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LATEST NEWS:
President Saddam Hussain's voice was heard on
Al-Jazeerah
TV calling on
the
Iraqi
people to continue
Jihad.
Looks like he
was aware of military
collapse of Iraq and had prepared a post-invasion
plan.
Evidently,
America
is now in serious trouble
in Iraq.
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Attack On Quetta Imam Bara: Who is Behind This
and Why?
(commentary by our Pakistan Observer)
On July 4, Pakistani government sources
allege, four assailants attacked
the main Imam Bara or Shia mosque in the border
city of Quetta. By July 5,
the death toll had risen to 44 worshipers and the
4 assailants killed plus 85
worshipers injured.
After the attack, enraged demonstrators from
the Shia community, which is
strong in Quetta, attacked government buildings,
banks, cars and public
facilities. The government imposed curfew on the
city and called in the army
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WHO PERPETRATED THIS MASSACRE AND WHY?
Whatever is said at this point is in the
realm of speculation. It is to
be hoped that a thorough and impartial inquiry
will be carried out.
In Pakistan, most incidents are connected to
the government. The inquiry
should include an investigation of the
government's possible involvement. In
terms of Pakistani politics, the government has
the most to gain from such
tragedies. How?:
At this time, the opposition, MMA, is about
to launch a movement to
remove Musharraf following the coup leader's
treacherous visit to the U.S. in
which he started ground work for the recognition
of
Israel.
It also gives Musharraf an opportunity to
move against peaceful and duly
elected opposition governments in Frontier
Province and Baluchistan.
The massacre, if focused on enough, could
help Musharraf to divert
attention from the betrayal of Pakistan he is
involved in right now.
Pakistanis have an APPETITE for conspiracy
theories. Some Pakistanis
are saying the attack had the hand of Israeli
intelligence (Mossad) behind it.
Others say it is RAW (the Indian intelligence
agency). Either one could be
correct or totally off the mark. At this time
both
India
and Israel want
Musharraf to stay in power and continue with the
Bush-Sharon-Vajpayee agenda.
The MMA and the Jihad movement lead by Hafiz
Saeed have the most to lose
from a sectarian attack. MMA is a peaceful
movement and includes Shias in its
coalition. The Jihad movement (Jamaat ad-Dawa) is
focused on
Kashmir
and sees
sectarian attacks as distractions from the cause.
THE ROOTS OF THE ATTACK MIGHT LIE IN THE
AFGHANISTAN
WARS:
Most Pakistanis do not realize, in human
terms, not statistics, that
in Afghanistan there has been major bloodletting,
part of which involved issues
which tend to become sectarian in Pakistan. It's
not really a Shia-Sunni
issue at any theological level. It has to do with
the emergence of
IRAN
as a
regional power. Owing to the horrendous nature of
the Afghan wars, the situation
has become vicious COMPARABLE TO THE CIVIL WAR IN
SPAIN BETWEEN the REPUBLICANS
and the FASCISTS in the 1930s. In that war, all
sense of the sacred was
forgotten and assailants would carry out attacks
on churches and perpetrate
horrific acts of desecration. Let's look at the
sectarian poison infused into
Afghanistan and its connection with Pakistan.
1. During the CIVIL STRIFE between the mujahideen
factions, after the Soviet
withdrawal, IRAN started developing a Shia
initiative to take over Kabul by
military force. The Shias, majority of whom live
in Hazarajat (central
Afghanistan), did not accept the Iranian moves.
However, a small force was armed
heavily by Iran and it attacked Kabul and took
over parts of it. Serious acts of
murder, rape and looting were carried out by
these bands of riff raff heavily
armed by Iran.
2. Peace was brought to Afghanistan by the
TALIBAN but Iran worked with
segments of Dostum's Communists in the north to
undermine the advancing Taliban
forces. The Taliban were in too much of a hurry
to establish peace in the north.
As a result, they were surprised when one
commander, linked to Dostum, whom
the Taliban considered their ally, turned on the
Taliban with Iranian help.
There was a big massacre of the Taliban in this
surprise move, with an estimated
5,000 Taliban killed and buried in mass graves.
3. Thereafter, Iran rapidly increased its moves
against the Taliban and won
over more and more support from the Hazarajat
Shia to attack the Taliban.
Gradually the two sides started considering each
other as armed infidels. Both
sides attacked and killed each other somewhat in
the pattern of horrors which we
see in the history of Spain in the 1930s.
4. During the American assault on the Taliban,
Iran was hooked up to the
Communist Dostum and the Shia forces (now
organized into a regular military
force).
5. Following the Taliban retreat, a segment of
Taliban forces was tricked
into surrender by the Dostum-Shia military forces
backed by the U.S. The Taliban
thought they would be sent home. Instead the
Shias and Dostum group, under
U.S. supervision, placed the prisoners in closed
containers and allowed them to
die of intense cold and starvation. AN ESTIMATED
3,000 TALIBAN PRISONERS WERE
KILLED in this way by the Shia-Dotum combine.
[This is known as the massacre of
Sheberghan and has been documented by an Irish TV
team.]
6. The PAKISTANI regime seems to be well aware of
the hatred between
Hazarajat Shias and Taliban. Hence, WITHIN
PAKISTAN, in the Quetta area, Musharraf's
people have been recruiting Hazarajat Shias into
the police to ensure that
owing to their hatred, they would not let any
Taliban or other Islamic refugees
enter Pakistan.
7. According to Pakistani media, the prison
keepers in most Pakistani
prisons, where Pakistanis who had gone to fight
in Afghanistan were kept, were drawn
from the Shia community. Thus Musharraf seems to
have deliberately used the
hatred between the two groups to humiliate the
supporters of the Taliban.
Musharraf, quite isolated in Pakistan,
observers say, has desperately
drawn his forces from alleged Qadianis, extremist
and Hazarajat Shias, and
criminal types who are against the Islamic
foundations of Pakistan. A sect called
the Parvezis, for instance, allegedly celebrated
the bombing of Afghanistan
and the destruction of the Taliban. The Parvezis
support General Parvez
Musharraf and oppose the Muslim mainstream.
AN INDEPENDENT COMMISSION SHOULD BE SET UP TO
INVESTIGATE THE MASSACRE IN
QUETTA. The government's actions should be
included in this investigation.
The Commission must investigate the TRAGEDY OF
AFGHANISTAN and
CIA
agent
Musharraf's role in that tragedy. With that
background, the atrocity in Quetta should
be investigated and the people behind it
punished.
It is time for IRAN and the Musharraf
government to get out of the
use of sectarianism to keep the Pakistani people
at each other's throats.
SECTARIANISM MUST BE STOPPED and the way to do it
is through transparency. The
public must know what is going on behind the
scenes. Pakistan's Islamic base is
under attack as
Bush
has successfully implanted
his man in the capital of
Pakistan, Islamabad.
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2003-07-05 Sat 15:59ct