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Islamists paint the dome of the Red Mosque. Click to view. |
11 killed in bombing at hotel near the mosque compound
Just one day after the reopening of the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, the radical, Taliban and al Qaeda-supporting Islamist students of the mosque have reoccupied the complex. Fighting appears to have broken out between the Islamists and government security forces after the students ejected the new, government-appointed leader of the mosque, and began to repaint the walls red. Meanwhile a suicide bomber killed at least six police and five civilians in an attack on a cafe outside a hotel less than one kilometer from the Red Mosque. Over 20 were wounded, including women and children. Police are said to be advancing on the mosque, firing tear gas and wielding riot batons.
The latest conflict at the Red Mosque, which sits in the heart of the capital of Islamabad, began after over 100 followers of Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi and Maulana Abdul Aziz entered the complex and rejected the prayers offered by Maulana Ashfaq Ahmad, the government-appointed leader of the mosque. “They took into their possession [microphone] and pulpit and started chanting slogans, Al Jehad, Al-Jehad,” the Pak Tribune reported. The Islamists demanded the restoration of Abdul Aziz as the leader of the mosque as well as the reconstruction of Jamia Hafsa seminary.
The Pakistani government rushed to reopen the Red Mosque and patched up the battle damage from the government assault on the mosque complex in mid-July. Upwards of 100 were killed during that siege, including Maulana Abdul Aziz and over 70 supporters of the mosque.
The Taliban and al Qaeda have conducted numerous attacks since the assault on the Red Mosque. Suicide attacks, rocket and mortar strikes, ambushes, and IED attacks against military, government, and political targets have occurred and are continuing in Islamabad, the Northwest Frontier Province, and Baluchistan.
The Pakistani government is attempting to restore the failed Waziristan Accord with the Taliban in North Waziristan as attacks against the military continue unabated. Today’s clashes in North and South Waziristan resulted in one soldier killed and ten government officials wounded. In the northern district of Dir, 23 policemen were wounded in a series of rocket attacks and ambushes. The Pakistani military has largely absorbed these attacks.
27 Comments
This probably erodes any gains the Musharraf made from the initial storming of the Red Mosque. This also undermines Musharraf politically, which is probably the primary purpose of retaking the Mosque.
It does bring up the question of who was in on this. How much of this is incompetence or are the radicals getting direct help from inside the security apparatus? There’s really no way to tell from the outside, but it doesn’t look good.
And I see it as sort of the opposite. I see it as possibly further undermining public support for the extremist entities. The government was merciful in allowing many of them to be released. There would be no reason to do that going forward. They were given the benefit of the doubt and frankly, am reserving judgment until I see how this incident plays out. If the government goes in again, I doubt they will be released a second time.
If they *are* released a second time then my opinion will be quite different and at that point I will be fully supportive of any NATO actions as soon as possible in the territories.
As of this moment, though, I see the situation as the extremists been given rope and they have just decided to hang themselves with it. Should they get away with it this time, though, it would be a tacit admission that the Taliban are effectively in control of Pakistan.
Like the release of 2,500 Taliban and al Qaeda operatives after the signing of the Waziristan Accord in September 2006? Is this grand strategy or a pattern of failed policy and appeasement? Sometime you give people enough rope for them to hang you. Do you know how many times folks like Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the leader of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) [a.k.a. LeT], the terrorist entity that is banned in Pakistan and on the U.S. Specially Designated Global Terrorist list, have been arrested and subsequently released for custody?
Carefully read through The Fall of Northwestern Pakistan: An Online History and you’ll see a pattern of failed policy and appeasement over the course of 1.5 years.
What is the correct amount of rope ? The security forces will not take decisive action unless they are provoked in the extreme. Let’s hope the extremists live up to their name and do something that will really turn the majority of the public and the police against them in a big way. One can only hope that the carnage the suicide bombers are now inflicting on the Islamic world may make these societies think twice about supporting and promoting this practice. Maybe some of them will begin to appreciate how Israel must take harsh measures to protect its citizens from these tactics. The Iraqis have come to hate Al Qaeda. The Afghanis are learning to hate the Taliban. Who knows? Maybe the Pakistanis will learn the same lesson.
Pakistani,
Why is their the need for this policy of ‘Divide & Rule’? After all what the Mullah’s are asking for is perfectly logical is it not.
The Mullah’s want Shariat law which should have been imposed in 1947 at the creation of Pakistan since Pakistan was created as the homeland for the Indian Mulsims. So why was western secular law not abolished and Shariat imposed in 1947. It would seem to an outsider that the imposition of total ‘Shariat’ would shut up the mullah’s for good.
Pakistani:
Re: “We don’t want Pakistan to turn into Iraq or Afghanistan v2.0.”
At this point in time, more Pakistani troops and are being killed on a daily basis than in Iraq or Afghanistan. The Taliban and al Qaeda build bases inside Pakistani territory with the knowledge – and with the peace accords – essentially the approval of the government. The major attacks being launched in the West and India are traced back to the NWFP.
Pakistan v2.0 is far more dangerous than Iraq or Afghanistan, because the government lacks the will to act.
greg,
Would be suffering a humiliating defeat during the 2004-06 time period be considered provoked to the extreme? How about losing well over 100 soldiers and police over the course of a week? Or having your bases and outpost attacked on a daily basis? Or your recruits hit with suicide attacks while exercising? Or maybe repeated assassination attempts against the president, prime minister, and interior minister? I could go on.
Is it just possible Paks don’t want shariat? Since ’47 they’ve had many chances to vote in the mass-murderers, but have rejected them by a large margin. Why then, don’t the mullahs just resign themselves to a western democracy and freedom, or at least not impose it by mass murder and brutality?
Correction, I meant Hafiz Saeed is the head of JuD/LeT…
Bill,
You make a good point. I don’t understand why the government takes so much abuse from the tribal areas. They must be too weak to really do something about it or they fear a much larger backlash from the general population if they get too tough ? At some point, the extremists will overplay their hand and the public may demand that something be done to eliminate them -I hope. I suppose it could go the other way and they could take over the whole damn country and turn it into our biggest enemy. If that happens, I hope we have some plans in place to neutralize their nukes. India must be worried about them too. I hope one of us has a plan B.
Don,
It is not a question of voting or the voters. Pakistan was created on the basis of religion and as such the mullah’s are merely asking for the full implementation of the islamic law and for correction of a historical wrong done in 1947.
You cannot have a country created on the basis of a particluar religion and then decide that we don’t want to impose all facets of that religion.
The problem is the fundamental cleavage in the idea of Pakistan. Pakistan was created for the Indian Muslim as an Islamic state, now you cannot have a islamic state and not have islamic law!!!
If you say that Pakistan was created to be secular then why was it created at all since India has a working secular democratic system and the muslim’s could have lived within a secular state.
I think the Pakistani upper classes are just waking up to the realization that they will have to fight for their lives. Unfortunately, up to this point they have been sleepwalking their way through this, successively ignoring it, thinking it was someone else’s problem, thinking they could co-opt their enemies and make them allies again, make peace overtures, talk their way out of it. It’s called denial. Don’t expect them wake from their long slumber all of the sudden and expect them to effectively fight for their very lives. Over time they’ll harden against the Islamists. That is if they aren’t swept aside in the mean time. This is already more violent than Iraq and it will only get worse.
Giving them Sharia law won’t satisfy them one bit. It will only increase their demands. Islamist doctrine promises them a worldly empire to command the souls of all men and paradise should they fall along the way. Crazy stuff, yes! Not only do they believe it but they are intoxicated on it. They are amazed at their power to intimidate and bring the worlds greatest powers to their knees.
( I realize that I sound too much like one of those nutty trolls when I lay it out this way. It gets a big blush out of the rationalist in me “Now that’s just crazy talk”
Pakistani,
Perhaps we should turn Afghanistan back over to the Taliban and Iraq to the Baathists to get the attacks to zero? If Pakistan wants zero attacks inside the country, except for the occasional “cleansings” of the unfaithful, then by all means turn things over to the Taliban and al Qaeda who have gathered in the NWFP, Baluchistan, Islamabad, etc. You won’t defeat them by appeasing them.
What is happening in Pakistan is depressing. What is the best course of action for America, China, India, Russia, Europe, and the world more generally? That is the question no one is answering.
There seems to be no leadership or vision from President Bush. None of the current leading presidential candidates from either party are expressing their ideas publicly.
I think the long term strategy should be for the world to help Pakistan become a prosperous free democracy. But this strategy would only gradually weaken the Jihadis within Pakistan over many years. It doesn’t deal with the very real short term threats from within Pakistan.
I fear that another major 9/11 attack (or larger WMD attack) hatched in Pakistan against America, Europe, Russia, India, or now even China is possible in the near future. If that happens, I really fear for the Pakistani people. Retaliation against Pakistani jihadis by non-muslim kaffirs could anger the muslim world orders of magnitude more than what is happening in Iraq.
post 1971 Pakistan is fragmenting more now than ever before. The top generals of the Pakistani military (which matter more than President Musharraf by himself) seem to be collectively losing control over jihadi extremists within Pakistan that they previously backed. This may no longer be reversible.
We (Americans) are spending $10 billion and 40-110 lives a month in Iraq, and only a small fraction of that in Pakistan . . . without a clear coherent long term plan (in Pakistan).
Maybe Bill, Neo, Neo-andertal, crosspatch, and some of the other informed contributors on this site could share their thoughts on what America’s strategy should be in Pakistan. And how we should try to convince other important countries to contribute towards solutions in Pakistan.
And are you really serious that there have been no suicide attacks in the heart of your cities? There have been two in Islamabad alone in the past 12 days.
When the next big strike occurs in the US or Europe, and it is found to come from Pakistan – as they all have been traced back to – there is going to be hell to pay.
I’d agree that Pakistan should be turning the lest extreme elements against the extreme, but the evidence of this is non-existent. I know people want to puff Mullah Nazir as one of these, but that is a false notion. Nazir recently tipped his hat to his comrade Abdullah Mehsud. You don’t see Sheik Sattar in Anbar province spouting anti-government or anti-US statements.
Anand, I do agree with you – the Pakistani people will have hell to pay when the next attack is launched from their territory. I advocate the Pakistani government taking a hard line against the jihadis because if this war escalates, and WMD is used, then the West will respond in kind, and many innocents will be killed.
The solution is for the Pakistani government to stand up to the terrorist in their midst. The Taliban and al Qaeda is entrenched, and have to be uprooted. The Pakistanis have to be willing to wage a brutal counterinsurgency campaign – brutal in the sense that many lives will be lost, and it will be a long fight. The US and every government should provide the utmost support for the government in both the economic and military spheres. There are no clean solutions, and the West/India cannot afford let al Qaeda regroup as they have.
Pakistani,
You mentioned that overwhelming force has not been particularly successful for the US in Iraq or Afghanistan, but frankly, I don’t think it has even been tried. If that were the case, then Fallujah would have been leveled, as well as Kandahar. I think it is profoundly amazing how these wars have been fought, considering world history. How many times in history has a nation gone to war without the express purpose of taking over territory from someone else? We are trying to deliver Iraq and Afghanistan into the hands of its respective peoples, fighting brutal, ruthless terrorists who have no interest in improving lives, just to conquer for their own power.
In regards to Pakistan, it seems there is a sort of schizophrenia. A hornet’s nest of terrorists afflicts not only the house it is attached to, but a neighbor’s as well. Until the hornets are eliminated, a nasty job to be sure, there is no security or freedom. There seems to be little or no will to do this on the part of the Pakistan government, and as others have mentioned, a time may come when a neighbor does the job Musharaff, et al, should have done. Evil people need a strong and sustained response from good people to defeat them. Are there enough good people in Pakistan to do this? I’m afraid there may not be.
Pakistani also fails to realize the Taliban are operating from inside his country to attack Afghan and US forces inside Afghanistan. It’s convenient to ignore this when you want to call Afghanistan a failed operation.
Pakistani:
“Can anyone answer why the US has not killed Moqtada Sadr yet or why it is using Sunni militants to fight Al Qaeda?”
“Not perfect, but at least we were free from daily suicide attacks since 2001.”
Anand,
Specific numbers won’t mean a thing if the Pakistani government won’t fight. And you’re asking the wrong person for a dollar figure on what Pakistan needs. I don’t like to go outside my lane and comment on areas that I am not familiar with. I can say $10 billion a year is an unprecedented figure for a foreign aid program where US forces are not directly involved (Israel and Egypt, the highest recipients get somewhere between $2 to $3 billion if I remember correctly), although I would say it would be worth the investment if the program actually worked. But throwing money at this problem alone won’t make it go away. There has to be a counterinsurgency campaign in the NWFP and areas in Baluchistan.
“I don’t understand why the government takes so much abuse from the tribal areas.”
Part of the reason is that historically, they have viewed that region as sort of a defensive “buffer zone”. It is extremely rugged country and there really isn’t a lot of communications though the area. Some isolated mountain valleys are accessed through passes at 10,000 feet and there aren’t even roads suitable for any kind of large vehicle in many areas. You are going to be packing supplies in by animal.
The tribal ties that spanned the Durand line prevented any real nationalization of the populations on either side and Pakistan has seen it in their interest to foster the tribal identity over the national identity in order to keep the country on the other side of that line (Afghanistan) weak and off Pakistan’s back. So by giving the tribes great autonomy they become powerful and so there exists a trans-Durand power structure that is traditionally loyal to neither national government when push comes to shove. They identify more as Pashtun, for example, and not Afghan or Pakistani.
What happened was that in the late 1990’s the Taliban decided to go after the corrupt Kabul government and basically install a government under control of the Pashtun tribes. The tribes supported the Taliban in this because what they ended up with was a de facto Pashtunistan and control over all of Afghanistan that wasn’t under control of what remained of the Northern Alliance. Pakistan didn’t have a problem with that as long as the Taliban were focused North and West. When we kicked them out of Afghanistan, it was back to attempting to dominate the areas of Afghanistan that were home to trans-Durand tribes.
That is a double edged sword and we can play that game too. One scenario might see us selecting a couple of tribes whose influence spans the border and working with them to increase their standard of living and influence. Those tribes then accept our offers of training and assistance. Those tribes then invite us to work with them in all their tribal areas which include areas on the Pakistani side of the border. And since the tribes hold the power and since they invited us, there is no “violation”. Now lets say those two trans-Durand tribes are friendly with a tribe whose area is completely within Pakistan. We use our influence with the two tribes to convince the third tribe to join them and all three repudiate the Taliban and we assist them in defending themselves. Basically playing out in the territories what happened in Anbar in Iraq.
The power of the Taliban stems from the tribal chiefs who support them. When the Taliban was imposing a Pashtun led government on Afghanistan, it would be natural for the tribes to support the Taliban. I, however, don’t think the tribes are all that keen in supporting the Taliban in any general war against the Pakistani government, the Chinese, or against unilateral NATO actions in their tribal areas.
I would look for evidence of flagging support from the tribes and that would probably manifest in the news as an increase in tribal members showing up dead and accused as “American spies” as the Taliban would be forced to ratchet up a campaign of intimidation in order to maintain support. At that point the Taliban would be supported out of fear and not out of any great tribal power alliance. Leadership by fear and intimidation is not sustainable and always eventually fails. It fails faster when the people are given a real alternative.
So the way into Pakistan and to get rid of the Taliban’s power base is probably though the tribes that span the border with Afghanistan. Give them an alternative, give them tangible gains and improvements in their lot and support against the Taliban and I believe it is doable. The problem is it would probably take longer than US election cycles and the American media and American people are too impatient to allow it to work. It took us almost 15 years to create what eventually became the Taliban in the war against the Soviet Union. It is going to take some time to undo it too.
I think the Pakistani government wants to walk a fine line in getting rid of the Taliban influence yet still giving the tribes great control in the region and to continue fostering the trans-Durand tribal identities to maintain some influence in Afghanistan.
I didn’t say you said that, Pakistani. Try re-reading.
“And again the current upsurge in attacks happened right after the lal masjid operation.”
Yes, by all means ignore the prior upsurges in violence. Like when your army was defeated in the NWFP, for example. Or the continuous attacks against government and military in NWFP after signing the Waziristan Accord. Or how about the wave of suicide attacks this winter/spring. Other than that, things have been going swimmingly. Do you expect me to take me seriously when you are denying the waves of attacks over the past year? The readers her know I’ve documented this, so you are not fooling anyone.
The U.S. is working with tribal leaders and insurgents who have turned on al Qaeda in Iraq. Instead of talking, these tribal leaders and insurgents actually hunt and kill al Qaeda.
I’m all for the Pakistani government turning the tribes against al Qaeda. I highly encourage it. This would benefit both the Pakistani people and West, so its a win-win. Except your government negotiates with the Taliban instead. Your government negotiates with people that remain committed to killing U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, and want to restore the Taliban to power in that country.
Read your own press. The tribal jirga is being used as a conduit to negotiate with the Taliban, and even the members of the jirga are pro Taliban. Don’t take my word for it, just read the words of the FATA Grand Alliance convener, Abdul Karim Mehsood. Oh, he’s also the president of the FATA Lawyers Forum.
I counted about 50 beheadings reported in the Pakistani press since September 5th, 2006. Twenty plus can be found in the “Today In” section for Pakistan, another thirty in the main posts on Pakistan. I’m told that many don’t make it into the press and the real number is approaching 300. Also, this number doesn’t include assassinations without beheadings, which I have no estimate.
This is like the “pushed to the extreme” or “give them enough rope” argument. Eventually you get pushed over the cliff or you give the hangman enough rope to hang you if you don’t stand up. There is zero indication the tribes desire to stand up to the Taliban or al Qaeda at this time.
The way I see it having the pakistani govt working with the tribes is the only solution for this problem. It will take a long time and will be frustrating but it is the only feasible solution.
I expect the Pakistani army to attempt to crush the Jihadists in Wazaristan and Bajour in the coming weeks and months but they will lose again. The pakistani govt is not politically or militarily capable of the type of long term sustained counterinsurgency campaign in the tribal areas. The best armies the world has known have been unable to crush guerrilla fighters in the high mountains. We are asking Pakistan to do what we have been unable to accomplish after more that 6 years fighting in afghanistan.
As bills map and the recent suicide attacks and ambushes in Islamabad, peshawar, and baluchistan show this problem is way bigger than the tribal areas. The islamists will extend this war all over Pakistan. I fear we are playing right into Zawahiris hand forcing the Pakistani army into confronting the Islamists at the behest of the U.S. We have to start playing the long game instead of looking for the quick solution. If there is one thing we can learn from our enemys it is patience.
To hear the Sunday Times tell it it looks like “game on”. Some 80,000 troops in Waziristan alone. There are some inconsistencies in the report, though, so I am not sure how much stock to place in it.
And it looks like they rounded up 100 in the Red Mosque and closed it back down. I am wondering if the meeting with Bhutto was more about getting her blessing of support against the Taliban in exchange for power sharing.
Pakistani,
‘You seem like a mullah sympathizer despite your name’
Yes I am a mullah sympathizer however my name is correct. I originate from a town not far from ‘Deoband’ in UP, India so you will not be surprised that I am a mullah sympathizer. The Mullah’s in my part of the world have been very good to a lot of people that I know irrespective of their religion.
The problem is not the mullah’s or the ‘green brigade’ it is the elite of Pakistan. The elite need to decide which side of the fence they are going to come down on. It is the elite of Pakistan who are the cause of the present instability in the world.
I personally have no problems with the ‘green brigade’ as long as they leave me alone to do my own thing.
Crosspatch,
I suspect the author is confusing the number in Waziristan with the entire number of troops in the NWFP which is estimated at 80,000.