President Karzai has asked Mullahs to campaign against the increasing use of turbans for hiding bombs by militants carrying out suicide attacks. Seems like Karzai is tired of repeated requests to his "angry brothers", the term he uses for militants, and now asked the religious elders for this, refraining from a direct personal appeal. Maybe he actually believes these turban bombers are not his "angry brothers" but those unknown "enemies of Afghanistan", another term he uses to refer to unknown militants.

President Karzai has met clerics and religious leaders from several Ulema Councils to discuss the increasing incidents in which suicide bombers have hidden bombs and explosives inside their turbans to attack. Mullahs were asked to launch a campaign against this trend, to stop it becoming a widespread practice by militants.

The last two such incidents were in Taliban birthplace and home province of the President, Kandahar where a couple of weeks ago a suicide attacker hiding bombs in his turban killed Mayor Ghulam Haider. In another attack, a religious elder was killed in the city.

These turban bombers have been very cowardly creative in terror tactics. There is also a rise in use of Burqas by militants in disguise of women avoiding security checks to carry out suicide attacks or escape from arrest. There have been several reports of security forces arresting Burqa-clad militants during last couple of months.

Though the use of Burqa by militants in disguise of women is not new, but hiding bombs and explosives inside turban is a new trend. It might surprise many that the prices of Burqa have gone almost double compared to last year. Is it something related to the increasing use by militants? May be.

President Karzai thinks the militants are giving bad name to Islam by hiding bombs in their turban and using Burqa for attacks. But the irony is that our religious clerics have kept mum on this misuse of the Islamic attire by those so-called and self-declared "Warriors of Allah".

This is extreme show of hypocrisy by our religious leadership, clerics and the conservative society at large who were the first to react against the Danish blasphemous cartoons, but show no concern when the evils happen in their own society.

Now our religious leadership should speak out strongly against the Taliban militants who misuse our culture and traditions to spread terror, otherwise reacting against the Danish cartoonist while keeping quiet on the turban and Burqa bombers will only show their hypocrisy.