Blasts, clashes kill at least 25 in central Baghdad

ہمیں اپنے مذھب و عقيدہ ميں شک سے دوچار كرنے كے لئے منافقين ھميشہ يہ نعرہ بلند كرتے ہیں کہ اگر ھم حق پرہیں تو كيوں قتل ہو رہے ہیں اور كيوں اس قدر ھميں قربانی دينی پڑ رہی ہیں ۔ بہت سے انبياء جوكہ يقيناً حق پر تھے، اپنے پروگرام كو جاری كرنے ميں كاميابی سے ھم كنار نھيں ھوسكے، بنی اسرائيل نے بين الطلوعين ايک روز ميں ستر انبياء كو شھيد كر ڈالا اور اس كے بعد اپنے كاموں ميں مشغول ھوگئے جيسے كچھ ہوا ہی نھيں، تو كيا ان پيامبران الٰہی كا شھيد و مغلوب ھونا ان كے باطل ھونے كی دليل ھے؟ اور بنی اسرائيل كا غالب ھوجانا ان كی حقانيت كی علامت ھے؟ يقيناً اس كا جواب نھيں ميں ھے، دين كے سلسلہ ميں فريب كی نسبت دينا اور حق پر نہ ھونے كے لئے شبہ پيدا كرنا، منافقين كے القاء شبھات كے نمونے ہیں۔ دين كو اجتماع و معاشرت كے ميدان سے جدا كركے صرف آخرت كے لئے متعارف كرانا، دين كے تقدس كے بہانے دين و سياست كی جدائی كا نعرہ بلند كرنا، تمام اديان و مذاھب كے لئے حقانيت كا نظريہ پيش كرنا، خدا محوری كے بجائے انسان محوری كی ترويج كرنا، اس قبيل كے ھزاروں شبھات ھيں جن كو منافقين ترويج كرتے ہیں تا كہ ان شبھات كے ذريعہ دين كے حقايق و مسلّمات كو ضعيف اور اسلامی معاشرہ سے روح ايمان كو خالی كرديں اور اپنے باطل و بيھودہ مقاصد كو حاصل كرليں۔ لیکن ہم عاشورائی قوم ہیں۔ "لبیک یا حسین (ع)" کا نعرہ ہی منافقین کی نابودی کیلئے کافی ہے۔ کسی کو کوئی اعتراض؟؟؟ Blasts, clashes kill at least 25 in central Baghdad Thu, Mar 14 11:26 AM EDT 1 of 3 BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Coordinated blasts killed at least 25 people in the heart of Baghdad on Thursday near the heavily fortified Green Zone, where several Western embassies are located, police and medics said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the explosions, but Sunni Muslim insurgents have been redoubling their efforts to undermine Iraq's Shi'ite-led government and foment inter-communal conflict this year. The brazen attacks in broad daylight will fan concerns about Iraq's fragile security, which has come under growing strain as the increasingly sectarian conflict in neighboring Syria threatens to upset its own Sunni-Shi'ite balance. Police said two car bombs exploded in the Alawi district, one of them near the Justice Ministry building, before a suicide car bomber blew himself up near an Interior Ministry office. A suicide bomber then walked into the Justice Ministry and militants attacked the building, clashing with Iraqi security forces, who eventually regained control. "I went to the second floor to do something when I heard a big explosion, then a second one," said Ammar Ghanim, a policeman who was inside the ministry at the time of the attack. "We heard shooting and a few minutes later three attackers wearing military uniform came up to the second floor and randomly started shooting," he said. "I got shot in the leg and I am very proud to have killed one of them (the attackers)." Among the dead were at least 7 policemen and 15 civilians, police and medics said. Three militants were also killed. At least 50 people were wounded. Iraq's power-sharing government has been all but paralyzed since U.S. troops left more than a year ago and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite, is facing protests in the country's Sunni heartland, which shares a porous border with Syria. Violence has intensified as Sunni opposition has swelled, and Iraq's al Qaeda affiliate has urged the protesters to take up arms against the government. Security experts say al Qaeda-linked militants have been regrouping in the western province of Anbar and crossing into Syria to fight alongside mainly Sunni rebels against forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Shi'ite Iran. (Reporting by Kareem Raheem; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Alistair Lyon) ============ Iraq war costs U.S. more than $2 trillion: study Thu, Mar 14 12:53 PM EDT 1 of 9 By Daniel Trotta NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, a study released on Thursday said. The war has killed at least 134,000 Iraqi civilians and may have contributed to the deaths of as many as four times that number, according to the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. When security forces, insurgents, journalists and humanitarian workers were included, the war's death toll rose to an estimated 176,000 to 189,000, the study said. The report, the work of about 30 academics and experts, was published in advance of the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003. It was also an update of a 2011 report the Watson Institute produced ahead of the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks that assessed the cost in dollars and lives from the resulting wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. The 2011 study said the combined cost of the wars was at least $3.7 trillion, based on actual expenditures from the U.S. Treasury and future commitments, such as the medical and disability claims of U.S. war veterans. That estimate climbed to nearly $4 trillion in the update. The estimated death toll from the three wars, previously at 224,000 to 258,000, increased to a range of 272,000 to 329,000 two years later. Excluded were indirect deaths caused by the mass exodus of doctors and a devastated infrastructure, for example, while the costs left out trillions of dollars in interest the United States could pay over the next 40 years. The interest on expenses for the Iraq war could amount to about $4 trillion during that period, the report said. The report also examined the burden on U.S. veterans and their families, showing a deep social cost as well as an increase in spending on veterans. The 2011 study found U.S. medical and disability claims for veterans after a decade of war totaled $33 billion. Two years later, that number had risen to $134.7 billion. FEW GAINS The report concluded the United States gained little from the war while Iraq was traumatized by it. The war reinvigorated radical Islamist militants in the region, set back women's rights, and weakened an already precarious healthcare system, the report said. Meanwhile, the $212 billion reconstruction effort was largely a failure with most of that money spent on security or lost to waste and fraud, it said. Former President George W. Bush's administration cited its belief that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's government held weapons of mass destruction to justify the decision to go to war. U.S. and allied forces later found that such stockpiles did not exist. Supporters of the war argued that intelligence available at the time concluded Iraq held the banned weapons and noted that even some countries that opposed the invasion agreed with the assessment. "Action needed to be taken," said Steven Bucci, the military assistant to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the run-up to the war and today a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington-based think-tank. Bucci, who was unconnected to the Watson study, agreed with its observation that the forecasts for the cost and duration of the war proved to be a tiny fraction of the real costs. "If we had had the foresight to see how long it would last and even if it would have cost half the lives, we would not have gone in," Bucci said. "Just the time alone would have been enough to stop us. Everyone thought it would be short." Bucci said the toppling of Saddam and the results of an unforeseen conflict between U.S.-led forces and al Qaeda militants drawn to Iraq were positive outcomes of the war. "It was really in Iraq that 'al Qaeda central' died," Bucci said. "They got waxed." (Editing by Paul Simao) ================ پاکستاني شیعہ‎ عقائد حضرت عبد العظیم شیخ صدوق وغیرہ نے حضرت عبدالعظیم سے روایت کی ہے میں نے اپنے آقا حضرت امام علی نقی-کی خدمت میں حاضر ہوا حضرت نے جب مجھے دیکھا تو فرمایا: مرحبا اے ابو قاسم تو ہمارا حقیقی ولی ہے۔ میں نے عرض کی اے فرزند رسول خدا (صلی اللہ علیہ و آلہ وسلم)میں چاہتا ہوں کہ اپنا دین آپ کے سامنے پیش کروں اگر آپ کو پسند ہوا تو قیامت تک اس پر ثابت قدم رہوں گا۔ حضرت امام نقی-نے فرمایا: اپنا دین بیان کر۔ میں نے کہا :میں کہتا ہوں کہ خدا یکتا و یگانہ ہے اس کی مثل کوئی چیز نہیں خداابطال اور حدتشبیہ سے خارج ہے (یعنی نہ اس طرح ہے کہ کچھ بھی ہو اور نہ اس طرح ہے کہ کسی چیز کا مشابہ ہو)جسم و صورت اور جوہر و عرض نہیں ہے بلکہ ان کو پیدا کرنے والا ہر چیز کا پالنے والا اور مالک ہے اور ہر چیز کو اس نے عدم سے وجود عطا کیا ہے۔ اور میں کہتا ہوں کی محمد (صلی اللہ علیہ و آلہ وسلم) اللہ کے بندے اور اس کے رسول ہیں اور خاتم الانبیاء ہیں اور قیامت تک کوئی پیغمبر نہیں آئے گا اور حضرت (صلی اللہ علیہ و آلہ وسلم) کی شریعت تمام شریعتوں کی آخری شریعت ہے اور اس کے بعد قیامت تک کوئی شریعت نہیں ہے اور میں اقرار کرتا ہوں کہ پیغمبر (صلی اللہ علیہ و آلہ وسلم) کے بعد امام، خلیفہ اور ولی امیر المومنین علی-ابن ابی طالب ہیں ان کے بعد امام حسن- ان کے بعد امام حسین-ان کے بعد ابن الحسین زین العابدین- ان کے بعد محمد ابن علی الباقر+ ان کے بعد جعفر ابن محمد صادق + پھر موسی ابن جعفر کاظم+ ان کے بعد علی ابن موسیٰ رضا-پھر محمد ابن علی + ہیں اور ان بزرگوکے بعد اے میرے مولا آپ ہیں۔ پس امام نے فرمایا کہ میرے بعد میرا بیٹا امام حسن عسکری- ہے پھر فرمایا(معلوم ہے) اس امام کے بعد اس کے خلیفہ کے زمانے کے لوگ کس طرح ہوں گے؟ میں نے عرض کی مولا کس طرح ہوں گے؟ حضرت نے فرمایا: "زمین ظلم و جور سے پرہو چکی ہوگی کیونکہ لوگ اپنے امام کو دیکھ نہ سکیں گے۔ اور نہ ان کیلئے امام کا نام لینا جائز ہوگا( کہ کہیں ذات امام- کو کوئی نقصان نہ پہنچ جائے) یہ سلسلہ جارہی رہے گا یہاں تک کہ امام کا ظہور ہوگا اور وہ زمین کو عدل و انصاف سے پر کردیں گے"۔ میں عرض کیا کہ میں امام حسن عسکری-اور ان کے خلف (فرزندو جانشین) کا اقرار کرتا ہوں اور قائل ہوتا ہوں ان بزرگواروں کا دوست خدا کا دوست ہے اور ان کا دشمن خدا کا دشمن ہے اور ان کی اطاعت خدا کی اطاعت ہے اور ان کی نافرمانی خدا کی نافرمانی ہے ۔ اور یہ(اقرار کرتا ہوں) کہ معراج حق ہے قبر میں سوال ہونا حق ہے اور یہ کہ جنت حق ہے اور جہنم حق ہے اور صراط حق ہے اور میزان حق ہے اور قیامت کے آنے میں شک نہیں ہے اور خداوند عالم قبر والوں کو زندہ کرکے اٹھائے گا۔ اور میں قائل ہوں کہ ولایت (یعنی خدا، رسول اور آئمہ٪ کی دوستی) کے بعد نماز، زکوة،روزہ،حج، جہاد، خمس، امر بالمعروف، اور نہی عن المنکر سب کے سب فرض ہیں۔ پس امام علی نقی-نے فرمایا: خدا کی قسم یہ خدا کا دین ہے جس کو خدا نے اپنے بندوں کیلئے پسند فرمایا ہے اور تو اسی عقیدے پر ثابت قدم رہ خداوند عالم نے اپنے بندوں کے لئے پسند فرمایا ہے اور اسی عقیدے پر ثابت قدم رہ خداوند عالم تمہیں دنیاوی اور آخروی زندگی میں قول ثابت (وحق) پر ثابت قدم رکھے۔ (اکمال الدین واتمام النعمة کتاب التوحید جلد۲ ۳۷۹) علمدار روڈ‎ یـہ جہـــاں ایک دن پر نـــور ہو گا لبــوں پــہ سب کے ســرور ہو گا ذہنوں میں سب کے شعور ہو گا شــرک سے ہر کـــوئی دور ہو گا عـــلم و عـرفان کا دستـــور ہو گا خـــالق پـــہ سب کو غــرور ہو گا یقیـــن رکھـــو ایســا ضــرور ہو گا جب مہـــديء حـق کا ظہور ہو گا العجـــل ، العجـــل یـــا امــــــام _ زمــــــانــــــہ العجـــل ========= شیعت نیو ز کت نمائندے کے مطابق لانڈھی میں امریکی و سعودی نواز کالعدم سپاہ صحابہ کے دہشت گردوں کی فائرنگ سے دونوں ٹانگوں سے معزور ۳۵ سالہ ارشد علی ولد شاہد شہید ہو گئے ۔ تفصیلات کے مطابق دہشت گر دی کا یہ واقعہ لانڈھی بابر مارکیٹ کے نذدیک کل شب پیش آیا کراچی:شہید ارشد علی کی نماز جنازہ آج بعد نماز ظہرین امام بارگاہ ابالفضل عباس لانڈھی نمبر 3 میں ادا کردی گئ اور تدفین لانڈھی نمبر 6 میں کی جائ ہے۔ ====== Top News Car bombs, shootings kill 23 across Iraq Mon, Apr 29 10:31 AM EDT 1 of 2 BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least 23 people were killed in Iraq on Monday in a series of car bombs in Shi'ite Muslim areas and militant attacks, medics and police sources said, taking the week's death toll to nearly 200 as sectarian violence intensifies. Clashes have increased as the civil war in Syria puts strain on fragile relations between Sunnis and Shi'ites. The tensions are at their highest in Iraq since U.S. troops pulled out more than a year ago. The latest bout of blood-letting began when security forces raided a Sunni protest camp near Kirkuk last week triggering clashes that quickly spread to other Sunni areas including the western province of Anbar, which borders Syria and Jordan. Iraq decided on Monday to close a border crossing with Jordan for two days starting on Tuesday due to "organizational issues", the interior minister said without giving any details. It is the second time this year that authorities have ordered the closure of the Traibil border post in Anbar where Sunnis have been protesting against Iraq's Shi'ite-led government since December. The demonstrations had eased in the past month, but this week's army raid on a protest camp in Hawija, near Kirkuk, 170 km north of Baghdad, angered Sunnis and appears to have given insurgents more momentum. Early on Monday, at least nine people were killed and 40 wounded in two car bomb explosions in Amara, 300 km (185 miles) southeast of Baghdad. The first of two blasts in Amara, ripped through a market where people were meeting to eat breakfast, and the second hit an area where day laborers were gathering to look for work. Another car bomb was detonated in a market in Diwaniya, 150 km south of Baghdad, killing two people, police said. "I was preparing to go to work when a big explosion shook my house and broke the glass in all the windows," said witness Widy Jasim. "I ran outside, the explosion was near my house and bodies were everywhere". A bomb in a parked car went off near a busy market in Kerbala, killing at least three people. A further six people were killed in an explosion near a Shi'ite worship site in Mahmudiya, about 30 km south of Baghdad. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but car and suicide bombings are trademarks of the Islamic State of Iraq, the Iraqi wing of Sunni Islamist al Qaeda which seeks to provoke sectarian conflict. Violence is still well below its height in 2006-07, but provisional figures from rights group Iraq Body Count indicate about 1,494 people have been killed so far in 2013. In Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, gunmen clashed with the army early on Monday, killing two soldiers and wounding three others, military sources said. A sniper shot dead a soldier and wounded another while they were on patrol in Madaen in eastern Baghdad, police said. The speaker of parliament Osama al-Nujaifi, himself a Sunni, proposed an initiative to avoid "the ghost of civil war and sectarian strife", calling on Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his Shi'ite-led government to resign, dissolve parliament and prepare for an early parliamentary election. Iraqi politics are deeply divided along sectarian lines, with Maliki's government mired in crisis over how to share power among Shi'ite Muslims, the largest group, Sunnis and ethnic Kurds who run their own autonomous region in the north. (Reporting by Aref Mohammed in Basra, Kareem Raheem and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad and Emad al-Khuzaie in Diywaniya; Additional reporting by Ali al-Rubaie in Hilla and Ziad al-Sanjary in Mosul; Writing by Suadad al-Salhy; Editing by Jon Hemming) ============== Syrian prime minister survives Damascus bombing, six die Mon, Apr 29 13:24 PM EDT 1 of 8 By Dominic Evans BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's prime minister survived a bomb attack on his convoy in Damascus on Monday, as rebels struck in the heart of President Bashar al-Assad's capital. Six people were killed in the blast, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Previous rebel attacks on government targets included a December bombing which wounded Assad's interior minister. As prime minister, Wael al-Halki wields little power but the attack highlighted the rebels' growing ability to target symbols of Assad's authority in a civil war that, according to the United Nations, has cost more than 70,000 lives. Assad picked Halki in August to replace Riyadh Hijab, who defected and escaped to neighboring Jordan just weeks after a bombing killed four of the president's top security advisers. Monday's blast shook the Mezze district soon after 9 a.m. (2:00 a.m. EDT), sending thick black smoke into the sky. The Observatory said one man accompanying Halki was killed as well as five passers-by. State television showed firemen hosing down the charred and mangled remains of a car. Close by was a large white bus, its windows blown out and its seats gutted by fire. Glass and debris were scattered across several lanes of a main road. "The terrorist explosion in Mezze was an attempt to target the convoy of the prime minister. Dr Wael al-Halki is well and not hurt at all," state television said. It later broadcast footage of Halki, who appeared composed and unruffled, chairing what it said was an economic committee. In comments released by the state news agency SANA but not shown on television, Halki was quoted as condemning the attack as a sign of "bankruptcy and failure of the terrorist groups", a reference to the rebels battling to overthrow Assad. Mezze is part of a shrinking "Square of Security" in central Damascus, where many government and military institutions are based and where senior officials live. Sheltered for nearly two years from the destruction ravaging much of the rest of Syria, it has been sucked into violence as rebel forces based to the east of the capital launch mortar attacks and carry out bombings in the center. CHEMICAL WEAPONS Assad has lost control of large areas of northern and eastern Syria, faces a growing challenge in the southern province of Deraa, and is battling rebels in many cities. But his forces have been waging powerful ground offensives, backed by artillery and air strikes, against rebel-held territory around the capital and near the central city of Homs which links Damascus to the heartland of Assad's minority Alawite sect in the mountains overlooking the Mediterranean. As part of that counter-offensive, Assad's forces probably used chemical weapons, the United States and Britain have said. However the trans-Atlantic allies, whose 2003 invasion of Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein was based in part on flawed intelligence about an Iraqi program of weapons of mass destruction, have been cautious in their accusations. Despite congressional pressure on Barack Obama to do more to help the rebels, the U.S. president has made clear he is in no rush to intervene on the basis of evidence he said was preliminary. Britain, which says there is limited but growing evidence of chemical weapons use, said it wanted a United Nations investigation to see "whether or not there is verified use of chemical weapons". "We've been very clear that, should that be the case, then the repercussions would be serious," British Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt said during a visit to Beirut. "That is why it is so important to have this independently verified and for the U.N. to do their investigation". A U.N. team of experts has been waiting to travel to Syria to gather field evidence, but has yet to win agreement from Syrian authorities who want it to investigate only government accusations of chemical weapon use by rebels in Aleppo province. Russia, which has criticized Western and Gulf Arab support for the anti-Assad fighters, said that attempts by Western countries to expand the U.N. inquiry to cover rebel accusations of Syrian government use of chemicals in Homs and Damascus mounted to a pretext to intervene in the civil war. "There is not always a basis for the allegations (of the use of chemical weapons)," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference. "There are probably governments and a number of external players who believe that it is fine to use any means to overthrow the Syrian regime. But the theme of the use of weapons of mass destruction is too serious and we shouldn't joke about it. To take advantage of it (to advance) geopolitical goals is not acceptable." The United Nations said in February that around 70,000 people had been killed in Syria's conflict. Since then activists have reported daily death tolls of between 100 and 200. Five million people have fled their homes, including 1.4 million refugees in nearby countries, and financial losses are estimated at many tens of billions of dollars. The Beirut-based U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia estimates that 400,000 houses have been completely destroyed, 300,000 partially destroyed and a further half million have suffered some kind of structural damage. (Additional reporting by Thomas Grove in Moscow; Editing by Alistair Lyon and Robin Pomeroy) ===============