It’s great to see a leading Pakistani paper take such a clear stance, urging the govt to pursue religious fanatics everywhere. Also, that these mullah madmen only have minority support in parts of Pakistan.
THE government now has no choice but to relentlessly pursue the religious fanatics who have become a threat to the state and society. Besides the soldiers killed in the line of duty, the Lal Masjid crackdown resulted in the death of many innocent men, women and children. But the Aziz-Ghazi duo had left the government with no other option. The only regret is that an operation that should have been carried out in January, when the Hafsa girls occupied the children’s library, took place in July. This six-month gap was utilised by the militants holed up in the mosque to strengthen their position and convey their perverted philosophy to the people through the media. Let not the same mistake be repeated, for what is going on in Fata and the NWFP calls for an immediate and firm response. Incidents such as Saturday’s suicide attack in North Waziristan that killed at least 18 soldiers cannot be tolerated. The reaction among sections of tribesmen in Bajaur, Battagram and Swat does not reflect the consensus in Pakistan on the Lal Masjid stand-off. Many people have criticised the mistakes made by the intelligence agencies and security forces before and during the operation and regretted the loss of innocent lives. But by and large there is unanimity on the despicable methods adopted by the two brothers to blackmail the nation and the government.
In the NWFP, too, the reaction to the entire episode has by and large been positive, but sections of tribesmen under the Taliban influence have vowed revenge. Their fanaticism is evident from the fact that they do not really care who gets killed or injured or maimed. Their quarrel is with the government, but they would not mind killing innocent people when their suicide bombers blow themselves up in public places. Those who want to enforce Sharia at gunpoint deserve to be tackled with the full force of the state. Their violence and the coverage they get in the media may give an impression that they are about to take over Pakistan; actually, they are in a small minority. As the Lal Masjid affair shows, no religious scholar or madressah management has approved of the criminality perpetrated by the two brothers. Barring the MMA, which is a political alliance that misses no opportunity to flay the government, most ulema have either criticised the Lal Masjid leadership or stayed aloof. No one of any consequence has supported the Lal Masjid clerics.
What we are witnessing in parts of the Frontier is merely a continuation of the anti-government movement launched by pro-Taliban tribesmen since the American attack on Afghanistan and Islamabad’s decision to join the war on terror. The Lal Masjid affair has come in handy for them. While talks and tact must be part of the strategy to pacify the area, the fanatics led by clerics should be told that force will be met with force, and they will be responsible for the loss of innocent lives. They must be told bluntly that Sharia cannot be imposed through force, and the people of Pakistan will resist any such attempt. Unfortunately, the acute differences between the government and the opposition have emboldened the militants. While the government, in a show of unilateralism, tried to go it alone, the opposition parties seemed more interested in the London conference than in making sincere efforts to end the Lal Masjid stand-off and save lives.
Re: Govt MUST pursue Religious Fanatics everywhere - DAWN editorial
The people are turning against the extremist mullahs all ov er the country, and this is the chance as never before for the government to hunt these killers down. In NWFP the suicide bombers are largely killing Pahstun soldiers, policemen and civilians, which will fast turn the people of that province against these butchers.
The killing of at least 15 security personnel in a suicide attackg in North Waziristan is proof that Friday’s dispatch of troops to the NWFP didn’t come a day too soon. The fanning out of thousands of soldiers into different parts of the province itself appears to be a sign that President Musharraf intends to keep the pledge he made in his address to the nation on Thursday, to hunt down religious extremists in “every corner” of the country. The soldiers who died on Saturday when a suicide-killer rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into their convoy near Miran Shah in North Waziristan were clearly taken unawares, despite all the preparation and intelligence that must have gone into their venture into the area.
The unforeseen killing is a foretaste of what lies ahead in the inherently complex battle against religious militancy and terrorism. Since it’s a “jihad” the extremists have launched to avenge the Lal Masjid storming, they have the advantage of suicidal fanaticism besides their training and the modern weaponry and equipment they are known to possess. In addition, the militants, who don’t seem to have been discouraged by the Lal Masjid showdown, have given a deadline for today for the removal of all military checkpoints from North Waziristan. They consider the checkpoints to be in violation of a peace deal the government concluded with the Agency’s tribal elders in 2005. It’s another matter that their unceasing attacks on Army and Frontier Constabulary troops themselves violate the deal.
At this stage, the security forces are focusing on the Swat Valley, where they have sealed the important town of Kanju. Swat is the NWFP’s growing hotspot. On the very day General Musharraf addressed the nation, a suicide car bombing killed three policemen there, ahead of the “day of protest” the extremist elements had announced for Friday. The terrorism is believed to be the first-ever suicide attack in the pristine valley. Swat is an example of another complication the government faces in its struggle against fanaticism. Of the numerous illegal FM radio stations spewing fanatical poison in the province – at least 25 of them – the one being run by Maulana Fazlullah is the most influential and virulent. The young cleric is heading the Tehrik Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) while the organisation’s “amr,” Maulana Sufi Mohammad, his father-in-law, is in prison. All through the Lal Masjid operation, Fazlullah called upon his followers to prepare for “jihad,” and bear weapons in public as evidence of their dedication. The Maulana had signed a peace deal with the local administration only recently.
President Musharraf’s battle against fanaticism will be half a battle f it is confined to military operations alone. He has pledged yet again to “uproot” religious extremism and militancy from the country. It remains to be seen if he will take the effort to the grassroots, the madrassa where so much of the fanaticism originates, and if he will deal with the innumerable manifestations of fanaticism in society.
EDITORIAL: Bite the bullet](http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\07\15\story_15-7-2007_pg3_1)
Even as President General Pervez Musharraf told a high-level meeting in Islamabad that extremism had to be fought on all fronts, and asked the federal and provincial governments to take tough action against madrassas which are potential Lal Masjids, the clerics and their zealots were out in the streets of all the cities of Pakistan, challenging him to match word with deed. Coupled with this is the fact that 35 people have died at the hands of extremists, many of them soldiers of the Pakistan army and local administration, in the tribal and northern areas of the country since July 3 when the siege of Lal Masjid was ordered and the extremists vowed revenge. Yesterday another eight soldiers were killed when a car loaded with explosives rammed into an army convoy in North Waziristan. Thus, even as troops are being deployed in Swat and the Northern Areas, there is more alarming live coverage on TV channels of bearded zealots shouting defiance.
Clearly, the clergy doesn’t care if its allegations against the government have been refuted by concrete proof to the contrary. For instance, the Wafaq had asserted that there were never any foreigners in Lal Masjid. But this has been falsified by Maulana Ghazi’s recorded conversation. That is why the clergy thinks this is the right time to give the big push to a government and topple it. Unfortunately, in this state of confrontation, the conservative ruling PML leaders are still dreaming of a perfect world where the clerics will live at peace with them and save them from the evil of “liberalism”.
But it is not just the PMLQ that is at fault. There are others in the Opposition too who wittingly or unwittingly tend to prop up the rampant clergy. For instance, there are some small secular parties that have embraced an anarchism of sorts in their campaign to use the clergy as a battering ram against the government. In the same fashion, the PMLN has once again responded to its “IJI” reflexes — when the army had got it together with the clergy to rule Pakistan not so long ago — and found comfort in playing footsie with the zealots in the country. Then there is the whole community of well-meaning lawyers who are fighting for justice but also unwittingly forming a kind of common pool where every anarchist or mullah is welcome to wash his hands. One of their leaders has actually declared that if the Supreme Court doesn’t reinstate the fired chief justice he will burn the Supreme Court down! This is the sort of statement one expects from an anarchist but not from the leader of a pro-justice or pro-democracy movement.
Strangely, the word of caution about the lethality of religious terror has come from a non-incumbent party, the PPP, whose leader Ms Benazir Bhutto is grateful that the historical link between religion, terror and the state has finally been broken at Lal Masjid. She said on Friday, “It is the end of ambiguous policies towards terrorism which in past encouraged the militants”.
In short, it is now clear that the political parties have not yet made up their minds about how they will be able to rule Pakistan with its seminaries full of potential suicide-bombers. Significantly, it is ironic that even President Musharraf is not yet willing to say that he will remove the complex of illegal madrassas in the heart of Islamabad. He is still thinking of giving the area to the Wafaqul Madaris, the same Wafaqul Madaris which is baying for his blood in the streets of the country. Anywhere else, the government would have lost no time in saying that the “liberated” area would be returned to other institutions of community interest.
It is time to bite the bullet. Some strength can be gained from the fact that the entire Islamic world is faced with the same challenge. From Morocco to Indonesia, the governments are deciding in favour of curbing the clerical dominance they had earlier allowed. The policy of filling the political space with religion in order to dull the appeal of the militant religious organisations has borne bitter fruit in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. If Saudi Arabia helped the bigoted clergy through moral policing, Malaysia, often mistakenly considered a liberal state, is playing havoc with the Muslim community through its moral police which is raiding homes at night to see if the residents are keeping alcohol in their cupboards.
The politicians and intellectuals who think of “here and now” and do not meditate over whether democracy under them will work have to give up their nihilism to take a close look at what is happening in the country. They will gain nothing from denying that there is real trouble in Waziristan. A former chief secretary of the NWFP has recently written as follows about South Waziristan: “Taxes are collected from the following assets: houses, cars, buses, trucks, petrol pumps, shops, water mills, dispensaries, etc. Anyone who has a dispute can deposit a fixed sum of money in the Taliban office. Notices are served, adjudicators are appointed as a Jirga; they give decisions, which are stamped by the local Taliban head and enforced. The Taliban have vehicles and paid security personnel to ensure law and order. They check the roads and ensure order”.
The state has to be saved from collapse and reformed; and the political parties have to form a consensus — in addition to the consensus against President Musharraf — against the forces of chaos let loose in Pakistan in the name of religion. That is the only way they can be sure that they will be able to rule well and effectively under democracy. The fact is that Pakistan may be in more trouble because it has been in the eye of the jihadi storm, but it shares the crisis with the rest of the Islamic world. *
Today’s column is dedicated to SSG Lt Col Haroon Islam and other valiant soldiers of the Pak Army who sacrificed their lives at Jamia Hafsa. Sacrificing one’s life for the national cause is the most selfless act. They have offered the most precious gift, their lives, so that their countrymen could sleep in peace. The two maulanas, Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid, have caused the death of over 100 people; the younger Maulana Rashid has perished too. Maulana Abdul Aziz would also have met the same fate had he not escaped from Jamia Hafsa camouflaged in a black burqa, the Madrassa uniform of the female pupils. Abdul Rashid and many young male students could not leave because they were not allowed to do so by the militants who were now in command of the Hafsa brigade. After the exit and subsequent arrest of Maulana Aziz, the latter did make a half-hearted appeal to the Hafsa inmates to give up fighting, but nobody paid any heed. The direct negotiations with Maulana Rashid yielded no results. Reluctantly, the Operation Silence was launched to establish the government writ and to clear the Hafsa and Lal Masjid of the terrorist and extremist elements. A peace agreement between the government and Maulana Rashid was never on. The government’s stand was very clear: the Operation Silence will be aborted only after the extremists holed up in Hafsa, including Maulana Rashid, had surrendered to the writ of law. Maulana Rashid on the other hand was insisting that he and his colleagues should be given a safe passage. The gulf between the two proposals was very wide. It was impossible to narrow it because Maulana Rashid did not want to face law under any circumstance. Safe passage to where? The destination of safe passage was never mentioned in the negotiations, which were dragging on without reaching any purposeful conclusion. The term ‘safe passage’ is generally used in the US and Europe by bank robbers, kidnappers and terrorists holding hostages and whose escape routes are blocked by the police. In exchange of the hostages, they demand vehicles or aircraft to get away from the law. However, the law has long arms and invariably catches up with the law-breakers, safe passage or no safe passage. It is out of question that any country including those Muslim countries which practise Shariah would have welcomed Maulana Rashid and his accomplices. In their eyes Maulana Rashid despite being a maulana was a terrorist and a kidnapper. If Maulana Rashid had succeeded in entering another country, he would have been arrested and imprisoned for life or repatriated to Pakistan to face the law. Maulana Rashid might have been contemplating safe passage to a place in FATA. Evidence is emerging that he had connections with people in that area. It would not be far-fetched to assume that he had links with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The Taliban are mourning his death by killing innocent people and Al Qaeda has asked the people of Pakistan to launch jihad against the government. Maulana Rashid knew that his desire to take refuge in FATA was faulty because it would have left him and his partners at the mercy of their hosts, which was not a comfortable prospect. Therefore, he adopted a new line. He abandoned the demand for safe passage and instead asked for general amnesty for himself and his partners in extremism. At this late stage he also disclosed the presence of foreign militants in the Hafsa which added a new and dangerous dimension to the process of peace negotiations.
The government agreed to almost every demand for the sake of innocent lives that were entrapped in Hafsa. It agreed that Maulana Rashid would not be ‘arrested’, but confined to a rest house. He would not be made a butt of ridicule. However, the government unequivocally rejected the proposal of granting general amnesty to Maulana Rashid and his militant friends. The people who were involved in kidnapping policemen, Pakistani and Chinese citizens, arson, and killing of Lt-Col Haroon Islam would have to answer for the heinous crimes in a court of law. Maulana Rashid was at the brink of agreeing to these proposals and asked for ten minutes to reply to them. But those ten minutes never ended. The government was left with no choice but to take military action to establish the writ of law that had been badly damaged by the two maulana brothers. It is a preposterous accusation that President Musharraf had sabotaged the agreement in order to push the military action. To be certain, there was no agreement at all, so how could it be sabotaged. There were only proposals which were floating between the two parties. In fact, President Musharraf in expectation of an agreement had postponed the operation by about two hours. When the operation was launched at 4am, it was nearly daylight, thus depriving the commandoes of the advantage of darkness. The soldiers engaged in the ‘Operation Silence’ have exhibited great patience and good judgment. A soldier is trained to use brute force to attain the goal and get it over with quickly. He is not trained to be diplomatic or be mild or hesitant. At Hafsa the commanders acted diplomatically, mildly and hesitantly and very rightly so. They kept on extending the deadline at regular basis. It was due to this strategy that 3300 young pupils, males and females, made their escape good before and during the operation. A question arises why the two maulana brothers were hoarding arms and ammunition in the House of God. When and where they wanted to use it and for what purpose? It is obvious that they could not have conquered Islamabad with this sorry assortment of weapons. Most probably they were planning to unleash a reign of terror in Islamabad. A bomb blast or a suicide bombing or a burst or two of Kalashnikov at a busy market would have a horrible impact nationwide if carried out in the federal capital. The linkage of the two brothers with the Taliban and Al Qaeda does lead us to believe that they were planning subversive activities in the capital to pave the way for Talibanization.
President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz have both made declarations that never again the Lal Masjid like situation would be allowed to develop. The president has warned that no mosque or madrassa would be allowed to be used for militancy and terrorism. PM Shaukat Aziz has echoed the words of the president that attempts to use madrassas for promoting militancy and extremism would not be tolerated. Regrettably, declarations are not enough to stop the surge of extremism in Pakistan. Very concrete steps and honest commitment is needed to stop the virus bug of extremism from infecting the young and raw minds.
Re: Govt MUST pursue Religious Fanatics everywhere - DAWN editorial
From the Daily Times editorial.
[quote] Then there is the whole community of well-meaning lawyers who are fighting for justice but also unwittingly forming a kind of common pool where every anarchist or mullah is welcome to wash his hands. One of their leaders has actually declared that if the Supreme Court doesn’t reinstate the fired chief justice he will burn the Supreme Court down! This is the sort of statement one expects from an anarchist but not from the leader of a pro-justice or pro-democracy movement.
[/quote]
Unbelievable that one of the Chief Justice's leading supporters wants to burn down the Supreme Court! Jeez.
Re: Govt MUST pursue Religious Fanatics everywhere - DAWN editorial
It's Munir A Malik.
Just glad the true faces which are sugar coated at the moment are slowly being revealed. There are no righteous intentions. All sinister motives.
Re: Govt MUST pursue Religious Fanatics everywhere - DAWN editorial
From the Daily Times editorial.
Unbelievable that one of the Chief Justice's leading supporters wants to burn down the Supreme Court! Jeez.
Forget the "statements", we had punjabi jiyalas of nawaz sharif storm the supreme court but no one protested especially in Punjab since the chief justice was sindhi. No wonder we have kangaroo courts and are called a banana republic.
Re: Govt MUST pursue Religious Fanatics everywhere - DAWN editorial
It's Munir A Malik.
Just glad the true faces which are sugar coated at the moment are slowly being revealed. There are no righteous intentions. All sinister motives.
I am disgusted that the Chief Justice is still keeping Munir Malik in his team of legal advisors after his commenst about burning down the Supreme Court.
Then again I was disgusted to hear that lawyers at the Chief Justice's rally in Lahore over the weekend were condemning the government's Lal Masjid operation, but also offering prayers for the "martyr" Abdul Ghazi! Apparently the Chief Justice was just sitting there and observing all this.
Re: Govt MUST pursue Religious Fanatics everywhere - DAWN editorial
Well, so after all's said and done (not quite!), I watched with disgusted interest 1 hour before the announcement Ali Ahmed Kurd, standing on the SC building stairs, talking to Geo and before that Aaj, and repeating and endorsing the sentiments of Munir Malik i.e. when asked if the verdict is against his will, what would be the reaction? He said blatantly, he and lawyers, and 'awaam' (the ever exploited) won't accept it, as the 'faislaa' in their favour has already been passed by the wukla and awaam, and they wont accept anything otherwise from the SC. And that the Bench must keep popular sentiment in mind before making a judgment. When the reporter asked dont you think popular sentiment should have nothing to do with legal, constitutional matters and public cannot decide and issue verdict, ifit were so what was court needed for!? He said blah blah blah...
In another clip Secy SHBA Munier-ur-Rehman after the verdict expressed his joy "adliya azaad hai, this and that..." & suddenly goes off track and says "ye fauji dictatron ko jaana ho ga..."
Re: Govt MUST pursue Religious Fanatics everywhere - DAWN editorial
The fact of the matter is that the nation for the first time in a liong time needs to assert itself, and the biggest challenge we are facing is the militancy in the country. Dawn has called it out right. Lets crush the snakes.
Re: Govt MUST pursue Religious Fanatics everywhere - DAWN editorial
Well, so after all's said and done (not quite!), I watched with disgusted interest 1 hour before the announcement Ali Ahmed Kurd, standing on the SC building stairs, talking to Geo and before that Aaj, and repeating and endorsing the sentiments of Munir Malik i.e. when asked if the verdict is against his will, what would be the reaction? He said blatantly, he and lawyers, and 'awaam' (the ever exploited) won't accept it, as the 'faislaa' in their favour has already been passed by the wukla and awaam, and they wont accept anything otherwise from the SC. And that the Bench must keep popular sentiment in mind before making a judgment. When the reporter asked dont you think popular sentiment should have nothing to do with legal, constitutional matters and public cannot decide and issue verdict, ifit were so what was court needed for!? He said blah blah blah...
In another clip Secy SHBA Munier-ur-Rehman after the verdict expressed his joy "adliya azaad hai, this and that..." & suddenly goes off track and says "ye fauji dictatron ko jaana ho ga..."
Disgraceful statements by the CJ's lawyers.
The Chief Justice is an honourable man, and he does not need such dishonourable people around him.
