"Russia's Bin Laden" Threatens the Winter Olympics

Summary: Doku Umarov and the Caucasus Emirate have threatened Russia's 2014 Winter Olympics. If they make good on this threat, they will cease to be seen as fighting a localized war against Russia, and instead become known as international jihadis.


Doku Umarov, nicknamed "Russia's Osama Bin Laden" for his attacks on civilians there, has called on his followers to employ "maximum force" and "any methods" to prevent the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Umarov was the last President of rebel Chechen Republic of Ichkeria against Russian rule, before he proclaimed himself the first Emir of the Caucasus in 2007. Sochi, in the north Caucasus, thus falls within his declared "emirate", and as a major prestige project of Umarov's arch-enemy President Putin, the Winter Olympics there could hardly fail to be a major target for him.

Umarov's Caucasus Emirate  (Имарат Кавказ Imarat Kavkaz) has pursued a mixed strategy in its war against Russia, on the one hand perpetrating significant attacks on civilians (bombing the Moscow Metro in 2010 and a Moscow airport in 2011) and fostering links with al Qaeda and the Taliban, and on the other hand occasionally declaring halts on attacks against anything but military and police targets. With this threat against the Winter Olympics, Umarov is clearly once more giving the green light to attacks against all Russians, military and civilian alike.

However, he most distinctive feature thus far of the Emirate, and Umarov in particular, has been their distinct and intense localism. Historically, they have tried to assure the world that their struggle is anti-Russian, not pan-Islamist. When terrorists of Chechen descent bombed the Boston Marathon earlier this year, Umarov denied any involvement by his organisation, stressing that their primary enemy is Russia and they “are not engaged in military hostilities with the United States.” They have also paid only the most minimal lip service to the 'Palestinian cause', that sacred cow of jihadis across the world. Umarov's religious beliefs are also unusual and particular to his Chechen homeland. He specifically abjures Salafi and Wahhabi forms of Islam, and instead identifies himself as a "traditionalist" Muslim, placing him at odds with most violent jihadis.

This threat against the Sochi Winter Olympics, however, has a much more international edge to it. Though Umarov may justify attacking this "Satanic dancing" on the grounds that the north Caucasus is the graveyard of innumerable Muslims killed in Russia's conquest of the region two centuries ago, if his organisation actually follows through and strikes at the events their victims will hail from many different countries. This, alongside with the lingering association with the Boston Bombing, would be sufficient to earn the Caucasus Emirate a new international status, and a host of new enemies to go along with it. Umarov will need to consider if striking at Putin's prize is worth making his name known to the angry populations of half the world.

The Seeds of Jihad in Egypt's Crisis

Summary: If violent jihad arises in Egypt in the coming months, it will likely rest upon four pillars: police clashes at mosques, the Muslim Brotherhood's young male supporters, Syrian refugees, and the Salafis and other small Islamist groups.



The Pillars of Egyptian Jihadism

When the Egyptian Army stepped in and removed President Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood earlier this month, they shattered not only Egypt's first democratically-elected government, but also likely the belief of tens of thousands of Islamists in the power of the ballot box over the bullet. This has raised the spectre that some of the Brotherhood's supporters may now turn to jihadi violence to restore Islamist rule in Egypt.

If this occurs, it will probably not be due to a conspiracy or central plan by existing jihadis, but rather much like the two Egyptian 'revolutions' seen in the past few years: as an outgrowth of mass unrest and anger on the streets. The constituency for this anger will not simply be the members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Rather, it will likely be specifically the young men of the organisation, in concert with members of Egypt's Syrian refugee population and the Salafi and other smaller Islamist groups. The spark for the transition to violence may be provided by provocative security operations against mosques and other religious sites like those the Brotherhood are currently organising from.

The Brotherhood

Probably the most unfounded fear Western fear about the ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood is that the organisation will turn to violence and the way of jihad now that democratic means to power have seemingly been denied to it. Make no mistake -the Muslim Brotherhood is sincerely committed to non-violence and achieving power though lawful means. This is not due to an inherent pacifism or profound desire to be law-abiding, but rather a hard-learned lesson of experience. The Brotherhood has faced three serious government crackdowns since it was founded in 1928, including the assassination of their founder (Hassan al-Banna) and the torture and execution of their leading cleric (Sayyid al-Qutb), and it has disavowed violence (at least in Egypt) since the 1970's.

The leadership has also not forgotten the failure of the violent Islamist insurgency in Egypt during the 1990's. Freedom and Justice Party (the political wing of the Brotherhood) leaders may have called for "an uprising by the great people of Egypt against those trying to steal their revolution with tanks", but they mean "uprising" in the fashion of those which brought down Mubarak and now Morsi -through mass protest. To the leadership, this is just one more government crackdown on their long road to what they believe will be their eventual irresistible victory.

The 'Little Brothers'

However, there is risk that the rank and file of the Brotherhood may be more susceptible to jihadi ideologies and tactics in the wake of the coup. This would be especially true of younger members born too late to remember the failed violent campaigns or the harshest government crackdowns, and thus less wedded to non-violence. These 'little Brothers' are also far more likely to be unemployed and face poorer prospects than their older brethren. With Morsi and so much of the senior leadership arrested, they lack clear leadership and will act more on their own initiative.

Most importantly, the youth of the Brotherhood are disproportionately likely to be involved in the wave of sit-ins and protests that their organisation has vowed to paralyze Cairo with until Morsi is restored. These protests are the most likely sites fat which violent confrontation with the police or their opponents will emerge. Almost sixty people have been killed and hundreds more injured in just two such clashes since the coup. Most significantly, the Brotherhood has been holding many of its sit-ins around mosques and organising communal prayers at its protests. Several of the Brotherhood's leaders currently hiding from arrest warrants are believed to be near the sit-in at the Rabaah al-Adawiya Mosque in eastern Cairo.

This creates the explosive potential for scenes of Egypt's police violently dispersing men at prayer or storming into barricaded mosque compounds -images which would almost instantly be beamed across Egypt and around the world. Such scenes would fit perfectly into the narrative that some Islamists are already spreading: that el-Sissi is no more than the head of a "militia" that is seeking to annihilate Islamists, just as al-Assad is doing in Syria. And even if the Brotherhood will not adopt this 'civil war' stance, there are smaller and more extreme Islamist groups, including jihadism who will be far more open to it.

Egypt's Embattled Syrians:

There may be as many as a hundred and forty thousand Syrian refugees in Egypt today, with almost all having fled the Syrian government's crackdown. President Morsi welcomed them warmly, allowing them to travel without visas and extending the use of state hospitals and schools to them. He also spoke loudly in support of Syria's rebels and his senior officials stated that they would not stop Egyptians from going to fight in Syria. All this created a great deal of support for Morsi and the Brotherhood in the pockets of Cairo and other major cities that quickly became dominated by Syrians setting up shops and homes.

This identification of the Syrians as a constituency of the Brotherhood's, however, was used against the refugees once the anti-Morsi protests began. Morsi's appearance at a mid-June rally where many speakers called for jihad in Syria, shocking many more moderate Egyptians, may even have been the tipping point of his unpopularity leading to the July protests which ousted him. Since the coup, anti-Morsi television networks have used the arrest of six Syrians in violent street clashes to claim that the Brotherhood is paying Syrians to fill the pro-Morsi protests. A popular TV presenter has even warned Syrians that they will be beaten with shoes if they "interfere in Egypt"by protesting the coup. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry has also urged Syrians to stay away from such protests. Syrian children are now being denied access to state schools, and only five days after Morsi was removed from power Syrians without visas began to be turned back at Cairo airport. In the eyes of many coup supporters, both in the government and in the streets, a Syrian is a Brotherhood proxy.  

What this means is that Egypt contains a hundred thousand-strong community with affectionate feelings for the Morsi regime, an increasing feeling that the new regime is shutting them out, very raw experiences of another 'secular' state crackdown, and nowhere else to flee to. For the services the Egyptian state previously supplied to them, the Syrians will now have to turn to the Brotherhood's supporters and other Islamists who oppose the new government. This will make it even more likely that their young men will be drawn into the protests, and the combination of their experiences in Syria and their new desperation in Egypt will make them easy recruiting grounds for the most violent Islamist groups, especially if they can provide for their welfare. As witnessed amongst countless other refugee populations, this may mean the Salafis and the jihadis.

The Salafis: The Fighting Man's Brotherhood?

Egypt's leading Salafi (ultra-conservative Sunni) political party, al-Nour, has been something of a wild card so far. While it supported the coup that removed Morsi, after the shooting of over fifty protesters by police last week it withdrew from all talks about forming an interim government and stated that it would not remain silent on the "massacre".

Significantly, al-Nour was only founded after the 2011 uprising that toppled Mubarak, and so is eighty-four years younger than the Brotherhood, giving it no institutional memory of the decades of crackdowns that followed past Brotherhood violence. This also places its mentality much closer to that of the Brotherhood's angry youth. It claims eight hundred thousand members (almost as many as the Brotherhood), and has so far rallied members through advocating for a puritanical vision of Islam and public life in Egypt. It has also displayed political sophistication, supporting and then abandoning Mursi in line with public opinion, and leveraging the Army's need for at least some Islamist backing for a new government in search of political concessions.

However, while al-Nour's leadership may want to 'sell out' for political gains, its austere constituents and conservative allies may balk at this and demand confrontation. Already, one of the Brotherhood's hardline allies, Assem Abdel Maged, has declared to crowds that al-Nour's leaders must seek repentance from God for their "betrayal". Images of Egyptian police breaking down mosque doors and apprehending clerics may be too much for the religious rank-and-file of both al-Nour and the (leaderless) Brotherhood, who would easily identify with calls for 'jihad' to defend the practice of their faith. The political avenue may also be rapidly closing for Islamists in general and the Salafis in particular. It is widely believed that in new elections al-Nour will come nowhere near to the twenty per cent of the vote and that the Brotherhood's share may fall to little more than that. Violence may thus become a more attractive and plausible path to power in the eyes of many.

The experience of Russian security forces in the Caucasus in seeing how quickly Salafi groups can militarize and turn to violence in the face of 'attacks on their communities' should give the Egyptian Army pause. So should the growing numbers of young men wearing the white shrouds of "martyrdom" at the Brotherhood's sit-ins, and their declarations that will fight and die if necessary to restore an Islamist President. Whatever party or organisation first declares jihad against perceived anti-Islamic police actions may be able to harness the power of such young men, and for al-Nour and its kind, with no hope that temptation may prove too great

Conclusion

Aggressive security operations targeting mosques, the Brotherhood's leaderless youths, Syrian refugees under siege, the presence of Salafi groups with little attachment to non-violence, and sectarian enemies to 'target' may all combine to provide Egypt's political crisis with a religious edge -and that is all that would be required for jihadis to become major players.


Next time: what an Egyptian jihadi insurgency would look like

Boko Haram's School Killings

Summary: Boko Haram is increasingly targeting government and secular schools in Nigeria's Muslim-majority north east, killing large numbers of students and teachers. This campaign may soon be widened to include Islamic schools that eschew their violent jihadi ideology.


Boko Haram has recently been returning to the mission implied by its name: "Boko Haram" means "secular education is sinful" in Hausa, and over the past weeks Nigeria's foremost violent jihadi organisation has been carrying out deadly attacks on non-Islamic schools. In the most recent incident yesterday in Yobe state, thirty people were killed as a school dormitory was set alight as the students slept. Earlier this week in bordering Borno state, suspected Boko Haram militants gunned down a headmaster and his entire family at their home.

These are but the latest in a string of attacks. Since the beginning of 2012, Boko Haram has attacked twelve schools in and around Maiduguri (capital of Borno state) alone. It is not by coincidence that Boko Haram's school attacks have been concentrated in Nigeria's Muslim-majority north east, and especially in the three states placed under a state of emergency earlier this year. Maiduguri itself is seen as the spiritual home of Boko Haram, as well as probably its most important base of operations. Not only does Boko Haram object to the 'corruption' of Muslim children by the secular form of education provided by government schools, but Boko Haram's sources have specifically linked their attacks against these to alleged Nigerian security forces' abuses against Qur'an schools in the region.

Many of these Islamic schools are suspected by government officials of being used as recruitment and training grounds by Boko Haram, and a large number of clerics associated with them have been arrested for having terrorist links since the state of emergency was declared. In March last year, purported Boko Haram spokesman Abu Qaqa justified an attack on a government school thusly: “Certainly, if Quranic education will not be allowed to continue, then secular and Western education will not continue also.” In June this year, he claimed that Nigerian soldiers had beaten Qur'an school students with canes, and declared that "When you attack Koran schools, you totally destroy Western schools."

Although the origin of this 'justification' well before the state of emergency and the security crackdown shows just how contrived it is, Boko Haram's tactic of attacking secular schools is succeeding in at least one sense: an estimated ten thousand students across Nigeria's north east have been forced out of government schools since this violence started. In response to Saturday's attack, the Governor of Yobe state took the extraordinary step of closing all secondary schools in the state (though primary schools have also been targeted). This may not just be Boko Haram's aim for 'theological' reasons -the intention may also be to force all but the Qur'an schools to close, driving more and more students into Boko Haram's recruiting grounds. Of course not all Qur'an schools are linked to violent jihadi organisations, and so if Boko Haram succeeds in shutting more secular schools, expect their next step to be carrying out similar attacks on non-jihadi Islamic schools. The organisation already has a long history of targeting Islamic leaders and congregations that oppose their violent campaign -two such clerics were murdered in Borno state in May.

Boko Haram's campaign against schools it does not control should not be seen as a consequence of the security crackdown. If anything, the increased security presence may be all that is preventing them from casting their bloody net far wider.

Featured News: Boko Haram's violence spreading to southern Nigeria?

Boko Haram's violent campaign for an Islamic state has largely been confined thus far to Nigeria's Muslim-majority north. However, overnight on Saturday this weekend, about twenty unknown gunmen broke into a jail in the south-west state of Ondo and freed roughly one hundred and seventy five inmates.

Although there is currently no clear evidence that Boko Haram carried out the attach, armed mass jail breaks have been one of their signature tactics, and a police spokesman described the assailants as having "superior" arms. Neighbouring Kogi state has seen Islamist violence, but this attack in Ondo would be the southernmost thus far. Ondo is also largely outside the normal area of operations for the (non-Muslim) militants of the Niger Delta.

Over the past years, Boko Haram has been growing in numbers and arms, and the declaration of a state of emergency and military operations three north-east states may have dispersed some of their militants across Nigeria and bordering nations. If Boko Haram is now able to free its incarcerated members as far south as Ondo state, then the Nigerian government's ability to combat militants and ensure order in its territory has clearly slipped further since the declaration of the emergency.

Read more:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/30/us-nigeria-prisonbreak-idUSBRE95T0E020130630

Update: Syria's Rebel Fighters Oppose Democracy, Condemn their Exiled Leaders, and are Losing to al-Assad

Sadly, our predictions of a jihadi ascendancy within the Syrian armed opposition are coming true, as seen in three pieces of recent news:

Firstly, the fighters are increasingly turning away from the high ideals that were attributed to them in the early days of the anti-regime protests. UN investigators have reported both that most of the rebels actually fighting the war in Syria don't even claim to want a democracy, or a "state for all" which accept's Syria's religious and ethnic minorities. This means that the radical Islamist and jihadi ideologies being pushed by the al-Nusra Front, al Qaeda, and their allies now dominate the armed opposition -feeding into ever more atrocities and sectarianism. What this means is that, when it comes to the rebels winning, a "military solution" in Syria means a jihadi solution.

Secondly, those fighters inside Syria are disillusioned with their political 'leaders' in exile (amongst whom there are genuine democrats and secularists). Rebels in the interior have released a statement condemning the Syrian National Coalition and accuse it of being unable to move beyond "negativity" and "discord", causing it to fail to represent the Syrian revolution. This comes after the Syrian National Coalition failed, yet again, to even agree on who should represent the Coalition in Geneva talks later this month. The rebels called the Coalition "feeble", and demanded that in future at least half the Coalition's leadership bodies should be made up of "revolutionary forces" -meaning fighting men. Their arguments are even those we described before -that those who bear the burden of fighting should lead. The statement included the words: "The revolutionary forces that have signed this statement will no longer bestow legitimacy upon any political body that subverts the revolution or fails to take into account the sacrifices of the Syrian people or adequately represent them." As we predicted, the struggle between the internal and external 'wings' of the opposition is growing and will come to a head -and when it does, the "revolutionary forces" of the interior (those least supportive of democracy and religious tolerance) will prevail.

Thirdly, Hezbollah has doubled down in its support of al-Assad, and their combined forces are winning again. This week, regime and Hezbollah forces working in concert retook the strategic town of Qusair from the rebels. Qusair is key for al-Assad to keep open his supply lines between Damascus and Lebanon (and the Alawite heartland of the coast), and gives his forces an open path to possibly take back control of Homs Governate. This area is often referred to as the key to the Syrian conflict, and it is hard to imagine any road to rebel victory that does not require them to hold Homs.

Syria's civil war is unfolding into the expected tragedy.

'The Most Unfortunate Incident': The Theri Massacre and Fifty years of Sectarian Violence in Pakistan

Summary: On 3 June 1963, Pakistan saw its first cases of mass anti-Shia violence, with the killing of over one hundred in the village of Theri, as well as attacks in Lahore and Narowal. On the fiftieth anniversary of these events, described by Sharaabtoon research, far from being seen as isolated, they can sadly be identified as the opening act of the fratricidal killings between Sunnis and Shias in Pakistan which still continue after fifty years.


Sectarian Violence in Pakistan

In a piece of original research, Sharaabtoon is proud to bring you the first collation of the evidence, most of it not available on the internet, on the opening salvo of Pakistan's ongoing sectarian conflict: the Theri massacre of June 1963, and the accompanying violence in Lahore and Narowal. In spite of the widespread attention these events received in their immediate aftermath, since then they have become largely forgotten or ignored outside of the communal memories passed down within the Shia community of Pakistan.

Adding to the tragedy of these events is the fact that, despite the many condemnations the killings received at the time from all corners of Pakistan, sectarian violence, particularly against Shias (but also against Christians, Hindus and Ahmadis) has continued to plague the country. Thousands of Shias have been killed since 1963, with their murderers citing religious reasons as 'justification'.

Strange as it may sound to unfamiliar observes, within the minds of the perpetrators such killings of Shias falls as much under the banner of jihad as the killing of unbelievers does. After one massacre in February 2012 this year, a commander of the Jundulluh faction of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack with these words: "They were Shiite infidels and our mujahedeen shot them dead one by one after bringing them down from a bus."

This conception of Shias as "infidels" (كفّار) is at the root of most anti-Shia violence, and springs usually from an accusation that Shias have "deviated" from "true Islam" by their reverence for Mohammed's son-in-law Ali (as Mohammed's supposed true successor) and other members of his family, as well as differences in practices such as prayer. This particularly comes to a head during the public displays of the differences between Shia and Sunni religious views, such as during the processions of the Day of Ashura, which was the case in 1963.

Shia processions remain a main target, frequently being targeted with bombings by organisations such as the Pakistani Taliban, as well as a vast network of smaller violent jihadi groups. Many of these groups have received the patronage or tacit cooperation of various arms of the Pakistani government and armed forces, who often see them as useful proxies against India, or a "last line of defence" in case of a future invasion.

Although the violence in Pakistan is largely directed against Shias by Sunni jihadis, reverse attacks do occur: a wave of sectarian violence between the two communities (with attacks on both sides) flared up in Gilgit (northern Pakistan) last year after a hand grenade was thrown at a gathering of a Sunni organisation (purportedly by Shia militants).


The Day of Ashura

Like so much of the Sunni-Shia violence seen since, these events centred around the Day of Ashura. This is the tenth day of the month of Muhharam in the Islamic calendar, on which Shia Muslims mourn the death of Hussein ibn Ali at the Battle of Karbala. This battle was the climax of the struggle over who should lead the followers of Islam after the death of the Prophet Mohammed, with the Umayyad Caliph Yazid I defeating Hussein (Mohammed's grandson). Shias mark this day with processions and displays of public mourning, and have often consequently clashed with Sunnis, as the diverging points of their sects are brought out into the streets.

One consequence of the great forgetting surrounding the events of 1963 is that even the date on which they occurred has become obscured, with many Shia sources now identifying the date as 6 June 1963. However, the Day of Ashura in 1963 fell on 3 June, and the contemporary newspapers began covering the killings on 4 June, noting the date they were perpetrated as 3 June (and the night of 2 June in Lahore).


The Riots in Lahore

Throughout Pakistan on the Day of Ashura in 1963, there were a great many peaceful processions and commemorations, including in Karachi, Peshawar and Multan. However, Lahore proved to be far more turbulent. The origin of riots seems to be found in events of the night before, when Sunni-Shia scuffles broke out, and bottles and broken bricks ("brick-bats") were thrown at a Shia procession that had halted outside a Sunni mosque (Dawn: 5 June: p.11; The Pakistan Times: 4 June: p.1). Members of Sunnat-Jama'at (a traditionalist Barelvi Sunni organisation) tried to rush the procession and had to be prevented from doing so by a police baton charge (The Pakistan Times: 11 June: p.9 ; Dawn: 12 June: p.6).

By the morning of 3 June, rumours were spreading that Shias had killed two Sunnis near the mosque where the procession had halted (The Pakistan Times: 12 June: p.3 ; Dawn: 12 June: p.6). Stone-throwing against the Shia processions ensued, and, despite assurances from Sunni leaders that they would be allowed to pass freely, when a large procession passed the Bhati Gate, what was described as a "free fight" broke out between the two groups, and the police opened fire to restore order. As broken brick-throwing started against processions in other areas, Army units were called in, and the police repeatedly opened fire throughout the city (Dawn: 5 June: p.11 ; Dawn: 27 June: p.1). Witnesses later reported seeing two Shias being beaten by a crowd which the police had just dispersed from the Bhati Gate (The Pakistan Times: 27 June: p.11). A curfew was imposed and maintained for several proceeding nights.

More than eighty people were injured in these riots, and four people (including one policeman) eventually died of injuries they sustained on 2 and 3 June (Dawn: 5 June: p.11 ; Sawn: 6 June: p.9). Police registered incidents of "stabbing, arson and loot" throughout the two days (The Pakistan Times: 6 June: p.5). In the following days, six hundred and thirty people were arrested in association with the riots, though over seventy of these were for violating the ensuring curfew (The Pakistan Times: 7 June: p.11 ; The Pakistan Times: 8 June: p.1).

This kind of violence was new to Lahore. It was reported that “elder citizens of the town… could not recall such a violence in Lahore on Ashura during the last 150 years” (The Pakistan Times: 5 June: p.1). An inquiry into the violence was ordered by the Governor of West Pakistan, but this was (to quote one news report) “not so much for fixing the blame of the incident, but for assessing the causes for the tension between the two sects, and for remedies to prevent such recurrence in the future” (The Pakistan Times: 5 June: p.1). Not surprisingly, Pakistan's Shias were left with a sense that little was done to bring the instigators of the riots to justice, and by July the kind of "future remedies" being suggested to prevent such riots included the pre-publication censorship of all Shia religious literature to remove content Sunnis found "objectionable" (The Civil & Military Gazette: 2 July: p.4). Quickly, those who had largely been the victims of the riots were blamed for causing them in the first place.


The Massacre in Theri

Far more bloody than the riots in Lahore were the killings in Theri (or "Therhi"), a village in Khairpur district. The incident began with a single stone-throwing against a Shia tazia (processional model of Hussein's mausoleum), and when news of this reached Khairpur city, a large number of armed men descended on the town and set both the tazia and the house where the Shias were meeting on fire (The Pakistan Times: 6 June: p.5 ; Dawn: 5 June: p.1). What followed was described as a "pitched battle" by the time the police arrived and used tear gas to disperse the mob, with re-enforcements from nearby towns and even the Indus Rangers being called in (The Pakistan Times: 6 June: p.5 ; Dawn: 5 June: p.1 & p.11). A dawn-to dusk curfew was imposed for several subsequent nights.

Over one hundred people were killed and at least thirty injured in this massacre (CGI: 18 April 2005: p.9 ; Dawn: 9 June: p.13). The characterization of the incident as a "battle" seems to be contradicted by the fact that almost every victim was identified as a Shia. In the following weeks, ninety-eight people were arrested from all over Khairpur district on charges of arson, murder and riot in Theri (Dawn: 27 June, p.1 & P.7). As with Lahore, a government inquiry was ordered, but later suspended and seems not to have reached any real conclusions (The Civil and Military Gazette: July 3: p.3).

The accounts passed on by victims and witnesses of the killings in Theri present a lurid picture. Knives, axes, and stones are said to have been used to murder the processionists. The perpetrators reportedly walked through the area of the attack shouting Shia slogans and offering water, only to murder any of the wounded who replied (Shaheed Foundation Pakistan). The dead bodies were then thrown into a well in an attempt to conceal the scale of the killings (with some sources saying the next planned step was to burn them in the well) before the police arrived to take custody of them. (CGI: 18 April 2005: p.9 ; Shaheed Foundation Pakistan).  The Shaheed Foundation of Pakistan has preserved a number of (graphic) photographs showing the state of the bodies recovered and the site of the massacre. Many of these accounts describe the perpetrators as "Wahhabis", but the tiny size of the Wahhabi population of Pakistan at this time suggests that they were likely more mainstream Sunnis.

Under the protection of the Pakistani police the Shia ceremonies that had been interrupted by the killings and the ensuing curfews were completed on 7 June, without violence violence (Dawn: 7 June: p.7 ; The Pakistan Times: 8 June: p.10). In subsequent years, however, there was repeated anti-Shia violence in this and nearby villages on the Day of Ashura.


Narowal's Violence among Neighbours

In Narowal, before the Ashura procession went ahead, an agreement was struck between the Sunni and Shia communities that the march would be made up of only ten Shias. On the day, only nine went, but they were escorted by four prominent Sunnis walking alongside them. The Pakistan Times reported that, as the procession passed through the town, some Sunnis began “abusing the Shias and also instigating the Sunnis to attack them as they had not carried out the agreement made earlier. The situation took an ugly turn when the rival groups started exchanging brickbats on the mourners. At this point the police intervened and the furious mob started throwing brickbats on the police as well” (The Pakistan Tunes: 6 June: p.8). The mob was ordered to disperse, and the police made an unsuccessful attempt to disperse it with a baton charge. When this failed, the police then fired “to scare away the crowd” (The Pakistan Times: 6 June: p.8) Later, about five hundred persons gathered armed with improvised batons and axes and attached the processionists. The Police fired for a second time, injuring “several persons” and killing two (The Pakistan Times: 6 June: p.8).

In this case, many of the leaders of this attack were not only arrested and charged, but also named in Pakistani newspaper stories (The Pakistan Times: 6 June: p.8). All involved seem to have been locals, well-known to their victims.


Conclusion

The events in Theri, Lahore and Narowal acted as a bloody opening to the ongoing dark chapter in Pakistani history, and the nation as a whole has yet to come to terms with the ongoing violence. At the time, one newspaper correspondent described it as "the most unfortunate incident in the history of the country" (The Pakistan Times: 5 June: p.9), but many more tragic atrocities have since been committed. Pakistan's founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, one said that "There is no power on earth that can undo Pakistan." We have yet to see if Pakistan can undo the ongoing spiral of sectarian strife which still plagues it after fifty years.



Bibliography: 

• The Civil & Military Gazette; Lahore; 1963 (British Library Newspaper collection)
• Dawn; Karachi; 1963; (British Library Newspaper collection)
• International Crisis Group, “The State of Sectarianism in Pakistan”, Asia Report, N°95 – 18 April 2005 http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/south-asia/pakistan/095_the_state_of_sectarianism_in_pakistan
• The Pakistan Times; Lahore; 1963 (British Library Newspaper collection)
• Shaheed Foundation Pakistan, "Tragic Event" http://www.shaheedfoundation.org/tragic.asp?Id=13

Other Resources:

• http://criticalppp.com/archives/266633
• http://worldshiaforum.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/therhikhaipur-massacre-49th-anniversary-of-the-first-large-scale-sectarian-attack-in-pakistan/

"Sheikh of the Arab Spring" now calls for jihad in Syria

Radical Egyptian cleric Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi is one of the world's most renowned Sunni clerics, chairman of the International Federation of Muslim Scholars, and has been dubbed the "Sheikh of the Arab Spring" for lending his support and legitimacy to many of the recent anti-government protests and revolutions in Arab countries. In May, he called for "jihad to death" against Israel -and now he has added Syria to the list of countries in need of jihad.

Specifically, al-Qaradawi's official website stated that he has called for "those able to undertake jihad and fighting to head to Syria to stand by the Syrian people who are being killed at the hands of the regime and are now being killed at the hands of what he called the party of Satan" -referring to the al-Assad regime in Syria and Lebanon's Hezbollah ("Party of God"), respectively. Regarding the latter, many Sunni clerics and laymen alike have taken to renaming Hezbollah after the devil due to its full-scale intervention on behalf of al-Assad.

Regarding al-Assad's regime, al-Qaradawi's motivations here are not hard to deduce. Firstly, al-Qaradawi not only has a record of supporting recent popular ('democratic') uprisings against Arab dictators, but also has a history of describing Shia Muslims as "heretics", and of accusing Shias of "invading" Sunni countries. This has led him to be criticized even by a fellow Sunni member of the International Federation of Muslim Scholars for fomenting sectarian tensions. All of this has great relevance to why he would call for a jihad against an Alawite (Shia) regime in a majority-Sunni country, in a conflict already riven with religious and communal violence. But secondly, the clue is in al-Qaradawi's current base of operations: Qatar. Qatar has been staunchly backing Islamist rebels against al-Assad's regime -and probably (tacitly, indirectly, or even consciously) the most radical jihadis like the al-Nusra Front and their allies.

In its better days, Sheikh al-Qaradawi could be said to symbolize the Arab Spring's democratic aspirations and popular appeal. Now, the Sheikh also embodies the uprisings' darker side of sectarianism, trans-national proxies, and violent jihad.