A bastion linked to militancy Thursday, July 05, 2007 ISLAMABAD: The Lal Masjid has long been known as a bastion of radicals in the heart of the capital, Islamabad. But Maulana Abdul Aziz and Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, two brothers who run the mosque, also have known intelligence ties. The red-brick mosque was set up by the father of the two Maulanas, in the 1960s, when the city was first built on scrubby flat land up against the Himalayan foothills. The father, Maulana Muhammad Abdullah, turned the mosque into a headquarters of radicals in the 1980s, when fighters, backed by Pakistan, the United States and Saudi Arabia, battled Soviet occupiers in Afghanistan. When Maulana Abdullah was assassinated in 1998 his sons took up his mantle. The brothers have for years delivered fiery sermons at their mosque in a neighbourhood of tree-lined streets near a main shopping area, and not far from the parliament and a high-security diplomatic enclave. After 9/11 the mosque became a focal point of anti-US and anti-Musharraf sentiments after Pakistan abandoned the Taliban and aligned himself with Washington’s “war on terror”. The changed scenario brought the clerics’ relations with the intelligence services under stress. The Maulana brothers exhorted followers to join Jihad against the US involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. Books, newspapers, CDs and cassettes glorifying Jihad have for years been sold at stalls outside the mosque.
The gulf widened in 2003 when the clerics issued an edict against Pakistani troop operations targeting the Taliban and al-Qaeda figures in the tribal areas. Still some sections of the intelligence network continued to provide clandestine support to the clerics, despite their hostility towards Musharraf, according to a security official and reports. In 2004, the government accused Ghazi of involvement in a plot to attack the Presidency and the US embassy and arrested up to 10 al-Qaeda suspects in connection with the plot. Security forces tried to raid the mosque in 2005 during an investigation of Pakistani links to the London bombings that year. In 2005, some arms were found in a vehicle owned by Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, after which police picked up several suspects for plotting attacks. A terrorism case was lodged against Ghazi but it was shelved on the intervention of Religious Affairs Minister Ejaz-ul Haq.
“I helped Ghazi because he assured me he was not involved and the car was used without his knowledge,” Ejaz said recently in a television talk show. The latest trouble at the mosque and the adjoining Jamia Hafsa — Madrassa for girls and women — began in January when the brothers, Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid Ghazi, embarked on an apparent collision course with the government and their Burqa-clad students started a Taliban-style anti-vice campaign. The mosque said it has around 5,000 male and 4,000 female students, ranging in ages from early teens to the mid 20s. Most are from conservative tribal areas. The students occupied a library to protest against a campaign to remove mosques built illegally on state land. In March, the students abducted three Pakistani women they accused of running a brothel and held them for several days. They also abducted and briefly held policemen, and have warned video shops to stop selling Western films deemed obscene.
Animosity reached fever pitch last month when the students upped the stakes, kidnapping nine people including six Chinese women from an acupuncture clinic, claiming it was a brothel. The nine were released after 17 hours but not before Pakistan was hugely embarrassed over the failure to protect citizens of China, its most steadfast ally. Security sources said Taliban militants were using the sprawling compound to hide in, as were sectarian “Jihadis”, belonging to banned militants groups. Security sources also say slain Afghan Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah also had links with the brothers. “We had intelligence for some time now that militants were trained as suicide bombers at this complex, having a nexus with the Taliban hiding in our tribal areas”, a senior security official said. Several Taliban commanders lodged at the mosque during trips to the capital, the official said on condition of anonymity. While some militant clerics have voiced support for Lal Masjid, the country’s most prominent hardline preachers appeared on Wednesday to be distancing themselves from the mosque. Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, a senator who runs a famous Madrassa in the NWFP, said he had tried to get Lal Masjid clerics to give up their aggressive tactics. “As far as their demand of enforcing the Sharia is concerned, it is the basic right of every Muslim,” he said. “But we differed with their way of doing it and I and others tried to convince them to give it up. But the government should not attack Lal Masjid. It will create thousands of Lal Masjids throughout the country. It will then be impossible to handle,” he said
No comments:
Post a Comment