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  After the Red Mosque Bloodbath: Are Musharraf's Days in Power Numbered?

After the Red Mosque Bloodbath Are Musharraf's Days in Power Numbered?

By Rüdiger Falksohn, Padma Rao and Tobias Schreiter

Part 2: 'This City Is Like a Ghost Town'

Musharraf is clearly in control in Islamabad, as recent events have shown, and he is respected in Lahore. But it's a different story altogether in Karachi and the semi-autonomous tribal provinces. In order to keep these rebellious forces in check, the president mobilized troops last week as a precaution in the region along the border with Afghanistan, where many of the Koran students in the Red Mosque come from.

In this part of the country, he has targeted another radical cleric -- a man who uses powerful slogans to rally thousands of supporters. Observers say the extremism of the Ghazi brothers pales in comparison to Maulana Fazlullah, a fundamentalist leader so reactionary that he refuses to appear on television -- because women can also be seen there.

Pakistan is looking less and less like a reasonably well-run state that enjoys the support of the country's main social groups. The country may have nuclear weapons -- the ultimate foreign policy trump card -- but the government doesn't even know the number of Koran schools in the country. The Interior Ministry estimates that there are 13,500 Koran schools -- known as madrassas -- in Pakistan, whereas foreign experts place the number at 20,000.

Pakistan is not yet a failed state, but it is in a precarious position. Religious fanatics would like to institute Islamic Sharia law for the country's 156 million citizens. Given the fundamentalist threat, it comes as no surprise that the government could no longer put up with the provocations of the Ghazi brothers. No secular president could tolerate a Pakistani parallel universe where the madrassas and the mosques follow their own laws.

Despite their support for the Shariah, it would be a gross misinterpretation to assume that maulanas like Abdul Rashid Ghazi are unsophisticated, old-fashioned figures. Ghazi belonged to the religiously oriented intelligentsia. He was, like many of his colleagues, an ambitious career-minded man with a modern education who had developed in a spiritual direction.

Irfan Raza, a lecturer at the Nicon College of Computer Sciences in Islamabad, knew the insurgent well and describes him as "highly educated." According to Raza, the security forces had been using Ghazi while they still needed him: "And when they no longer needed him, he had to die."

Raza alludes to links between the military, the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI and the madrassas. In the 1980s, this led to an Islamization of society and systematic support for jihad. At the time, there was a constant threat of clashes with India in Kashmir, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had just come to power in Iran, Iraq was embroiled in the first Gulf War, and the Soviets were occupying Afghanistan.

Pakistan felt surrounded by enemies. As a result, the army and the ISI, backed by the Pentagon, supplied money and knowledge to transform rural boys into mujahedeen, creating a pious and flexible force that served Pakistan's interests. In a number of Koran schools, these future soldiers were allegedly taught 60 different methods of sabotage, killing and torture, says Pakistan expert Boris Wilke from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. Between 1984 and 1994, the US contributed $50 million to the project, primarily earmarked for the Peshawar region.

For roughly a decade and a half, the madrassas proved useful to the military elite in Islamabad -- even the one-eyed Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar was trained in Pakistan. But ever since Musharraf, under pressure from the Americans, withdrew his support for the Taliban and began to fight them -- albeit in a rather halfhearted manner -- the Koran schools have turned against him.

Wherever the state has failed, the madrassas are present, primarily providing social services and education for extremely poor people. They have the status of independent private companies, with the same tax privileges. Islamic schools offer free accommodation and strictly traditional instruction -- and the maulanas, no matter how radical they might be, can indoctrinate to their heart's content. For a minority of perhaps 1.5 million Koran students, hatred of the West figures prominently in the school curriculum.

After his coup in 1999, Musharraf promoted this school system to secure the support of Islamic scholars and the intelligence services connected with them. Following his pro-American policy swing in 2001, however, he wanted to keep them on a tight rein. Gradually, this led to the resistance of religious leaders like the Ghazi brothers and Maulana Fazlullah: they no longer want to put up with Musharraf, who is aiming at another term in office.

"All across the country" extremism will now be combated with uncompromising severity, Musharraf announced last Thursday -- and promptly attacked the Koran-fixated Islamists on their own grounds, assuming a holier-than-thou tone and accusing the Islamists of "straying from the true path of faith."

Al-Qaida terrorists had allegedly helped to defend the Red Mosque -- and they swiftly swore revenge for the siege. In a video message, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian doctor who serves as Osama bin Laden's deputy, said: "This crime can only be washed away by repentance or blood."

It looks like Musharraf's August celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Pakistan could be less festive than he had hoped.

As a precautionary measure, late last week heavily armed soldiers were stationed on every corner of the G-6 sector that was the scene of the siege in Islamabad, while groups of journalists were taken to the Red Mosque to inspect the traces of the fighting. After nine days of small-scale civil war, the curfew was cautiously eased, yet very few brave souls ventured onto the streets again.

"Take a look around you," says Rana Waqas who works at the "Savor Food" restaurant. He points to the empty tables that are normally filled to capacity at this time of day, during rush hour. "This city is like a ghost town."