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Afghanistan/South Asia
Pakistan imposes indefinite 24-hr. curfew after festivities
2005-01-10
A Shiite Muslim cleric was ambushed Saturday as he drove through the once serene Himalayan tourist destination of Gilgit, setting off a rampage of sectarian violence and arson that left at least 14 people dead, including a family of six that was burned alive in its home. Authorities imposed an indefinite 24-hour curfew and army troops patrolled Gilgit to contain the violence, the second bout of unrest between rival Shiites and Sunnis there in six months. Security forces also blocked roads into Gilgit, about 150 miles north of the capital, Islamabad, and national carrier Pakistan International Airlines suspended flights to the town. "We don't know yet when the flights will be resumed," said Mohammed Abbas, a PIA official.

Police said hundreds of Shiites and Sunnis had clashed, setting fire to shops, homes and government buildings. The town was calm on Sunday, but the death toll rose to 14 after three people died of their injuries overnight, said Jamil Ahmed, regional chief administrator. The fatalities included six members of one family who were burned alive in their home, among them a government forestry official. Also, the local health chief Sher Wali - a Sunni - was shot dead.

The trouble started long before when unidentified gunmen shot and wounded a prominent Shiite cleric, Agha Ziauddin, as he traveled through the city in a car.
A quick look at the Rantburg archives for Gilgit shows that
.... a Shia cleric from Gilgit working in Karachi tipped off the police about the presence of (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's nephew) Arooshi in the house of Abbas Khan. (T)he Al Qaeda leadership suspect that the Shia members of the Hazara community in Balochistan and of the Kashmiri community in Gilgit in the Northern Areas had been collaborating with the US intelligence in its hunt for the dregs of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Many in Karachi claim that Masoob Arooshi was actually arrested on a tip off by the US authorities, who, in turn, got their information from the Shia cleric.

My money's on a contract hit, although Dire Revenge™, sunspots, or the heartbreak of psoriasis can't be ruled out...
His private security guards, one of whom was killed, fired back, killing at least one attacker. The motive for the attack on Ziauddin, who was hospitalized in stable condition, was not known. Fearing the unrest could spread to other parts of the country, the Interior Ministry instructed authorities in each of Pakistan's four provinces to step up security for Muslim clerics and at places of worship, a ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

Gilgit, a town set amid steep mountains, suffered sectarian unrest in June, when Shiites staged protests, demanding changes in Islamic textbooks used in state schools. The protests spiraled into violence that claimed several lives. Authorities imposed a curfew for 13 days and had to airlift out some foreign tourists who were stranded in the city. Although tensions had since eased, some schools have yet to reopen in the Gilgit area.

About 80 percent of Pakistan's 150 million people are Sunnis and 17 percent Shiites _ although Shiites are in a majority in Gilgit and some other mountainous northern areas. Most of the Muslims live together peacefully, but a teeny tiny minority small groups of militants on both sides stage attacks.
Posted by:Seafarious

#12  .com: They don't have to listen to or follow the Islamists.

I wouldn't say that this is necessarily the product of religious extremism. A lot is it may be sectarian - i.e. racist. It is possible that the Oriental-looking Shiites are being set upon by the Caucasoid-looking Sunnis using the pretext of religion. Note that sectarian struggles don't necessarily involve any particular religious devotion - Orangemen and the Catholic Irish have fought in Northern Ireland for centuries without being particularly devout. Sectarian wars like this generally go on until a resolution is imposed from without, the two parties reach exhaustion or one side pushes out the other. I don't think the Pakistani state is strong enough to impose a resolution, and the fighting is relatively desultory, so I expect neither party will reach exhaustion and neither party will be defeated. Which means that the fighting will continue, off and on, for the next several decades.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2005-01-10 5:20:57 PM  

#11  They don't have to listen to or follow the Islamists. This is the pivot point upon which all choice is based. No matter the press or peers or society, people have chosen to seize the moment for good or ill, for and against the grain. History reveals many such moments.

We have had lone wolves who have turned entire societies - for the good. They have had Mohammad. And, as I said in my screed, they allow no lone wolves for moderation or progress, their system selects against this trait and kills it early. They do allow, however, lone wolves for regression, ala bin Laden.

Okay. I'll stop. Been there, said that.
Posted by: .com   2005-01-10 4:46:36 AM  

#10  Of course, that would be; We've made far too much collective progress ...
Posted by: Zenster   2005-01-10 4:32:45 AM  

#9  "And today, in Moderate Islam™, the 143rd Mythical Warriors For Peace, Combat, and Cable TV soundly defeated the Black Beheaders Brigades of The Two Bloody Rivers Of The Holy Desert in a pitched battle lasting several hours. There are rumors flying that there were actually casualties. What is clear to this reporter is that the Beheaders fled the field at the end of the engagement in disarray when the Big Screen flashed the Fatwa of Doom issued by the defector, Imam Omar of The One Evil Eye."
Posted by: .com   2005-01-10 4:31:23 AM  

#8  I'll add that this is why I staunchly advocate going out and offing Bashir, Hamza, Qawadari and all the other propagators of this meme. If we depopulate that critical disseminating tier and the evil continues, then it will more resemble a popularly held policy within Islam instead of the perverse interest of a hate-obsessed academic caste.

Free Islam of its hostile shackles, if it still insists upon pursuing violent domination, wipe it from the face of this earth. We've made for too much collective progress to permit a band of regressive Neanderthals to set back history's clock by several centuries. I'd rather glass over the entire Middle East than see that happen.
Posted by: Zenster   2005-01-10 4:29:05 AM  

#7  No smarm was intended over such a serious topic, .com. We need to give Islam a fair chance and when that opportunity has passed, take it apart at the seams.

The Mythical Moderate Muslim™ is merely an untapped resource - a host, a vector of the pathogen... awaiting activation.

The longer that Muslims take to institute any sort of significant and genuine reform, the more they do indeed become mere incubators or vectors for the pathogen. They're so busy making up my mind for me that all I have to do is sit back and watch. If Islamist terrorism wasn't such a critical threat to our entire planet, all this would be sort of sad. Instead, there's a grim satisfaction watching a truly diseased body dissolve in its own bile. Not a pleasant spectacle, to be sure, but compelling nonetheless, if only out of stark self-preservation.
Posted by: Zenster   2005-01-10 4:16:41 AM  

#6  Excellent smarmy reply, lol! Note that, when I first posted that screech, April, I think, guys like Pipes were still saying that the "infection" was a very very few and that Cair, et al were positive organizations of Mythical Moderate Muslims™ who should not be painted with the brush of radical Islam. Somewhere around there in time he got his wake-up call when they virulently opposed him being appointed to some commision by Bush for his ultra-mild remarks. Duh! It's fascinating to watch the evolution of opinion and verbiage as it accepts, more and more, the reality of just how phriggin' dysfunctional and devious Islam, in practice, really is. The Mythical Moderate Muslim™ is merely an untapped resource - a host, a vector of the pathogen... awaiting activation. But that's okay. Enough get it. We'll make it.
Posted by: .com   2005-01-10 4:03:26 AM  

#5  I've never disputed that fanatical Islamism is a form of pathogenic meme. I take issue with your blanket application of it to all Islam. I still maintain that there are portions of the Muslim population to whom your analogy does not pertain. However, the bulk of Islam's leadership structure (both governmental and religious) is so corrupt that it should qualify as well.

Keep in mind that Islam's lethargic reluctance in addressing the critical housecleaning needed to purge itself of violent jihadist factions is rapidly eroding what little relevance it has left. Arab nations and the puny response shown in assisting their own Muslim brethern during the recent tsunami disaster only serves to reinforce this perception.

Saddest of all is how I have no need of persuading myself about Islam's rapidly diminishing validity. That's something it is doing all by itself. The only thing I can add in response to that is; Tough Shit.
Posted by: Zenster   2005-01-10 3:53:24 AM  

#4  Okay, now hold on there. I'm the author of The Human Pathogen screech / screed. You're treading very closely upon my trade-mark territory, there, bub! Of course, if you really are "there" on the cusp of the same conclusion, then I get to share the derision and antipathy that was heaped upon me for posting it. Last posted in Aug 2003 - it still stands and I still support it 100%. Aged like a fine wine, in fact. Yumm! Will repost if desired, lol! My attorney may insist, in fact!
Posted by: .com   2005-01-10 2:43:31 AM  

#3  After having sown the hydra's teeth so fecklessly for so long, the inner turmoil being experienced throughout Islam's length and breadth comes as something less than a surprise. If they could somehow manage to restrict their ceaseless killing to among their own adherents, I would just about be prepared to let them have at it.

Unfortunately, they happen to spawn a special breed of fanatic whose damage is much more far reaching. At some point the outside world will be forced to recognize much of Islam for the infectious cesspool it is. Sadly, it will likely require a few terrorist nuclear atrocities before substantive measures are taken to finally sterilize this virulent and toxic mutation of the human spirit.
Posted by: Zenster   2005-01-10 2:31:17 AM  

#2  Sectarian unrest spreads in northern Pakistan
Violence spread to two remote northern Pakistan towns on Sunday, a day after 14 people were killed in violence that erupted following an attack on a minority Shi'ite Muslim leader, officials said. Hundreds of angry youth burnt tyres and blocked roads in the northern mountain town of Skardu, though there were no reports of any casualties, while the government also beefed up security in another town, Karimabad, where enraged crowds attacked local government offices late last night. The violence was sparked following an attack on religious leader Ziauddin Rizvi in Gilgit, the main town in the mountainous region known as Northern Areas.
Posted by: Paul Moloney   2005-01-10 2:02:15 AM  

#1  The Shias of Gilgit and the surrounding areas are ethnically similar to Tibetans and Nepalese. They have lived a very isolated existance until the last couple decades with the opening of transport links between Pakistan and China.

Since then many thousands of Pashtuns and Punjabis have settled in the region, with the encouragement of the establishment, who feel they are more loyal than a bunch of strange looking Shias. After much sectarian killing in the 80's, more and more local Shias have dropped their local version of Islam and adopted the more 'pure' Iranian style of Shiasm.

At the same time, many Sunni immigrants have been educated in mardassas, so they follow 'pure' Deobandi style Sunni Islam. So there are bound to be many more festivities in future.
Posted by: Paul Moloney   2005-01-10 1:49:35 AM  

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