Countering Our Very Own Frankenstein

The death of Ghazi Abdul Rasheed on Tuesday evening in the attack on Islamabad’s Lal Masjid is not likely to be the end of the rising confrontation between the Pakistani state and the ‘Islamic militants’ it has harboured and encouraged for over two decades.

The Lal Masjid story has been consistently in the forefront in Pakistan (and on the inside pages of newspapers in America) for the past week, but it actually began in 1979 when America enlisted Pakistan, led by the all-too willing Gen. Ziaul Haq, as a front-line state against the Communists who had invaded Afghanistan. Soon the Pakistani madrassahs were flush with money coming from America and Saudi Arabia and more madrassahs were cropping up, along with training camps for the ‘mujahideen’ or holy warriors. Afghanistan’s fight for national independence was transformed into a ‘jehad’ or holy war.

It is ironic that Gen. Zia’s son, Ijazul Haq who is currently Minister for Religious Affairs, was among the negotiators trying to work out a solution with Ghazi until talks failed in the early hours of Tuesday. The failure of the talks, according to an Asia Times Online report, was due to pressure from Washington that quotes anonymous sources according to whom Musharraf said that he was "heavily under duress from his allies".

Ghazi Abdul Rasheed’s ‘radicalisation’ from a moderate youth who initially rejected his father’s religious training and did a Masters in International Relations from the well-regarded Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad itself reflects the rise of ‘militant Islam’. He was transferred from the Ministry of Education to Unesco in Islamabad where he worked for several years, he was married into a moderate family, and attended mixed gatherings.

Hailing from a poor family of Baloch Mazaris in Southern Punjab, Ghazi’s father Maulana Abdullah was the first khateeb of the Lal Masjid when it was built by the government’s Auqaf department in 1965. He retained this post for over thirty years, until his death. In the 1980s, he was known to be close to various government officials and to Gen. Zia. His story too reflects the geo-political realities of our times. The Lal Masjid, like so many others, developed during the Afghan war years into the multi-storied, fortified, sprawling mosque-madrassah complex that has been centre-stage of the ongoing drama for the past week. When a gunman, thought to be from a rival Islamic group, murdered Abdullah in the mosque courtyard in 1998, this too was part of a now-familiar pattern.

After the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1988-89, the world turned its attention from the war-ravaged country. The purpose had been served: Communism had been defeated. The mujahideen who for the last decade had been steeped in the mind-set of ‘jehad’ and violence, began fighting each other. Many returned to a Pakistan bereft of their chief patron Gen. Ziaul Haq, killed in a mid-air explosion in August 1988.

It is not a coincidence that the farce of Pakistan’s ‘return to democracy’ was marked not just by governments being regularly dissolved and caretaker setups overseeing fresh general elections, but by a rise in sectarian violence that has claimed hundreds of lives since then – over 1,668 according to figures compiled from newspaper reports between 1989 and 2004. The violence and the killings were at their peak in the mid- to late-1990s. Maulana Abdullah appears to be but one of the casualties of a fire that he himself was involved in stoking.

His murder served to bring his younger son, Ghazi Abdul Rasheed, back to the fold, guided by the elder, Abdul Aziz, who inherited the title of mosque khateeb. Ghazi continued his job with the Ministry of Education, but became overtly more religious, growing a beard and taking more interest in the affairs of the mosque and its attached madrassah. The turning point for him was “9/11” and the US invasion of Afghanistan. In 2004, he was at the centre of a controversial fatwah according to which Pakistan army soldiers killed in operation in South Waziristan were to be considered infidels not worthy of a Muslim burial. Lal Masjid’s links with Al-Qaeda were also revealed that year. Abdul Rasheed was accused of plotting to attack government installations, but was soon mysteriously cleared of those charges and some Uzbeks were instead found guilty. Lal Masjid again came in the limelight after the London transit bombings of July 2005, when it was reported that some of the perpetrators had visited it. However, the Pakistan government too no action, and made no attempt to arrest the brothers even after declaring them as wanted criminals.

The links between Pakistan’s intelligence agencies and the ‘militant Islamists’ or ‘terrorists’ as the mujahideen are now called, are all too apparent. Those involved in the Lal Masjid saga are no exception. Abdul Aziz told Asia Times Online that he often visited intelligence agency officers disguised in a burqa. He was “deceived” as this is what he was attempting to do, at the request of a senior such officer, the day he was captured. These links are behind the Musharraf government’s ineffectual dealing of the crisis (in contrast to the heavy-handedness with which liberal or secular protests are handled).

Perhaps the Lal Masjid saga would have been allowed to continue, as it has been since January this year, had the government’s inaction not emboldened the Lal Masjid affiliates to start taking vigilante actions reminiscent of the Taliban’s Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice department and Saudi Arabia’s Morality Police. The government could have acted in many ways to deflate this growing Frankenstein. The Lal Masjid had encroached on government land to build the Jamia Hafza women’s madrassah. Electricity and water to this illegal building could have been cut off a long time ago, before serving a notice for the impending demolition of the building – a notice that gave the Jamia Hafsa students the impetus to protest by taking over a children’s library in Islamabad. This was well before the eruption of the ‘judicial crisis’ which has now been conveniently relegated to the background by the drama surrounding the Lal Masjid.

“Though radical Islamist forces constitute a minority, they constitute a significant one. And while the vast majority of Pakistanis do not support jihadists, they do not necessarily support Musharraf’s agenda either. Overall, Pakistan lacks a national consensus regarding Islam’s role in public affairs, something extremist and radical forces are exploiting,” notes The US-based think-tank, Statfor, in its Morning Intelligence Brief of July 9, 2007.

The Statfor report predicts that the Red Mosque operation “is likely the beginning of a long confrontation between the state and radical/militant Islamist forces. Such a clash will involve military operations in areas such as the North-West Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, as well as nationwide social unrest.”

According to media reports, pro-Taliban elements like the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Moham have already clashed with the military. The TNSM has reportedly seized all highways in the area, including the Silk Road leading to China. The story is far from over.