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The hammer poised to strike in
Pakistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - Violent reaction to the assassination
of Maulana Azam Tariq, a parliamentarian and head of an
anti-Shi'ite group in Pakistan, could provide the
government with the opportunity it needs to launch a
crackdown on extremist organizations, and round up some
of its "most wanted" suspects in the process.
Tariq, a member of the National Assembly and chief
of the Millat-i-Islamia (MII) party, which emerged
from the ashes of the defunct Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan
(SSP), an anti-Shi'ite movement, was gunned down in a
hail of bullets in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, on
October 6 by as yet unidentified killers. The
circumstances of the well-orchestrated attack have
raised suspicions that it might not be a cut-and-dried
sectarian killing.
At present, the anti-Shi'ite
movement in Pakistan has two faces. One is the MII,
which believes in political struggle through parliament,
with the ultimate aim of constitutionally turning
Pakistan into a Sunni state, just as Iran is
constitutionally a Shi'ite state. About 80 percent of
Pakistan's 140 million people are Sunni Muslims.
Sectarian strife has claimed many hundreds of lives in
Pakistan.
The other face of the anti-Shi'ite
movement is the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ), which subscribes
to the policy of eradication of Shi'ites. It also grew
out of the SSP, formed after the killing of the SSP's
founder, Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, and another chief, Maulana
Farooqi. To date, all of the SSP's chiefs have died in
targeted killings.
Although the LJ is a
dissident group of the defunct SSP, many of its key
members remained in contact with Tariq, as he was the
only political leader whose opinions they respected.
Conversely, Tariq lent the LJ a sympathetic ear.
Immediately after Tariq's killing, LJ
members gathered in Islamabad and Jhang and vowed to
take violent action against the establishment and
Shi'ites. According to some reports, they have drawn up a
hit list, starting with Interior Minister Syed Faisal
Saleh Hayat (a political opponent of Tariq from Jhang,
Tariq's parliamentary constituency). Hayat is not a
Shi'ite, but traditionally as a Syed he is considered
pro-Shi'ite, and most of the followers of his family in
Jhang are Shi'ites.
The LJ has been at the
forefront of the campaign against US interests in
Pakistan, and it has been linked with a bomb attack on
the US consulate in Karachi, a hotel blast that killed a
number of French workers in the same city, as well as
the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl.
When
Tariq won his seat in parliament in last October's
elections, he declined to join the six-party religious
alliance of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, which scored
unprecedented gains. Instead, he threw in his lot as a
coalition partner with the dominant Pakistan Muslim
League-Quaid-i-Azam, which backs President General
Pervez Musharraf. In return, he had all prisoners, of
both the SSP and the LJ, released on bail. At the same
time, he prevented any crackdown against his party.
Incidentally, he himself had been in prison at the time
of the elections.
Most of the LJ's militants
were trained in Afghanistan during Taliban's rule, and
several of them have been a major headache to the law
enforcing agencies in Pakistan, notably Riaz Basra, whom
they described as a "monster" who emerged from the
shadows to make a hit, and then disappeared without
trace. He was eventually arrested and killed in an
extra-judicial killing.
After September 11,
various organizations, including the Harkatul Mujahideen
and the Jaish-i-Mohammed, sought to take part in action
against US interests in Pakistan, as did the LJ's Asif
Ramzi group, commanded by Qari Asad.
These
groups have now very much inter-linked and coordinated
their activities. Cognizant of this development, US
intelligence agents in Pakistan have asked their
counterparts to take action.
However, they make
difficult targets, especially with their deep underworld
connections, and to catch them would require a
comprehensive operation against all jihadi groups. The
killing of Tariq, and the unrest that it has and is
likely to still stir, could provide Pakistan with just
this opportunity.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times
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