Hoping, Without Hope

If this attack was a blowback of Pakistan`s Kashmir policy and madrassahs, then why are all the attacks concentrated in Karachi and Quetta alone? There are Shia mosques all over Pakistan. There are also madrassahs all over Pakistan. How come there have been no sectarian attacks in Punjab, NWFP and interior Sind since the early 1990s??

Apparently, this was neither a politically motivated attack nor a madrassah inspired one. I am sure Indians will like to bring Kashmir into this to politicize this attack... but there is no evidence to suggest any Kashmir or madrassah link here. The evidence is pointing toward Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which is still capable of staging attacks in Pakistan despite the neutralization of Riaz Basra and Akram Lahori. The Musharraf administration must continue to hit these people hard while making a clear distinction between those who were involved in the Kashmir Jihad and those with sectarian agendas.

Zehra,

It is very easy to stop the killings. First abandon this idea of sectarian killers and jihadic killers. According to this idea supportyed by all pakistanis assumes that certain killings are a religious duty while others are not. Stop and criticise this idea of individuals taking up on this religious task of killings. That will be stopping the jihad. No you cannot do that, pakistan is an islamic country. Why pakistan is an islamic country, because of TNT, muslims cannot live with people of other religions.

So you see, the root cause is TNT. The political idea of TNT combined with islam has created the most virulent strain of islam in pakistan, the ``jihadic strain of islam``.

Pakistansi are killing infidels in india, afghanistan, philippines, chechniya. Never in the history of islam has any country achieved this. The change will not come internally in pakistan, a generation of TNT children have grown up, and that is why the idea of pakistan has matured now. Only daisy cutters can bring about change in pakistan.

Pakistanis can help this process. Support the jihadis, pay no taxes, send money abroad, do not send children to schools, support honour killings.

Pakistan is on a decline, things will get worse befor it improves. So accelerate the decline so that the eventual upturn is quicker.

There is hope for pakistan.

#18-Urstruly
Mufti shamzai was far from being a `strictly` non-sectarian mullah. He was a staunch supporter of Al-Qaeda. Infact, so much so, that he is considered to be the founding members of Taliban, along with Maulana Fazal-ur-Rahman and ISI. Also, it is alleged that Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden actually met for the first time in Binoria Mosque. Amazing, isn`t it?

Al-Qaeda is an extremist organization. they are not only Anti-Christian and anti-Jew, but also very much anti-Shia. The Shiite Muslims all over the world were and are a big problem for Taliban. For if there is anyone who can actually condemn and stand up against this barbaric form of Islam, it is the Shia faction.

It is a known fact that Mufti Shamzai had issued a fatwa in Oct 2001, after AMerica attacked Afghanistan, declaring jehad. Not only that, he himself took an army of young soldiers to Afghanistanand killed many belonging to the Shia Hazara community. If that is his idea of sectarian harmony, i wonder what he would have done otherwise.

Incidentally, many of Mufti Saheb`s students are involved in terrorist activities and lead terrorist groups whose purpose is to kill Shiite Muslims. And Shamzai has been the spiritual head of many jehadi groups including Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Wonder what went wrong wih his sectarian harmony sermons?

There are many who point the fingers at the govt. Even that cannot be overruled. Shamzai had great following and it was one of his bright pupils, Masood Azhar, who was the master mind behind taking Musharraf`s life. This student leads the Jaish-e-Mohammad, another one of Shamzai`s pet Jehadi group. Makes you think doesn`t it?

I agree with the fact that this is not a Shia-Sunni conflict. We cannot put every non-Shia in the Sunni category. Doing so, Taliban would also brand the Sunni label, whereas 60-70% of the Sunni Muslims around the world are anti-Taliban. But it is obvious that there is a third party involved in these actions which is not only anti-Shia but is also bent upon creating differences between the Sunni and Shia faction in Pakistan. the timing of the murder and the bomb blast have given this entire tragedy a sectarian touch. It will, of course, serve the purpose of the muslim extremists but as Ahmedzai mentioned in a post, they are mistaken about Shia-Sunni unity. (i really hope so!)

BTW, Shamzai belonged to the Deobandi school-a movement that strongly opposes the Shia sect. And that is very obvious from the workings of the jehadi groups manned by his students. Even then if he talked about sectarian harmony, he was nothing but a BIG hypocrite. And if we all believe this crap about sectarian harmony he preached, we`re stupid.

#23-malik99

I agree, this is a political problem that has been linked to religion. But you forget that in our country, all sorts of problems are linked to religion. And we have General Zia to thank for that. And of course, Uncle Sam!

Farheen Zehra

and oh yes, stop saying things i never said you raving lunatic :) -- jai ramji kee

pmishra2 -- u overestimate the size of your brain -- and, u didnt run out of cliches by the way --

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I spent last two weeks in Turkey. Traveling from Istanbul on Bosphorous down to Bodrum on the Aegean Sea. Stopped in quite a few regions (cities/towns/few villages) in between these two points.
Besides enjoying the rich cultural & historical sites in Turkey, I was amazed at the religious tolerance in the Turkish society.
There are mosques everywhere, yet alchohol is available freely. There are women in total hijab walking on the same streets with women clad in short skirts & hip-hugging jeans. Men rushing to mosques for prayers while others sitting in cafes near by enjoying hukkah & cold beers!
This is what Pakistan, and for that matter all the rest of so-called muslim countries need, a total seperation of state & religion. Let individuals choose the life-style they want.
Otherwise we`ll have what is happening in Karachi these days!

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#48 by dost-mittar on June 2, 2004 7:13am PT
”Could anyone make sense out of this? Who did it?”

“The MQM was the dream of a few Marxian scholars such as Rais Amrohvi, Mohammed Taqi, John Ailia and Shahanshah Hussain to establish an organization that could protect the rights of immigrants who chose Pakistan over remaining in India when the sub-continent was partitioned from British India in 1947.”

I don’t have time right now to take up every BS that contains in this article by Salim Shahzad.
I personally knew all the above so-called Marxist in Karachi except Shahanshah Hussian. Since most of them are dead, people can say whatever they want. Rais Amrohvi was likely killed by MQM. John Ailia had remained under MQM threat for years. His wife still writes for major newspapers in Pakistan and a dear personal friend of mine. She is totally anti MQM. She too suffered several threats from MQM. John Ailia was a non political person and a liberal no doubt about it.
They never had any hand in MQM formation it is complete BS.
The forerunner to MQM, APMSO was actually formed in Hyderabad Sindh. Altaf Hussain was a paid informer to Pak FIA and other agencies. The APMSO was formed to fight the sindhi nationalists students in Hyderabad Sindh and consisted of mostly former Jamaat Islami student wing members.
This article is yet another attempt to muddy the waters in the morass of ugliness in Karachi and Pakistan.

#54 by arjun_m

You still didn`t answer the question. Why are these attacks happening only in Karachi and Quetta? These are the only towns that are easily accessible by foreigners and easy to hide in. If Shamzai was killed just because he was the patron saint of JeM, then his killers have to be RAW agents. Only RAW has a grudge against JeM (and therefore a motive). Pakistan`s Shia groups have no armed quarrel with JeM, and vice versa. JeM has never been involved in any terrorist activitiy inside Pakistan. I seriously doubt that RAW has the muscle and inclination to assassinate an aging pro-Jihad cleric in Karachi especially at a time when the Jihad in Kashmir is already winding down. And besides, Shamzai is a lesser known figure than Hafiz Saeed and Maulana Azhar. If there was a Kashmir connexion here, the first targets would be Saeed and Azhar who were the primary players of that Jihad... not some behind-the-scenes person like Shamzai.

This is a sectarian attack which is unrelated to Kashmir. This smells like the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi versus Sipah-e-Muhammad battle that started in the 1990s, peaked in 1996-2001 period and then subsided.

As for the madrassahs, I agree with you that some of these madrassahs are indeed breeding grounds for Riaz Basra and Akram Lahori types.

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tintingem # 49

I might be breaking a taboo by saying this and I may be branded as a bad guy but as the time is passing by it is becoming a hard-sell to Muslims around the globe to convince them that Al-Qaida is a terrorist organization. Perceptions about AlQaida not only among the Muslims but also among the non-Muslim third world dwellers is fast changing. This is not exactly my idea but a harvard scholar (can`t recall her name) in her latest book has pointed towards it, in so many words. She also included in her list of orgs who have potential to become Al-Qaida allies organizations like some environmentalist groups, anti-globalization groups, anarchists and most importantly the people of the third world.

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