 Approximately 70 militants of the outlawed group Lashkar-e-Taiba died in the massive earthquake which struck Pakistan and part of Kashmir on October 8, a party leader said on Tuesday.
| Was Hafiz Saeed among them, we hope? |
The guerrillas from the Pakistan-based Lashkar, now known as the Jamaat-ud-Daawa, died in Muzaffarabad after the 7.6-scale quake struck the region.
| Yep. That was where God struck them dead. |
A leader of the underground outfit, Maulana Abdul Aziz Alvi, said that the group had taken a severe blow.
| "I mean, Allah is really cheesed at us!" |
"This casualty figure may cross 100 and even more, as we have no information about those killed in other areas of Muzaffarabad," he said.
| "I guess we're lucky the Lord didn't chase down and kill each of us personally..." |
The group members who survived the earthquake were attending funerals after every two to three hours, he said, while the Jamaat's religious schools and mosques had been razed to the ground.
| That's evidence enough for me. See you in church, Sunday morning... |
More than a dozen members died when the roof of the party office collapsed during a meeting, he said.
| That's worth at least a twenty in the collection box... |
"People are in desperate need of tents, blankets, medicine and water," he said, criticising the government its slow response. A Jamaat spokesman in Lahore said that party chief Hafiz Saeed was not in the region at the time of the quake and was still alive.
| Damn. I was hoping he'd been squished to a pulp when a mosque dropped on him... |
"The Jamaat has a strong following in all the earthquake-hit areas.
| "... which is why the earthquake struck where it did. Muzaffarabad was the epicenter of the earthquake, y'know. Now the survivors are all coming down with boils and I've heard there's a swarm of locusts on the way. We figger it's because we don't get enough shariah in our lives, of course..." |
"Saeed is safe and well," spokesman Yahya Mujahid said. "It's time to do jihad (holy war) of a different nature, by helping people in this hour of need.
| Maybe it's time to give up Evil? |
The Jamaat teams are working day and night," he said. |