Save Karachi From Taliban

Save Karachi from Taliban


By Malik Rashid

Seventeen million lives are in serious jeopardy as the Taliban prepare to run over the city of Karachi, Pakistan. Thousands of Taliban have ganged up on a mission to take-over the city and stop the US war-shipments to Afghanistan. There are nuclear facilities in Karachi and they could soon be in the hands of Taliban. Karachi, the biggest city of the country is a port and an industrial hub in the Sindh province.

The Pakistani state-machinery is unwilling to resist the Taliban. A minister in Sindh, claimed recently, that there were no Taliban in Karachi whereas the residents and the ruling political party in the city were complaining of the growing Taliban menace. Taliban have built around two thousand illegal madrassahs and mosques in Karachi and they guard their areas fully loaded with guns and RPGs, in broad daylight. The Taliban Karachi spokesman Maulvi Omar said in an interview that they were waiting for Baitullah Mehsud’s orders to take control of the city.

Karachi is a city of workers, businessmen, officers, lawyers, beggars. There are dozens of universities, hundreds of colleges and thousands of schools in this huge urban sprawl by the Arabian sea. A large proportion of the population is educated. Women work and girls go to school and the shops and malls are full of women.

Karachi has been targeted for an attack and Taliban have surrounded and infiltrated. They are already there, waiting for some orders to run through the city, looting, killing and brutalizing as they conquer. The strongest political party of the city, the MQM, has been raising alarm for some time but the authorities have done very little and there seems to be no hope for the unarmed city dwellers.

Seventeen million people need help to protect them from being murdered and brutalized. A catastrophe of this magnitude must be stopped from happening.