Javno : Backlash Seen From Pakistani Mosque Assault

Backlash Seen From Pakistani Mosque Assault

The killing of scores of Islamist militants in an assault by Pakistani forces in Islamabad will trigger a backlash.

Reuters | July 11, 2007

The killing of scores of Islamist militants in an assault by Pakistani forces in Islamabad will trigger a backlash, but it is also likely to deal a blow to a growing wave of radicalism in the country, analysts say.

Abdul Rashid Ghazi, a rebel cleric, was killed with more than 50 militant followers when Pakistani commandos stormed the radical Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque complex, in the heart of the capital on Tuesday after months of tension.

Hardline clerics at the mosque complex, which also houses a sprawling Islamic seminary for women, have been leading an aggressive campaign to impose Taliban-style social values in Islamabad since January.

Analysts said militants can be expected to launch retaliatory attacks to vent their anger, mostly in the conservative northwest near the Afghan border, but the mosque assault would also send a strong message that the government "means business".

"In the short term, there will be some reaction. There will be some attacks," said Mehmood Shah, a former security chief of the northwestern tribal areas who has long experience of dealing with al Qaeda-linked militants.

"But in the longer run, it will prove good if the government continued with his policy," he said.

"It will send a strong message to the militants that they will be wiped out with force if they do not mend their ways. This will also discourage parents from sending their children to such madrasas where militancy is taught instead of religion."

Funded by the United States and Saudi Arabia, Pakistan saw a proliferation of hardline madrasas, or Islamic schools, during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980s, when they were seen as breeding grounds for Muslim holy warriors fighting communism.

Some madrasas supplied fighters for the Taliban regime before it was toppled in 2001, and for a Muslim insurgency in Indian-ruled Kashmir that began 18 years ago.

"NURSERIES OF TERROR"

Pakistani liberals, worried about the spread of militant Islam in a process known as "Talibanisation", have long demanded that the government clamp down on radical madrasas.

The editor of the News newspaper, Imtiaz Alam, said there were hundreds of such "nurseries where the future terrorists are being bred" and appealed for united action.

"Let there be no politics on this issue, but a national consensus on holistically eradicating religious extremism and terrorism," Alam said in a column.

Musharraf, a staunch ally of the United States, launched a drive to reform madrasas a few years ago but the move faltered largely because of opposition from hardline clerics.

One such cleric, who runs a well-known madrasa in North West Frontier Province where a large number of members of Afghanistan's Taliban studied, said the assault on the Lal Masjid would inflame militancy.

"There will be negative consequence and if they continue with this policy of dealing strictly with madrasas, there will be a reaction ... this will lead to civil war," said the cleric, Sami-ul-Haq, who is also a member of the upper house Senate.

Haq, like many Islamists in Pakistan, said the government was merely doing the bidding of the United States.

"Musharraf should divorce Bush if he wants to eradicate militancy," he said.