Protests turn violent in Pakistan

10/09/2001

By Gregg Jones
The Dallas Morning News

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Anti-American protesters vowed to wage a holy war against the United States in sometimes-violent demonstrations that erupted across Pakistan on Monday, hours after U.S. military strikes began on neighboring Afghanistan.

The worst violence occurred in the southwestern city of Quetta, where security forces fired tear gas and live ammunition into the air in a clash with 4,000 demonstrators who went on a fiery rampage in support of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban. One person was reported killed, and at least six others suffered gunshot wounds.

U.S. and British military forces pounded targets across Afghanistan on Sunday and again Monday as punishment for the Taliban regime's refusal to surrender Osama bin Laden. U.S. officials say Mr. bin Laden is the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan – the radical Islamic regime's only representative outside Afghanistan – denounced the U.S. bomb and cruise missile strikes as "terrorist acts" and attacks on Islam. He said Mr. bin Laden and the supreme Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, had survived Sunday's strikes.

Twenty people – including women and children – were killed in three waves of attacks on Kabul, the capital, said Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador.

He also said that as many as four U.S. planes had been shot down along with a U.S. helicopter with 14 soldiers aboard. But the Pentagon said it had lost no aircraft in the operations against Afghanistan.

There was no word on the fate of eight foreign aid workers on trial in Kabul on charges of preaching Christianity. Among the eight are two Americans, Baylor University graduates Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer.

As U.S. and British bombs and cruise missiles rained down on their positions for a second night, Taliban fighters were also facing growing pressure on the ground from the opposition Northern Alliance. The opposition group said it captured an airport in the central provincial capital of Chaghcharan after 300 Taliban troops surrendered. A top strategist said the alliance – which is armed by Russia, India and Iran – is poised to launch a major offensive against the beleaguered Taliban forces.

Despite Monday's scattered violence, the Pakistani protests were smaller than some expected and attracted only a tiny portion of the 145 million people in this devoutly Muslim country. They marked another challenge weathered by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, as he confronts radical Muslim groups opposed to his pledge of full support for the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism, analysts said.

"I think he looks pretty good right now," said Rifaat Hussain, chairman of the department of defense and strategic studies at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad.

If the anti-American and anti-Musharraf demonstrations worsen after the second day of U.S. attacks, Gen. Musharraf is likely to impose protective measures to prevent the protests from spiraling out of control, Dr. Hussain said.

Gen. Musharraf said Monday that he was "very positive the vast majority of Pakistanis are with me" in the decision to back the U.S. effort.

Just hours before the U.S. and British attacks began Sunday, the Pakistani military ruler shuffled the armed forces leadership to head off a possible alliance between radical Islamic groups and army sympathizers and to signal a clean break with Pakistan's previous pro-Taliban policies, analysts said.

"My view is, this gives Musharraf great confidence in handling this crisis," said Talat Masood, a retired general and former assistant defense secretary. "It brings in a team with an unwavering commitment to the policy he is pursuing. It's very shrewd."

Pakistan has emerged as a key ally in the U.S.-led anti-terrorism campaign because of its shared border with Afghanistan, knowledge of the Taliban and stature within the Islamic world. Pakistani aid helped transform the Taliban from a puritanical vigilante force in southern Afghanistan in the early 1990s to the dominant power in the country by 1996.

The Taliban still enjoys strong support among religious conservatives and ethnic Pashtuns in Pakistan. Those sympathies helped fuel the worst demonstrations Monday in Quetta, where protesters burned five movie theaters, U.N. offices and a police station. Border patrol police units were called in to restore order.

"People are saying that it's not just an attack on Afghanistan," said Qaisar Jamali, a local politician, speaking in a telephone interview from Quetta. "It's an attack on Islam."

At the Quetta protests, the provincial head of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, a militant religious party, echoed Mr. bin Laden's call for Muslims around the world to "prepare yourselves for jihad."

Elsewhere in the country, a mob of 400 radical students burned three buses and threw stones at police in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city.

At least eight people were injured after police charged the mob with batons and tear gas.

Police in the northwestern city of Peshawar, near the Afghan border, used tear gas and batons to break up a demonstration by about 2,000 pro-Taliban demonstrators.

In Islamabad, the capital, and the neighboring city of Rawalpindi, there were small protests throughout the day but no major disruptions of daily life.

In Islamabad's Abpara bazaar, a crowd of men stood around a street corner newsstand Monday afternoon, reading the latest stories on the U.S. attacks beneath headlines like "America vs. Osama" and "America attacks Afghanistan." No one in the crowd had anything good to say about the U.S. attacks.

"It's very bad," said Basher Hamed, 60, his head wrapped in a white turban.

"All the Muslims are our brothers. If one is hurt, all of us are hurt."

There was heated talk of holy war and the perceived injustices of U.S. policies toward the Muslim world.

"According to Islam and the Quran, it says that Christians and Jews can never be our friends, and we don't trust them," said Imtizar Hussain, 24.

Mohammed Zahoor, 24, vowed to join the fight against the Americans.

"God willing, when your land forces will come, then we will go," he said.

Late Monday afternoon, about 200 people rallied outside the Lal Mosque down the street from the bazaar. Amid chants of "Musharraf is a traitor" and "America should stop terrorism," a local leader of the militant Jamaat-i-Islami party shouted: "Bush said time is up for Afghanistan. I say time is up for Bush! Afghanistan became a graveyard for the Russians, and now it will become a graveyard for Bush!"