Agency reports say the abortive assassination attempt on a Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal MNA, Maulana Shirani in Balochistan recently was actually the first such attempt by the hard-line Taliban elements to remove from the scene those Deobandi-Taliban clerics and leaders who are seen as relatively moderate.
| Relatively moderate Deobandi-Taliban clerics beat their own wives... |
| Liberal Deobandi-Taliban clerics beat other men's wives... |
| Conservative Deobandi-Taliban clerics beat everyone |
| Neo-conservative Deobandi-Taliban clerics positively beat everyone ... |
The other element in this internal war has to do with the feeling among the hard-line Taliban elements that some components of the MMA have betrayed them and allowed the federal government a free hand to operate in South Waziristan despite controlling the provincial government in the NWFP.
| The free hand isn't as free as they'd like... |
The intelligence agencies have gleaned the information from the two suspects arrested on the charge of attacking Maulana Shirani. "The interrogation of these two people gave us the information on what is brewing among the Taliban," says an official. According to agency reports, the hard-line Taliban have prepared a list of the 'wanted' prominent clerics of Pakistan whom they plan to target in the coming days to teach them a 'lesson' for ditching them in their hour of need.
| I suppose killing them does teach them a lesson... |
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