Adil Najam
As the mosque formerly known as Lal Masjid was opened for Friday prayers again, things moved back towards mayhem. A major blast - possibly a suicide attack - rocked Islamabad right near the mosque, protesters went wild triggering police response, multiple people have been killed and the attempt to bring the Capital back to normalcy was again scuttled by extremists.
New reports suggest that as many as 12 15 have already died and the number is expected to rise. According to a recent AP report:
Hundreds of religious students clashed with police and occupied Islamabad’s Red Mosque during its reopening Friday, demanding the return of a pro-Taliban cleric two weeks after an army raid to oust Islamic militants from the complex left more than 100 people dead. Pakistani religious students watch as a colleague paints a wall of the Red Mosque in Islamabad.
A large explosion went off in a market area about a quarter-mile from the mosque, and local media reported several people had died. Police say four people were killed and 30 wounded. On a road outside the mosque, protesters threw stones at an armored personnel carrier and dozens of police in riot gear. After the demonstrators disregarded calls to disperse peacefully, police fired tear gas, scattering the crowd. Earlier, security forces stood by as protesters clambered onto the roof of the mosque and daubed red paint on the walls after forcing a government-appointed cleric assigned to lead prayers to retreat.
The protesters demanded the return of the mosque’s pro-Taliban former chief cleric, Abdul Aziz — who is being detained by the government — and shouted slogans against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Later, a cleric from a seminary associated with the mosque led the prayers. “Musharraf is a dog! He is worse than a dog! He should resign!” students shouted. Some lingered over the ruins of a neighboring girls’ seminary that was demolished by authorities this week. Militants had used the seminary to resist government forces involved in the siege.
Friday’s reopening was meant to help cool anger over the siege, which triggered a flare-up in militant attacks on security forces across Pakistan. Public skepticism still runs high over the government’s accounting of how many people died in the siege, with many still claiming a large number of children and religious students were among the dead. The government says the overwhelming majority were militants. The mosque’s clerics had used thousands of its students in an aggressive campaign to impose Taliban-style Islamic law in the capital. The campaign, which included kidnapping alleged Chinese prostitutes and threatening suicide attacks to defend the fortified mosque, raised concern about the spread of Islamic extremism in Pakistan.
Militants holed up in the mosque compound for a week before government troops launched their assault on July 10, leaving it pocked with bullet holes and damaged by explosions. At least 102 people were killed in the violence. In an act of defiance to authorities’ repainting of the mosque this week in pale yellow, protesters wrote “Lal Masjid” or “Red Mosque” in large Urdu script on the dome of the mosque. They also hoisted a black flag with two crossed swords — meant to symbolize jihad, or holy war.
The crowd shouted support for the mosque’s former deputy cleric, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, who led the siege until he was shot and killed by security forces after refusing to surrender. Ghazi was the public face of a vigilante, Islamic anti-vice campaign that had challenged the government’s writ in the Pakistani capital. “Ghazi, your blood will lead to a revolution,” the protesters chanted. Police stood by on the street outside the mosque, but did not enter the courtyard where the demonstration was taking place.
Islamabad commissioner Khalid Pervez said police forces did not want to go inside the mosque in case it led to a clash with protesters, but maintained the situation was under control. He said the reaction of Aziz’s supporters was understandable and predicted things would calm down. Over mosque loudspeakers, protesters vowed to “take revenge for the blood of martyrs.” In a speech at the mosque’s main entrance, Liaqat Baloch, deputy leader of a coalition of hard-line religious parties, the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, condemned Musharraf as a “killer” and declared there would be an Islamic revolution in Pakistan.
“Maulana Abdul Aziz is still the prayer leader of the mosque. The blood of martyrs will bear fruit. This struggle will reach its destination of an Islamic revolution. Musharraf is a killer of the constitution. He’s a killer of male and female students. The entire world will see him hang,” Baloch said. Pakistan’s Geo television showed scenes of pandemonium inside the mosque, with dozens of young men in traditional Islamic clothing and prayers caps shouting angrily and punching the air with their hands. Officials were pushed and shoved by men in the crowd. One man picked up shoes left outside the mosque door and hurled them at news crews recording the scene.
Maulana Ashfaq Ahmed, a senior cleric from another mosque in the city who was assigned by the government to lead the prayers, was quickly escorted from the complex, as protesters waved angry gestures at him. Wahajat Aziz, a government worker who was among the protesters, said officials were too hasty in reopening the mosque. “They brought an imam that people had opposed in the past,” he said. “This created tension in the environment. People’s emotions have not cooled down yet.” Security was tightened in Islamabad ahead of the mosque’s reopening, with extra police taking up posts around the city and airport-style metal detectors put in place at the mosque entrance used to screen worshipers for weapons.
Pictures from BBC.
I agreewith ToryAlai. I think whole world should press pakistani to help us to get rid of fanatics and jihadis. No matter who is running the show will bow to world.
The Rand Robots and their Muslim Neo-Cons (chumchas) are implementing their strategy of a “civil war” in Pakistan. According to the terminology used by Shahbaz, the “gora” pundit – the Economist of UK writes:
Politics by other means:
Gen Musharraf cities the extremist threat to justify staying on as Pakistan’s president in uniform. The White House [Uncle Sam] falls for it.
ELECTIONS loom and Pakistan’s president General Pervez Musharraf, has chosen his campaign strategy: WAR. He also revealed that when his term of office expires in October, he will seek re-election [from the present assemblies] without stepping down as army chief.
More and more Pakistanis seem disenchanted with General Musharraf, now in power for eight years. His critics feel vindicated. They had predicted that he would use the violence to justify extending military rule. [Many Pakistan Observers] went further, suggesting he had engineered the showdown [civil war] for just this reason.
The general’s robust declaration will have been music to the ears of his American backers [Uncle Sam].
[The bomb blasts/suicide attacks] achievement was to throw the country into greater disarray [civil war].
——————-
Dusting off Cold-War tactics, the US administration has adopted a modified strategy to influence not only Muslim societies but also Islam itself, a leading US magazine has reported. From military psychological-operations teams and CIA covert operatives to openly funded media and think tanks, Washington is spending tens of millions of dollars to get the job done properly. As it did during the Cold War, the US administration has fielded a worldwide network of propagandists, publicists, and payoff artists.
The US-weekly cited reports that US officials have peddled fake video news reports and paid columnists to boost the strategies of think tanks (like the Rand Corp).
“That’s how we’re thinking… It’s something we talk about all the time,” Peter Rodman, the Pentagon’s assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, told the weekly.
“In those days, it was covert. Now, it’s more open.” An administration official admitted that the current ideological war was more difficult than the Cold War. “The Cold War was easy. It was a struggle against a godless political ideology. But this has theological elements,” he said. “It goes to the core of American belief that we don’t mess with freedom of religion. Do we have any authority to influence this debate?” he asked. “You do it quietly,” answered Zeyno Baran.
Politicized Aid
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) features high on the strategy. Records reveal that several projects were funded by the US aid in as many as 24 Muslim countries. Also being funded: media of all sorts, from book translations to radio and TV in at least a half-dozen nations.
[It is after all] politics by other means – Made-in-USA!
Dear Pakistani secularists and progressives,
As someone who lives in the U.S., and is watching the events in Pakistan with concern, I am frustrated by the lack of accurate information in the mainstream media. We hear only about religious fanaticism, but very little about pro-democracy, secular and progressive movements in Pakistan. These questions are primarly directed to folks currently living in Pakistan (although those who are abroad might have some answers too).
I would like to know what kinds of efforts are being made at the grassroots by secular, progressive forces in Pakistan to stand up against the extremists and/or against the dictatorship.
* Are there secular street mobilizations or demonstrations going on?
* Are there pro-democracy, pro-secular and movements?
* How large are these movements?
* Who/what organizations or groups are involved in them?
* Are there websites, blogs, newspaper articles, listserves, etc. that people like myself can go to if they want to find out more about such movements?
Please post your thoughts, suggestions, comments at my blog: http://tinyurl.com/yw2uen
Thank you!!
I agree with ToryAlai. I think whole world should press pakistan to help us to get rid of fanatics and jihadis. No matter who is running the show will bow to world.
The law and order situation in the country has worsened to an extent that it can easily be manipulated by the external enemies as well. In the current scenario no one can be exact as to who is envolved in which incident, hence prevails chaos and confusion. This certainly is a period when Pakistan is gripped by the worst crisis of law and order, the most obvious reason of all this gloom could well be the power tactics of the current regime. The restoration of the Chief Justice could be seen as a glimmer of hope to monitor and check the policies of Mr. Musharraf especially when he is seizing him up to prolong his unjustifiable regime by buying the loyalties of our world famous political turn coats for the next term of five years. There is this common feeling that things can change for better if Musharraf decides to step back, annouces a caretaker government and ensures not to indulge in the Pakistani politics in the future.
@Adnan
The report is an obvious fake, but you will only want to see what you want to see. So much easier to blame an international conspiracy than look for causes within, isn’t it? These “theories” do absolutely nothing to help solve our problems, if anything they only make the ignorant more ignorant and keep us from dealing with the real problems in our society.
Terrible, what is happening to this pak watan?, I am growing more and more despondent by the day. Why cant we work together peacefully. Someone said why do the mullahs not issue a fatwa, the answer is that they too are complicit in this evil.
How can anyone justify the furore and rash behaviour inside Lal Masjid, we must ask if that Masjid is no longer the house of ALLAH or is it now only the private fiefdom of Messrs Aziz and Ghazi (the former already burning in hell I hope!).
We can build a better Pakistan, see http://www.otherpakistan.org
Feimanallah
Wasim
I read in news that US is going to link its future aid to Pakistan to the efforts/progress Pakistan will make in combatting terrorism/exremism.
To Americans I would say for the first time your thinking with rationality. The US was responsible for creating Mujahideen and other successive extremist organisation in the Afghan war, now they should force Pakisatn to allocate more on the provision of education, to limit the numbers of madressahs and close the factories that only produce hateful mullahs and their taalibs who for the sake of 70 virgins in the paradise kill innocent people on the real and tangible earth!
So US you need to do more to rid us of these fanatics!