By alexpressed

Read anything on Shia Genocide in Pakistan or watch an ‘analyst’ discussing it on one of those talk shows and you will definitely find this repeatedly: Iran-KSA proxy war. It has become a fashion to label the Shia Genocide as a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia but what about hundreds, if not thousands of Sunnis killed at Sufi shrines across Pakistan? That’s Kenya-Nepal proxy war? And the Ahmadis not even safe in graves must be an outcome of Iceland-Qatar proxy war.

If this was indeed a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia:

• – why Sunnis are not targeted en masse like Shia are ?
• – why Sunni professionals like doctors, engineers, lawyers not target killed?
• – why Sunni mosques are not targeted by Shia in Pakistan?
• – why Sunnis are not burying their dead en masse? Any mass graves?
• – Why no examples of indiscriminate attacks by Shia on Sunnis in Pakistan?

This oversimplification is one of the many obfuscation techniques on Shia Genocide. Gone are the 80s and there is no proxy war in Pakistan – it is plain genocide of Shia at hands of state sponsored Takfiri Deobandi militants from organisations like Sipah Sahaba, Lashkar Jhangvi, Jandullah and Taliban.

There is strong evidence of financial support by Gulf states like KSA, Qatar and UAE to these militants and madressahs in South Punjab which was disclosed by Wikileaks too and reported in several media outlets. There is little or no evidence of such financial support by Iran to Pakistani Shia. Watch the videos below and read the following in this regard:

• US-Saudi Funded Terrorists Sowing Chaos in Pakistan by Tony Cartalucci
• WikiLeaks reveal Saudi Arabia and UAE funding Islamist terrorists in Pakistan

Some analysts appear to be living in the 80s when Iran turned into an Ayotullah theocracy. In the mid 80s Sipah Sahaba was formed and since then these organisations have targeted the Shia in Pakistan and to date, the Shia killed are 21,600+. Sipah Muhammad was a Shia organisation formed to counter the attacks on Shia which only retaliated with targeted killings of leaders or members of such organisations with NO indiscriminate attacks. In the last 10 or so years, even those targeted retaliation attacks have been non existent as Sipah Muhammad has been dysfunctional. However, the analysts still appear to be living in the 80s and continue to blame the Shia as Iranian agents. If this was the case, Shia would have been killing as many Sunnis.

If we are to believe this narrative, then there should have been no violence against the Shia before the Ayotullah revolution of Iran, but that is not the case. Let me document a few of the recorded incidents of Shia killings in Pakistan before Iranian revolution:

• The first recorded major incident of Shia killings in Pakistan is from year 1963 (16 years before Iranian revolution) when in a single day 118 Shia were butchered in a small town called Therih in Sindh.
• Another, among many, recorded incidents of Shia killings is this Golimar Karachi incident when following an organised intimidation campaign Shia were killed – an year before Iranian revolution.
• On 17th February 1978, a Shia procession was attacked in Karachi killing 14 Shia.
• On 17th February 1978, a Shia procession was attacked in Lahore killing 8.

Iranians as people have lost their respect for Pakistanis in general (including Shia too) after Pakistan supported Taliban regime. Anyone who has been to Iran will know this. Iran as a state as well does not see huge importance in Pakistan and will willingly sacrifice Pakistani Shia for its global cause. Iran as a state is looking at the seat of global leader of Muslim community. It desperately wants to shun its image of a Shia state and wants to compete as the leader of Muslim Ummah – that is precisely why it picked up the cause of Palestine, most dear to Arab world and Muslim Ummah in general. The Ayotullah regime celebrates annual events for Palestine but does not bother about Shia being killed in Pakistan because its interest lie elsewhere. Ahmedinejad will happily take a shoe in Egypt from radical Sunni Muslim Brotherhood followers to appease the ordinary Sunni crowd but not visit the victims of Shia Genocide in Quetta.

A lot of the suspicion of the Shia comes because of the Velayat-e-Faqih theory but lets make it clear that concept of Velayat-e-Faqih (on which Iranian Revolution was based) is an innovation in Shiism and was not accepted by all Shia (in Pakistan or elsewhere) and there was and has been a division between the Ayotullahs on this ever since. Over time, the Qom (a city near Tehran famous for its religious seminaries) school of thought and Najafi (Iraq) school of thought established themselves as distinct centres of Shia learning and scholarship and both differing on Velayat-e-Faqih and the role of religion in politics. The later rejected the Velayat-e-Faqih and called for a version of Secularism which came to be known as Sistani’s Secularism (see academic papers on topic).

Khaled Ahmed writes in his book Sectarian War:

The Pakistan Shia are caught in this unending blame game labelled Iranian agents when Iran has done nothing for them in the recent past and will not do anything in the future. It has been reluctant to even condemn the Genocide of Shia in Pakistan at International levels. Iran is choked in intself because of economic sanctions and complete cut off from the world at large and not in a position to take the 40 million Shia of Pakistan as its agents to play a proxy war in Pakistan where it can not compete it millions of dollars flowing in from the Gulf. Its high time the analysts come out of the 80s and consider the 40 million Shia of Pakistan born, raised and educated in Pakistan as their own, give up their Shia Phobias and help their cause.