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| Afghanistan/South Asia | |
| Pakistan deploys commandos in preparation for Ashura | |
| 2005-02-18 | |
The ceremony, which starts late Saturday, is often marked by clashes with Sunnis. Last year's festival was one of the most violent, with 48 people dying in a bloody attack in the southwestern city of Quetta. Police in Quetta said two members of a banned Al-Qaeda-linked Sunni extremist group had killed themselves with a grenade early Friday after a raid on their hideout. "The militants could have attacked Shiite processions in the city today and there is also a possibility they were planning to attack the main Ashura procession" on Sunday, said provincial police chief Chaudhry Muhammad Yaqub. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi later said in a statement faxed to newspapers that the militants were its members and that it was proud of their acts. The group vowed it would carry on attacks against Shiites and warned the government not to be happy about killing two of its men. "Our members were ready to launch suicide attacks and by dying they have provided inspiration to other Lashkar-e-Jhangvi mujahideen and Sunni youth to follow their footsteps," spokesman Commander Zarar said in the message. With tensions remaining high, the commandos were biding their time but would be sent out "on an urgent basis to deal with any situation," said Lieutenant General Safdar Hussain, army commander in North West Frontier Province. The commando force demonstrated its skills at a dress rehearsal in the central city of Multan Thursday, in which pretend militants attacked a mock Shiite procession and staged a chase with military helicopters and ground forces. "We wanted to assess the ability of the force and test the security arrangements," the force's commander Brigadier Mohammad Ibrahim told reporters. The situation in Pakistan was already tense following deadly riots in the Himalayan gateway town of Gilgit last month. The commandos were being deployed in parts of Punjab, Pakistan's largest province, and in North West Frontier Province on the Afghan border, which have been hit by unrest in previous years. Tens of thousands of police and paramilitary forces were covering the rest of the country, officials said, including 4,000 in Islamabad and 15,000 in Karachi. Authorities in Punjab have declared about a dozen places including Jhang, Multan, Faisalabad and Bahawalpur as sensitive areas. "Miscreants trying to disturb peace will be crushed with an iron hand," said the military commander of Faisalabad, Lieutenant General Javed Alam Khan. | |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 Anti-al Qaeda commandos? |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-02-18 5:38:03 PM |