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| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistani security seeks to tamp down reporting on California shooter |
| 2015-12-08 |
| [CHANNELNEWSASIA] Pak security forces appeared to be trying to dampen down reporting this weekend on the background of Tashfeen Malik, who mounted an attack alongside her husband that killed 14 people in Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,. Three professors at Malik's university said they had been advised not to talk to the media, while men claiming to be from Pakistain's security agencies told news hounds to drop their investigations into her background on pain of arrest. An official at the interior ministry later said this was due to a "misunderstanding". U.S. authorities are treating last Wednesday's mass shooting in San Bernardino as an "act of terrorism". Malik, 29, and husband Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, were killed two hours later in a shootout with police. The Iraq- and Syria-based Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... jihadist group has claimed the couple as its followers, although it has not said it was in contact with them or that it directed the attack. Malik was born in Pakistain but spent most of her life in Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... before she came to the United States to marry her husband, a U.S. citizen. She had a degree in pharmacy from a university in Pakistain's central city of Multan. On Sunday, three professors at Bahauddin Zakariya University, which Malik attended, said they had been instructed by security agencies not to speak to news hounds. One, who asked not to be named, said security officials visited the university on Saturday and removed records and pictures of Tashfeen. "She was a very reserved person, a very quiet girl, she kept to herself," the professor said. "I could have never imagined she was capable of something like this. And there was nothing on the surface to suggest she had such myrmidon tendencies." "I think this change in her mind, whenever it happened, must be very recent. The girl I remember ... she could not have the guts to do this." Another former professor said he did not remember her at all. "She was probably not someone who stood out, academically or otherwise," he said. UNSPECIFIED OFFENCES Men claiming to be from security agencies, but who refused to provide identification, also sought to discourage Rooters from further reporting on Malik's background, threatening journalists with arrest for unspecified offences. "Whether you consider this a request or a dictation (order), I would advise you not to pursue this story," one said. Tim Craig, a news hound from the Washington Post, tweeted that police had prevented him from leaving his hotel in Multan. "I've lost track of how many different security/intel officials I've had to talk to, copy my passport, etc in past 17 hours - think 12 to 16," he tweeted. Rooters was eventually allowed to continue reporting with a police escort provided for security reasons. An interior ministry official later told Rooters the situation had been the result of a misunderstanding by over-enthusiastic local police. "This is not our policy. We have nothing to hide, and we want to facilitate journalists," the official, who did not wish to be named, said. Several security officials said the restrictions on the press were partly due to Pak fears that the country would be blamed for Malik's actions. "Pakistain has nothing to do with this but it will be used to malign Pakistain. So of course we have to care about how this is being seen and reported," one official said. On Sunday, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar said Pakistain was willing to give any assistance that the United States required to investigate Malik, and highlighted that she spent most of her life in Saudi Arabia. "Such acts of terrorism which take place across the world bring a bad name to Islam," he said. "You cannot blame the religion and the nation due to the personal actions of one person." |
| Posted by:Fred |