Backlash seen from Pakistani mosque assault

Islamabad, July 11: The killing of scores of Islamistmilitants in an assault by Pakistani forces in Islamabad will trigger abacklash, but it is also likely to deal a blow to a growing wave ofradicalism in the country, analysts say.

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

Hardline clerics at the mosque complex, which also houses asprawling Islamic seminary for women, have been leading an aggressivecampaign to impose Taliban-style social values in Islamabad sinceJanuary.

Analysts said militants can be expected to launch retaliatoryattacks to vent their anger, mostly in the conservative northwest nearthe Afghan border, but the mosque assault would also send a strongmessage that the government ''means business''.

''In the short term, there will be some reaction. There will besome attacks,'' said Mehmood Shah, a former security chief of thenorthwestern tribal areas who has long experience of dealing with alQaeda-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 bewiped out with force if they do not mend their ways. This will alsodiscourage parents from sending their children to such madrasas wheremilitancy is taught instead of religion.'' Funded by the United Statesand Saudi Arabia, Pakistan saw a proliferation of hardline madrasas, orIslamic schools, during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980s,when they were seen as breeding grounds for Muslim holy warriorsfighting communism.

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

'Nurseries Of Terror'

Pakistani liberals, worried about thespread of militant Islam in a process known as ''Talibanisation'', havelong demanded that the government clamp down on radical madrasas.

The editor of the News newspaper, Imtiaz Alam, said there werehundreds of such ''nurseries where the future terrorists are beingbred'' and appealed for united action.

''Let there be no politics on this issue, but a national consensuson holistically eradicating religious extremism and terrorism,'' Alamsaid in a column.

Musharraf, a staunch ally of the United States, launched a driveto reform madrasas a few years ago but the move faltered largelybecause of opposition from hardline clerics.

One such cleric, who runs a well-known madrasa in North WestFrontier Province where a large number of members of Afghanistan'sTaliban studied, said the assault on the Lal Masjid would inflamemilitancy.

''There will be negative consequence and if they continue withthis policy of dealing strictly with madrasas, there will be a reaction... this will lead to civil war,'' said the cleric, Sami-ul-Haq, who isalso 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.

Reuters

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