And you think you have problems
A report from Stratfor on Pakistan’s Red Mosque, and other issues:
Since February, radical clerics and their followers at a mosque/seminary facility in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad have been challenging the government’s authority by trying to impose their version of “Islamic” law in parts of the capital through kidnappings, illegal occupations of buildings and attempts to forcibly prevent “un-Islamic” behavior. Moreover, these armed mullahs have established a self-styled Islamic court and have said that if the Pakistani government does not enforce Islamic law, the mullahs will do it themselves. The extremist clerics have also reportedly threatened suicide attacks in response to a government crackdown.
The standoff between authorities and the hard-line mullahs from the Red Mosque continued April 11. Despite a second meeting with ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) party chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the two top clerics at the mosque/madrassa complex — Maulana Abdul Aziz and Ghazi Abdul Rasheed — are in no mood to negotiate an end to the standoff at the mosque and its affiliated madrassa, Jamia Hafsa. Meanwhile, senior Cabinet members are at odds over how to resolve the matter; some advocate an ironhanded policy, while others urge caution.
Meanwhile, in northwestern Pakistan, fighting between Pashtun tribesmen and transnational jihadist elements is continuing in the South Waziristan agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). A PML parliament member appealed to Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to deploy the army to quell raging Sunni-Shiite clashes in FATA’s Kurram agency. In Karachi, a new kind of sectarian violence has emerged; a Barelvi religious group (the main school of thought in Pakistan that adheres to Sunni Islam’s Sufi leanings) used high-powered assault rifles to attack Wahhabi mosques April 10 in retaliation for a jihadist suicide attack that killed top leaders of the Sunni Tehreek.
Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf did the opposite of Ataturk, who set up the scheme of two secular parties to be in-power and loyal opposition. Musharraf’s reliance on religious parties may now be catching up with him. We shall see.