Murder and machination in Pakistan's backyard

[ima_sinnic]

By B Raman
July 10, 2003

The massacre of 53 members of the Hazara tribe in an imambargah, a Shi'ite place of worship, at Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province in Pakistan, on July 4, while they were praying, by three unidentified gunmen, comes close on the heels of the massacre of 11 Hazaras undergoing police training last month in the same city. This is an attempt by Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives, who have taken shelter in Pakistan's tribal belt, to drive out the Hazaras, who are Shi'ites, from this area lest they be used by US intelligence agencies to collect intelligence about the presence of Osama bin Laden and his associates in the tribal belt of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP)and Balochistan.

All three gunmen are reported to have perished during their attack. Two of them allegedly blew themselves up after killing the Shi'ite Hazaras, while the third allegedly succumbed to injuries sustained by him in an exchange of fire with some members of the security forces guarding the place.

The incident has led to violent disturbances in Quetta, forcing the local authorities to impose a curfew, which had not yet been lifted at the time of writing these comments. The provincial administration has ordered an inquiry into the massacre by a retired major-general.

Since the general elections held in Pakistan in October last, the NWFP has been ruled by a coalition of six pro-bin Laden and pro-Taliban religious fundamentalist parties grouped as the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA). It won an absolute majority of the seats in the NWFP provincial assembly. In Balochistan, the MMA did well in some Pashtun majority areas, but not so well in the other areas inhabited by the Balochis, where the Balochi nationalist parties, demanding autonomy or independence for Balochistan, and the pro-President General Pervez Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League (Qaide Azam - PML-QA), which is now in power in Islamabad at the head of a coalition, did better. As a result, an absolute majority eluded the MMA in Balochistan. It had to form a coalition in association with the PML-QA. . . .

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/EG10Df03.html