The terrorist sympathizing student followers of Ayman Al Zawahiri interupted Friday prayers at Lal Masjid and would not let them proceed. They scrawled graffitti on the walls, and female students tried sneaking in. The only thing they didn’t do was march around the Mosque chanting “Zawahiri Akbar!” Like all “holier-than-thou” Wahabbists they think all other Muslims are Takfir, and ok to beat, spit-on, behead, or profane their mosques by rudely interupting prayers. In reality they are intolerant religious bigots who would tear Pakistan apart for the bidding of an evil Egyptian.
There’s a great running account of this at Metroblogging Islamabad.
Latest!-27th July 05:15 PM
A huge bomb blast near Lal Masjid has just killed several people. Riots broke out outside Lal masjid with people throwing stones on security personal. Severe tear gas shelling in the area. Makings of another showdown in progress. More updates comming in.
Latest!-27th July 02:30 PM
People finally offered prayers on the road behind Maulana Altaf, a student of Jamia Fareedia. According to unconfirmed estimate, approximately 500 people were present onsite
Latest!-27th July 01:30 PM
Maulana Ashfaq Madni to lead the juma prayers.Students of Maulana Gazi who was killed in action on 10th July are protesting inside the Mosque and not allowing Ashfaq to lead the prayers. They demad Ghazi’s brother Abdul Aziz to be brought to the mosque to lead prayers. Security forces have been moved out of the area and there are only civilians there at the scene. The number of people at the scene is in thousands. However people are protesting inside the mosque playing Jihadi songs, chanting slogans against the government. In an exchange of punches and kicks some people had to flee the scene, when the crowd fell out in a row. Heavy exchange of bows, shoes and chappals. Jumma prayer already delayed.
Update on the Blast here.
UPDATE: 13 Dead From Terror blast at Lal Masjid
Update: News story at The Hindu
Update: Petition filed in Pakistan Supreme Court against the Lal Masjid operation.
What the heck is going on over there? Didn’t they have the Red Mosque all secured? Musharaff is in for a long, long August, I’m afraid.
Give him about 30 days more and he’ll be CALLING in the U.S. planes himself!
I think they were expecting this, Musharraf has a Machievellian streak — he knows that this strengthens his support. Nobody wants anyone weak in office while this is going on. There should have been police, and they should have been expecting this — on the other hand Lal Masjid isn’t making friends with the general public at the moment.
Thanos,
Just saw this ……
http://patdollard.com/2007/07/28/breaking-musharraf-in-power-sharing-talks/
It’s going like I thought it would. The two truly moderate parties in Pakistan are thinking of forming a coalition. What I suspect you will see is BB as president, and Musharraf going back to the Army or PM spot, or vice versa. BB leans socialist, Mush leans conservative, in the end it would be a good balance. I think it’s about the best you can get from the pack that’s out there, I certainly do not like the other alternatives. The Pakistani form of Parliamentary gov’t confuses hell out of me anyway — they have both a president and and prime minister, seems like one or the other is redundant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_Government
Musharraf is PML-Q (moderate/conservative – not to be confused with PML-N) and Bhutto is PPP (moderate/left)
PML-Q http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_Muslim_League_%28Q%29
PPP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_Peoples_Party
The “socialism is our economy” part of PPP led to weakness of economy and lent itself to a lot of corruption (of course sayiing that we must look in the mirror — there are about 10 congressional Republicans under investigation or indictment now.)