Re: after bb: can musharraf be next? and then what?
I urge you to read my post again if you have not understood it. I replied to the nostalgic chips on your shoulder: if we did not do anything then why should we do now. What a remorseful or pitiful thing to say.
Are you now saying that sectarian strife was only a post Taliban phenomena in Pakistan? or do you claim that it was Alqaeda doing sectarian strifei n Pakistan or it was people from FATA or Afghans?
Sectarian violence in Pakistan is not a new thing and Pakistan didn’t need Taliban for that. It was a problem long before, just as it has been in India, Iraq and Syria and Lebanon. Very unfortunate. But it was an internal problem. Done by Pakistanis to each other. True they did find sanctuary in Afghanistan or among Kashmiri freedom fighters, maybe even by Iran and India at times with full knowledge of ISI. And KUDOS to the SHarif’s for identifying the menace. But it was a regional menace with regional juxtaposition and regional history and politics. Not much if anything to do with 9/11 or internatinal Jehadi or this mantra of Al-Qaeda the super duper esoteric cabal which this yenta of a dictator tries to harp to please his masters. Here:
THIS time the sectarian hydra struck in the Pakistani capital, well, almost. The target was a Shia mosque in Rawalpindi. At least nine Shia Muslims were killed in February when unidentified gunmen opened fire at worshippers offering their dusk-time prayers at the Al Najaf mosque, in a locality of the garrison town that borders Islamabad. While the police have started investigations, officials have not ruled out the involvement of foreign hands. What foreign hands? An honest answer can lead to information that might be officially unsavoury or, more plainly, harmful to Pakistan’s “brotherly” relations with other states. The foreign hands are India’s, therefore.
Their Pakistani counterparts also began to use the well-equipped facilities to train their cadres to fight in Kashmir. Pakistani groups with sectarian leanings, mainly from the majority Sunni sect, also groomed their die-hard elements there. For hot-headed Sunni activists, mainly from the southern regions of Pakistan’s central Punjab province, the training facilities in Afghanistan were a lure. The fact that Pakistanis suspected of involvement in sectarian killings were finding a welcome sanctuary in Afghanistan was in effect recognised when Islamabad made efforts to make the Taliban - which it helped create - expel its nationals. That it never happened is another story. That is the story of Afghanistan’s perceived share in the rise of sectarianism in Pakistan. The Sunni side of the problem, that is.
** The Shias are said to have got inspiration from the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran, a country where the adherents of the sect constitute an overwhelming majority. The rise of Shia fundamentalist clerics to power in Iran is believed to have given a new consciousness to the followers of the sect in Pakistan. A sort of revivalism and a source to draw strength from, for the Pakistani Shias. The extremist Sunnis and their Shia counterparts - that small minority on either side said to be responsible for the deadly violence in Pakistan - are believed to thrive on the financial largesse from the Arab monarchies in the Gulf and Iran respectively.**
** Musharraf banned several Shia and Sunni groups, among them the Sipah-e-Sahaba and the Laskhar-e-Jhangvi of the Sunnis and the Sipah-e-Mohammad and Tehrik-e-Jafria Pakistan of the Shias**
** Dawn newspaper, with its headquarters in Karachi, which is a city that is most prone to sectarian slayings and which saw a renewed spurt of communal violence in recent weeks, writes in a scathing editorial.**
** They claimed to have killed three activists from the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni militant group, in a shootout in the southern part of the Punjab province. But, of late, the police are increasingly being accused of faking encounters to finish off suspects in “extra-judicial killings”,**