Thursday, September 22, 2011
Massacre in Mastung; Foreign Policy
By Saba Imtiaz Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - 4:17 PM
Twenty-six Shi'a Muslim pilgrims, en route to Iran, died at the hands of the militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) in Baluchistan's Mastung area Tuesday evening. According to news reports and eyewitness accounts, attackers armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers stopped the bus and forced passengers to get off. While women and children were reportedly spared, they witnessed the execution. A car arriving to rescue the pilgrims was also fired on, and three people died in the second attack.
According to the bus driver "The attackers asked passengers to step out of the bus and shot them after identifying them as Shi'as"
The attack was not an isolated incident, but was instead part of a systematic campaign of violence in the province directed towards the Shi'a. In July, 18 people were killed within 16 hours in Quetta in targeted attacks by the LeJ, including seven pilgrims waiting for transportation to Iran. On the Eid-ul-Fitr holiday, a suicide bomber reportedly intended to attack the congregation of 25,000 people praying at a mosque in the Shi'a-populated area of Marriabad in Quetta. His explosives-laden car still killed 12 Shi'a and injured 32.
The campaign of anti-Shi'a violence has largely been directed towards the predominantly Shi'a Hazara community in Baluchistan. According to a recent report in Newsline, "at least 347 Hazaras have been killed in [targeted] killings and suicide and other attacks since 1999. Of the 328 Hazaras killed up until December 31 last year, as many as 105 had been killed in 2010 alone."And government inaction is only helping the problem spread. According to Amnesty International, "Successive [Pakistani] governments have failed to address the increasingly explicit threats faced by Shi'a Muslims from groups like Lashkar-e Jhangvi, operating openly in the Punjab and Karachi and apparently striking their victims at will in Balochistan and other parts of the country.
The LeJ, the militant wing of the virulently anti-Shi'a Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), has claimed responsibility for several of the attacks, and has vowed to kill more Shi'a. The Deobandi group's stronghold is in southern Punjab, and since its inception in 1985, it has spread its campaign of anti-Shi'a incitement and violence throughout Pakistan.
The group is officially banned in Pakistan, but the ban has been far from effective. The state supported the creation of the SSP, as General Zia-ul-Haq's regime propped up Deobandi movements to counter its perceived rival Iran.
Zia's death in 1988 did not end state patronage of such groups. Hundreds of Shi'a have been killed since then, and the state continues to support groups such as the LeJ, and has called on its leaders for assistance in times of crisis. For instance, LeJ leader Malik Ishaq was reportedly flown out of jail by the Pakistan Army to talk to the militants that had stormed the army headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009. Ishaq was released this year after serving 14 years in jail. He was accused of killing 70 people and faced charges in 44 cases.
It was revealed after his release that his family was given a stipend by the Punjab government while he was in jail, and that he had been provided with police guards -- while the witnesses who testified against him lived in fear of possible repercussions. Ishaq's freedom -- after being acquitted in 34 cases and being bailed out on 10 -- was met with a display of adoration by his supporters, who showered rose petals on him.
Since then, he has embarked on a public speaking tour, addressing crowds in Sindh and Punjab. His message has been consistent: he believes he was on the right path, and vows to work to further the SSP's mission. And despite knowing that the intelligence services and government are keeping an eye on him, the crowds still show up to hear Ishaq speak, helping validate the belief held by Ishaq and his followers that the SSP's mission is right.
In a letter to The Friday Times journal, the Pakistan Ulema Council has urged "different segments of society to stop making assumptions about Ishaq's release and help him become a useful citizen" while heralding his services to the army in the 2009 headquarters siege. But for anyone who has seen Ishaq's speeches, readily available on several social media platforms, it is hard to not foresee a bloody future ahead for the Shi'a community in Pakistan. The speeches conclude with the crowds chanting anti-Shi'a slogans, while in Balochistan, a bloodied community continues to mourn its dead.
Saba Imtiaz works as a correspondent for The Express Tribune newspaper and can be reached at saba.imtiaz@gmail.com
Source,
Foreign Policy
Twenty-six Shi'a Muslim pilgrims, en route to Iran, died at the hands of the militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) in Baluchistan's Mastung area Tuesday evening. According to news reports and eyewitness accounts, attackers armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers stopped the bus and forced passengers to get off. While women and children were reportedly spared, they witnessed the execution. A car arriving to rescue the pilgrims was also fired on, and three people died in the second attack.
According to the bus driver "The attackers asked passengers to step out of the bus and shot them after identifying them as Shi'as"
The attack was not an isolated incident, but was instead part of a systematic campaign of violence in the province directed towards the Shi'a. In July, 18 people were killed within 16 hours in Quetta in targeted attacks by the LeJ, including seven pilgrims waiting for transportation to Iran. On the Eid-ul-Fitr holiday, a suicide bomber reportedly intended to attack the congregation of 25,000 people praying at a mosque in the Shi'a-populated area of Marriabad in Quetta. His explosives-laden car still killed 12 Shi'a and injured 32.
The campaign of anti-Shi'a violence has largely been directed towards the predominantly Shi'a Hazara community in Baluchistan. According to a recent report in Newsline, "at least 347 Hazaras have been killed in [targeted] killings and suicide and other attacks since 1999. Of the 328 Hazaras killed up until December 31 last year, as many as 105 had been killed in 2010 alone."And government inaction is only helping the problem spread. According to Amnesty International, "Successive [Pakistani] governments have failed to address the increasingly explicit threats faced by Shi'a Muslims from groups like Lashkar-e Jhangvi, operating openly in the Punjab and Karachi and apparently striking their victims at will in Balochistan and other parts of the country.
The LeJ, the militant wing of the virulently anti-Shi'a Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), has claimed responsibility for several of the attacks, and has vowed to kill more Shi'a. The Deobandi group's stronghold is in southern Punjab, and since its inception in 1985, it has spread its campaign of anti-Shi'a incitement and violence throughout Pakistan.
The group is officially banned in Pakistan, but the ban has been far from effective. The state supported the creation of the SSP, as General Zia-ul-Haq's regime propped up Deobandi movements to counter its perceived rival Iran.
Zia's death in 1988 did not end state patronage of such groups. Hundreds of Shi'a have been killed since then, and the state continues to support groups such as the LeJ, and has called on its leaders for assistance in times of crisis. For instance, LeJ leader Malik Ishaq was reportedly flown out of jail by the Pakistan Army to talk to the militants that had stormed the army headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009. Ishaq was released this year after serving 14 years in jail. He was accused of killing 70 people and faced charges in 44 cases.
It was revealed after his release that his family was given a stipend by the Punjab government while he was in jail, and that he had been provided with police guards -- while the witnesses who testified against him lived in fear of possible repercussions. Ishaq's freedom -- after being acquitted in 34 cases and being bailed out on 10 -- was met with a display of adoration by his supporters, who showered rose petals on him.
Since then, he has embarked on a public speaking tour, addressing crowds in Sindh and Punjab. His message has been consistent: he believes he was on the right path, and vows to work to further the SSP's mission. And despite knowing that the intelligence services and government are keeping an eye on him, the crowds still show up to hear Ishaq speak, helping validate the belief held by Ishaq and his followers that the SSP's mission is right.
In a letter to The Friday Times journal, the Pakistan Ulema Council has urged "different segments of society to stop making assumptions about Ishaq's release and help him become a useful citizen" while heralding his services to the army in the 2009 headquarters siege. But for anyone who has seen Ishaq's speeches, readily available on several social media platforms, it is hard to not foresee a bloody future ahead for the Shi'a community in Pakistan. The speeches conclude with the crowds chanting anti-Shi'a slogans, while in Balochistan, a bloodied community continues to mourn its dead.
Saba Imtiaz works as a correspondent for The Express Tribune newspaper and can be reached at saba.imtiaz@gmail.com
Source,
Foreign Policy
Mastung killings
Thursday, September 22, 2011
September has proven the cruellest month for the Hazara tribe in Balochistan. This Tuesday, a bus carrying Shia pilgrims to Iran was intercepted by armed men who lined up the travellers and shot 26 of them dead in cold blood in Mastung. In September last year, 65 Shias were killed in Quetta when a procession became the target of a bomb blast. This May 6, six members of the Hazara Shia community were gunned down while another seven were killed on May 18. In June a Hazara policeman was killed only two days before Olympian boxer Syed Abrar Hussain was shot dead. The list of attacks is long but only one group has claimed responsibility: Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. In the ever-deteriorating security conditions in Balochistan, sectarian outfits have found the perfect playground. The Hazara community has been the target of violence since the mid-1980s though the attacks have intensified since 2000 when their top leader Sardar Nisar Ali Hazara was gunned down in Quetta.
According to confessions of arrested LeJ activists, independent experts as well as the Hazara Shias themselves, the violence against them is not ethnic but sect-based. The Hazaras, divided between the Alamdar Road in the east and Hazara Town in the west of the city, feel cut-off and besieged in the wake of the violent attacks on them. Representatives of the Hazara Democratic Party have repeatedly informed the provincial home department and the IG police that extremists are planning to step up attacks against them. But not much action seems to have been taken. All Hazara killings during May and June this year took place only a small distance from security check posts. The LeJ has given the Hazaras an open deadline to leave the province by 2012 and has warned of further attacks. But the police have still remained helpless, leaving the Hazara community to believe that the security establishment is protecting the perpetrators. The mysterious escape of the local head of the LeJ, Usman Saifullah, and a key leader, Shafiq Rind, from a very well guarded Anti-Terrorist Force jail in Quetta Cantonment, is a case in point. A deadly pattern is emerging: terrorists are on a murderous rampage against Pakistan’s minority sects while authorities have failed to prove themselves capable of taking them on.
THE NEWS
September has proven the cruellest month for the Hazara tribe in Balochistan. This Tuesday, a bus carrying Shia pilgrims to Iran was intercepted by armed men who lined up the travellers and shot 26 of them dead in cold blood in Mastung. In September last year, 65 Shias were killed in Quetta when a procession became the target of a bomb blast. This May 6, six members of the Hazara Shia community were gunned down while another seven were killed on May 18. In June a Hazara policeman was killed only two days before Olympian boxer Syed Abrar Hussain was shot dead. The list of attacks is long but only one group has claimed responsibility: Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. In the ever-deteriorating security conditions in Balochistan, sectarian outfits have found the perfect playground. The Hazara community has been the target of violence since the mid-1980s though the attacks have intensified since 2000 when their top leader Sardar Nisar Ali Hazara was gunned down in Quetta.
According to confessions of arrested LeJ activists, independent experts as well as the Hazara Shias themselves, the violence against them is not ethnic but sect-based. The Hazaras, divided between the Alamdar Road in the east and Hazara Town in the west of the city, feel cut-off and besieged in the wake of the violent attacks on them. Representatives of the Hazara Democratic Party have repeatedly informed the provincial home department and the IG police that extremists are planning to step up attacks against them. But not much action seems to have been taken. All Hazara killings during May and June this year took place only a small distance from security check posts. The LeJ has given the Hazaras an open deadline to leave the province by 2012 and has warned of further attacks. But the police have still remained helpless, leaving the Hazara community to believe that the security establishment is protecting the perpetrators. The mysterious escape of the local head of the LeJ, Usman Saifullah, and a key leader, Shafiq Rind, from a very well guarded Anti-Terrorist Force jail in Quetta Cantonment, is a case in point. A deadly pattern is emerging: terrorists are on a murderous rampage against Pakistan’s minority sects while authorities have failed to prove themselves capable of taking them on.
THE NEWS
لشکر جنگوی مسئولیت قتل زائران پاکستانی عازم ایران را برعهده گرفت
به روز شده: 07:16 گرينويچ - پنج شنبه 22 سپتامبر 2011 - 31 شهریور 1390
پاکستان هر از گاهی شاهد خشونت های فرقه ای بوده است
گروه موسوم به لشکر جنگوی در پاکستان در تماس با رسانه های محلی مسئولیت کشتن ۲۹ مسافر یک اتوبوس در غرب پاکستان را به عهده گرفته است.
این تماس تلفنی بوده و هنوز صحت آن تائید نشده است. لشکر جنگوی یک گروه فرقه گرا و تندرو سنی است که مقام های پاکستان در سال ۲۰۰۱ میلادی فعالیت آن را غیر قانونی اعلام کردند.
روز سه شنبه ۲۹ سنبله/شهریور، گروهی از افراد مسلح در نزدیکی شهرکی موسوم به "مستوم" در مسیر راه بلوچستان پاکستان_ تفتان ایران، راه را بر یک اتوبوس مسافربری عازم ایران بستند و ۲۹ مسافر آن را از اتوبوس پیاده کردند و با شلیک گلوله، آنان را کشتند.
مسافران کشته شده این اتوبوس از هزاره های شیعه بودند که از کویته پاکستان به منظور زیارت عازم مشهد ایران بودند.
راننده اتوبوس در مصاحبه با یک شبکه تلویزیونی در پاکستان گفته است که افراد مسلح ۲۹ تن از ۴۵ مسافر او را که همگی هزاره و شیعه بودند، از اتوبوس پیاده کردند و در کنار شاهراه و پیش چشم مسافران دیگر، به گلوله بستند.
خشونت های مذهبی پیش از این نیز در پاکستان قربانی گرفته است، اما در یک سال گذشته خشونت علیه اقلیت هزاره شیعه در ایالت بلوچستان پاکستان بیشتر شده است.
منابع مستقل و مقام های امنیتی پاکستان هنوز ادعای لشکر جنگوی مبنی بر دست داشتن در این کشتار را تائید نکرده اند
Source,
BBC Farsi
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