Adil Najam
Once again our eyes swell up, our hearts miss a beat, our body shakes in shock and anger, and the banality of mayhem hits us in the gut, as the enemies of Pakistan continue on their killing spree. 23 Pakistanis are dead in Lahore in today’s dastardly attack already. More remain in critical conditions.
We have been here before: here and here and here and here and here here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and it seems everwhere. One cannot bear to count any more. One shudders to think. Just how many Pakistanis will be slaughtered by the beasts who do this before their hatred is satisfied?
According to Dawn:
LAHORE: Gunmen detonated a car bomb near police and intelligence agency offices on Lahore’s Fatima Jinnah road Wednesday, killing 23 people and wounding more than 100, officials said. At least four men with rifles stepped out from the car and opened fire on the intelligence agency building, then set off a massive blast when security guards returned fire, officials said.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik suggested the attack could be retaliation for the government’s military offensive to rout Taliban militants from the northwestern Swat Valley. Wednesday’s attack was the third major strike in Lahore in recent months. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the latest bombing. Police said one suspect was detained.
… The explosion sheared the walls off buildings in a main business district. TV footage showed bleeding bystanders and emergency workers carrying the injured toward ambulances. ‘The moment the blast happened, everything went dark in front of my eyes,’ witness Muhammad Ali said. ‘The way the blast happened, then gunfire, it looked as if there was a battle going on.’ Sajjad Bhutta, a senior government official in Lahore, told reporters that a car carrying several gunmen pulled up in a street between offices of the emergency police and the Inter-Service Intelligence.
‘As some people came out from that vehicle and starting firing at the ISI office, the guards from inside that building returned fire,’ he said. As the firing continued, the car suddenly exploded, he said. The ISI and police buildings were both badly damaged. An AP reporter saw dozens of troops entering the ISI building to supervise the rescue work, while gunshots were heard from inside the building even one hour after the blast. Television footage showed officers dragging a black-shirted man from the scene.
Malik blamed the attack on militants that government forces are fighting in the Swat Valley and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas near Afghanistan. ‘These terrorists were defeated in FATA and Swat and now they have come here,’ he told reporters.
How much of this is related to teh operation going on in FATA and Swat and how much is a continuation of what has been happening month after month and week after week is unclear, but what is very clear is that, as always, Pakistanis die, Pakistanis cry.
I still see some naive folks with questions like “How could they do this to fellow muslims.” I was puzzled with this same question myself, and asked plenty of religious folks about this, and most of them were like, umm, these are not muslims, these are jews, christians, hindus, cats, dogs and aliens from mars, and then I got access to some jihadi literature (its all over the internet) and I was not just shocked but also disgusted but at the same time marveled at their ingeniousness.
They have brought innovation to their religious beliefs where any muslim who disagrees from their view (and these are some very extreme views folks), automatically becomes an infidel an apostate who should be killed with his entire family brutally so the rest of the muslims learns from their fate.
Welcome to the 21st century of Wahibism, which is 10 times more severe, brutal and ruthless to the one introduced in the 19th century.
Do not know what to say. My heart goes out to our brothers in Lahore who have suffered due to this tragic attack. There will probably be more, but I hope Pakistanis will be able to pull together and make it through.
I don’t see any one silver bullet that can significantly improve the security situation in Pakistan. Security forces can not deal with it alone. Citizen participation is absolutely necessary in watch groups to organize, observe, tip off and work with police and military to stop the militants who are engaging in the ongoing killing spree.
As to the hope and expectation that governments such as Pakistan’s will make the necessary efforts by themselves, let me quote some young people in Lahore who recently told the New York Times, “
This is my Lahore, I left it 8 years ago, but not like this. I lived in IBD for a long time while going to med school and I treated people after blasts and such even in 1990’s when I was back home. This is nothing new, this is more intense but not new. We have kept this evil in our land for many years and now its ready to take us with it but we must not stop and think but kill it the way it is trying to kill us. Show no mercy till we wipe them out. I am sick to read what the so called “ulema” are saying…india did it…and should they go hide in shame somewhere when TTP says we did it…but of course no they dont have any shame, since TTP said we did it, now it is being called reaction to using american agenda. They have an answer for everything and a justification for every act. They preach peace on the surface and they teach hate and death undercover..ALL of them. Religion has taken Pakistan hostage…Help me understand…who made mullahs and jamat-e-islami or other religious groups Pakistan’s spokes person….??? The very people who resisted Jinnah and opposed a separate state are now the biggest owners of the same country??? WHY??If we do not over throw all religious parties and raid their madrassas and centers by force they will continue to spew poison.My islam with me, my hell and heaven with me, spare me the shariat and the ignorance You bring with it.Spare me the mere act of memorizing the quran when arabic is not even your first langauage and you dont even understand what the book is saying so why should it matter to me that you know it by heart, and why will it take you to anywhere but hell that you kill people in the name of book and God.Why do I care why you do what you do and why do I want to be a part of your agenda and caveman mentality.Run them over as a nation,wipe them out as a country that cares about her existance and kill them all by finding them any where and every where you can even if it means beating them to death…they do not deserve to live and tell us how to live our lives and how to practice religion. Never forget HE said ” I will forgive that you didnt perform rights for God (haqooq-allah) but I will not forgive you forgoing rights for your fellow human beings (haqooq-ul-ibaad)” he didnt say rights for muslims, he said rights for human beings, God’s people…..so make me understand what haqooq-ul-ibaad killing any human being serves. Sheer and utter ignorance and cruelity cannot be fixed but only eliminated and i hope the country i left 8 years ago, wipes the religious groups out and decides to leave state and religion seperate so people can live with rules and laws and follow their faiths as they want….Do not let them abuse religion and say no to the term Islami nizaam, because they dont know islam and the islam they know, knows nothing about civility and humanity.
I almost never post a comment on here but I read this site regularly but today I have to write
This is for Talib
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/pakistan 802/video/video_index.html
If you can’t watch the video read the synopsis. Every Pakistani should watch this documentry. I hope this website can play this video by getting permission for the region.
Anyone who has any doubts about the face and root of evil needs to be watching this piece of journalism with shock and sheer horror and see the real face of taliban.
I hope people like Talib are very very very few and rare in Pakistan because denial serves no one but the enemy.
I will post more in another post but Talibs comment on page one fumed me to no end….the sheer atrosity and nerve to ask us to “think why they do what they do” I hope no one cares why they do what they do because WE DO NOT CARE…..there is no justification and right reason to do anything like this, so save your philosphy and go somewhere, where we dont have to listen to this ignorant and vile line of thinking….I am angry and I am sure people share my anger…Go AWAY with your reasons and your ISLAM…we do not need it.