Education

ISLAMABAD U.S. and Afghan airstrikes have destroyed nine Taliban drug factories and labs, killing 44 suspected traffickers in a border area of southern Helmand province.The combined offensive is aimed at targeting the revenue streams of terrorists, a...

JAKARTA, INDONESIA Many of Indonesia's religious minorities celebrated last week when the government allowed citizens to list faiths outside the six state-sanctioned religions on their national ID cards.

But the ruling changed little for Muslim Indonesians who identify with minority strains of Islam, like Ahmadiyya, and still face discrimination in the world's largest Muslim country. The Ahmadiyya movement was founded in 19th century India and came to Indonesia in 1925. Today it counts about 400,000 adherents.

Ahmadiyya has many distinctive teachings, including that Muhammad is not necessarily the last prophet of God, that Jesus was crucified and resurrected (which most Muslims reject), and that religious history progresses in 7,000-year cycles.

It has courted controversy since its earliest years in Indonesia. Back in 1929, when the nation was still under Dutch rule, the modernist, conservative Indonesian Sunni movement called Muhamaddiyah issued an indirect fatwa against Ahmadis, nominally targeting those who don't believe Muhammad is the final prophet of God.

In 1980, the Indonesian Ulama (religious scholar) Council, the country's highest Muslim body, declared Ahmadiyya a deviant sect. But intolerance rose significantly in the new millennium. In recent years, Ahmadis have been assaulted, murdered and forced to convert. They've also had their mosques burned, been the target of violent demonstrations, and been refused state ID cards.

Although anti-Ahmadi sentiment was particularly strong in 2011 and 2012, just last March, an Ahmadi mosque was shut down in Depok, a Jakarta suburb. Over 30 Ahmadiyya families have been internally displaced to a shelter in Lombok Island since 2006, after they were evacuated from their village by hardline Islamists.

Many roots of intolerance

One reason for rising intolerance against minority strains of Islam is the growing influence of Salafism, a fundamentalist Sunni ideology originating in 18th century Saudi Arabia that narrowly defines the limits of what constitutes Islam.

Sidney Jones of the Institute for Policy Analysis and Conflict said in 2016 that she believes money from private Saudi donors and foundations was behind campaigns in Indonesia against Shiite and Ahmadi Islam, considered heretical by Wahhabi teaching.

But that's not the only source. Anti-Ahmadiyya discourse comes from the ostensibly moderate mainstream of Indonesian Islam as well, through huge Sunni organizations like Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah. The National Ulama Council has printed and circulated pamphlets against the Ahmadiyya and Shia Muslims in the past.

The intolerance of Ahmadiyya deeply entrenched across the Indonesian Muslim religious establishment, said Noorhaidi Hasan, a professor at the State Islamic University of Yogyakarta.

There is far worse internal tolerance, in a sense towards fellow religions, than external tolerance, i.e. to those of different faiths, said Bonar Naipospos of the Setara Institute, a religion think tank. This explains why intolerance towards Ahmadiyah continues. The majority of Muslims in Indonesia, including moderate groups such as NU and Muhammadiyah, hold the view that the Ahmadis are deviating from Islam.

Poor outlook

Anti-Ahmadi sentiment took on the sheen of state approval in 2008 when former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued a decree preventing Ahmadis from proselytizing or engaging in Ahmadiyya activities' outside their own communities. The vague wording has been subject to abuse. The low point was likely the public murder of three Ahmadis by an Islamist mob in Cikeusik, West Java in 2011. The Setara Institute think tank recorded 342 cases of assault against the Ahmadiyya community between 2007 and 2011.

Current President Joko Jokowi Widodo has been largely silent on the issue.

It takes efforts to educate Muslims to differentiate between their faith and their citizenship, said Andreas Harsono, a researcher with Human Rights Watch Indonesia. They could hate the Ahmadiyah but they could not harm these poor Ahmadis. That's religious tolerance. There're many things that people could disagree with in this world, but using violence and state discrimination are obviously wrong. It will hamper human development.

As a potential first step to support the Ahmadiyya, the government could move the needle on the issue of the moment: ID cards. Ahmadiyya followers have long been asked to "convert to Islam" in order to get state ID cards.

Politicians in West Java � admittedly a conservative province � have maintained in recent months that Ahmadiyya followers must leave the religion column on their ID cards blank, despite instructions to the contrary from the Home Affairs Ministry.

The cards are necessary for many social services and rites. If this month's ID card ruling results in a more coherent national policy toward administering them, that could offer major benefits for Indonesia's Ahmadiyya community.

Source: Voice of America

ISLAMABAD �The United States has launched its first counter-narcotics military offensive in partnership with local allies in Afghanistan to try to deprive the resurgent Taliban of its largest source of funding. The move follows years of criticism that international forces are not doing enough to curb the opium trade.

Speaking in Kabul Monday, General John Nicholson, commander of U.S. troops and NATO's Resolute Support military mission, shared details of the coalition's first overnight counter-narcotics airstrikes.

He said the bombing campaign destroyed major Taliban narcotics production facilities in Helmand, the main poppy producing southern Afghan province, depriving the insurgent group of major revenues.

We hit the labs where they turn poppy into heroin. We hit their storage facilities where they keep their final product, where they stockpile their money and their command and control. Our estimates indicate that more than $200 million from this illegal economy was going into the pockets of the Taliban, the general noted.

Careful strikes

He said the strikes are not hitting Afghan farmers and are being conducted carefully to limit the amount of collateral damage and avoid civilian casualties.

We will continue attacking these drug trafficking organizations who are supporting the Taliban and other terrorist organizations, Nicholson said.

Afghan Chief of Army Staff General Sharif Yaftali welcomed the move against the Taliban, which he called "a criminal group" benefiting from the narcotics business.

The United Nations announced last week that narcotics production nearly doubled this year in Afghanistan to around 9,000 metric tons, showing a nearly 90 percent increase compared with 2016.

Critics have long blamed the booming Afghan narcotics industry for being a major cause of prolonged hostilities and deteriorating security conditions in the country.

The U.S. military estimates income generated from the illicit drugs is providing 60 percent of funds for the Taliban insurgency.

War on Afghan drugs

Nicholson said he has been given new authorities under the Trump administration's South Asia policy that allowed him to declare war on Afghan drugs and go after the enemy and all of their support, as well as revenue infrastructure across the country.

Narcotics revenue represents the largest single source of funding for the Taliban and as we know the Taliban are making more money than they need to fight their campaign. So, this money is going into the pockets of Taliban leaders who are living safely outside of the country, he said.

Under the new policy President Donald Trump unveiled in August, about 3,000 additional American troops have arrived in Afghanistan. The U.S. military has increased airstrikes against the Taliban as well as terrorists linked to the Afghan branch of Islamic State.

The anti-narcotics operation and stepped up battlefield attacks are aimed at pressuring and compelling the Taliban to join an Afghan reconciliation process, said Nicholson.

The new policy, he said, also focuses on going after the havens or sanctuaries the Taliban and its allies enjoy outside of Afghanistan. U.S. and Afghan military commanders have long alleged neighboring Pakistan is sheltering the insurgents and not taking action against them despite public pledges.

We have had numerous high-level engagements between the United States and Pakistan so that we can get Pakistan to work with us in eliminating these safe havens of the enemy. This is extremely important going forward, said Nicholson.

For their part, authorities in Pakistan deny the existence of any insurgent sanctuaries on its soil. They have called on Washington to share actionable evidence with Islamabad to enable Pakistani forces to go after any suspected militant hideouts on their side of the border.

Source: Voice of America

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