Red Mosque cleric warns president of Taliban challenge

Abdul Rashid Ghazi gestures as he speaks during an interview in Islamabad


Red Mosque cleric warns president of Taliban challenge

Published: Friday, 25 May, 2007, 12:49 PM Doha Time
ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani cleric has warned President Pervez Musharraf that a Taliban-style opposition movement is emerging to challenge his already crisis-hit regime.
Baton-waving students from Islamabad’s pro-Taliban Red Mosque seized two policemen six days ago, adding to the pressure on Musharraf amid a groundswell of violent anger at his suspension of the country’s top judge. The two policemen were freed yesterday evening.
Abdul Rashid Ghazi, one of two brothers heading the mosque, said his followers backed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohamed Chaudhary and predicted the political upheaval would further the students’ goal of a pure Islamic state.
“If the government tries to suppress the change that our movement is demanding, then there is a likelihood of Talibanisation,” the 43-year-old Ghazi said. “I can see it happening.”
The Red Mosque’s hardline male and female students have have vowed to fight to the death if the government launches an assault on the mosque.
“We are not only challenging Musharraf, we are challenging the system,” Ghazi said on Wednesday, speaking inside the Jamia Hafsa seminary next to the mosque.
Bearded men with Kalashnikov rifles stood guard during the interview.
“The country’s system has totally failed and needs to be changed because it is not giving any relief to 99% of the people,” he added.
“We know that if Musharraf goes away, another Musharraf would come instead. The system we want is an Islamic system.”
Ghazi said the students empathised with Chaudhary, whose battle with Musharraf has sparked major pro-and anti-government rallies across Pakistan.
Protests in Karachi on May 12 turned violent, with 40 people killed and many observers questioning the fate of Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999.
“We have sympathy for the chief justice’s plight, which is because of the system that has allowed Musharraf to do this kind of thing,” said Ghazi.
“The man who is meant to give justice to the people is begging for justice himself.” So far the government has refused to act, prompting opposition claims that Musharraf, a key US ally in the “war on terror,” is milking the issue to show that he is still needed as a bulwark against Islamic extremism.
Ghazi said the Red Mosque students mostly come from the tribal areas of Pakistan, the lawless regions bordering with Afghanistan where the Taliban and Al Qaeda have taken refuge since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
He said that the 6,000 male students and 4,000 females belonging to the radical mosque’s two seminaries in Islamabad have received messages of support from Muslims around the world.
The mosque recently set up its own Islamic court, which issued a fatwa against a female minister who embraced a French paragliding instructor after a charity jump.
They have also launched anti-vice street patrols, targeting music shops and brothels, and occupied a children’s library in protest against the demolition of mosques that the government said were built illegally.
Ghazi’s brother, Abdul Aziz, threatened last month to unleash “thousands” of suicide bombers if the government attempted a crackdown.
A senior Pakistani security official said that suicide bombers are being trained inside the seminary.
“Suicide bombers are being prepared with the help of CDs and instruction manuals as well as inspirational films showing Iraqi insurgents fighting against UN forces,” he said.
A policeman who was held captive and later freed from the mosque was shown videos of suicide bombers operating in Iraq, he said.
Ghazi, who worked for a short time for the UN in Islamabad and says he is widely travelled.
Ghazi himself has been accused of having militant links. He disappeared for several months in 2004 after the government alleged that he had harboured Al Qaeda men and planned an attack on the nearby city of Rawalpindi.
Married with one wife and four young children, he is reported never to leave the mosque fearing the government will pick him up.
“Pakistan has become more secular since when my father was a cleric at the Red Mosque,” he said. “This is our reaction. We want to go back.” - AFP