Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
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<strong>The</strong> Conflict <strong>With</strong>in<br />
External factors contributed hugely to stoking sectarian conflict in<br />
<strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>. <strong>The</strong> Iranian revolution evoked a strong reaction throughout<br />
the Muslim world. <strong>The</strong> spill-over effect of the Shia revolution worried<br />
many Arab rulers, as well as the <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>i military regime, which was<br />
trying to establish an <strong>Islam</strong>ic system of a different kind. <strong>The</strong> rivalry<br />
between Sunni Arab states and Shia Iran was further heightened during<br />
the Iran-Iraq war. Money poured in from Arab countries anxious<br />
to counter the radical Shia <strong>Islam</strong> sponsored by Iran’s revolutionary<br />
regime. In the process, <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong> became the battlefield in an intra<br />
<strong>Islam</strong> proxy war. Iran and Saudi Arabia supported their respected<br />
allies. <strong>The</strong> Saudi government had consistently backed and funded the<br />
Deobandi school of thought in <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong> which had many similarities<br />
to the Wahabi version of <strong>Islam</strong>. 14 Madrasas funded by Saudi Arabia,<br />
Kuwait and other Gulf countries, especially after the Soviet invasion<br />
of Afghanistan, became the centre of Sunni militancy, as well the<br />
recruiting ground for sectarian organizations. 15<br />
Deobandi and Ahle Hadith mullahs whipped up anti-Shia sentiments.<br />
Some Sunni leaders were on the payroll of Iraq. <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>i and Iranian<br />
intelligence agencies had also been actively involved in the proxy war<br />
being fought on <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>i streets since the 1980s. 16 <strong>The</strong> rise of foreignbacked<br />
sectarian militancy set in motion a seemingly unending cycle<br />
of violence. Afghanistan’s war-hardened fanatics declared their own<br />
jihad at home against the Shia community. Armed with sophisticated<br />
weapons they started targeting rival mosques and Shia leaders. 17<br />
Although the Shia and Sunni conflict in <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong> pre-dated the<br />
emergence of the SSP, there had been a major escalation in sectarian<br />
violence since the anti-Shia riots in Lahore in 1986. Two subsequent<br />
events were to change the dynamics of the sectarian violence. In 1987,<br />
Allama Ehsan Elahi Zaheer, a Saudi-backed Sunni cleric, was killed in<br />
a bomb blast in Lahore. <strong>The</strong> following year, a prominent Shia leader,<br />
Arif Hussaini, was murdered in Peshawar. He had spent time in Iran<br />
and was believed to have been closely associated with Iran’s <strong>Islam</strong>ic<br />
regime. <strong>The</strong> assassin was a serving army officer, Majid Raza Gillani,<br />
which raised suspicions of the ISI’s involvement in the murder.<br />
<strong>The</strong> violence spiralled with the murder of SSP founder Haq Nawaz<br />
Jhangvi in 1990, believed to have been carried out by Shia militants.<br />
Sectarian clashes broke out in Jhang and spread to other parts of the<br />
province. <strong>With</strong> some 5,000 to 6,000 well-trained militants, the SSP<br />
unleashed a reign of terror. <strong>The</strong> SSP supporters blamed Iran-backed<br />
Shia militants for the assassination of Jhangvi. In December that year,