Pakistan grants bail to radical Red Mosque cleric

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Pakistan grants bail to radical Red Mosque cleric
Apr 15 11:13 AM US/Eastern
By ZARAR KHAN
Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD (AP) - Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered the release on bail Wednesday of a hard-line cleric who was detained as soldiers stormed his radical Red Mosque in 2007, killing scores of people and energizing the country's Islamist insurgency. Maulana Abdul Aziz was arrested as he tried to sneak out of the besieged mosque in the capital, Islamabad, dressed in an all-covering burqa worn by some Muslim women.

Security forces stormed the mosque days later after scores of heavily armed militants inside refused to surrender. The government says 102 people, including 11 security personnel, were killed in the standoff.

The siege triggered an increase in suicide bombings and other attacks on the government and security forces. The attacks have continued since then, alarming Pakistan's Western allies who are concerned about the stability of the nuclear-armed state.Article continued at http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D97J0FFO0&show_article=1&catnum=2

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wtf for... absolutely ridiculous!

[ZeroZen]

who let that dog out?

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Follow up article.


Militant Pakistani cleric out on bail remains defiant

Maulana Abdul Aziz of the Red Mosque in Islamabad calls for Islamic law to be imposed across Pakistan. He faces multiple charges over a 2007 standoff at the complex that left about 100 people dead.

A day after he was set free, a radical Pakistani cleric returned Friday to Islamabad's Red Mosque, the sight of a deadly confrontation with government forces in 2007, and promptly issued an incendiary call for the spread of Islamic law across the troubled nation.

Cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz's uncompromising rallying call came after a court granted him bail on a string of charges related to the standoff that left at least 100 people dead when Pakistani troops stormed the hard-line religious complex.

"He's learned no lessons, nothing's changed as far as his agenda is concerned," said Zafar Hilaly, a political analyst and former ambassador. "It's troubling. His supporters will take a lot of heart, as will extremists, who think they're on a roll."

Government officials offered no immediate explanation for why Abdul Aziz's house arrest was ended. Efforts to prosecutemilitants have often fallen short in Pakistan in part, some analysts say, because of close links between radicals and the nation's security services.

Taliban and Al Qaeda forces have been emboldened in recent months by the government's willingness to allow hard-liners impose Sharia, or Islamic law, in the northwestern Swat Valley region, about 100 miles from the capital, Islamabad.

Thousands of people flocked Friday to the Red Mosque in Islamabad, to hear Abdul Aziz lead prayers and deliver his sermon, which he used to fan resistance to Pakistan's wobbly democracy.

"The day is not far away when Islam will be enforced in the whole of the country," the cleric told worshipers inside the building as others on the streets outside caught his message over loudspeakers. "I tell you that you should be ready to make sacrifices for Islam."

Aziz was caught attempting to flee the compound in July 2007 in a burqa, the head-to-toe gown favored by conservative women. His brother, Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, was killed during the 10-day military standoff that came to a head when troops poured into the complex, which houses a mosque and seminaries for boys and girls, the latter run by Abdul Aziz's wife, Umme Hassan.

The showdown began when female and male students from the complex formed moral brigades and occupied a children's library, kidnapped Chinese health workers, threatened to close down secular music and video shops and detained a woman and her daughter for alleged prostitution.

Aziz characterized the 2007 standoff as a turning point in the movement's struggle. "What we have seen in Swat and the tribal areas is the result of the sacrifices at the Red Mosque," he told supporters, "the students, the people who were martyred."

Western analysts and officials worry that the recent agreement to recognize religious over secular law in Swat, once a tourism hub, will place more territory outside government control and strengthen the grip of Al Qaeda's allies.

Some Pakistani analysts caution, however, that lumping all radical elements together risks over-simplifying the situation, adding that Swat has a long tradition of locally imposed justice that suited local tastes.

"People sometimes think there are diabolical provisions in the law, which isn't so," said Hilaly. "What is intolerable is that it's all happening at the barrel of a gun."

As part of their fight for control, militants in Swat have burned down girl's schools, killed local police, intimidated officials and beaten unmarried men and women seen together in public.

Provincial police chief Malik Naveed told local media Friday, however, that the truce was working, adding that tourists would soon be flocking back to the valley. LOL, sure buddy rofl

The return of Abdul Aziz to Islamabad after 20 months of house arrest in nearby Rawalpindi appeared to coincide with more prominent displays of hate literature and militant audio CDs at stalls in front of the Red Mosque. On his release Thursday, Abdul Aziz insisted his fight for Islamic justice was peaceful.

The distribution of video around the complex, some showing suicide attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, came in spite of a government commitment Friday that it was working to curb militant media.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-mosque18-2009apr18,0,6902094.story