People gather around an ambulance carrying the body of Pakistani cleric Maulana Samiul Haq, leaving a hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Friday, Nov. 2, 2018. Haq, who was often called "father of the Taliban," was killed in a knife attack at his home in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Friday, his family and police said. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
People gathered around the ambulance carrying the body of Maulana Samiul Haq as it left leaving a hospital in Rawalpindi. AP

'Father of the Taliban' cleric Maulana Samiul Haq killed



Maulana Samiul Haq, influential religious scholar and cleric popularly known as "Father of the Taliban" was killed on Friday at his residence in Rawalpindi, his family said.

Mr Haq's son Hamidul Haq said his 82-year-old father had been stabbed to death in his home.

"He was alone in the home," Hamidul told journalists. "His security guard had gone out moments before the attack and upon his return the guard saw my father in a serious condition." Mr Haq was then taken to hospital, where he died.

Unknown assailants killed the religious leader, who was active among Afghan Taliban circles and a possible facilitator in talks between the Kabul government and the Taliban, his spokesperson Yousaf Shah said. There are contrary reports that he was also shot.

Mr Haq also taught some of the most important Afghan Islamist movement’s leaders, and was the chief of his own faction of the Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI-S), promoting ‘jihad’ to every section of society. Mr Haq remained an influential figure whose views carry enormous weight among Taliban fighters on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border. At one time, he was running a popular seminary known as the University of Jihad in northwestern Pakistan.

Afghan Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, told The National, the "He will be remembered as a great contributor to Islam and the people of Afghanistan will never forget his role and services for them ... his killers are the enemies of Islam.

Imran Khan, prime minister of Pakistan, expressed condolences for Mr Haq's death. He issued a statement from China, where he is currently on an official visit:

"We lost a great religious scholar and Islamic leader today," he said. Khan had been criticised in the past for financially supporting Mr Haq, including donating funds to the Haqqania seminary when he was head of a provincial government in 2016.

Back in the 1980s, many young Darul Uloom Haqqania graduates swapped books for guns and drove west along the highway running just outside its iron gates towards Afghanistan, where they joined Mujahideen groups to fight against the Russians.

One of them, Mullah Mohammed Omar, later took advantage of the chaos that followed the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 to found the Taliban movement.

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The seminary, founded in 1947, is now one of biggest and most respected Islamic institutions in South Asia. It propagates a hard-line curriculum based on the radical Deobandi strain of Sunni Islam.

Mr Haq repeatedly said that he and his seminary had nothing to do with terrorism. He had even offered to mediate between the United States and militants in order to bring peace to Afghanistan.

A Pakistani military spokesman condemned the killing and expressed grief and condolences to his family, saying "COAS strongly condemns the assassination of renowned religious scholar and political leader Moulana Sami ul Haq. Expresses grief and condolences to the bereaved family. "

Thousands of angry protesters came out on the streets in the northwestern city of Mardan near Haq’s seminary, setting a highway toll station on fire in the wake of the news.

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Ruwais timeline

1971 Abu Dhabi National Oil Company established

1980 Ruwais Housing Complex built, located 10 kilometres away from industrial plants

1982 120,000 bpd capacity Ruwais refinery complex officially inaugurated by the founder of the UAE Sheikh Zayed

1984 Second phase of Ruwais Housing Complex built. Today the 7,000-unit complex houses some 24,000 people.  

1985 The refinery is expanded with the commissioning of a 27,000 b/d hydro cracker complex

2009 Plans announced to build $1.2 billion fertilizer plant in Ruwais, producing urea

2010 Adnoc awards $10bn contracts for expansion of Ruwais refinery, to double capacity from 415,000 bpd

2014 Ruwais 261-outlet shopping mall opens

2014 Production starts at newly expanded Ruwais refinery, providing jet fuel and diesel and allowing the UAE to be self-sufficient for petrol supplies

2014 Etihad Rail begins transportation of sulphur from Shah and Habshan to Ruwais for export

2017 Aldar Academies to operate Adnoc’s schools including in Ruwais from September. Eight schools operate in total within the housing complex.

2018 Adnoc announces plans to invest $3.1 billion on upgrading its Ruwais refinery 

2018 NMC Healthcare selected to manage operations of Ruwais Hospital

2018 Adnoc announces new downstream strategy at event in Abu Dhabi on May 13

Source: The National

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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