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| India-Pakistan |
| Fazalullah calls for Pakistan uprising |
| 2007-07-10 |
| PAKISTAN took the battle against Islamic extremists to its borderlands with Afghanistan yesterday, as violence spread from a tense stand-off with militants sheltering in a mosque in the capital, Islamabad. Troops were rushed to the Malakand and Dir districts of the North West Frontier Province after firebrand cleric Maulana Fazalullah declared holy war on the Government for its handling of the Red Mosque stand-off and called for a nationwide Islamic uprising. Pakistani opposition leaders added to President Pervez Musharraf's woes yesterday by calling for his resignation and for former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to be permitted to return to the country. In a joint declaration issued at the end of a weekend conference in London, the All Parties Conference said General Musharraf's military rule had "brought Pakistan to the edge of a precipice, leading to strife, chaos and the threat of disintegration". The call came as General Musharraf weighed up the cost of a full-scale assault against the Red Mosque. However, he decided to give clerics more time to persuade defiant militants to lay down their arms and surrender the mosque they have defended against thousands of government troops. Some clerics have attempted without success to persuade the militants' leader Abdul Rashid Ghazi to end the siege peacefully since the crisis erupted. Local media reported solid support in hundreds of madrassas (religious schools) in the NWFP for Fazalullah's call to arms to back the Islamabad extremists. Many of the madrassa students still in the mosque are from the frontier regions that openly support al-Qa'ida and the Taliban. Fazalullah's Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Laws is one of Pakistan's most powerful, and has thrived despite attempts by General Musharraf to proscribe it for its alleged links to al-Qa'ida and the Taliban. His call for jihad echoes a statement made to a Pakistani reporter yesterday by Ghazi. Declaring that he would prefer "martyrdom" to surrender, Ghazi said he believed his death and that of the other militants would spark Islamic revolution in Pakistan. Most analysts believe the looming showdown represents a tipping point in the future of Pakistan and the global war against Islamic radicalism linked to al-Qa'ida and the Taliban. There is no doubt the forces of Islamic fervour in Pakistan are watching the Islamabad stand-off with intense concern, and that a bloody showdown could lead to even greater problems for the Government. Pakistani officials claim many of those still in the mosque are "terrorists who are wanted within and outside Pakistan", including members of Harkat Jihad-e-Islam, a proscribed group which is suspected of killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The Government has also claimed the mosque is harbouring Chechen and Arab members of al-Qa'ida, which Ghazi denies. |
| Posted by:lotp |
| #6 And, of course, Fazalullah will be right out there in front. Won't you, Maulana? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-07-10 15:20 |
| #5 ?Why is this "All Parties Conference" permitted to exist on your soil? Why? 3dc: Because they already know that Brown is weak on terror and wants everyone to watch their "words" and is anti-sloganeering. The rap the British police and G2 agencies are taking from Interpol also supports their vision of weakness. More at 11 with video. |
| Posted by: Jack is Back! 2007-07-10 10:04 |
| #4 Why is Maulana Fazalullah still stealing precious oxygen from far more deserving lifeforms like scorpions, lice and cockroaches? |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-07-10 06:28 |
| #3 Dear Britannia: Why is this "All Parties Conference" permitted to exist on your soil? Why? |
| Posted by: 3dc 2007-07-10 03:46 |
| #2 Declaring that he would prefer "martyrdom" to surrender, Ghazi said he believed his death and that of the other militants would spark Islamic revolution in Pakistan. Dish out enough martyrdom and there won't be anyone left to spark an Islamic revolution. Case closed. |
| Posted by: Kofi Throluth2328 2007-07-10 03:34 |
| #1 If that's Mullah 'Pasta' Fazalullah, he'll never sneak by in that borrowed burqa. (Letting Bhutto back in for a hanging would be ok, though.) |
| Posted by: Phinater Thraviger 2007-07-10 00:32 |