Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
3681

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

State must establish its writ, or anarchy will follow. The people who defend Lal Masjidi types failed to understand that & that is the reason why Pakistan is in this mess.

Here is good example of what should be done. Its called rule of law.

Bangladesh students held for murder of anti-Islam blogger | NDTV.com

3682

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

Again its not important. They were taking law into their hand. When you challenge states authority you’re asking for trouble. Here is an example what happened in the US.

3683

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

Pasha Shaeb: The way you put things, it seems you have no empathy nor could think beyond self-interest. No innocent law-abiding citizen would like to live in a country where people like you rule or have authority, as you do not care about right of others as long as you are safe.

Just imagine, what you are saying in your post.

People in Lal Masjid were not part of terrorist organisation and thus government should not have acted against them … at least as harshly as government did:

Even though Lal-Masjid goons were part of terrorist organisation as they had given refuge to terrorists and were helping forces that were/are fighting Pakistani forces and killing innocent civilians all over Pakistan… Still, from your statement, it seems, you do not care about those lal-masjid rascals were victimising, as long as Lal-Masjid rascals were doing terrorism but were not from any known terrorist organisations?

There is no doubt that Lal-Masjid goons and goonies were terrorising people around them, challenging state writ, and were also breaking laws. Not only that, but they were continuously doing that for months before state acted against them.

Anyhow, if what you mean is what you wrote … then what you think, who should protect and care for people who become victims of person or group terrorising them, if it is not responsibility of government?

Suppose some people (maybe girls with danda backed by their supporters with danda, AK47, and suicide bombers) start terrorising you and your family and if state tries to stop them then they resist insisting on terrorising you and your family … and when state try to enforce law and order then they even attack state machinery with guns, then would you say the same that state should not act against them rather leave them terrorising you and your family, because according to you, they are local goons and goonies, not part of any terrorist organisation?

I think Musharraf government behaved too leniently with them. If I was in place of Musharraf or was running the government of Pakistan, I would not only initiated action against them, but would have put all rascals of that madrasa (be they boys or girls) and their supporters and abetters (in politics, media, other madrasas and mosques, so-called religious scholars promoting such terrorist behaviour, and their financiers) in prison on charges of inciting terrorism, harassing citizens, creating mayhem, causing fitna, challenging the state and state writ, abetting and financing those breaking laws, promoting intolerance, and demeaning state authority.

Actually, if I would not have done that then I would have considered myself failure in fulfilling the duty a person running the state should do (in front of Allah, towards myself, as well as in front of historians), as it is duty of state to establish writ, punish those breaking laws and harassing others, and protect every citizen of the state irrespective of citizens’ race, colour, religion, sect, financial and social status, or values.

[Note: Most funny thing is that, if people of any other group get strong and start persecuting, harassing, and victimising people who support (or supported) rascals of Lal-Masjid and other law-breaker terrorists like them, then these same people would look towards state demanding and expecting state to make them safe from persecution and victimisation … but since today it is these people who are persecuting and victimising others, they are happy and do not want state to interfere].

3684

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

What else you could do , I think you could not write that , May be some thing else before killing those girls . I am surprised how easily you are advocating killing pf Pakistanis .
We Pakistanis are just creature for you .

3685

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

Innocent Madrissa girls are my actual focus .
Saving their lives was more important than killing the Burqa Poash , Ume Hasan or Rasheed Ghazi or his aides ..

3686

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

must read

Analysis: What really happened at Lal Masjid by Khaled Ahmed

The news on 5 December 2012 read like this: Pakistan’s Supreme Court has constituted a judicial commission to probe the 2007 Lal Masjid operation in Islamabad in 2007 - a government crackdown on a controversial pro-Taliban mosque in the capital which ended in a bloody eight-day siege killing at least 58 Pakistani troops and seminary students.

Lal Masjid facts have been overwhelmed by politics. The operation marked the beginning of the end of the Musharraf regime. It is said that he brought himself down by first allowing the operation against Lal Masjid and then dismissing the Supreme Court of Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The PMLQ, through which he was ruling, wanted no part of the operation because of their deep rightwing conviction not to take on the clerics. As they began distancing themselves from it, his political platform began to slip from under him.

The media, provoked by restrictions he sought to place on it, rebelled, not least also because of the popular support of the mosque under attack. Two opposition parties - PMLN and PPP - wanted him pinned down so that he could be removed from the scene together with his PMLQ facade. The PMLN was clear about what it wanted to do: go all out for Musharraf’s ouster. The PPP had a mixed approach because the Taliban were targeting its allies. Then it fell foul of the Supreme Court by delaying its restoration. The Supreme Court had a showdown with Musharraf, backed by popular support, not a little assisted by the media and the PMLN.

**Today, the Lal Masjid Operation of 2007 is owned by no one. Musharraf may regret he ordered it. But the facts will not disappear. Tehreek Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was created after the operation. Al Qaeda was furious because it counted a lot on Lal Masjid as its foothold in the capital where most youths believed al Qaeda was not a terrorist organisation and not an enemy of Pakistan. TTP insisted on owning the mosque.
**
On 6 July 2008, it celebrated the anniversary of the operation by killing 19 in Islamabad through a suicide-bomber, 15 of them policemen. An al Qaeda videocassette marked the first anniversary of the destruction of Lal Masjid in which revenge was sworn.

Understandably, the Supreme Court wants to get to the bottom of what really transpired. It has already taken steps to undo the damage done to the madrassa by the operation.

Amir Mir in his book Talibanisation of Pakistan from 9/11 to 26/11, states:** ‘Before the bloodshed, the Mosque had a reputation for radicalism, mostly attracting Islamic hardline students from North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and tribal areas where support for the Taliban and al-Qaeda is quite strong…Much before the military operation code named “Operation Silence” was launched by the Pakistan Army, Lal Masjid had become known to the outer world as a centre of radical Islamic learning, housing several thousand male and female students in adjacent seminaries’.**

Founder of the mosque Maulana Abdullah Ghazi was murdered in the sectarian war of Pakistan. His sons Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid ran the seminary aggressively, targeting elements they thought were flouting the sharia and attacking the Shia. They fed youths into state-sponsored jihad in Afghanistan and Kashmir, connecting the state to training camps run by terrorist organisations under al Qaeda.

**‘As the Operation Silence unfolded it was discovered that elements from militants groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Harkatul Jihadul Islami were present inside the seminary. Lal Masjid compound was being used as a hide-out by dozens of wanted militants who had Kalashnikov rifles, LMGs, hundreds of hand grenades and petrol bombs and a few rocket-launchers in stock’.
**
Ayman al-Zawahiri said during the Operation: ‘This crime can only be washed by repentance or blood… If you do not retaliate…Musharraf will not spare any of you. Your salvation is only through jihad’.

Zahid Hussain in his book The Scorpion’s Tail: The Relentless Rise of Islamic Militants in Pakistan and how it Threatens America (2010) noted: 'Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid had learned their militancy from their father, Abdullah Ghazi, who was the head cleric of Lal Masjid during the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and who had developed strong ties with the Islamist groups that joined in the fight. He had received funding and guidance from the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies for recruiting militants to the cause, and Lal Masjid had become a citadel of militancy. After the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan, Abdullah Ghazi became closely associated with al Qaeda.

‘In 1998 he travelled to Kandahar to pay homage to Mullah Omar, whom Pakistani radical Islamists regarded as their spiritual leader, and he took his younger son, Abdul Rashid, with him. During this visit Abdul Rashid became radicalised. He met with bin Laden alone for an hour and discussed with him issues that had troubled him for a long time. At the end of the meeting, he recounted, he picked up bin Laden’s glass of water and drank from it. An amused bin Laden asked him the reason for his action, to which Abdul Rashid replied, “I drank from your glass so that Allah would make me a warrior like you”.’ (p.112)

‘Rashid’s elder brother condemned Pakistan’s Army’s decision to fight the terrorists. In 2001, he declared to a packed gathering, “Allah has punished America for its anti-Islam policies and the sinful life of its population”. When Musharraf sent troops to Waziristan in 2004 Abdul Rashid led a campaign against the military operation and issued a fatwa together with a number of leading clerics declaring the military action in Waziristan un-Islamic and proclaiming, “Those killed in the battle against Pakistani forces are martyrs”.’ (p.113)

**Two months after the Lai Masjid siege, an 18-year boy blew himself up inside the high-security base of Zarrar Company, the elite commando unit of the Pakistan Army responsible for Operation Silence; 22 soldiers were killed. It was an insider job. Zahid Hussain writes: ‘One of the officers identified was Captain Khurram Ashiq, who had been with Pakistan’s Special Services Group and had also served in Zarrar Company’ (121). Captain Khurram Ashiq died in Helmand fighting on the side of al Qaeda. **His brother Captain Haroon Ashiq too worked for al Qaeda, killing an SSG commander Major-General Feisal Alvi in Islamabad. He has been acquitted this year by an anti-terrorist court in Adiala Jail.

**British journalist Owen Bennett-Jones in his lengthy study Questions Concerning the Murder of Benazir Bhutto (London Review of Books, 6 December 2012) refers to one of the assassins of Benazir Bhutto named Husnain Gul who joined the gang of her killers because of Lal Masjid:

‘Husnain Gul was a madrassa student who in 2005 had received small-arms training at a camp in North-West Pakistan. The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) report says that when he was arrested he had a hand grenade and clothes belonging to his friend, Bilal. In his confession, Gul described how a friend of his had been killed when Musharraf ordered an assault on the Red Mosque in Islamabad in July 2007. The attack on the jihadis who had seized the mosque was a turning point in modern Pakistani history, persuading many Islamists that the Pakistani state was not their friend but an enemy that must be attacked. Gul decided to avenge his friend’s death and persuaded his cousin, Muhammad Rafaqat, to join him’.
**
The clerics who visited the mosque to intercede with the Ghazi brothers included: Grand Mufti Rafi Usmani of Karachi, Harkatul Mujahideen commander Fazlur Rehman Khalil and Al Qaeda lawyer Javed Ibrahim Paracha. Maulana Fazlur Rehman of JUI was at first opposed to the Ghazi brothers for not listening to advice till he was tamed by fellow clerics through a reprimand.

3687

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

^ The guy Major General Faisal Alvi (Eye specialist) who was killed by TTP was himself a devout muslim and a thorough gentleman. Its sad that his killer has been acquitted.

3688

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

His sister Nadira Naipaul is a former journalist and married to noted British-Trinidadian novelist and Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul; however, he broke contacts with his sister when he got to know that she had married Naipaul, who is a Hindu and so an unbeliever in the eyes of a devout Muslim

3689

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

A law breaker is neither boy nor girl, neither man or woman, but is criminal.

Anyhow, government did not killed any girl and it is all propaganda.There is no proof that girls got killed. No parents came out nor any name of killed girl came out. If you believe any girl got killed, then name them with reference, and I wold be obliged. If you could not even name a single girl with any proof, like showing their ID card with name of their parents, etc ... then, do not try to do propaganda full of lies.

Anyhow, no girl got killed is irrelevant, as, whoever would start playing with guns, start imposing their will over others with danda and armed terrorist behind them, get involved in armed crime ... then they could get killed and one can pity their killing ... but cannot regret if someone, be they girl or boy, man or women, got killed in such situation.

As for me advocating killing of Pakistanis, then that is balatant lie. I am only advocating killing of those who are terrorists, people who create fitna, and/or are armed criminals ... and punish those who help them (be they men or women).

Actually, I am not munafiq and thus what I do not like someone doing with me (force their will over me), I do not like them doing with anyone ... and I am willing to fight for the rights of others, regardless of I agree with them or not.

3690

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

Please read and think what government could have done more than what they did:
Govenment gave dead-line to surrender and extended that dead line 4 times, uintil time they killed one of army general. Proof that Lal Masjid had terrorists hiding there can be seen from the demand Mosque Rascals made, that is, safe passage and amnesty for some students (Amnesty and safe passage for what and for whom … as government already gave amnesty to anyone who was student and surrenders unarmed).

Government offered students whoever surrender Rs 5000 and free education.

As far as I am concerned, government did more than any government could do when dealing with armed terrorists and their supporters who neither want to surrender nor want to stop their terrorism.

From wikipedia:
Siege of Lal Masjid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Seige: On July 3, 2007, a battle erupted between Pakistani security forces and students of Lal Masjid when Jamia Hafsa students stole radio sets and weapons from the Pakistan Rangers at a nearby post. Riot police fired tear gasto disperse the students. About 150 Lal Masjid students attacked the Ministry of Environment office building, setting fire to it and several vehicles in the area. Fighting continued, leaving nine people dead and approximately 150 injured. Among the dead were four mosque students, a TV news channel cameraman, a businessman, and a pedestrian. Within minutes, security forces closed off the area, and the capital’s hospitals declared an emergency. Sporadic clashes continued as Pakistan Army troops deployed into the area.[SUP][23]](Siege of Lal Masjid - Wikipedia)[/SUP]

The next day, authorities announced an indefinite curfew in Sector G-6 of Islamabad, where Lal Masjid is located. The army received orders to shoot anyone leaving the mosque with weapons. The government offered Rs. 5,000 (equivalent to $83 USDs or £41 GBP), plus a free education, to anyone exiting the mosque unarmed.[SUP][24]](Siege of Lal Masjid - Wikipedia)[/SUP] Women inside the mosque were also offered safe passage to their homes. Successive deadlines were extended, as mosque leaders allowed some students to surrender, requiring security forces to renegotiate extensions. Government authorities announced the first deadline for the occupants of Lal Masjid to surrender unconditionally as 15:30 Pakistan Standard Time (PST), and it was pushed back to 16:00, 18:00, 19:30 and then 21:30. The government said that as many as 600 armed militants remained inside the mosque.[SUP][24]](Siege of Lal Masjid - Wikipedia)[/SUP]

Before dawn on July 5, Pakistani troops set off a series of explosions around the mosque. Gunfire was exchanged throughout the day, but open clashes apparently stopped. Deadline extensions continued on July 5, with the government planning to evacuate the mosque and Jamia Hafsa before the final assault. Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Sherpao announced at a press conference that the government believed that between 300 to 400 students remained in the mosque, and only 50 to 60 were considered to be militants.[SUP][20]](Siege of Lal Masjid - Wikipedia)[/SUP]
**
Following the fourth deadline**, Abdul Aziz was captured trying to escape disguised as a woman wearing a burqa.[SUP][20]](Siege of Lal Masjid - Wikipedia)[/SUP] Following the capture of this leader, about 800 male students and 400 female students of Jamia Hafsa surrendered to the authorities.[SUP][25]](Siege of Lal Masjid - Wikipedia)[/SUP]
Abdul Aziz’s younger brother, Ghazi Abdul Rashid, had been negotiating with a government mediator. He claimed that the remaining students were willing leave the mosque and lay down their arms, provided the government would grant them amnesty and not fire on them. Government officials were skeptical that Abdul Rashid would honor this agreement.[SUP][20]](Siege of Lal Masjid - Wikipedia)[/SUP] In a telephone interview from a live transmission of Geo TV, Ghazi Abdul Rashid denied all the charges against him and reiterated his innocence. He further negotiated with the government for his safe passage and a guarantee that no harm would come to his followers inside the mosque. He also received a promise that his ailing mother would receive medical care.

The siege continued on July 6. Negotiation talks continued between the besieged Lal Masjid administration and government authorities, without resolution. Twenty-one additional students surrendered to authorities, and two students were killed in a shooting incident.[SUP][26]](Siege of Lal Masjid - Wikipedia)[/SUP] The government decided to delay the assault, hoping for the safe evacuation of more students from the besieged mosque. President Pervez Musharraf issued an ultimatum on the evening of July 7.[SUP][27]](Siege of Lal Masjid - Wikipedia)[/SUP] The Pakistani army took over the operation and replaced the paramilitary troops deployed around the premises. A thirteen-year-old child escaped from the besieged mosque unharmed.[SUP][26]](Siege of Lal Masjid - Wikipedia)[/SUP]

Pakistani commandos raided the outer perimeter of the compound, blasting holes through the walls of the mosque in order to allow trapped women and children to escape.[SUP][28]](Siege of Lal Masjid - Wikipedia)[/SUP] The assaults began shortly after 1:00 am (20:00 GMT) on July 7 and were met with heavy armed resistance.[SUP][28]](Siege of Lal Masjid - Wikipedia)[/SUP]
SSGCommander Lt. Col. Haroon-ul-Islam, who had been leading the operation, was wounded on July 6 and died in the hospital two days later.[SUP][27]](Siege of Lal Masjid - Wikipedia)[/SUP] However, the commandos succeeded, and the boundary wall of Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa collapsed. Abdul Rashid Ghazi said they would not surrender and that they had sufficient ammunition and rations to last a month.

3691

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

Please every one of you
Please Kindly tell me
Were we unable to control the situation without killing every one inside ?

3692

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

Not everyone, but leftovers ... or everyone who were fully armed hardcore brainwashed terrorists and potential suicide bombers, unwilling to surrender, rather willing to stay in the madrasa/madrass and die fighting.

For them, they were not looking for peaceful life that every Muslim should desire, but they were dreaming for 40 hoors, Afghan Hashish and European wine ... so they got what they want (hell full of fire and hot water to drink) but unfortunately left lot of fitna and mayhem behind.

3693

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

Some of above posts are real proof that there are two opposite kinds of madness, extremism and savage behavior.

One maybe Religious extremism but other for sure is anti-religious extremism and barbarism.

These people were not talibanic or belonged to any terrorist organization.

The place also used to hold orphans and those from poor community.

It is is very obvious that deliberate efforts were made to sabotage any deals or negotiations (in the middle) and the decision was already made to make it look like some international level drama.

There was no need to have even any loss of lives.

If someone truly has the intention to dissolve or solve the situation then every demand of hostage holder is accepted without questions.

When a deal was made and draft was written, after it was returned from Presidential suite, it was changed.

3694

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

How do you make these up sir?

Didn't Ghazi ask one journalist not to drink alcohol again and talk about this in his last interview on TV?

3695

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

You didn't reply my question .
Were we unable to control the situation without killing every one inside ?No one can kill even the enemies in the war this way .
I asked a question earlier
How those all died , by guns or bobs are by some other weapon
Now tell me please
And what was done with them that nobody could see the body of their beloved .
And if you don't know
.......................................................................

3696

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

One woulds be religious extremism = not religious extremism but Fitna creator.

Other you labeled as anti-religious extremism and barbariasm = here you are not only unjust but abusively accusive, as other was fighting fitna.

Other were neither extremist nor intolerant or barbaric, as it was their duty to keep law and order in the country, and being in authority, law and power was in their hand to use. If they were extremists, intolerant and barbaric then they would not have been extending their dead-lines, giving all opportiunity to these terrorists so that they come to their senses and surrender.

These others whom you are trying to label as barbarian even risked their lives to blow up boundry wall of Masjid and Madrasa so that if anyone is held there against their will than they could escape. Actually, if they were Barbarians then instead of fighting on ground, they would have carpet bombed the place to ground.

In the end, army lost 11 precious men killing around 80 terrorists and capturing 50 terrorists. I think 11 loss of army men was unnecessary, because these rascal deserved carpet bombing and bringing the place they were hiding to ground.

[quote]
These people were not talibanic or belonged to any terrorist organization.

The place also used to hold orphans and those from poor community.

It is is very obvious that deliberate efforts were made to sabotage any deals or negotiations (in the middle) and the decision was already made to make it look like some international level drama.

There was no need to have even any loss of lives.

If someone truly has the intention to dissolve or solve the situation then every demand of hostage holder is accepted without questions.

When a deal was made and draft was written, after it was returned from Presidential suite, it was changed.
[/quote]

There is nothing wrong with Taliban or Talibanic people. Wrong is in what they are doing or want to do, that is, fight state and impose their will and Shaitanic beliefs over others. Ssme thing Rascals of Lal-Building and Madrasa was doing, and that means, both these people, Taliban and Lal-Buildinng people were/are same, that is Fitna.

As for your suggestion that government should have agreed with all their demands and later becked down after taking their surrender, than I have to tell you that person in command at the time was honest Muslim and was not Zardari Bhutto or Nawaz Shareef-ul-Haq ... both of whom can promise anything and later back down. Maybe that is the difference between Muslim dictator and Munafiq third world democrats ... and that is why world do not trust Third world democracy.

3697

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

I think Ghazi's Kabab, Sharab and Shabab was after death dream... though I doubt he was keeping himself away from them in this life too.

3698

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

I do not know what you mean by everyone when out of several thousands only around 80 hard-core terrorists died. As for how they died, previous government calim that they died from bullets and bombs, but then, their bodies are burried at known places, so if anyone had or have any doubt on what previous government claimed, then they can ask the court, get their body out of grave and check how they died.

On the other hand, I am surprised why you are so much concerned about terrorists who terrorised innocent people for months, made life in Islamabad unsecure for many, was illegally occupying lands of government and other civilians, was threatening Pakistan forces with suicide bombing, even fired on Pakistan forces and killed 11 army men plus number of civilians, and in the end got killed fighting Pakistan army?

3699

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

Your post is self narrating , Every thing is hidden , Number is what they told , What type of bullet , every one died , Nobody injured .
No one saw the dead body of his relation .
Kisi din kisi ka zameer to jagay ga
Truth will come out .

3700

Re: Lal Masjid Siege Thread - Operation Silence (merged)

Truth is obviouas. Only people with black strap over their eyes cannot see (black strap of political, sectarian, or innocence):_

Urdu may bhie likh daytay hain.

Sach zahir hay. sirf un logon ko nazar nahi aa raha hay jin kee ankhon per patti bandhi hay (siasi, firqavi, yea massomiyat kee patti).