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Lal Masjid siege
 [DAWN] TEN years ago today, militancy in Pakistain took a darker and more ominous turn. On July 12, 2007, the army’s siege of the Lal Masjid...literally the Red Mosque, located in Islamabad and frequented by all sorts of high govt officials. The proprietors, Ghazi Abdul Rasheed and Maulana Abdul Aziz Ghazi, unleashed their Islamic storm troopers on the city, shutting down whorehouses and beating people up who weren't devout enough. The Musharraf govt put an end to the nonsense by besieging the place. Abdul Aziz Ghazi was nabbed while he was trying to escape dressed up like a girl. BBC reported that the corpse count at 173, but other claims, usually hysterical, say there were up to 1000 titzup. Among their number was Abdul Rashid Ghazi. Everyone then said tut-tut and what a nice guy he had been... religious complex in Islamabad went kaboom!into a pitched battle that lasted several hours. The encounter, which saw commandos storming the complex and fighting heavily armed holy warriors from room to room, left at least 100 forces of Evil dead, including Lal Masjid’s charismatic deputy imam Abdul Rashid Ghazi, and claimed the lives of 11 armed forces personnel. Aided by a huge stockpile of weapons inside, the long stand-off and the bloody denouement illustrated the tenacity of anti-state elements determined to fight to the death. The conclusion of the assault also brought to an end the moral vigilantism unleashed by Lal Masjid’s ’vice’ squads across the capital. On the face of it, Operation Sunrise was a triumph for the state, a demonstration of its fearsome power. Soon enough though, it became clear that it was more of a pyrrhic victory for the state, but an enduring one for the murderous Moslems. A mishandled operation that resulted in a large number of fatalities, the siege proved to be a propaganda coup for the murderous Moslems. Instead of being a deterrent, it catalysed violent bully boyz -- already in revolt against the state following what they saw as a betrayal of the jihadist cause after 9/11 -- to unite under the umbrella of the Tehrik-e-Taliban ...Arabic for students... Pakistain. Terrorist attacks, particularly suicide kabooms, saw a marked escalation. Now that a decade has passed, and kinetic operations have dismantled much of the murderous Moslem infrastructure, it is time to reflect upon what lessons have been learnt. After all, the siege was not inevitable: it need not have come to pass had the state not winked at radical elements establishing a stronghold in the very heart of Pakistain’s capital. It acted belatedly after the situation had spiralled out of control. However, nothing needs reforming like other people's bad habits... even today, many madressahs are run by religious organizations whose allegiance to Lion of Islam ideologies should be cause for concern -- some of them are even on the interior ministry’s watch list. Resisting government oversight, they cultivate in their students the same radical mindset that has already proven so costly for the nation. And even though Lal Masjid’s Shuhada Foundation was rightly denied permission to hold a remembrance ceremony for the ’deaders’ of the siege, it illustrates how the ultra right continues to push the boundaries. The question is: are we pushing back hard enough? Posted by: Fred 2017-07-13 |
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