Pakistan’s establishment didn’t listen then — and does not seem to be listening now. Ever since the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s attack on Mumbai, commentators have been struggling to explain just why Pakistan appears so reluctant to act decisively against the perpetrators. Some have focussed on the Lashkar’s patronage by the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate; others on the Pakistani military’s hopes of weakening President Asif Ali Zardari. All these explanations have merit but miss a critical element: the slow transformation of the Pakistani state itself into an instrument of the jihadist agenda.
Last month, as tensions between India and Pakistan escalated, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Religious Affairs, Sahibzada Noor-ul-Haq Qadri, called a clerical convention to discuss the issue. In their fatwa, the clerics dismissed the charge that the Mumbai attacks were authored in Pakistan, and instead called on their government “to unveil Indian conspiracies against Pakistan.” The fatwa, issued on behalf of the Tahaffuz-e-Namoos-e-Risalat Mahaz — the Front for the Protection of the Prophet’s Honour — made it obligatory on all Pakistani citizens to wage jihad against India should war break out.
Earlier, ISI Directorate chief Lieutenant-General Shuja Pasha hailed jihadist leaders Baitullah Mehsud and Mullah Fazlullah, whose depredations have claimed the lives of thousands of Pakistanis, as “true patriots” for offering to fight India.
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5:21 AM
Moderate Islamist here
