Benazir Bhutto backs decision to storm mosque
Saturday, 14 July 2007
LONDON, July 13 (AFP): Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto backed the decision to storm a radical mosque in Islamabad this week, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph published Friday.
Bhutto, who was twice Pakistan's leader in the 1990s, said the operation had "drawn a line in the sand" and said that while it "was an unfortunate incident ... I am grateful there was no policy of appeasement."
"It is the end of ambiguous policies towards terrorism, which have encouraged militants.
Some 11 soldiers and 75 people, mainly militants, inside the mosque complex, were killed during the raid on Islamabad's Red Mosque, which ended a months-long standoff with the mosque's followers who wanted the imposition of sharia law in Pakistan.
The exiled former leader said that questions had to be asked of how the mosque had become radicalised, and said that other mosques and religious schools around the country should be probed.
"How was this madrassa able to develop in that way? There must have been some collusion (with the government)," she was quoted by the Telegraph as saying.
On the subject of reaching a political deal with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to allow her to return to the country and contest elections, she said negotiations were "in a log-jam".
"We are saying that a power-sharing agreement is a subsequent issue. First, we must resolve the nature of the elections."
Meanwhile: US President George W Bush's administration came under intense grilling in Congress Thursday over its unconditional support for Pakistan leader Pervez Musharraf.
Just days after the military strongman ordered troops into an Islamabad mosque to flush out Islamic militants in a daring assault that left 86 people dead, lawmakers doubted his ability to take strong action to reign in the problem and called for a reevaluation of US policy towards Pakistan.
They accused him of thwarting deemocracy, turning a blind eyetowards the growing ranks of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda militant groups and lacking the ability or will to crack down on terrorist training camps in his country.
A lawmaker cited reports which he said confidently spoke of Osama bin Laden hiding in a training camp near the Pakistan- Afghan border, not far from Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province and a base of support for the Red Mosque stormed into by military commandos this week.
"Yet somehow President Musharraf has not been able to find it," remarked Christopher Shays, a ranking lawmaker from Bush's Republican party.
"How we in Congress justify to the American people writing checks for billions of dollars to a regime that may not be the partner against terrorism the US needs it to be, but may actually be hurting national security interests of the United States and our allies," he asked at a Congressional hearing.
"Our support cannot be conditional," Shays told the hearing, where US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, the Bush administration's pointman on Pakistan policy, was pounded with questions.
There is a "growing chorus" calling for a significant reevaluation of US policy toward Pakistan, said Democratic lawmaker John Tierney, head of a House of Representatives panel on national security and foreign affairs.
He accused Musharraf of extending only "tepid" cooperation in controlling extremism and disrupting terror networks.
"The Red Mosque is merely a stark symbol of a deeper and more pervasive problem in Pakistan, where there are far more jihadists, extremist madrassas, Al-Qaeda operatives, Taliban safe havens and international terrorist camps than Pakistani government officials are willing to admit," he said.
Boucher replied that Musharraf was striving to turn Pakistan into a modern, open, prosperous, democratic state and a moderate voice in the Islamic world and that it was "strongly in the US national interest that Pakistan succeeds in realizing this vision."
He said despite the charges leveled against Musharraf's administration on the fight against extremism, "its contribution has been significant."
There are 85,000 Pakistan security forces stationed on the rough terrain of the Afghanistan border region while more than 450 of them have died in support of anti-terror efforts, Boucher said.
Even though there were parts of Pakistan where the government did not hold away, he said Islamabad had in recent months arrested many militant leaders.
Bhutto, who was twice Pakistan's leader in the 1990s, said the operation had "drawn a line in the sand" and said that while it "was an unfortunate incident ... I am grateful there was no policy of appeasement."
"It is the end of ambiguous policies towards terrorism, which have encouraged militants.
Some 11 soldiers and 75 people, mainly militants, inside the mosque complex, were killed during the raid on Islamabad's Red Mosque, which ended a months-long standoff with the mosque's followers who wanted the imposition of sharia law in Pakistan.
The exiled former leader said that questions had to be asked of how the mosque had become radicalised, and said that other mosques and religious schools around the country should be probed.
"How was this madrassa able to develop in that way? There must have been some collusion (with the government)," she was quoted by the Telegraph as saying.
On the subject of reaching a political deal with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to allow her to return to the country and contest elections, she said negotiations were "in a log-jam".
"We are saying that a power-sharing agreement is a subsequent issue. First, we must resolve the nature of the elections."
Meanwhile: US President George W Bush's administration came under intense grilling in Congress Thursday over its unconditional support for Pakistan leader Pervez Musharraf.
Just days after the military strongman ordered troops into an Islamabad mosque to flush out Islamic militants in a daring assault that left 86 people dead, lawmakers doubted his ability to take strong action to reign in the problem and called for a reevaluation of US policy towards Pakistan.
They accused him of thwarting deemocracy, turning a blind eyetowards the growing ranks of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda militant groups and lacking the ability or will to crack down on terrorist training camps in his country.
A lawmaker cited reports which he said confidently spoke of Osama bin Laden hiding in a training camp near the Pakistan- Afghan border, not far from Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province and a base of support for the Red Mosque stormed into by military commandos this week.
"Yet somehow President Musharraf has not been able to find it," remarked Christopher Shays, a ranking lawmaker from Bush's Republican party.
"How we in Congress justify to the American people writing checks for billions of dollars to a regime that may not be the partner against terrorism the US needs it to be, but may actually be hurting national security interests of the United States and our allies," he asked at a Congressional hearing.
"Our support cannot be conditional," Shays told the hearing, where US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, the Bush administration's pointman on Pakistan policy, was pounded with questions.
There is a "growing chorus" calling for a significant reevaluation of US policy toward Pakistan, said Democratic lawmaker John Tierney, head of a House of Representatives panel on national security and foreign affairs.
He accused Musharraf of extending only "tepid" cooperation in controlling extremism and disrupting terror networks.
"The Red Mosque is merely a stark symbol of a deeper and more pervasive problem in Pakistan, where there are far more jihadists, extremist madrassas, Al-Qaeda operatives, Taliban safe havens and international terrorist camps than Pakistani government officials are willing to admit," he said.
Boucher replied that Musharraf was striving to turn Pakistan into a modern, open, prosperous, democratic state and a moderate voice in the Islamic world and that it was "strongly in the US national interest that Pakistan succeeds in realizing this vision."
He said despite the charges leveled against Musharraf's administration on the fight against extremism, "its contribution has been significant."
There are 85,000 Pakistan security forces stationed on the rough terrain of the Afghanistan border region while more than 450 of them have died in support of anti-terror efforts, Boucher said.
Even though there were parts of Pakistan where the government did not hold away, he said Islamabad had in recent months arrested many militant leaders.