As I write this, there are reports that the Pakistani Government has finally had enough of the stand off in Islamabad at the Red Mosque, and has ordered a breach of the compound.
The clerics who run the Mosque have been attempting to impose Taliban like law in Islamabad. After 6 months of confrontation, last week the Government had finally had enough, and decided that it was necessary to shut down the Mosque. The Imams retaliated by shutting themselves in, with many hundred students, and defying the government forces.
Echoes of this standoff have been felt in other cities in Pakistan, where other radical clerics have turned out their supporters to protest the governments actions.
3 days ago, Gen. Musharraf, currently the Secular leader of Pakistan, survived an attempt to shoot down his aircraft, and this may have spurred his decision to conclude the siege at the the Red Mosque.
But the Red Mosque is not the only source of Islamic Radicalism in Pakistan. In fact, at least half of the students in Madrassas in Islamabad are taught by radical sects aligned with the Red Mosque.
And on Pakistan’s frontier with Afghanistan, many of the tribal areas are either controlled by, or under threat from, the Taliban. The Pakistani government essentially ceded these areas to the Taliban and Al Qeada earlier this year, in what were called Peace Accords, but were, essentially, a recognition that the Pakistani Government could not exert it’s authority in the region, short of massive military force, and agreed to leave the Radicals alone, if they would not promote their agenda in greater Pakistan.
Unfortunately, as always happens with appeasement, the radials now want more, and the Red Mosque siege gives them a vehicle:
…the mosque’s supporters in the Northwest Frontier Province have attacked the government. In Swat, a settled district in the Northwest Frontier Province, Maulana Qazi Fazlullah, a 28-year-old radical cleric, has called for his followers to strike at government agencies for taking action against the Lal Masjid. “In broadcasts on his FM channel on Tuesday and Wednesday, [Fazlullah] asked his supporters to take up arms against the government to avenge the action taken against Lal Masjid and carry out suicide attacks,” Dawn reported on July 4.
Fazlullah’s followers have carried out his call for violence. In the five days since the Red Mosque standoff began, four major attacks were carried out against police forces in the district. Six have been killed and thirteen wounded in shootings, roadside bombings and ambushes throughout the region.
North of Swat in the district of Dir, four soldiers were killed, including two officers, and another was critically wounded in an IED attack. The army convoy was reported to be heading into Swat in preparation for a possible “showdown between supporters of Maulana Fazlullah and law-enforcement agencies.”
The former President of Pakistan, General Zia Ul Haq, promoted the radical Madrasas as a source of mujahedin to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. It seems that the swords other edge is now becoming obvious, and those same madrasas are now turning warriors of god who aim to take down the Secular government of Pakistan, and create a new Taliban state in its place.
The possibility of Pakistan falling to the Taliban and Islamic Radicals should be chilling to the bone. Pakistan has a modern military, with high tech weaponry (mostly US) and a proven Nuclear arsenal.
The only reasonable response of the Western World to this situation - indeed, the only response that will give Western Civilization any chance of seeing the next turn of the century - is to put our support squarely behind Musharraf; greatly increase the NATO mission in Afghanistan to fight the resurgent Taliban; and finish the job of pacifying Iraq.
Failure to stamp out the Taliban, Al Qeada, and Radical Islam is not a viable option.