Post Red-Mosque-assault protests across Pakistan

[Saddle Bronc 124]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6897060.stm

Mosque protests across Pakistan

Protests have taken place across Pakistan against the government's military operation against radicals in Islamabad's radical Red Mosque.

In the north-western city of Peshawar more than 1,000 protesters vowed to avenge the death of the mosque's deputy leader, Abdul Rashid Ghazi.

A 36-hour assault on the Islamabad mosque left 75 people inside the mosque and 10 soldiers dead, officials say.

For months clerics and students campaigned for Sharia law in the city.

Maulana Yousaf Qureshi, prayer leader at the Peshawar's historic Mahabat Khan mosque, asked the congregation to raise their hands if they wanted to emulate the path of Mr Ghazi, who was killed on Tuesday.

Correspondents say that scores of people did so, while chanting in support of Islam and against President Musharraf.

'Genocide'

Many people offered prayers for those killed in the attack at another hardline mosque in Lahore.

The ceremony was organised by the Jamaat-ud-Dawa organisation - a social welfare organisation linked to the banned Kashmiri militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba - which has been listed by the US as a terrorist organisation.

"This was genocide, hundreds of innocent women and children died," cleric Mohammad Saeed, the head of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa organisation, said.

"This is a challenge for all Muslims and Pakistanis," he told the weekly prayer congregation.

"It is state terrorism, it is extreme brutality and those who killed the innocent will have a horrible fate," he said.

In the capital, hundreds of demonstrators attended a rally organized by Pakistan's main alliance of radical parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal.

"This carnage will prove to be the last nail in the coffin of Musharraf's dictatorial rule in Pakistan," the group's deputy leader Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Hydri told the gathering.

"Now there will be Red Mosques everywhere in Pakistan."

Protests were also held in the southern port city of Karachi.

In another development on Friday, police say they seized three suspected suicide bombers and a car filled with explosives on the outskirts of the north-western town of Dera Ismail Khan.

The main English language Dawn newspaper has reported that the army has started deploying troops in the southern districts of North West Frontier Province in areas adjoining the troubled Waziristan region.

The paper said that the deployment comes amid reports that an operation to curb militancy and extremism was imminent.

On Thursday evening President Pervez Musharraf said he was determined that extremism and terrorism would be eradicated in Pakistan.

He was speaking in a televised address to the nation .

'Madrassa a fortress'

Gen Musharraf praised Pakistan's security forces for freeing the Red Mosque in Islamabad "from the hands of terrorists".

"Unfortunately we have been up against our own people... they had strayed from the right path and become susceptible to terrorism."

"What do we want as a nation want?" President Musharraf asked. "What kind of Islam do these people represent?"

"In the garb of Islamic teaching they have been training for terrorism... they prepared the madrassa as a fortress for war and housed other terrorists in there.

"I will not allow any madrassa to be used for extremism."

Gen Musharraf said those members of the military who died had given their blood for the country.

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Pakistan says many Pakistanis supported the operation, saying the government had no choice but to confront the Islamic extremists.

But, she adds, the authorities fear a violent reaction from other radicals and the country is on high alert.

Notes:

• It's now looking like a much-worse version of "Operation Bluestar":
  • the Sikhs, purported co-religionists of the militants killed in that 1984 operation, make up currently about 1.7% (then 1.95%) of entire India's population and about 53% of Punjab State's population--a narrow majority in 1 of 28 states
    
  • against this, Pakistan has an 80% Sunni Muslim, 16% Shia and 4% other population
    

  [*]Muhamad Saeed's concept of "genocide" is rather quirky, as many of the troops involved in the operation were the same (Muslim Punjabi) as the touts inside who necessitated it; and it is almost certain that had he been of age in 1971, he would have supported "Operation Searchlight" (which was definitely genocidal against Bengalis, particularly Bengali Muslims).

Edited July 13, 2007 by CherryXS

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Suicide blast kills 24 Pakistani soldiers

ISLAMABAD, July 14 (Reuters) A suicide car-bomber killed 24 Pakistani paramilitary soldiers and wounded 29 Saturday in an attack that may be linked to an army assault on a radical mosque in the capital, military spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad said.

The attacker rammed his car into a paramilitary convoy in the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border, 20 km southeast of its main town of Miranshah.

It was the second attack on security forces in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday. Two security officials were wounded in an earlier blast near the town of Bannu in North West Frontier Province.

(First Posted @ 13:12 PST Updated @ 20:10 PST)

[Charuhans 0]

Cherry, I am not sure exactly what you are trying to imply by giving Sikh population statistics in India and linking it with Operation BlueStar. The terrorist movement in Punjab was not supported by majority of the Sikh population. It was nurtured by funds and training from ISI, Pakistan and a voice and funds from some Sikhs living in Canada and UK. Also you somehow forgot to mention that the number of Sikhs in the Indian Armed forces (Military, Air Force and Navy) was almost 50% during those years. Add to that the hefty number of Sikhs in the Central Reserve Police (used extensively in the Punjab during the years of terrorism and it was they that carried out the Operation Black Thunder at the Golden Temple). So the Sikhs had much more power to cause upheaval in the wake of Operation BlueStar had they intended. The major contributing factor to the death of that terrorist movement was lack of any kind of support from the common Sikh people in the Punjab or anywhere else in India. Comparing them to Muslims ….!!!!

I know from your various posts, that you are not just a troll who posts as a way to find way out of the quagmire called life. What I have written is not new to you, in fact you would be well knowing how different the movement in Punjab was in every way from whatever that is there now in Pakistan. Hence, your posts perplex me ….

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Cherry, I am not sure exactly what you are trying to imply by giving Sikh population statistics in India and linking it with Operation BlueStar. The terrorist movement in Punjab was not supported by majority of the Sikh population. It was nurtured by funds and training from ISI, Pakistan and a voice and funds from some Sikhs living in Canada and UK. Also you somehow forgot to mention that the number of Sikhs in the Indian Armed forces (Military, Air Force and Navy) was almost 50% during those years. Add to that the hefty number of Sikhs in the Central Reserve Police (used extensively in the Punjab during the years of terrorism and it was they that carried out the Operation Black Thunder at the Golden Temple). So the Sikhs had much more power to cause upheaval in the wake of Operation BlueStar had they intended. The major contributing factor to the death of that terrorist movement was lack of any kind of support from the common Sikh people in the Punjab or anywhere else in India. Comparing them to Muslims ….!!!!

Only for statistical purposes. I lived in Canada, and know that there were more "Khalistan" supporters in Burnaby and Vancouver than in entire India--and that none of these actually wanted to move to this state from Canada. Beggars the question why they couldn't have just asked for a separate province in Canada, or federal tax support like Quebec (which makes lots of "separation" noise--and note that the "separatists" make a large bloc of Canadian MP's).

BTW, the percentage of Sikhs in armed forces was never anywhere near 50%--since large numbers of Marathas, Kodavas, Rajputs, etc serving--as well as "non-martials" such as Bengalis (first desi Navy and Air Force chiefs--both Bengalis!). Basically, a Bangla colleague's comment on extremism works for comparing Sikhs to Pak Muslims (sub "Sikh" for "Bangla Muslim")

"The Bangla Muslim extremist would be considered moderate among Pakistani Muslims; the equivalent of a Pak Muslim extremist won't be found."

I know from your various posts, that you are not just a troll who posts as a way to find way out of the quagmire called life. What I have written is not new to you, in fact you would be well knowing how different the movement in Punjab was in every way from whatever that is there now in Pakistan. Hence, your posts perplex me ….

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Also, for Charuhans: the Red Mosque operation was like Bluestar only in hasty planning and inoptimal execution, while "Black Thunder" was one that was well-done (such finesse has never been within Pakistani capability; it also may be one of the reasons that K.P.S. Gill was denied a visa in 1996--because his presence would embaress Janet Reno whose Waco operation was much worse planned/executed than "Bluestar").

The case of Muslim extremism: as you pointed out, Zia seeded it due to his hatred of India, and it came back to bite rather quickly to kill Zia (like Robespierre--architect of French "Reign of Terror") and continues to haunt his successors who still tried to channel it elsewhere (Afghanistan's Taliban); of course, Pakistan is the classic case of a country which fails to learn!