Word: aziz
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President Jalal Talabani on Sunday congratulated Ahmadinejad on his re-election. There were congratulatory messages, too, from top Shi'ite leaders Abdel Aziz al-Hakim and Moqtada al-Sadr. Hakim is in Tehran, receiving treatment for cancer, and Sadr is believed to be training to become an ayatullah in the Iranian holy city...
...others. Women in the city of Rawalpindi complain that they are harassed if they don't wear headscarves. In Lahore, a prep school for girls has banned the wearing of blue jeans, for fear of a Taliban attack. In the capital, Islamabad, the Red Mosque's prayer leader, Abdul Aziz, sanctioned vigilante squads of baton-wielding women to go out and threaten video stores, barbershops and massage parlors for being un-Islamic. Two years ago, his followers kidnapped six Chinese masseuses, calling them prostitutes, and held them hostage. The army eventually cracked down, launching a siege and battle that...
...opposition to Israel - especially the Baathist regimes in Iraq and Syria, and Egypt under Nasser - were pretty good protectors of religious pluralism. About 5% or 6% of Iraq's population in the 1970s were Christian, and some of Saddam Hussein's most prominent officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, were Christians. But since the American invasion of Iraq, Christians have fled in droves, and constitute less than 1% of the population. Syria - which survived attempts by the Bush Administration to isolate the Assad regime - is still like a living museum of otherwise forgotten Christian sects and shrines...
...Aziz vowed to pursue a non-violent campaign to bring Shari'a to the rest of the country, yet in a press conference held Thursday he defended his actions, and those of his students, in the run-up to the siege, saying that they acted peaceably, and only turned to violence when the military moved in. When asked if he would allow his students to take up arms once again, he responded, "If we are pushed to the wall we would have no option but to defend ourselves...
...columnist Amir, Aziz's release is yet another addition to the devastating problems that plague Pakistan. Aziz, he says, has become an iconic figure far more threatening than the shadowy leaders of the Taliban movement. "When you talk of Baitullah Mehsud, Fazlullah or Mangal Bagh, these are guys whose aims are known, but they are just mysterious figures living far away in the mountains. Aziz is here, right in the capital. He will be an inspirational figure for all the jihadi elements...