Pakistan and Afghanistan Terrorist Leaders
Pakistani military operations in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan have steered clear of North Waziristan, allowing the area to become a haven for militants. Tribal and local intelligence sources say some 15,000 militants shelter in this semiautonomous tribal belt.
PRAY for these 5 persons to be brought to justice and for the dissolving of their networks and operations:
1. Sirajuddin Haqqani
He is head of the Haqqani network and believed to be the main bridge between Al Qaeda, Afghan Taliban, and militant outfits in North Waziristan. Known among jihadis as “Khalifa” and the “soul of Jihad,” Mr. Haqqani has ties to Al Qaeda's Ayman al Zawahiri.
He is the son of commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, a former Taliban minister for tribal affairs. Siraj’s four brothers – Nasiruddin, Badruddin, Khalil, and Ibrahim – are the group's military shura (council). Nasiruddin is believed to have conducted fundraising in Saudi Arab and other Gulf states between 2006 and 2009. Badruddin handles politics, settling disputes between militant outfits. Siraj's youngest brother, Mohammed, was killed in February this year by a US drone strike. The Haqqani network mainly operates along the border with Afghanistan's Khost province.
2. Hafiz Gul Bahadur
Mr. Bahadur is believed to be based between Miramshah and the Afghan border. He hit the headlines when his militia fought against Pakistan’s security forces in 2006-08 and again when he struck peace deals in 2009.
It is reported that each of the nine members of his Shura, or council, commands up to 1,000 local tribesmen, apportioning control of various areas across North Waziristan. Bahadur is honored as a descendant of legendary tribal warrior Fakir of Ippi, who fought against the British rule in the subcontinent. This lineage affords the cleric immense influence, both religiously and politically.
He severed formal ties with the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), but still reportedly provides shelter to its militants.
3. Moulvi Noor Saeed Wazir
Another 3,000 TTP militants operate under the leadership of this local commander known for his ruthlessness. His stronghold is his home region, the Razmak Valley, which links North and South Waziristan. He is reported to be illiterate, and until a few years ago ran a grocery shop.
4. Qari Hussain
Widely considered the deadliest of all commanders, Mr. Hussain is reported to be second in the TTP’s hierarchy, after his cousin Hakim Ullah Mehsud. His expertise lies in producing teenage suicide bombers. He is believed to have trained the Jordanian militant Humam Khalil Muhammad Abu Mulal al Balawi, who blew himself up in Khost, killing seven CIA personnel last December.
5. Ilyas Kashmiri
The notorious Kashmiri leads a militia of around 3,000 men. He is operations chief of Harakat-ul Jihad Islami, a group the US government classifies as a terror organization with ties to Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Punjabi Taliban. He is accused of being behind the 2009 suicide attack on Pakistan’s spy agency in Peshawar. He's also accused of carrying out attacks against senior military officials and cross-border attacks against US forces.
Pray North Africa
I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Matthew 16:18
A worker in North Africa writes:
“A couple of weeks ago, the group in my city met to pray. I forgot I was supposed to prepare something for the group, so we decided to sit and ask the Lord what he wanted us to pray for. We heard, ‘prayers of hope’, ‘delighting and resting in God’ - and I had a picture of a wheat field ripe for harvest, and there was a heavy wind blowing off the heads of grain, but some were clinging on. We again asked the Lord how we should use this to pray, and very clearly two out of three of us heard prayer for the local church. So we used these words and images to pray powerfully for the local church. Perhaps you all can, too!”
“Soon after this prayer time, I met with a local believer. Right now, she is the only one we are meeting with in our city regularly who is really thirsty for the Truth. We pray regularly for more like her and that she would have a local body…this was included in our prayers that day. Well, when I met with her, she told me that recently she had had a dream (she often has spiritually significant dreams). She was in the desert with no one around, and off in the distance, she saw a palm tree. She walked the long distance to the tree, and she was very tired; then she noticed a small hole in the sand under the tree. She started to dig and clear away the sand around this hole to see what was under the ground and came to a glass ceiling under the Sertraline sands, and she was so happy. We prayed together this would be. It still hasn’t come to be, but we continue to pray. We ask for the Holy Spirit to keep moving in our land. And we ask for the remembrance of this special dream to keep hope and faith alive!”
Praying for North Africa:
• As God to build His church in North Africa!
• Pray for those who are isolated believers to be encouraged, to meet with God on their own and to grow in their faith. Pray that God would bring isolated believers together.
• Pray for house churches to be planted and to grow in number and maturity.
• Pray that believers would over come fear and be willing to meet together. Pray that secret believers will have courage to declare their faith and be able to meet with others.
• Pray for national leaders for the house churches. Pray for these leaders to grow in knowledge and understanding, that they would have a passion for the Word. Pray that they would develop intimate quiet times with the Lord and that they would hear His voice and know His leading and wisdom.
• Pray for good discipling to take place. For older believers to mentor younger believers with wisdom and love. For workers to disciple and mentor nationals with humility and servant hearts. For more Bible training to be made available. For good teaching materials to be made available in the local dialects.
• Pray for an increased boldness and heart for evangelism so that North Africans will take more and more responsibility for reaching their own nations.
Sudan: Desperate Situation in the Nuba Mountains…Children Dying
Please see this disturbing message from Juba on the situation in the Nuba Mountains. Right now many people, including children, are facing a life/death situation. Norman Johnson who leads a prayer network for Sudan writes: “May we be moved by the love of Christ to compassion for these people. Please lift them to the Father’s throne of grace and for an outcome for the situation in the Sudan. Pray for the fulfilling of God’s destiny with the nations of Sudan/South Sudan.” He has included this letter from a ministry leader inside Sudan who describes the current conflict and suffering of the people:
Dear Norman,
I have seen what happens when the world turns its back and looks the other way. For 20 years, I have worked in Sudan, helping its people struggle through the horrors of starvation and murderous attacks. During Sudan’s civil war, the people in the south were being butchered. Shocking, it took the deaths of more than 2 million before the world finally called it genocide.
When President George W. Bush came to office, he didn’t look the other way. Instead, he engaged all parties and forced them to sit down to negotiate what we hoped would be an end to the violence. Those discussions resulted in the agreement that led to the independence of South Sudan.
I was in President Omar al-Bashir’s office on the day the International Criminal Court indicted him for war crimes. I pleaded with Mr. Bashir to continue the peace process, explaining that although he could not change what he had done in the past, he could set a new course for his people by working for a lasting peace. Two years later, on July 9, 2011, I was in Juba sitting behind Mr. Bashir as he gave a speech during the Republic of South Sudan’s independence ceremonies. He spoke of peace, but within days, he began to attack his own people in South Kordofan and the upper Blue Nile.
Last week, I traveled to South Kordofan where 800,000 people slowly are being annihilated, victims of ethnic cleansing. According to Mr. Bashir, their only crime is that they are black and they won’t bow to his radical Islamic government. For the past nine months, the world has largely looked the other way with this humanitarian crisis.
The situation is desperate. I personally saw children starving to death last week while in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains. All they had to eat were insects, leaves from thorn bushes, roots and tree bark. It is only going to get worse.”
Please pray for an end to the conflict that restarted after some years of peace and the partition of Sudan into two nations. May healing and reconciliation come to these two nations that have so many reasons to cooperate for the betterment of both.
Indonesia: ’What happens now?’
Stadiums full, hundreds of thousands from all denominations, countries and generations gathering, millions tuning in – this was the biggest prayer meeting the world had ever seen. So, three weeks after the World Prayer Assembly in Indonesia the question is ‘What happens now?’ A founding visionary behind the first International Prayer Gathering in Seoul, South Korea in 1984 said that if history is anything to go by ‘What happens now could change ‘mission’ as we know it. ’At the 1984 Assembly there were 7,000 delegates from 70 countries with almost 300,000 Koreans in the large prayer gatherings. It was life-changing and birthed what we know as the modern prayer movement. The Korean church came alive to missions and out of it they began to pray and 10,000 missionaries were sent out over the next 20 years all over the world. You will not find a nation on earth today where there’s not a Korean missionary.’ So - what happens now?
Pray: for many to partner with them in prayer as they move forward in the momentum of the World Prayer Assembly. (Hab.2:14)
More: http://www.24-7prayer.com/features/1787
