Perspectives on Terrorist Attacks-II

IIU, me and you-Part I
Thursday, October 22, 2009 By Fasi Zaka

The News, http://thenews.jang.com.pk/print1.asp?id=204409


Several months ago, I was invited to speak at a seminar at the women's campus of the International Islamic University (IIU). It was, to say at the least, a memorable experience. I came to the unfortunate realisation that I too was a prejudiced individual after I compared my expectations to what I saw there.


I expected a strict, stifling academic atmosphere that would be pervading the air in a sea of burqas. It was none of those things; the only cliché present was my pre-conceived notion, sadly with what could be called new neo-colonial mindset of the modernist Muslim despite his/her good intentions. The female students there were animated, gutsy and held intellectual discourse with vigour.

Most striking was the plurality of the female campus of the IIU; the girls there chose their own identities and wore what they liked (with even the occasional moderate western wear). The segregation hadn't created an artificial environment; the students were free to be their own selves without the social mores that come into play when the genders mix.

When I heard of the bombing at both the male and female campuses of the IIU, I was deeply saddened. I continue to wonder how urban apologists for the Taliban will spin this one. In all likelihood they won't, they will pretend it never happened. Rehman Malik is already at the blame game, claiming the problem was a lapse in university security. Since when have universities become experts in counter-terrorism is beyond me. He chose to ignore the obvious, which is that his ministry miscalculated when it thought schools were under threat and advised to shut them down instead of including universities on the list as well.

While the PPP maybe an abject failure in governing this nation, our only alternative is proving to be a duplicitous man preaching a hollow holier-than-thou tirade. Nawaz Sharif won't answer questions about the Taliban, nor will he back the army into a war it has been slow to engage in.

After the IIU bombing, what else is it that the Taliban can do to prove to Nawaz Sharif that they are entirely Godless? The left will quote Chomsky, Pilger and others to explain the social conditions that lead to movements like the Taliban, in effect intellectually justifying their methods. There is no denying the areas that have spawned this collective deserved better. But then, frankly, what are the redeeming features of the Taliban, if any? Explaining their background cannot, and does not, mitigate their callousness or inhumanity.

Muted defenses of the Taliban always argue that one should not attempt to wipe them out because they are Muslims, 'well intentioned' but deviant. But what is odd that it seems the Taliban have no such qualms, having relegated everyone but themselves into the pit of infidels.

For a long time now, there has been no room left for understanding and compassion. It is time to demonise them. General discourse and the media need to paint them as the new infidels. The kid gloves need to come off; the right wing of this country has to treat them with the same disdain and suggestions of all-encompassing evil that they reserve for USA, India and Israel.

To be a member of the Taliban should be an unequivocal slur, it needs to have shame. In the battle for minds, maybe the same misdirected and spontaneous anger that creates mobs in streets against people (usually religious minorities) for alleged blasphemy should be aimed at people who collaborate with these murderers. It's no less a grave blasphemy to kill and maim innocent girls in an overtly Islamic university in the name of the Prophet (PBUH).

But no, we have one standard for the Taliban and another for people who mark their heads with red dots and adorn their necks with crosses. This is the crux of our problem, not military might against the hordes of barbarians inside our gates.

Remaining silent is not an option. Avoiding questions the way Nawaz Sharif does cannot go on. And if we are to start on this right now, I propose a simple start. We legislate against allowing abstentions in both the upper and lower houses of parliament for both resolutions and pending legislation.

So whether it is the NRO, Kerry Lugar or action against the Taliban, the officials elected to represent the interests of the people cannot use the opt-out clause (abstentions) to gain false and damaging moral ground if they do not want to appear to support or be against certain issues when tabled.

Name the legislation after the students who lost their lives at the university, it is the people, army brass and politicians who remained silent for so long that the girls and others have been silenced violently in the prime of their lives. Surely, Nawaz Sharif must have an opinion on that. But maybe he believes the comical and sad statement that Qamar Zaman Kaira gave after the bombing: "their real faces are now exposed in front of the nation." Really? Only now?

The writer is a Rhodes scholar and former academic. Email: fasizaka@yahoo.com



IIU, me and you -Part II

Thursday, October 29, 2009, By Fasi Zaka

The News, http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=205729

In times of unimaginable tragedy, it is hard to judge outpourings of grief. The mind is freckled by floods of angry emotion. After having said this, I still feel disappointed that right after the International Islamic University (IIU) bombings one of the pictures I saw in the press was of a demonstration by the boys of the university upholding banners that were against the Kerry-Lugar bill. It seemed to me the significance of what had happened to these hapless students hadn't yet dawned on them.

The International Islamic University has absolutely nothing to do with the bill, and in any case the Taliban didn't bomb the university because they were convinced that the IIU had drafted it for John Kerry. Even at that time, in the aftermath of a senseless act it was difficult to acknowledge for people that the Taliban were utterly nihilistic in their aims.

It was a lost opportunity to honour the lives of the people lost, to say that Islam just doesn't allow any semblance of what the Taliban are doing. One of the students who died was Sidra, a young topper of the Rawalpindi board in the arts group. Her best friend who saw her die chillingly spoke of being unable to sleep, to remember the cold touch of her cheek when she was about to be buried. How did the Kerry-Lugar bill fit into this? Valid criticisms of the bill aside, this was not the moment to do it because it was peripheral to the whole issue, because the Kerry-Lugar bill is also on the lower end of the Taliban agenda, revenge being their first. And the thirst for blood is so great, that the revenge is also taken from the absolutely innocent.

I wonder just how influential the Islami Jamiat Talba (IJT) is at the IIU. Recently one of their office-bearers gave a statement to the press that Blackwater is behind the wave of terror attacks in the country. This is purposeful and utterly extreme mischief. If Blackwater is in Pakistan, and I increasingly believe that one of its subsidiaries might, it should be sent packing. But not for the nonsense that the Jamiat is keen on having people believe.

Blackwater should be sent back, not because it may laughably be complicit in terror, but because the firm is trained in counter-insurgency in Iraq and has a trigger-happy reputation and is staffed reportedly by bigots, starting from the very top. What if a firm like Blackwater kills someone in Pakistan, how will the law apply? It's an invitation to flout our laws because we know the Americans won't allow a trial here, and it's already happening with incidents of foreigners being stopped and caught with illegal unlicensed weapons.

But, for a moment, even in our anger acknowledge that whatever firm the Americans may be using, they do need security and are acting in accordance with the directive, or at least philosophy of Rehman Malik and Shahbaz Sharif. Our rulers would extol the people of Swat to fight the Taliban, rather than doing something about it themselves. They are saying that educational institutions must protect themselves rather than the government increasing general security. With this trend, all the Americans are doing is the same. If the government will not protect the people (only itself by buying more and more bullet-proof cars), then the Americans will have to use private contractors.

But every argument that concerns legitimate internal concerns, say Americans with automatic weapons in the country, the Taliban or literally anything else, is increasingly hijacked and overtaken into vapid and vacuous arguments that sidestep the real issues. Without realising it, or maybe they do, but these right-wingers are hurting our country by making everything into issues of national pride or patriotism.

And this patriotism is hurting us because it is made by disingenuous people. It doesn't reflect what this country should stand for. If we believed all our citizens have a right to life, we would be more incensed by the IIU bombing than we really are.

Let me give an example of this confusion. In a recent letter to the editor a young man wrote about his educational institution in Faisalabad where a couple were sitting under a tree. Security came and shaved the heads of both the man and woman. The writer of the letter was honest to admit that he was fearful and couldn't speak up for two innocent people. But one reason people stay quiet is that they somehow believe that the tyrants who were shaving the heads of the couple may have been morally right. That's the confusion of the myth-making we are creating in this country. If we had a real sense of values we wouldn't think twice about speaking up for that poor duo because we knew others would share the sentiment. What crime was committed between two people sitting and doing nothing wrong in an open space?

In LUMS a girl is making news for her campaign against public displays of affection. Let us grant her the right to do so for argument's sake, but the manner in which she did so is nothing less than hypocritical and reflects a tyrant in the making. By taking pictures of people secretly and promising to more and distributing them on email lists, I wonder if she is convinced Allah appointed her as the guardian to invade people's privacy by being holier than thou.I wonder if she took a break from her voyeurism activism to lead a rally against the Taliban after the IIU bombing. Which is more important now?

The writer is a Rhodes scholar and former academic. Email: fasizaka@yahoo.com

Perspectives on Terrorist Attacks-I

In response to our recent posts, we have received some article from our readers sharing different perspectives about terrorist attacks. Enjoy reading!

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Disinformation: Manufacturing Monsters

Tipu Sultan Shaheed on 25 July, 2009

http://www.dailymuslims.com/Opinion/Disinformation_Manufacturing_Monsters.html

Following destruction of European economies by WW1, Americans stepped into the role of world leadership. Woodrow Wilson made many statements like "every people has a right to choose the sovereignty under which they shall live…. " and that "no right anywhere exists to hand peoples about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property." Leaders of struggles for independence all over the world were very disappointed when they learned that these were just words. In the curious reasoning of an official U.S. commission to the Philippines, "American sovereignty is only another name for the liberty of the Filipinos." Vietnamese appealed to USA to help liberate them from the French, but after defeating the French on their own, they found USA ready to take the place of the French as the imperialist power.

Because of strong popular support for democracy and freedom within American public, the postwar USA strategy for global domination took a distinctly different shape from the pre-war imperialism. Taking a leaf from Machiavelli, they invented the enemy of “Communism” and painted it in the worst possible colors. USA wars to dominate the globe and control world economies were painted in terms of a battle of Good and Evil – much like Star Wars. This myth, that the Americans were pure, good, and had all excellent human qualities, while their enemies were purely evil and had no redeeming virtues, was deeply planted into the American psyche. Hollywood and many other media initiatives spread this message, and it was widely believed by the rest of the world. There is plenty of documentation proving that CIA grossly exaggerated the potential of the communist threat and strength of the Russian economy and war capability, so as to scare the American public and to generate more funding for “Defense” industries in both public and private sector (the USA has never fought a defensive war). Extensive anti-communist propaganda created the Red Scare. In a “witch hunt” created by national hysteria during the Cold War, lives and careers of thousands of Americans were destroyed by accusations of communism.

Imperialism USA style sought to protect business interests and maintain an economic stranglehold on the world. Under the pretext of fighting communism, USA destroyed economies and ruined lives of millions of poor people all over the world. When the USA sought to replace the French rule over Vietnam (as they had replaced Spanish rule over Latin America), they labeled the Vietnamese independence movement as communist. Forced to fight against the USA whom they had hoped would be their ally, the Vietnamese turned to the other superpowers, Russia and China for support, turning this into a self fulfilling labeling.

British monopoly on Iranian oil permitted them to pay only 16% of its value to Iran. When Mossadegh took over in 1951, he nationalized the oil and paid the British a fair price. The tactics used by CIA to create a coup and regain control of Iranian oil are of special interest. They bribed journalists, preachers and other opinion leaders to create hostility to Mossadegh, hired thugs to attack people, making it look as if the attacks were by Mossadegh. Street gangs were paid to set off riots. A plague of violence descended on Tehran. Gangs of thugs ran wildly through the streets, breaking shop windows, firing guns into mosques, beating passerby, and shouting ‘Long live Mossadegh and Communism!” A cooperative Army general finally used tanks to attack the Prime Minister’s residence and and replaced him by a US puppet. US oil companies — Gulf, Standard of New Jersey, Texaco and Mobil — received a 40 percent share of the new National Iranian Oil Company, and the Shah established a tyrannical dictatorship, with the dreaded CIA-trained Savak doing dirty work for him

Chile had enjoyed 160 years of peaceful democratic rule, when Salvador Allende came to power. US Copper mining interests had earned 7 billion dollars profits on an investment of 1 billion in Chile, and were threatened by Allende’s plans to nationalize copper mines. CIA trainers whipped the Chilean military into an anti-Communist frenzy, persuading them that socialists were de facto Russian spies, a force alien to Chilean society—a homegrown "enemy within." In fact, it was the military that had become the true domestic enemy, ready to turn its weapons on the population it was sworn to protect. General Pinochet carried out a coup on both the economic and political front. Mass killings and torture of citizens were justified on the grounds that the Government was fighting a war against dangerous Marxist terrorists, funded and controlled by the KGB. In every case, the threat was either wildly exaggerated or completely manufactured, as revealed by later declassified U.S. government's own intelligence reports. At the same time, the best social security system in Latin America for the poor was dismantled leading to widespread poverty (cheap labor) where none had existed. Policies wildly favorable to foreign multinationals and harmful to domestic interests were put in place with a systematic campaign of “disinformation” on the economic front.

The collapse of Russia led to national consensus in the USA on enjoying the “peace dividend” ; evil had been vanquished, and there were no enemies left to fight. NATO was no longer necessary, and should be dismantled. Congress proposed to divert the massive cold war budget to social welfare, building or repairing essential infrastructure (lack of which led to the Katrina disaster). Within the corridors of the Pentagon and the “Defense” industry threatened by billions of dollars of budget cuts, there was desperate brainstorming about need to manufacture a new monster. Their dilemma was that there were no worthy enemies to be found. With USA war capabilities much greater than that of the rest of the world combined, there was no one who could step into the position vacated by Russia. Perhaps we can take perverse pride in that the lot fell on us, the poor Muslims. Proceeding were started by Samuel Huntington, who put forth the thesis that henceforth wars would be fought between civilizations, and that the Muslims were the biggest threat to the Western civilization. The entire civilization of the Muslims as a whole was a sufficiently big target that there was no chance of achieving success in destroying it quickly, leading to the need for a new enemy. Close on the heels of Russian collapse, the CIA lured Saddam Hussain into invading Kuwait, providing a pretext for the Gulf War, and buying time to put the new strategy in place. Before the first budget cut proposals could see the light of day, enough new enemies were in place that US “Defense” budgets kept increasing. Meanwhile, the monster manufacturing industry was in full gear, and today the USA public feels the same hysteria against Islam and Muslims that was once attached to communists.

Today, exactly the same tactics that worked so successfully in Iran and Chile and numerous other parts of the world – for details see The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein – is being repeated without essential changes in Pakistan. Army intelligence sources conclude that there are less than 4000 “American Taliban” in the NWFP. These have been heavily supplied with arms and money by the CIA, and can recruit local populace in the name of Islam at heavy salaries. Just as thugs in Iran were paid to vandalize and shout slogans favoring communism and Mossadegh, so thugs have been hired to shout Islamic slogans and carry out extremely cruel acts. Movies have been made of grisly slaughter by people shouting the Kalima, and widely circulated. Trillions of dollars of USA defense budget depends on making the Islamic monster as fearsome as possible. The skill of the CIA at manufacturing videos is well established. Key policy makers and opinion leaders have been deceived into believing that there is “home-grown” enemy within, exactly as in Chile. This has led to widespread support for a war against our own civilians, a sure-fire recipe for disaster and disintegration of Pakistan.

The only way to slip out of the noose currently tightening around our collective necks is to wake up and become aware of the enemy strategy to deceive and destroy us. It is madness to bomb our own civilian population, in a futile attempt to get rid of a small number of paid CIA agents, who are informed well in advance. We in Pakistan have been living with Mullahs and Talibans for a long time, and we never saw the atrocities currently being witnessed. On the other hand, these atrocities are a trade mark of CIA training methods, and were used systematically by CIA trained guerillas fighting to destabilize anti-American Latin American regimes. Our only problem in Pakistan is foreign interference, and CIA schemes and plots very similar to those they have successfully implemented in many other countries. A clear understanding of this will generate the national consensus and unity required to rescue us from this time of great difficulty.

EVIDENCE: Many readers have asked for evidence of CIA involvement. First note that it is a spy agency and does covert actions. Its very purpose is concealment of its hand. Studying how they have worked in the past provides a good clue to how they will operate in the present. CIA agents do not go around asking people to betray Islam or Pakistan for money. Following standard practice, Lawrence of Arabia faked a conversion to Islam, performed Hajj, mingled with the people before inciting Arab leaders to revolt against the Turks with the help of the British. With the understanding that we are not going to get the documents proving CIA involvement until fifty years later, when the Freedom of Information Act might be used to extract them, here is the necessarily indirect evidence:

1. There are many substantiated reports from many sources that these “American” Taliban are not locals. The NWFP is a closed, traditional, society which is well knit together. People know each other and those in nearby villages, and can identify families and clans which have been there for a long period of time. Nobody knows who these Taliban are.

2. There is only a small number of them. They are able to hire local people at wages which are outrageously high – especially in view of local poverty. They have access to supplies of weapons and funds which clearly smack of CIA involvement. Nobody else is rich enough to finance such an operation.

3. Many eyewitness accounts testify to their complete lack of Islamic values; surprising when they claim to have the goal of fighting for the establishment of Shariah.

4. Afghani Taliban leadership has issued many statements disclaiming any connection with these people.

5. Locals report that these Taliban leaders are nowhere to be found during engagements – only the innocent dupes they hire actually engage in fights with the Pakistan army or with local residents.

6. The grisly methods they use in killing, widely distributed via movies, is a hallmark of CIA operations in Latin America. Islamic Law prohibits mutilation of dead bodies, torture, and many other methods used by these Taliban. Nothing like this was reported against the Afghani Taliban. Indeed a female British reporter captured by the Taliban was so impressed by their behavior that she later converted to Islam.

7. This kind of operation, destabilizing government by funding groups to fight against the government, setting the army and the politicians at loggerheads, buying up both political and army leadership to support US goals, and concealing their hand in the chaos that follows, is the standard modus operandi that the CIA has used countless times in Latin America successfully to topple governments that they did not like. This is well documented in many places, including books written by ex CIA agents like William Blum. Read Killing Hope by Blum or Shock.

8. Numerous sources readily available on internet report on covert US plans to destabilize and disintegrate Pakistan. The kind of random violence we see on the streets has NO OTHER possible explanation. Locals can kill for profit or for personal or for political motives. However, CIA finances general rampages which are not motivated by any personal reasons, but meant only to destabilize and bring about desired regime change or dissolution. This type of CIA operation against other countries is well documented Ours will acquire its documentation fifty years later.

Save Pakistan Rallies at IIUI

University blasts in Pakistan and the future of Islam

Opinion
University blasts in Pakistan and the future of Islam

The International Islamic University is carving out a much-needed space in Muslim intellectual, and through it, political, life.

By Mark LeVine
from The Christian Science Monitor, October 23, 2009 edition

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1023/p09s03-coop.html

Lund, Sweden - When the Taliban attacked the International Islamic University in Pakistan this week, many were shocked that militants were targeting an Islamic school. In fact, the double suicide bombers were going after a university that is at the forefront of changing the way Islamic and Western knowledge are brought together in the Muslim world.

I also had some misconceptions before I had lectured in the very building where the second bombing took place. But the encounters I had there in 2007 utterly changed my understanding of Pakistan, as well as the future of Islam.

I had only landed in Islamabad just a few hours before I was scheduled to give my first talk at the university, and whether it was the 13-hour time difference with Los Angeles, two nights flying in coach, or walking through an arrivals lounge that had recently been attacked by terrorists, I felt more uneasy about being in Pakistan than Baghdad or Gaza during their own periods of intense violence.

Matters weren't helped when I was introduced to a group of male religious studies students by my host as someone who'd lived in Israel and speaks Hebrew. In fact, my stomach sank a bit – especially as their long beards and traditional dress reminded me a lot more of the Taliban than the graduate students I normally spend time with.

But as with most things in Pakistan, appearances were deceiving, and the situation was far more complex, and inspiring, than I'd imagined.

It turned out that the students with whom I was meeting weren't merely studying Islam, they were PhD students in comparative religion. They were situating Islam, its history, and its religious dynamics within the broader study of religious experience worldwide.

Moreover, the recently established program in which they were studying was a model for the International Islamic University's drive to develop a new curriculum, one that would combine 1,000 years of Islamic learning with the latest developments in American and European humanities and social studies scholarship.

The students explained they were all learning Hebrew, as well as biblical criticism and contemporary approaches to religious studies as part of their course work. As we began to talk it became clear that neither students nor faculty had much time or desire to engage in spirited critiques of the United States or the West.

They were much more interested in discussing how to better integrate "Western" and Islamic methodologies for studying history and religion. And more telling, they were trying to figure out how to criticize the government without "disappearing" into the dark hole of the Pakistani prison system for five or 10 years, or worse.

Colleagues in the history and political science departments were just as eager to develop the most up-to-date curriculums possible, and in so doing lay a benchmark for the development of their fields, not just in Pakistan, but globally.

This is not to say that the members of the University community supported US policies in the Muslim world. Far from it. But as good social scientists (or social scientists in training), they understood the importance of the interplay of local and global dynamics, and of the problems in their own societies that contributed to the violent relationship between the US and many Muslim groups around the world.

Indeed, when I delivered my second lecture on globalization early on a Saturday morning, the room was filled with students, more women than men (upward of half the student body at the University are women), who grilled me about the assumptions underlying my research and methodologies. Would that most of my students back home were as interested in what I was teaching as were they.

As I walked around the campus, and met faculty and students who'd come from all over the Muslim world to study there, the role of the IIU in the larger context of Islam globally became evident.

The University was carving out a much-needed space in Muslim intellectual, and through it political, life through its bringing Muslim and Western traditions into dialogue.

Yet it was receiving, and continues to receive far less attention from scholars, commentators, or policymakers than the fully American-style universities being opened across the Persian Gulf. This is most recently evidenced by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, or KAUST, just established with great fanfare and a $10 billion endowment from the king in Jeddah.

Such a venture is surely important, not just for having one of the world's fastest supercomputers or giving every newly hired professor $400,000 in research money – I got $3,000 when I was hired at University of California, Irvine, and that was when the university was flush with cash.

Yet the singular focus of KAUST on hard sciences is ultimately myopic and will likely produce little in the way of the larger societal change in Saudi Arabia predicted by the new university's boosters. Such changes come only with a robust public sphere where citizens who are educated broadly and humanistically are equipped with the social knowledge and skills to challenge the dominant political and social-religious discourses.

Building such an active Pakistani citizenry was and – I imagine despite the bombing – remains a major goal of the IIU.

Sadly, it's just such a goal that probably made it a "legitimate" target for the Taliban, for whom a healthy public sphere populated by educated citizens willing and able to challenge, potentially democratize, and clean up their government would pose at least as big threat to its position in the country as the army they are now fighting in the country's northwest.

Not surprisingly, the core mission of the IIU would also not win it many friends among the country's corrupt economic and political elite, who, as many of the senior education and religious officials I met confided to me, share the Taliban's desire to silence any kind of critical scholarship or societal debate.

With this attack, the Taliban has struck what until now was a sanctuary, however fragile and inchoate, where the emerging generation of Pakistanis and Muslims could determine on their own terms how best to bring together their cultures and traditions to grapple with the profound challenges faced by their societies.

I hope it doesn't weaken the spirit and resolve of the thousands of students who've come to the IIU from across the Muslim world to help build a better future. They are not just the future of Pakistan, or of Islam; they are the future as well.

Mark LeVine is a history professor at University of California, Irvine and currently a visiting professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University, Sweden. He is the author most recently of "Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam" and "Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989"

Cheap Publicity, Bad Advice or Complacency?

We are in crisis and our "leadership" is busy in photo sessions!

Fatiha Khawani kar, Camera Main Dal

Column

Desperadoes attack university in Islamabad

Dawn, Wednesday, 21 Oct, 2009


http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/04-blast1-in-islamabad-qs-07

ISLAMABAD: Three girls were among six people killed on Tuesday in twin suicide attacks inside the International Islamic University, Islamabad. Two blocks were severely damaged.

This is the first time that militants have targeted women and a prestigious Islamic educational institution.

The blasts took place in quick succession in segregated blocks for girls and boys in the university’s campus in the capital’s H-10 sector.

A bomber barged into the women-only facility despite fierce resistance put up by a local worker, blowing himself up at the entrance of the girls’ cafeteria.

The other bomber detonated his explosives-laden jacket on the first floor of the Imam Abu Hanifa block.

A string of attacks have rocked Peshawar, Swat, Rawalpindi, Lahore, and Islamabad since Oct 5, killing more than 250 people. The bombings have made October one of the bloodiest months since the beginning of the terrorist attacks.

No one has so far claimed responsibility for the strikes.

The incident took place amid reports about threats to educational institutions, some of which decided to close their facilities for a few days.

However, officials of the Islamic University said they were not aware of any direct threat.

‘We were hearing that some schools were being closed down, but we never received any specific threat,’ an outraged Prof Parveen Tariq Agha, the in-charge of the women’s wing, told Dawn.

She rejected suggestion of a security lapse and said the university’s premises were properly secured. But, she said, no one could have guessed that a suicide bomber would target girls in this manner. Other teachers were equally outraged.

‘This is a cowardly act,’ another faculty member said. ‘Those who target students, particularly women, cannot even be considered human beings,’ she said.

The new campus of the International Islamic university is spread over several acres and houses over 17,000 students, including 6,000 women.

There are 2,000 foreign students from 45 countries, but mostly from China and African countries.

Sources said that security and intelligence agencies had information that terrorists would strike a university on Tuesday.

The police said one of the attackers, who was carrying five to seven kilograms of explosives, blew himself outside the office of the chairman of the Sharia Department, killing two people and creating a hole in the office wall and cracking adjacent walls.

Eyewitnesses said that shards of glass and body parts lay scattered in the corridor. Nearby rooms, including a conference room and classes, were damaged by the blast.

The other suicide bomber, they said, struck the girl’s cafeteria after 3pm. Pellets mixed with the explosives also damaged a large area, perforating roofs and walls.

Investigators said they had found skin attached to a forehead and an ear, which they believed were of one of the attackers.

The other attacker, wearing a vest containing five to eight kilograms of explosives, had disguised himself as a woman and was wearing a colourful shawl. He was intercepted by a worker identified as Pervez Masih when he tried to enter the girls’ cafeteria.

It is believed had Mr Masih not stopped the suicide bomber, the death toll would have been higher because about 50 students were having lunch at that time.

A leg believed to be that of the suicide bomber was found in the cafeteria. There was some confusion about the gender of the suicide bomber.

Some students said they had spotted a ‘woman’ acting suspiciously near the cafeteria, but there was no official confirmation.

Shortly after the blast, the area was cordoned off as teams of police, intelligence agencies, bomb disposal squad, civil defence, and doctors arrived at the scene.

Rescue workers said they had removed 37 injured people to nearby hospitals, where two of the injured woman students died. Their colleagues identified them only as Hina and Seher.

A 21-year-old suspect, sporting a light beard and wearing white shalwar kamiz, was arrested from the cafeteria while filming the devastation under the nose of the security personnel.

The man, believed to be an accomplice of the suicide bombers, told police that he lived in a nearby slum. But he had no answer when asked why he was making the video.

Another suspect, said to be in his 20s, was also arrested near the Imam Abu Hanifa Block. He is said to be a resident of Sargodha.

The police said that both of them had failed to come up with convincing explanations about their presence at the scene.

Three other suspects were picked up from a slum in I-11 sector.

Investigators said that the chairman of the Imam Abu Hanifa Block was the attackers’ prime target because he was ‘known for his liberal views’, but he was not present in his office at that time. Interior Minister Rehman Malik faced humiliation for the second time in a week when students compelled him to leave the campus with a hail of stones.

The minister was accompanied by senior officials of the interior ministry and local administration.