– LAL MOSQUE CRISIS RESUMED

 

Two weeks after Pakistani troops stormed the center of radical Islamism in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, an act that claimed the life of over 110 people including 12 soldiers, the Lal Mosque was reopened on 07/27/2007 with a new Imam appointed by the government.

Already in the morning prayers thousands of assemblers began to shout slogans against Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharra, against the new Imam, did not enable him to carry on with the prayers or the weekly sermon and drove him away from the Mosque. They demanded the return of the mosque’s surviving pro-Taleban cleric, Abdul Aziz, who is in detention. Shortly afterwards few hundreds youngsters took over the Mosque for a short period of time and daubed red paint over the mosque, which had been repainted in pale colors by the authorities after the end of the siege (see also – Khalid Khawaja ). Later the young Islamic demonstrators threw stones and clashed with the police outside the Mosque.

When the police responded by reinforcement and lined outside the Mosque, they were attacked by a suicide bomber, that killed 13 people, most of them from the ranks of police.

While the crisis in Pakistan is heating up, Pakistani President Pervez Musharra met on Friday evening, 07/27/2007, the key secular opposition leader, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Abu Dhabi. Pervez Musharra and Benazir Bhutto talked about a power-sharing deal.

Summary ;

* Following the takeover of the Lal Mosque on 07/11/2007 a wave of violent attacks erupted in the Tribes area on the North West border with Afghanistan which claimed the life of over 200 people, mostly police and soldiers, in what seems as a local civil war with Islamic militants.

* Although the Pakistani army took over the Lal Mosque the crisis is brewing up and far from over.

* A political compromise with the secular opposition leader, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, is an urgent necessity in order to restore some legitimacy for the Pakistani regime in the Pakistani society.

* In no time the Pakistani nuclear bomb can be turned to be an Islamic nuclear bomb in the hands of a most extreme Islamic regime.(see- PAKISTAN crisis )

* There is not, currently, more dangerous crisis in the world then the turmoil in Pakistan.

* Relate topics-

• ISLAMABAD AQ CELL – 2004 
  MILITANTS ARRESTED IN PAKISTAN – 2005 
  2002 – KARACHI JAIL VAN ATTACK 
  2006 – NISHTAR PARK BOMBING 
  2006 – 4 ROCKETS DEFUSED IN ISLAMABAD 

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