of those rules were inherited from the former communist regime of the Soviet Union and were left unchang ed.

One result, the report said, was that the Russian Federation had a high earnings difference between genders during the transition to a market economy.

A woman merchant in Libreville, Gabon

(AFP/File, Wils Yanick Maniengui)

But at least 29 countries, including Saudi Arabia, Honduras and Senegal, have laws that systematically establish men has family heads giving them powers over crucial decisions such as where to live, obtaining important documents like passports, or opening bank accounts.

But the report notes that developed Western countries have also been slow to change their rules. Permission for women to launch their own court cases without their husbands' permission came in Spain only in 1981 and, in Switzerland, in 1984.

Progress continues, according to the report. In two years, 48 legal changes increased gender parity in 44 countries, including Ivory Coast's 2013 decision to allow women to work without their husband's permission.

On the other hand, Egypt recently moved the other way: in the wake of the country's revolution, and the political rise of Islamic forces, the country removed constitutional guarantees against gender discrimination.

Pakistan, Afghanistan to hold talks on peace

The Daily Star, November 11, 2012

Relations between the neighbours are often tense and Kabul has accused
Pakistan of supporting Taliban Islamists in their 11-year insurgency against the
Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.(AP Photo/Ahmad Nazar)

                              

ISLAMABAD: Islamabad and Kabul will hold three days of talks on achieving peace in Afghanistan this week, Pakistan's foreign ministry said on Sunday.

Relations between the neighbours are often tense and Kabul has accused Pakistan of supporting Taliban Islamists in their 11-year insurgency against the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.

Pakistan has always rejected the accusations, saying it is committed to fighting the Taliban and is actively targeting militants.

A delegation of Afghanistan's High Peace Council, led by chairman Salahuddin Rabbani, will arrive in Islamabad on Monday, to meet President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, and to hold talks with the foreign minister and Pakistan's military.

"Mr. Rabbani was invited by foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar to visit Pakistan to hold talks with the relevant authorities with regard to peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan," a foreign ministry statement said.

Similar talks were derailed last year in September with the assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the former head of the High Peace Council, by a suicide bomber who purported to be a Taliban peace envoy.

Afghan officials lashed out at Islamabad over the killing, saying it was planned in Pakistan and carried out by a Pakistani with a bomb in his turban.

Pakistan denied the charges and blamed Afghan refugees living in Pakistan for the murder.

The Afghan government later named Rabbani's son, Salahuddin, as the new chief peace envoy.

Efforts to end the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan have gained a new urgency with US-led NATO forces due to draw combat troops out of the country by the end of 2014.

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Human trafficking, prostitution thrive in Afghanistan

Deutsche Welle, 24 October 2012

Thousands of Afghan girls and boys are trafficked into neighboring countries and sold into slavery each year. Though it is taboo, prostitution is alive and thriving - at the cost of those forced to work in it.

It is the oldest trade in the world and exists in probably every country in the world. Yet prostitution is not a dream job. Most female sex workers are forced to make a living through prostitution.

In conservative Afghanistan, prostitution is illegal. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Human trafficking is booming - young women are being sold and sent over to neighboring countries, mostly to Pakistan.

Heather Barr says the government has
 a number of other issues to tackle as well

Many people are unaware of just how many women are forced to work as prostitutes, according to Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division.

"HRW did a report that was released in March this year about women in prison for moral crimes. And one of the things that I found really surprising by doing those interviews, was how many women I met, had been forced in prostitution often by their husbands and in-laws."

Women sold as commodities

The reason, she explained, that women were forced into the sex trade by their families was due to poverty and drug addiction - usually of a husband or brother or both. The families often saw women as a source of money and take advantage of it.

Women from Pakistan are also been bought and sold to Afghanistan. Poor or practically non-existing security at the border means criminals smuggling and trafficking goods and people can easily get away with it. When the trafficked people arrive on the other side of the border, they are fully at the mercy of their pimps.

One woman from Pakistan who wished not to be named is now in Jalalabad - far away from her home in Karachi.

"We are poor and helpless. What are we supposed to do? We don't have anything to eat. That's why the "big man" brought us here from Karachi. No one likes doing this work, but I don't have any other choice," she told DW.

The young woman speaks neither of Afghanistan's official languages - Dari and Pashtu. She said she didn't know who to turn to and was afraid of the consequences she would face should she run away and the authority of her pimp, the "big man," as she called him. But he himself also cited poverty as a reason to force women into prostitution.

Sahar Gul, 15 years old, was tortured
for months by her in-laws for refusing to
prostitute herself

"I do this because I am poor and I want to be able to feed my children. I am aware that there are dangerous consequences, harsh punishments for this kind of work - for instance death or being ostracized and other things."

But he insisted he did not force anyone to work - that the women who work for him prostituted themselves because they wanted to.

Prostitution, whether out of one's own will or not, is illegal according to Islamic law. The cleric Nek Mohammad works for the court in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar and offers consultations on Islamic law. All forms of position are illegal, he told DW.

"At least four people have to bear witness to the crime. And should the prostitute or the person who buys her be married, his or her spouse will have to be stoned. If there are no married people involved, then they receive lashings."

Disease

But punishment is not the only thing to worry about. Most of the prostitutes are unaware of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as HIV and do not use condoms. The number of cases of STDs had sharply risen in the past few months, according to Dr. Baz Mohammad Sherzad, head of Nangarhar province's health ministry.

Prostitutes pose as beggars on the
streets of Afghanistan

"Our doctors confirm that many young men who have come to us recently have had urinary tract infections and sexually transmitted diseases. If prostitution is allowed then it is no wonder there is an increase in such problems in Nangarhar."

Nonetheless, doctors should promote educational campaigns, said Sherzad. The government should tackle the problem. Yet the government had a whole set of other problems: "Think about child marriage, forced marriage, domestic violence, the sale of women for marriage and other purposes, forced prostitution, self immolation - honestly the government hasn't been dealing very effectively with any of those issues," said Heather Barr.

She said it was unfortunate that there was a lack of political will to solve these issues. Progress was only made very slow.

As of recently, it is now illegal to lock up women for running away from home, which is just a further symptom of the violence and forced prostitution women continue to face in Afghanistan.

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"... No soul enters life to serve another, except by choice, but to serve its own purpose and that of the Divine from which it came. ..."

"... No person shall be forced into marriage against his or her will. No woman shall be forced to bear or not bear children, against her will. No person shall be forced to hold or not hold views or worship in a manner contrary to his or her choice. Nothing vital to existence shall be withheld from another if it is within the community’s power to give. ...."

The other children of Pakistan's war

BBC News, 23 October 2012

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Malala Yousafzai is one of thousands
of Pakistani children whose education
has been interrupted

The Taliban's attempt to kill teenaged activist Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan earlier this month underlines the dangers that the militant conflict holds for the country's schoolchildren.

Tens of thousands of school pupils have been displaced along with their families from areas across Pakistan's tribal belt on the Afghan border where the Taliban have carved sanctuaries for themselves.

Thousands were deprived of an education as the militants carried out a persistent campaign against secular education, destroying nearly 1,000 schools since 2006.

Years of military operations in these areas have led to further destruction.

While militants have been driven out from some areas, the territory they once occupied has not yet been fully secured under a civilian administration.

And many significant sanctuaries still remain, especially in North Waziristan, parts of South Waziristan, the Orakzai region and the Khyber region.

Outspoken critic

From these sanctuaries, militants have been able to conduct raids on Pakistan's military as well as civilian targets deep inside the country, breaching security cordons and creating an enduring sense of uncertainty.

Malala was an outspoken critic of the Taliban's opposition to girls' education, but she was only a schoolgirl and never believed that they would consider her a serious threat. 

Officials say that many schools have
 been forced to close throughout 2012
because of Taliban threats

But while she was not the only child victim of this conflict, she may have been the only one targeted because of her views.

A year ago, Taliban gunmen ambushed a school bus south of Peshawar city, killing at least four boys and injuring more than 12, including two seven-year-old girls.

A Taliban spokesman in the nearby Khyber tribal region later said it was a response to the local tribes who had raised an armed volunteer force to resist the Taliban presence in Peshawar's southern outskirts.

Children have suffered in other ways as well.

Pakistani officials claim more than 30,000 civilians and over 3,000 soldiers have been killed in the "war on terror" since late 2001. It is not known how many of them were children.

The latest United Nations report on the issue, released in April 2012, says that at least 57 children were killed in Pakistan during 2011 alone - mainly by landmine explosions, roadside bombs, shelling and targeted attacks.

This figure would be much higher if casualties from the country's unending sectarian attacks are included.

Recruiting and indoctrinating

There are also recurrent reports of children being killed as unintended targets of drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas.

The CIA-operated unmanned planes have carried out a persistent campaign against militants in their north-western tribal sanctuaries.

The media do not have free access to these areas, but in November 2011, British legal charity Reprieve arranged for a number of tribesmen to travel to Islamabad to protest against drone strikes.

The delegation included boys allegedly maimed by drone strikes, and men narrating eyewitness accounts of civilians, including children, killed in those attacks.

None of this can be independently verified.

What is confirmed, though, is the fact that the Taliban have been recruiting and indoctrinating easily-impressionable teenage boys as suicide bombers for attacks in Pakistan.

In February 2011, they used a 12-year-old boy to penetrate the well-fortified garrison in the north-western city of Mardan to attack army recruits.

Wearing the uniform of a school located inside the garrison area, the boy managed to slip past several security check posts and detonate the explosives vest he was wearing at a parade ground where the recruits were doing physical training.

Teenaged boys have been indoctrinated
 by the Taliban for suicide attacks across
Pakistan

At least 30 people were killed, most of them army recruits.

Three months after that incident, the BBC interviewed another would-be suicide bomber who was caught by the police.

Omar Fidai, 14, said he was part of a double-attack plan at a Sufi shrine in Dera Ghazi Khan city. He was to detonate his explosives near the rescue workers after his partner - also a teenager - had blown himself up killing more than 40 people.

But his vest did not explode properly. He was injured, but survived.

He said he was trained at a camp for suicide bombers in the North Waziristan tribal region, and was given to believe that he would go straight to heaven once he had killed the infidels and the heretics.

The UN's 2012 report has recorded 11 incidents during 2011 in which teenage boys, some as young as 13, were used by armed groups to carry out suicide attacks.

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Archangel Michael: It’s Time to Let Go of the Old (AAM channeled by Linda Dillon) - New

“……

AAM: Let us speak first to the terrible — and I use “terrible” in its truest sense — terrible issue of racism, of hatred, of control. Because all racism, all fanaticism, whether it is political or religious or economic — there is a great deal of economic fanaticism on your planet still, and you see it every day -  is bred from a very peculiar mix, and it is bred from fear, entitlement, and what you may choose to call karma and what I will refer to as some past-life bleed-through.

These people are going to have a very hard time if they choose to resist and fight. And that is why we ask each of you to make sure that you are the transmitters and the beamers, but that you are not becoming involved in that morass of chaos, that they undoubtedly are creating and will create.

It is all stemming from a lack of self worth and self love, an unknowing of deservingness and of worth. Because when you are in your heart and you know, innately, deeply, fully of your connection to the One, of your divinity, and that you hold that love not in a superficial way that we so often witness upon your planet… it has improved, but it is still there. When there is really love there can be no hatred or disgust with those that you deem or designate as less than. It is such an absurd construct, that. Did we not understand the various levels and the emanations, we would simply shake our heads. So will this be wrenched from them? They have a choice, and, if they choose to continue to cling, then of course the choice is they will be relocated elsewhere. But what I am also saying, individually — and you think, “How can you do this, Michael, individually to millions upon millions of millions of people?” Well, I suggest you leave that to us. They will have their confrontations with their egos, and they will also have their opportunities to see their divinity and to acknowledge the equality of all beings.

For many, it will be extremely uncomfortable. But it is necessary. That is why we have encouraged so many to do the work, so that you are not at the last minute being wrenched in this way. That is partially what Syria is about. That is what Milala in Afghanistan is about. It is the choice, for people to look at that and say, “How can this be? And how could I hold such hatred in my heart?”

Now, these examples have been brought up to you time and again. The shootings, long ago, Martin Luther King, the freedom fighters, the executions, in Iraq and Iran. These are the mirrors that are held up to those who think they are better than, because that is the end result of hatred and entitlement.

It is pathetic.

SB: Lord, could I intervene at this moment and say that photos have been produced that suggest that Milala’s shooting was staged. There’s a photo of her not having any throat wound. There’s a photo of her walking to the helicopter. Was it staged, or not?

AAM: No, it was not staged. It was a brutal attack.

SB: All right. Thank you.

AAM: Was it staged by us? Yes!

SB: What do you mean by that, Lord?

AAM: I mean it is an opportunity. Is it real in physical form? Yes. Is it real in terms of an opportunity for people to say, “This type of persecution has need to end”? Yes.  ……….”