Adil Najam
UPDATE: Reports in the Pakistan media suggest that the Lal Masjid leader has finally been arrested while trying to escape wearing a burqa. According to a BBC update:
The leader of a radical mosque besieged by Pakistani security forces in Islamabad has been caught trying to escape wearing a woman’s burqa. Security forces seized Abdul Aziz as he tried to leave the Red Mosque amid a crowd of women… He was wearing a burqa that also covered his eyes,” a security official told the AFP news agency about the cleric’s escape bid. “Our men spotted his unusual demeanour. The rest of the girls looked like girls, but he was taller and had a pot belly.“
ORIGINAL POST: Things are moving fast and the showdown at Lal Masjid, Islamabad that began this morning is now ready to turn into an even more real battle. The day took the lives of at least 10 people, possibly more. These included policemen, soldiers, by-standers, a journalist, and a number of Madrassah students. (For details see our earlier post and update comments on it, here).
The latest – and this keeps changing by the minute – is that in a mid-night press conference the government has given an ultimatum to the management of the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) to surrender. There is no indication that they will. In the past things have always ended with ‘negotiated settlements.’ This time the likelihood of this happening is much less. A curfew has been imposed in the area. Tanks have been called in. So have special forces.
Metroblog Islamabad is doing a wonderful job of keeping abreast with breaking news. It reports, through Dawn TV, that 111 Brigade (Army) from Rawalpindi has already assembled around the mosque. Ambulances have been fully stocked. Hospitals are on alert. An ultimatum for time has been given (3.30 PST… NOW!). The entire area has been cordoned off.
Here is a news clip from ARYOne, broadcast earlier.
In an article written last week for The News, I had argued that inaction was not a solution and because of so many delays and policies of apeasement some confrontation was now becoming inevitable.
This episode [i.e., the Chinese massage parlor case] will further embolden the already violence-prone brigands at the two madressahs and we are likely to see an escalation in their demands as well as their tactics. Meanwhile, the government has once again demonstrated an inability and/or unwillingness to act decisively. The much-cherished ‘writ of the state’ continues to rot in tatters.
This, it seems, is what happened when earlier the Lal Masjid management incited this escalation in response to the government’s build-up of force around the mosque. In that article, I had gone on to argue that:
Just like standing still in the middle of the road at the sight of the blinding lights of a truck speeding towards it does not save the life of the stunned deer, doing nothing about this escalating crisis out of fear that doing anything will only make things worse is not going to help the government, or Pakistan. Something needs to be done, and done fast.
I had called in the article for the government to “act to judiciously dismantle militancy at Lal Masjid.” This situation has to be responded to. But the key word remains “act judiciously.” What is really important is how that action is taken. Further bloodshed should be avoided. At least minimized. One hopes that any action is intelligent action and all steps are taken to minimize loss of life. Not just because one does not wish to create needless ‘martyrs.’ Much more so because all life – and everyone’s life – is precious.
The technologies to undertake low casualty offensives are available. The will and sagacity to do so is needed. The test for the government – acting with force in the very center of the Federal Capital – is not only what it does, but how it does it.
Photo credit: Associated Press, B.K. Bangash.
Tahir,
YIf they cardoned off the area as you “evisioned” it would have deprived a lot of other students (males and females) of their basic needs who are not involved in this whole affair. They are simply poor kids studying at a madrasa.
Bomb the “thugs”, Use “gunships”, Kill them all,…
Are these the ideas coming from Educated circles.
Comments on this forum seem to be more hardline and fundamentalist than the Islamists.
This seems like the American and NATO Agenda for the Taliban, without uderstanding that they are people from the country. They make them seem like another species.
if it were a small group of people then it would have been a different story.
Don’t forget that they are people of your country with different opinions than yours. The reasons for the different opinions need to be understood rather than subduing them with force. Otherwise, the situation in Afghanistan is an example.
Its about time…., that leader of lal masjid has put the lives of innocent brain washed children before himself……
As I had suspected, the opposition has wasted little time in blaming the government for the operation against Lal Masjid. There is no shortage of jokers on either side of the political divide in the land of the pure.
Between the politician and (seemingly) most of the civil society, I don’t know who is totally out to lunch? Hopefully we will find out by the time all this is over.
My guess at the moment is endlessly sequence of sliding dead lines, and equally endless rhetoric from both sides …
How many more innocent people will die just for the sake of trying to legitimise Mr. Musharraf’s inherently illegitimate rule? This whole affair seems orchestrated by ISI to distract people’s attention away from the political imbroglio related to the CJP’s suspension. And of course Musharraf doesn’t want to leave any stone unturned in his mission to convince Uncle Sam of the false choice that, its either Musharraf or the mullahs.
If the governement really wanted to counter the Lal Masjid thugs, it would have completely sealed the outer parameter of this ‘masjid’ and its related ‘jamias’, preventing anyone from entering or leaving. This would have put an immediate end to the occasional moral policing raids into the rest of Islamabad, that these vigilantes make. With their water, food and electricity cut off, most of these thugs (not students) would have come out one by one. The rest could have been left to fast inside. Such an approach would have broken up the ranks of these criminals without creating any martyrs and thus handing them any propaganda material, as has been done today.
But of course Musharraf doesn’t want to shut down the Lal Masjid thugs, he wants to cunningly and recklessly use them to secure his own political position, and if doing so severly hurts Pakistan’s interest and image, that’s just too bad.