After the Lal Masjid, site of a recent bloody standoff between Musharraf's forces and jihadists, was reopened, it was immediately reoccupied by the jihadists. And now the violence has begun again. From AP (thanks to Davida):
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Hundreds of students clashed with security forces and a nearby bombing killed 11 people Friday during the reopening of Islamabad's Red Mosque for the first time since a bloody army raid to oust Islamic militants from the complex.The bomb struck the Muzaffar Hotel, in a downtown market area about a quarter mile from the mosque. Local television showed victims — many of them bleeding or badly burned, with their clothing in tatters — being carried from the wreckage to waiting ambulances....
Senior Interior Ministry official Javed Iqbal Cheema said 11 people were killed, including seven police, and 43 were wounded.
The bombing came soon after police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of protesters who had occupied the Red Mosque complex during its reopening after the raid that left more than 100 dead.
The protesters denounced President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and demanded the return of a pro-Taliban cleric, Abdul Aziz, who was detained by the government during the mosque siege.
The demonstrators threw stones at an armored personnel carrier and dozens of police in riot gear on a road outside the mosque. After the demonstrators disregarded calls to disperse peacefully, police fired tear gas, scattering the crowd.
Earlier, security forces stood by as protesters clambered onto the roof of the mosque and daubed red paint on the walls after they forced a government-appointed cleric assigned to lead prayers to retreat. A cleric from a seminary associated with the mosque eventually led the prayers.
"Musharraf is a dog! He is worse than a dog! He should resign!" students shouted. Some lingered over the ruins of a neighboring girls' seminary that was demolished by authorities this week. Militants had used the seminary to resist government forces involved in the siege.
Friday's reopening was meant to help cool anger over the siege, which triggered a flare-up in militant attacks on security forces across Pakistan. Public skepticism still runs high over the government's accounting of how many people died in the siege, with many still claiming a large number of children and religious students were among the dead. The government says the overwhelming majority were militants.
The mosque's clerics had used thousands of its students in an aggressive campaign to impose Taliban-style Islamic law in the capital. The campaign, which included kidnapping alleged Chinese prostitutes and threatening suicide attacks to defend the fortified mosque, raised concern about the spread of Islamic extremism in Pakistan.
Militants holed up in the mosque compound for a week before government troops launched their assault on July 10, leaving it pocked with bullet holes and damaged by explosions. At least 102 people were killed in the violence.
In an act of defiance to authorities' repainting of the mosque this week in pale yellow, protesters wrote "Lal Masjid" or "Red Mosque" in large Urdu script on the dome of the mosque. They also hoisted a black flag with two crossed swords — meant to symbolize jihad, or holy war....
Over mosque loudspeakers, protesters vowed to "take revenge for the blood of martyrs."
In a speech at the mosque's main entrance, Liaqat Baloch, deputy leader of a coalition of hard-line religious parties, the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, condemned Musharraf as a "killer" and declared there would be an Islamic revolution in Pakistan.
"Maulana Abdul Aziz is still the prayer leader of the mosque. The blood of martyrs will bear fruit. This struggle will reach its destination of an Islamic revolution. Musharraf is a killer of the constitution. He's a killer of male and female students. The entire world will see him hang," Baloch said.
Pakistan's Geo television showed scenes of pandemonium inside the mosque, with dozens of young men in traditional Islamic clothing and prayers caps shouting angrily and punching the air with their hands.
Officials were pushed and shoved by men in the crowd. One man picked up shoes left outside the mosque door and hurled them at news crews recording the scene....
Security was tightened in Islamabad ahead of the mosque's reopening, with extra police taking up posts around the city and airport-style metal detectors put in place at the mosque entrance used to screen worshippers for weapons.
Religious Equivalence Alert: How many churches have metal detectors at their entrances to screen worshippers for weapons?
Is it 11 dead already?
I put this up an hour ago when it was only 4....
http://sheikyermami.com/2007/07/27/day-of-unrest-in-pakistans-red-mosque/
They had a damn good 10-minute story on the Red Mosque today on NPR, especially well-balanced for the pro-Islam mainstream media.
They interviewed one of the Muslim she-things that had been a student there; she was middle-class, had internet access, had a mobile phone, has it made. Not "impoverished" financially by any stretch of the imagination. Did the interview in full burqa, hijab, veil; even had her eyes covered. Her biggest regret was leaving before she could be martyred. Typical brain-washed idiot.
Anyway, the last thing they said on NPR was that the gov't had repainted the Red Mosque green and white. And today, before Friday prayers were even finished, "students" were outside... repainting it red.
They should have hit the funeral protest of the dead jihadist imam two weeks ago and gotten rid of thousands of these future terrors.
Here's a second chance.
Is Musharraf crazy, or is he allowing them to regroup to be crushed completely?
The mosque should be razed.
A good start for those with similar intent everywhere.
Her biggest regret was leaving before she could be martyred. Typical brain-washed idiot.
Posted by: kj
Why did she leave then?
It looks like the bombs were in the mosque. Had to gain access to it before setting one off.
Who frequents the hotel that was attacked? Infidels or Pakistani Muslims? No doubt most of the service staff killed was Muslim. But then they're just martyrs to the cause. Like the personnel who staffed the African embassies. A dozen Americans died but so did several hundred Africans.
Musharraf isn't stupid and he isn't all that clever. He still thinks he can have it both ways. He still thinks he can placate the "peaceful" clerics and the tribal sheikhs while at the same time posing as an ally of the US. It worked for a while, but the jig is up. He's going to lose. He'll go down hated by both sides. While the US might not have turned its back on him, all the Muslims will. Unless the Pakistani army would support wholesale slaughter of those who are conducting the bombings along with the leveling of that mosque, in the end they'll have their revolution.
JDAMS for the Red Mosque in this manner:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PRvfoTnSA8
There is only one way to effectively deal with Jihadis. Tito, Milosovich, and Hussein knew how to do it. But, you see, these three were bad guys. And you can’t be a bad guy in an era of moms and dads seeking a better life for their children.
Musharraf knows how to deal with the problem but if he took action, he would be a bad guy too. And that would put his book tour in jeopardy (there is more money these days in being a good guy). So the line will not be drawn in Pakistan and the over / under date for the Musharraf book tour remains 17AUG.
The line will be drawn only when the Nurturing Age comes to an end and people begin to remember how the world operated before TV cameras. The line may be drawn in Israel, but more likely it will be drawn in Sweden or France, maybe the UK. It will not be pretty.
And then, the 787 option will look very humane.
What makes Pakistan so critical for us is that they are sitting on more than 60 nuclear warheads. If Musharraf dies or gets overthrown we will see those nukes falling into the hands of the jihadis and that is a global nightmare. That means missiles going towards New Delhi, New Delhi resonding with nukes of their own(perhaps even pre-emptly if they see Musharraf's gov't being toppled),others being smuggled into the U.S. and Europe, etc.
This Red Mosque situation may just be the opening salvo in the war to topple Musharref and if we're smart we better have a plan to grab or neutralize those nukes if Musharraf takes a fall.
I predicted all of this. Damn me.
Foehammer-
Mohammad's only prediction (a "prophecy" in Bukhari Hadith 2;26;665-666) was that the Ka'aba in Mecca would be torn down, stone by stone.
Let's hope his prediction skills are as accurate as yours.
(Special Ops teams, assembled for "Pakistani nuclear warhead confiscation", I hope you guys are sitting in the Afghan border, just waiting for the GO signal.)
I don't think it's the nukes themselves that pose the biggest threat -- it's the nuclear know-how. This "knowing how it's done" (or having the plans, etc.) is what's problematic. (That Pakistani "hero") was globe-trotting -- and who knows how much info haw already been linked. He made visits to a number of countries (which have subsequently expressed interest in getting nukes.) It's people like Khan who need to be apprehended.
The clear lesson is that the jihadis have to be killed to the point that they are defeated.
When the mosque is taken down,turn it into a barracks, a police station, a Walmart, a plaza, but not a rallying location for jihadis.
islam 101
This Musharraf is as thick as the Dems.
I was looking for pictures of the Red Mosque this afternoon and found this forum instead. Gives the differing views of moslems in Islamabad.
http://islamabad.metblogs.com/archives/2007/03/the_lal_masjid_controversy_con.phtml
I used to think the Chinese were brutal tyrants for committing atrocities like that of Tienamen Square. In that instance, as the days passed and more advocates of a pro-democracy movement gathered in and around the square, there came a point where the Chinese warned their citizens over loudspeakers repeatedly to disperse and end the rally peacefully. As the population failed to heed those calls and became more entrenched, there came a point where orders were given to anihalate any individual disregarding those orders - unconditionally without exception. At the very end of the siege, when tanks and troops maneuvered through the periphery of the crowd towards the middle, at Tienamen Square, the goverment then proceeded to turn of the lights and machine gun EVERYBODY who remaining in the square forming the 'hardcore' protesters.
The point to this parellel is show that these Islamic radicals must be TOTALLY ANIHALATED or they will continue to come back and terrorize the populace. In fact, they will come back with a renewed and determined vengence... The Red Mosque should have been DESTROYED and a larger massacre should have taken place or the problem gets worse.
I have come to realize the Chinese are brutal, but extreme brutality is the only way to suppress monsters who seek to destroy the nation state.
I recently picked up at a book sale a copy of "The Miscellany," edited by P. Lal, and published in Calcutta. Issue #51 (June 1972), one of three devoted to the then recently-deceased, at age 41, of David McCutchion. An Englishman, David McCutchion was a lover of India, not of the william-dalrympish sort, that is the kind who loves the luxe of the Moghul court and its love intrigues, nor the kind of Englishman (also william-dalrympish) of the walking-across-half-a-continent-when-young sort, making use of local color of the human interest kind, often grizzled or wizened or wizenedly grizzled picturesque Muslims, to do the work for him (downmarket Byrons and Newbys, not to menton the now-unfashionable, because bookish, traveller Gide in "Le Retour du Tchad"), but a true scholar, an Indophile who studied brick temples in Bengal, and Indian writing, was a friend of Satyajit Ray and all sorts of interesting people in Calcutta who never get the attention in the West that all those anti-Western islamisant arundhati-roys manage to get.
I read through The Miscellany #52 – and discovered a tribute from the Sanskrit (and Buddhism) scholar Richard Gombrich (son of E. H.), who opened his essay, titled “His Work Is Unrepeatable,” with this: “The recent death of Mr. David McCutchion in Calcutta at the age of 41 is a catastrophe for oriental studies.” Gombrich describes McCutchion as a scholar who “devoted all his time, his money, and his exceptional energy and enthusiasm, to the study of arts and monuments which are fast disappearing. He tramped all over Bengal, both West and East, taking notes and photographs; his knowledge of the countryside was famous. A self-taught photographer, he spared no pains to take the perfect shot; and he leaves well over ten thousand colour slides and as many black and white photographs of high professional quality…..His greatest specialities were Bengali temple architecture and terra-cotta sculpture, the latter a lost skill of whose monuments little is known to the wider world; he also studied and collected Bengali scroll paintings. He explored many other parts of India too, and recorded even Gupta temples previously unknown.”
And a little more, taken from a website:
“David McCutchion (1930-1972), English-born scholar, Indophile and early critic of Raja Rao, was an authentic pioneer: in his short lifetime...made a major contribution to the study of Bengali temples...one of the first scholars to write on the now much commented subject of Indian Writing in English....Born in Coventry, David attended that city's King Henry VIII Grammar School. He made it to Cambridge University the hard way, on intellectual merit alone. He read Modern Languages (French and German) at Jesus College. After graduating in 1953, he taught English for two years in southern France. He went to India in 1957. He worked there first as an English teacher...and later, as Professor and then Reader in Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University, Calcutta.... David's ground-breaking study of Bengali brick temples, The Temples of Bankura District, was published by Writers Workshop in 1972.”
David McCutchion lived through the war made by West Pakistan (now Pakistan) on East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, in 1970-71, a war in which Muslim fanatics in East Pakistan, locally called razakars, joined forces with the raping and murdering army of West Pakistan, accepting the argument that what was good for Pakistan – that is, staying one country – was necessarily good for Islam, and what was good for Islam was all that mattered.
Here is how, in a letter from England to a friend, McCuthion described the behavior of Pakistan:
“…We are raising funds {for those in what was then East Pakistan being murdered by the army of West Pakistan and its local, fervently Muslim East Pakistani collaborators], and hope to see the Minister of Overseas Development. What do I think of it all? Appalling…Pakistan shou’d never have existed – it has cost more lives than the whole of the British Empire in 200 years. What should I think of a culture that burns down the British Council library in Lahore because an English publisher printed a picture of Mahomet? Fanaticism plus Machiavellianism plus brutality equals Islamic Pakistan.”
One More Time:
"What do I think of it all? Appalling...Pakistan shou'd never have existed -- it has cost more lives than the whole of the British Empire in 200 years. What should I think of a culture that burns down the British Council library in Lahore because an English publisher printed a picture of Mahomet? Fanaticism plus Machiavellianism plus brutality equals Islamic Pakistan."
Print out that last bit, and put it on your refrigerator, under the title: Pakistan.
"
dgene:
The clear lesson is that the jihadis have to be killed to the point that they are defeated.
Too soft. Insufficiently radical.
The clear lesson is that all Muslims, regardless as to whether they jihadists or not have to be killed.
Because what is the alternative? Let the non-jihadist Muslims live? Because if you do, sooner or later they will breed a Muslim who becomes infected with jihadist ideas straight from the Quran, Hadith, Sira. And then you are back to square one with exactly the same problem.
As long as there is Islam somewhere in the world, there will never be peace. It is an infection, a disease. Islam needs to be irradicated from this world.
"The demonstrators threw stones at an armored personnel carrier and dozens of police in riot gear on a road outside the mosque."
...I would have called them enemy combatants....
"Fanaticism plus Machiavellianism plus brutality equals Islamic Pakistan."
Hugh, could we not go further and say:
"Fanaticism plus Machiavellianism plus brutality equals Islam."
Triumphant_Paladin,
The main problem with employing the type of methods you propose for this worldwide cancer, is that the West,along with some within the Indian Government,lack the fortitude to match or exceed, islamically-inspired, tactical brutality.
The political/cultural chicks have come home to roost and even a Pershing would have his hands tied today. It must end. One way or another.
Bet the over.
Because what is the alternative?
UK Infidel Lover
We must demonstrate unequivocally that Allah is a nothing by the occupation of Mecca and Medinah and must systematically destroy them. Killing a billion won't do it. Killing Allah will.
Great point,Plague_on_both_Houses, that may be the key to unlocking a viable solution. Break the spell by attacking the whole engine behind the indoctrination to begin with. There is only one real way to do that.
"what was good for Pakistan – that is, staying one country – was necessarily good for Islam, and what was good for Islam was all that mattered."
What was good for ISLAM was all that mattered. Can the US please stop talking about "secular" Islamic countries? They don't exist, if this quote is any indication.
Maybe Pakistan should never have existed but what would India be like today without Pakistan? Would it be embroiled in jihad and counterjihad all over the subcontinent on a far greater level than it is now?
@ Waltc
>> f Musharraf dies or gets overthrown we will see those nukes falling into the
hands of the jihadis ................means missiles going towards New Delhi, New Delhi resonding with nukes of their own(perhaps even pre-emptly ........... > more lives than the whole of the British Empire in 200 years. What should I think of a
culture that burns down the British Council library in Lahore because an English publisher
printed a picture of Mahomet? Fanaticism plus Machiavellianism plus brutality equals
Islamic Pakistan.
Assalamau Laikum all,
This is so stupid and insensitive of the Mushi Admin...how can they possibly justify painting it green and white...no wonder the peoples are angry!!!!
Boy , what a difference from the old Quran just a few years ago.
I remember the outrage by Muslims where it was Alleged that US soldiers entered a Mosque being used to store weapons and they didn't remove their boots while on Holy property.
Today , I have yet to hear even one Muslim express even the littest anger that Mosques are being bombed or use to wage war from.
Allah is so Forgiving and Merciful to allow these slaughters and yet no move in the Hearts of his followers that Murder is a bad thing .
U.K. Infidel Lover-
You mistake the cause (the Koran) for the effect (Muslims).
Muslims are the first and worst victims of Islam.
I consider this more of a hostage negotiations type situation than a religious clash.
Muslims are trapped by a homicidal cult. We need, out of basic humanity, to free them from its murderous tentacles. Through skill, not only brute force.
Destroying the Koranic sanctions for terrorism will defuse the ticking bomb that is the "Recitation".
Killing a lot of its mentally-enslaved dupes will not stop Islam.
It might give Islam more cachet with "underdog-loving" suckers of the world (Muslim and non-Muslim), and hand it a new excuse for greater violence "in response".
We need to kill the Koran, not Muslims.
It is the source of their carnage and madness.
Once the Koran is defanged, Muslims will just be one more group of people doing curious, self-punishing, but harmless-to-others rituals.
Problem is Proftsbeard is that if you try and 'defang' the Koran, hundreds of millions of not-so-orthodox Moslems will GALVANIZE in a major way, especially if the Kuffir try and do so. Then there will be a serious class of civilizations scenerio play out. What we really have to do is stop the flow of funds to Saudi Arabia while keeping up anti-Moslem propoganda (although since were in the right its the truth not propoganda). If we can ever cut the source of the terror off, money, then we have a chance.
At present Al Qeada has regrouped in the tribal areas of Pakistan and the adjacent areas of Afghanistan.
Al Qeada is seeking to re-establish itself as a significant global terrorist organization. Part of this effort is to creat conditions in Pakistan that would make it difficult or impossible for the United States or Coalition in Afghanistan to take direct military action against Al Qeada in Pakistan out of fear of inflaming the tensions and situation in Pakistan. The incident at the Red Mosque and a large measure of the violence that followed it, is in this writter's opinion, part of Al Qeada's effort to accomplish this goal.
In effect what AL Qeada is attempting to do is create a Geo-Political-Military booby trap in Paksistan that will expload if we launch a military strike against it.
It is also this writter's opinion that AL Qeada is attempting to coordinate operations against targets in Iraq, Afghanistan and outside the region in areas such as Europe in an effort to further fuel sectarian and inter-religeous incidents that can be exploited for propaganda, psychological and military purposes. These purposes would include fracturing the anti-Al Qeada and Iraqi Freedom Coalition; forcing Coalition forces to be committed to controling sectarian violance; and sapping the will of Coalition partners to continue the fight against Al Qeada.
At present current events in Pakistan, in the opinion of this writter, signal a new move by Al Qeada to destabilize a pro-western government and create conditions that will necessitate the committment of additional limited resources to contain the threat posed by the recent surge in violence in Pakistan.
All told the incident at the Red Mosque is, in this writter's opinion, the begining of a new effort by Al Qeada to destablize another region as part of an effort to escalate the tensions between West and the Arab world.
like I bid them before:
"...long & healthy war..."
;-)
If Islam were a person he would be a paranoid, belligerent guy with a chip on his shoulder. All day long he'd be starting fights wherever he went, and at the end of the day he'd claim everyone was attacking him and was planning to do him in. Interestingly, the torah/bible described it perfectly so many years ago when predicting the future of Ishmael (father of the Arabs):
"HIS HAND WILL BE AGAINST EVERY MAN AND EVERY MAN'S HAND WILL BE AGAINST HIM"
"The protesters denounced President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and demanded the return of a pro-Taliban cleric, Abdul Aziz, who was detained by the government during the mosque siege."
- - - - - -
Well if it were up to me, the Lal Masjid would suffer some sort of mysterious collapse -- maybe earthquake aftershocks, who knows? -- and after the dead "students" were removed from the ruined building and given a proper burial, the area would be paved over and a police training facility would be set up on the spot. No more madrassa, no more girl's school, no more mosque. Lots of police.
PS - again, if it were up to me, Abdul Aziz would trip and fall in the foot bath, regrettably breaking his neck.
T. Paladin-
Naturally.
Every angle in the war must be exploited.
The money weapon, of course.
But we also have to counter the ideology and the culture with our philosophy, science, art, music, movies, literature, and crafts.
I feel sorry for Muslims. But their jihadists have to be destroyed.
And their faith's malignancies have to be excised.
There are a few (not yet killed) reformers within Islamic society who can promote a humanization of the violent suras.
I don't think it's a good bet, but it beats the extermination answer.
I hope for their illumination not annihilation.
(While willing to kill a lot of their maniacs en route.)
PS - again, if it were up to me, Abdul Aziz would trip and fall in the foot bath, regrettably breaking his neck.
Posted by: A_Nonny_Mouse at July 27, 2007 8:55 PM
Dear Nonny Mouse,
That's hilarious! I think the entire Red/Green/White Temple of Iniquity should be razed to the ground in the most expedient manner, its rubble burned and then dumped in the nearest sewer. This should be done on a Friday, while the most fervent of allah's maniacal acolytes are inside when it falls. They will see their fondest wish come true and the legions of muslim fanatics will never miss their comrades. In fact, they will have recruited from the abundant madrassas a thousand new and expendable holy warriors to die for allah.
What is a "Nonny" mouse?