Questions Remain After Attack Wipes out Tehrik Leadership in Pakistan
Publication: Terrorism Focus Volume: 3 Issue: 15April 18, 2006 02:44 PM Age: 4 yrs
By: Chris Zambelis

Despite an intense investigation into last week’s April 11 deadly Nishtar Park explosion in Karachi, and vague speculation as to the identities and agenda of the culprits, which could include al-Qaeda or other radicals, Pakistani security officials have yet to release any substantive details as to who may be responsible for the attack (Dawn, April 16). The deadly attack occurred during evening prayers on the day marking Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi (the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday) in an outdoor venue assembled in Karachi’s historic Nishtar Park especially for the event. The blast killed 47 and seriously injured over 100 more.

The attendees and victims included influential Sunni Muslim clergy representing a number of different movements and other notables. Due to the presence of so many high-profile attendees, security was reported to be on high alert. Rauf Siddiqi, Sindh province home minister, said that security forces checked the stage before it was handed over to the organizers of the event and took other precautions based on the capabilities and resources of the security forces (Pak News, April 12). At the same time, he admitted that it was impossible to conduct a thorough screening of all of the attendees due to the large numbers. Instead, influential clergy attending the event and other key figures were provided personal police and security details (Dawn, April 16).

So far, no individual or organization has claimed responsibility for the attack. Initial reports after the blast from witnesses at the scene suggested that the explosion appeared as if it came from a bomb placed under the stage where the clerics were leading prayers. Pakistani sources, however, are now confident that the attack was the work of a suicide bomber. An unidentified head at the scene of the blast may likely be that of the attacker since all of the rest of the victims have since been positively identified. Pakistani officials also believe that potentially critical evidence at the scene of the blast may have been destroyed following a period of intense rioting led by worshippers that erupted immediately following the attack (Dawn, April 16).

High-profile victims of the attack included the entire senior leadership of the Sunni Tehrik (ST) along with leaders of the Jamaat-e-Ahle Sunnat, as well as Haji Hanif Billo, Maulana Abbas Qadri, Hafiz Muhammad Taqi and Iftikhar Bhatti. The ST is a religious and political organization and an offshoot of the Dawlat-e-Islami, which itself is an outgrowth of Jamaat-e-Ulema Pakistan Noorani Group (JUP-N). Like most Pakistanis, the ST follows the Barelvi school of Sunni Islam. It is also one of the most popular Sunni groups in Karachi and all of Sindh province. In a testament to the ST’s following and influence, its call for popular demonstrations and strikes in Karachi and elsewhere to protest the attacks and Islamabad’s alleged failure to protect the event won widespread support among its followers and rival Barelvi groups (The Nation, April 17).

ST is also engaged in a struggle for adherents among fellow Sunni faithful with other groups over the control of mosques and schools and the ear of the provincial and central government. These disputes have led to small-scale violence in the past. Immediately after the attack, some ST activists accused the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a major political rival, of being behind the blast despite a lack of evidence (Dawn, April 17). Yet Altaf Hussein, head of the MQM, condemned the attack in the strongest possible terms and called for unity in a statement on the organization’s official website (http://www.mqm.com).

Radical Deobandi extremists, whose ideology helped inspire the Taliban in Afghanistan, have targeted the ST and Barelvi Muslims in the past. Deobandis see the ST and Barelvis in general as unrighteous heretics due to, among other reasons, the central role of Sufism (Islamic mysticism) in their faith and reverence for Islamic saints (The Nation, April 17).

In May 2001, Maulana Saleem Qadri, the onetime leader of the ST, was kidnapped and murdered along with his nephew and brother-in-law by Deobandi extremists (The Nation, April 17). In another incident, the deadly May 2005 suicide bombing at the Bari Imam shrine in Islamabad, a place revered by Sunni Barelvi and Shiite Muslims alike, was likely an attempt to sow sectarian conflict and instability in Pakistan by Deobandi extremists or other radicals to undermine the hated regime of President Pervez Musharraf (al-Jazeera, May 27, 2005). Typically, it is Pakistan’s minority Shiite Muslim and Christian communities who bear the brunt of attacks against their places of worship, especially during holidays and other events. Sunnis are not as often targeted since they make up the vast majority of Pakistan’s population.

According to Jahangir Mirza, Pakistan’s police inspector general for Sindh province, 12 alleged militants have been detained and are under interrogation. He also mentioned that Pakistani police and security officials are focusing on what he termed “jihadis” because of their role in similar attacks elsewhere in the country. Based on the testimony of one of the detainees, Pakistani officials are now expanding their investigation outside of Karachi and Sindh province in their hunt for the mastermind behind the attack (Daily Times, April 17). Mirza announced that the attack did not target any individual or a specific group but was instead intended to tarnish Pakistan’s image abroad and to kill innocent people (Dawn, April 17). Mirza, however, did not provide any evidence supporting this claim. In reality, the statement is likely an attempt to defuse simmering sectarian tensions and to create unity.

Musharraf promised a high-level inquiry into the incident and said that the attackers would be caught quickly. At the same time, it is important to note that no major arrests have been made in connection with the March 2 car bombing against the U.S. Consulate in Karachi (Dawn, April 17; Terrorism Focus, March 7).

http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=738

abdullah :
Every shia is an iranian agent !

But Iran was the first country which accepted Pakistan and if this is your logic then every Deobandi and Barelvi in Pakistan is an Indian Agent because their Madressahs [HQ] are in India.

Religious violence
Dawn Editorial
Monday, 01 Mar, 2010

Religious holidays in the country are fast becoming marked by violence. Over the weekend, processions celebrating Eid Miladun Nabi in Faisalabad and D.I. Khan were attacked causing death, injuries and mayhem.

Thankfully, the violence was quickly contained and did not rise to the level of terribleness that the country has unfortunately witnessed in recent times. Pakistanis hardly need reminding that the country is in the grip of religious intolerance and violence: the war against militancy has touched every corner of the country inflicting a terrible toll, and for a while certain areas were virtually ceded to the militants without a fight. But there is another, more insidious, religious poison that is spreading, largely unnoticed, across the country, and it is not quite as easy to explain as the territorial ambitions of the Taliban. That poison has pit Sunni against Shia, Deobandi against Barelvi, Muslim against religious minorities — and it defies easy categorisation. The only thing its various strands seem to have in common is a hatred for everything that is ‘different’, where ‘different’ is inevitably judged as an unacceptable deviation and therefore deserving of punishment, even death, in many instances.

Invariably — perhaps suggesting where the cure must first begin — a steady diet of dogmatic preaching is to be found wherever such violence occurs. In Faisalabad, the khatib of a local mosque was arrested on charges of inciting people to violence. It will take great political will but such violent elements need to be purged from the mosques and madressahs, for without that it will not be possible to roll back the tide of hate that is threatening to engulf the country. Nor should it be viewed as some-thing that is impossible to do. After all, only a few years ago, processions such as those witnessed on Saturday were low-key and passed off peacefully.

What is new is the sense of one-upmanship: each group wants to have a bigger and louder affair and is ever keen to rattle or taunt rival groups. In the event, the police and local administrations largely manage to do a good job and keep tensions to a minimum. But that is mere fire-fighting and ends up dealing with only the symptom and not the disease. The infrastructure of hate that has slowly taken hold at the grass-roots level is really what needs to be dismantled. Further delay in initiating that process will only cause the problem to grow in magnitude.

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/editorial/14-religious-violence-130-zj-03

Wounds
The News Editorial

Monday, March 01, 2010

To our utter shame, Eid Milad-un-Nabi, the most auspicious of days on the Muslim calendar, saw the start of violence, death and destruction that wracked Faisalabad and DI Khan. Apart from the question of terrorism that thrives on the ability of man to inflict pain on man, sectarian differences and tensions have many a time shattered our dream of unity in diversity. These ancient wounds have never completely healed and politicians, both religious and otherwise, have a lot to answer for on this count. We note and regard as significant that the Punjab law minister, Rana Sanaullah, and the Punjab home secretary, Nadeem Hassan Asif, were present in Faisalabad during the worst of the violence — and that neither of them attended the meeting convened by the agencies of law and order to discuss how best to deal with it. What are a law minister and a home secretary supposed to do if they are not to support the civil power at times of greatest need? And does this add to the list of questions that need to be answered about the alleged affiliation of some of our politicians to banned or terrorist outfits? With our politicians behaving in this manner, what hope can we have of healing not just historical rifts but the recent wounds that we have suffered at the hands of terrorists?

Terrorists and those inspired by their twisted logic have drunk deep at the fountain of sectarian divide in our country and they are hell-bent on killing any semblance of normalcy that we may be able to sprinkle our lives with. As if we were not horrified and aggrieved enough at what was happening in DI Khan and Faisalabad, in Karak a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into a police station, killing five. Elsewhere there are continued attacks on schools. People are desperately attempting to resume normal life in Swat, Dir and other conflict-hit zones. Hotel owners make efforts to persuade tourists to return and music shop owners tentatively restock stores. The aftermath of violence though swirls all around, with the relatives of militants targeted for revenge according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, and with the Taliban acting to punish those they accuse of theft or other crime. How is this Hydra-headed monster of violence to be killed? Challenging the hold of obscurantism, tackling development issues and granting people access to opportunity are measures that must be taken. People, on their own, are attempting to find the calm rhythm needed in life and the militants are keeping up their efforts to prevent them from succeeding. The state can play a part in determining the outcome. It must not look on as a spectator. Unity must be promoted at all levels and solutions sought to the troubles that afflict us rather than rubbing salt into wounds old and new. We expect our lawmakers to be unifiers; this is an expectation that Messrs Sanaullah and Asif should pay heed to.

http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=226580

Editorial: Religious intolerance
Daily Times

An attack on Eid Milad-un-Nabi Barelvi processions in Faisalabad and D I Khan, retaliation by the participants and the subsequent damage to public and private property, loss of life and injuries have revealed that religious intolerance is seething just beneath the surface. In such incidents, the first suspicion is cast upon the opposing sect, who might normally have been assumed to be Shias in this case, but the Barelvi victims have accused the Deobandi groups in their respective areas.

The occasion of Eid Milad-un-Nabi in Pakistan is usually marked by celebrations comprising lighting up of streets, model-making, na’at competitions and processions in all big cities. The Barelvis, more rooted in the culture of the Subcontinent and deeply influenced by Sufism, have always promoted the more human side of religion by spearheading celebrations of the birth of the Prophet (PBUH).

Fun-starved youngsters make full use of the opportunity to give vent to their artistic skills and provide healthy entertainment to the general public. However, this has irked the conservative schools of Sunni Islam, notably the Deobandis, who had been campaigning before the occasion that celebrating the birth of the Prophet (PBUH) was a heresy because neither he nor his companions celebrated the event. The eruption of violence on such an insignificant issue between two Sunni denominations is an indicator of deep insecurities and a wish to impose one’s interpretation of religion on all others.

It is a source of great concern that more people were injured in exchange of firing between the police and the rioters in D I Khan. In a tense situation like this, the police are expected to dexterously manage the situation to cool down sentiments, which otherwise may swirl out of control. Once riots start, they may not necessarily remain confined to their origin and may become an opportunity to vent other kinds of resentments. Occasions such as Ashura and Eid Milad-un-Nabi, when sentiments run high, provide a ripe opportunity for mischief-makers to ignite trouble and disrupt religious harmony. Masked men have been reported to have carried out sabotage activities on several occasions in the past to avoid being identified and arrested. In a fraught situation like this, the Punjab government appears to be in denial that there are extremist forces at work in Punjab, particularly Southern Punjab. Reluctance to adopt a clear policy against such outfits may ultimately land this government in deep trouble as a result of internecine violence among these groups, in which ordinary people are also caught in the crossfire.

http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\03\02\story_2-3-2010_pg3_1

Shia’s are a greater threat to islam than judaism could ever hope to be – kafir , kafir , shia kafir !

—–

Warning to Mr Abdullah by the Administrator of LUBP

This is not an appropriate forum for sectarian bashing. You are welcome to present your arguments in a civilised manner, consistent with the topic of the thread.

I thick we should talk on realism; I have few question for all of you that will clarify the situation; Here I am quoting my own answers for which I am responsible for each and every word even alphabet. I have a huge collection of evidences for all I am answering here, AND PLEASE DONOT HESISTATE IF NEED ANY PROOF/EVIDENCE, but please comment first;
1. Can some Muslim come in Milad procession with guns?
Answer: NO
2. Whether Sunni Bralvis ever did such activity in Milad procession in past?
Answer: VERY RARE
3. Whether Deobandis ever did such activities IN Milad procession in past?
Answer: VARIOUS TIMES ESPACILLAY IN KARACHI
4. If yes, either it was attack or counterattack?
Answer: IT WAS ALYAWS ATTCK
5. What are beliefs of deoband about celebrating Milad?
ANSWER: According to deoband Ulama, Celebrating Milad-un-Nabi is similar to that of Hindu’s celebration on birth of their “Kanhia”. Milad Sharif, Mairaj Sharif, Urs Sharif, Soyam, Chehlum, Fatiha Khwani and Isal-e-Sawab all are unlawful, wrong and method of Kuffar and Hindus.

(Please stop spreading wrong information by commenting without data)

At least some of the terrorists involved in the D.I. Khan terrorism are now killed by the security forces. Here is a news item by Jafaria News:

Outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi top terrorists killed by Armed forces in Kohat
Written by jafarianews on March 3, 2010 under Articles, jafaria news.

Sources in Kohat Police informed that the government forces were killed 34 Taliban terrorist in the operation against terrorists in Dera Adam Khail in the suburbs of Kohat city.
According to the Shiite News, Three terrorists were identified as the members of the outlawed terrorist organization Laskhar-e-Jhangvi an armed wing of terrorist organization of banned Sepah-e -Sahaba.
The terrorists were identified as Abdul Rauf Baloch alias Mama Raufa, Abdul Latif alias Colonel Tofan and Azeem Mazvia, all the three terrorists have belonged from Dera Ismail Khan, most violent city of the NWFP province of Pakistan.
These terrorists were involved in the suicide attacks, bomb blasts and target killings incidents against the Shiite community of Dera Ismail Khan, which claims thousands of lives of innocent Shia’s of D.I.Khan.
The terrorists of outlawed organization had also involved in the suicide attempt on Pakistan Muslim League Shia Member of National Assembly Rasheed Nawani at his residence Bhakkar.
It may be noted here that the Armed forces of the country has been started an operation against the Taliban terrorists in Kohat city to prevent the area from the heinous activities of the terrorists.
Though the killing of top three Wahabi terrorists were the disaster for the terrorist network in the NWFP province but there is a need to initiate comprehensive army operation against the terrorists of outlawed organizations at grass-root level to prevent the life of Pakistani citizens.
People of the Dera Ismail Khan demanded of the Government to immediately arrest the Khalifa Abdul Qayum, the main supporter of terrorists in Dera Ismail Khan for the lasting peace of the city.
This is important to mention here that these terrorists group led by Khalifa Abdul Qayum was also involved in the attack on Milad-un-Nabi (SAWW) holy procession in Dera Ismail Khan, which shows his heinous desires.

http://jafarianews.com/en/?p=3872

All my brothers, I am a deobandi. I just have humble request that this is not the time to fight and there is no reason to do that. My brothers, Hindus, Jews and christians are getting united against muslims. They are attacking whole muslim world. So please respect each other sects. I say that i respect brelvi sect teachings, i respect all oliya-e-karam and buzargan-e-deen. I respect shia muslim. They are our neighbor, we live side by side in our cities. I have one request to shia brothers please don’t tease other muslims by abusing those sahaba that other sects considered the great and respectful.

Taliban and Sipah-e-Sahaba’s attack on Eid Milad-un-Nabi rallies: This is not sectarianism, this is terrorism Nike Free Run 2 Damen Blau Anthrazit Schwarz Weiß nike free angebot http://www.nikefreekaufendeutschland.de/nike-free-run-2-damen-blau-anthrazit-schwarz-weiß-nike-free-angebot-p-38.html Taliban and Sipah-e-Sahaba’s attack on Eid Milad-un-Nabi rallies: This is not sectarianism, this is terrorism

Taliban and Sipah-e-Sahaba’s attack on Eid Milad-un-Nabi rallies: This is not sectarianism, this is terrorism
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