Pakistani minister urges al Qaeda, Taliban to kill filmmaker

Pakistan’s Minister for Railways, Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, placed a $100,000 bounty on a filmmaker who made a controversial D “movie” that insults the Prophet Mohammed, and urged al Qaeda and the Taliban to kill him. From Dawn:

A Pakistani federal minister has announced a bounty of $100,000 on the maker of the American film “Innocence of Muslims” disrespecting the Holy Prophet (PBUH), DawnNews reported.

Speaking here at a press conference on Saturday, the Federal Minister for Railways Ghulam Ahmed Bilour said that he was aware that it was a crime to instigate the people for murder, but he was ready to commit the crime. He added that there was no way to instill fear among blasphemers other than taking this step.

The minister also called on members of the Taliban and al Qaeda for their support, saying that if members of the banned militant organisations kill the maker of the blasphemous movie, they will also be rewarded.

This type of behavior from senior Pakistani officials shouldn’t shock anyone. In November 2010, Maulana Attaur Rehman, Pakistan’s Tourism Minister, said that the Taliban “are the true followers of Islamic ideology and America is the biggest terrorist of the world.” And, immediately after the Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out the terror assault on the city of Mumbai in November 2008, a Pakistani Army corps commander called Taliban leaders Baitullah Mehsud and Mullah Fazlullah “patriots” during a briefing with senior Pakistani journalists.

This is also the same country where, in 2011, lawyers showered the assassin of the governor of Punjab (he was killed for opposing Pakistan’s revolting blasphemy laws) with rose petals. At the same time, Barelvi clerics, who are often upheld as the caretakers of Pakistan’s moderate Muslims, said the murderer acted with “courage, bravery and religious honor and integrity,” and warned other Pakistani politicians against opposing the blasphemy law.

Also in 2011, Pakistan’s lawyers gathered to chant “Go, America go,” and “Osama bin Laden is our hero” after the al Qaeda leader was killed by US special operations forces in Abbottabad.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

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11 Comments

  • sanman says:

    This bounty put on the head of an American citizen is being paid for by US taxpayer dollars which go to Pakistan to shore up that failing country. The fault for this travesty is as much with the USA as it is with that dark cesspool called Pakistan. Cesspools should be allowed to collapse from their own weaknesses, yet the US chooses to preserve Pakistan and allow its cancer to build and grow. Washington thinks it can manage the situation, like riding the tiger. But as the swelling mobs across the Muslim world show, when you ride the tiger you’re only going to reap a whirlwind.

  • Port Blair says:

    It is time to eradicate the entire top leadership of
    the “land of the pure”.
    These jokers would have even killed Jinnah as he was a Ismaili Khwaja who had to have his whiskey every night in Bombay. The US needs to stage massed airstrikes to eliminate half the population of Quetta ,
    Waziristan and Peshawar. The very existence of “land of the pure” is a threat of the rest of us in Asia. Impose massive economic embargo on Pakistan.

  • What kind of a country Pakistan was (even before the massive Islamization process that started during the Zia ul-Haq’s regime in the late 1970s) is exemplified by this statistic:
    When Pakistan was created in 1947 from British India, over 20 percent of its population consisted of Hindus and Sikhs, within the next few years, a massive campaign was launched against them by the “sufi” Islamic institutions, leading to their reduction in population percentage to less than 5 percent or so.
    Most of these “infidels” were either killed or expelled to India, and the remaining few were forced to convert to Islam.
    Mind you, by most accounts, the Islam practiced in Pakistan these days is far less moderate.
    This process of conquest was to repeat in EVERY Muslim majority region of South Asia, in Bangladesh and Kashmir.
    Defeating political Islam has now become an existential imperative.

  • Paul D says:

    We are fighting Pakistan in Afghanistan.

  • naresh c. says:

    This shows that the premise of the movie was correct – Islam is intolerant and Muhammad and his followers were violent people. If anyone had any doubt that Muhammad was violent, then they only need to look at his followers on yaum e ishq e rasool in Pakistan. At least, a dozen people were killed in mindless violence in the name of a violent man.

  • Nic says:

    “This type of behavior from senior Pakistani officials shouldn’t shock anyone.” Boycott all goods made in Pakistan. Doing so will deprive Pakistan of three billion dollars (US) per year. Tell Pakistan, in vulgar terms, that “payback is a bitch.”

  • gb says:

    This is yet another example of state sponsored terrorism. What a hypocrisy, for the U.S. to turn a blind eye for the sake of political expediency. These savages want nothing less than to force thier religion down the worlds throat, and to turn the clocks back a thousand years. Apeasment allows them time and they are a patient religion.

  • Abdul Hadi Mayar says:

    Such an irresponsible statement by a minister and senior politician – belonging to a self-proclaimed liberal democratic party – is highly condemnable. My analysis is that it was an election stunt of the minister to attract religious vote in the upcoming general election. But whatever the objective might be, this Khomeini-style verdict-giving is condemnable – at least.

  • mike merlo says:

    Pictures of the Pakistani PM urging the murder of the film maker look like the mad Thugee leader from Gunga Din

  • ='.'= ='.'= ='.'= says:

    yea pakistan thats what im talkin bout you got this… railway person… yea im with pakistan all the way….. innocence of muslims shouldnt have came out and it did so they should delete it or something….. and yea when kate the duchess od cambridges pictures came out when she was in what paris?? but the whole uk freaked out…. this is a prophet of islam… yea when its about islam people get all like whatever…. and the US Consitution says freedom of religion that doesnt mean you joke about someone elses religion…. im with pakistan all the way!!!

  • Don_5th Marines (USA) says:

    As a Marine who fought in Vietnam and was wounded/disabled in that war it simply amazes me that the errors we made then are being repeated once again. Our leaders did not have the intelligence to study them and learn from them; it’s like they didn’t even bother to read the books. We pour money down an Afghan/Pakistan drain when we should triple the number of troops we have deployed and fight in the manner of Bedford Forrest, Stonewall Jackson and George Patton. We should also reinstitute the draft instead of relying on multiple deployments. If it’s a war, everyone should fight. The money being tossed to Pakistan should cease, since they’re just fooling around, and American Marines & soldiers must invade the sheltered areas and the number of drones should be tripled as well – enough of the politics.
    Put me or someone like me in command and I’ll end the war within a year. Let the politicians play their games, and let real warriors do what needs to be done. Like I said, within a year the Taliban and al-Quaida will just be memories.

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