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July 14, 2006

Pakistan: Suicide Bombing Kills Shia Muslim Leader

The Daily Times, CBS, Associated Press via the Houston Chronicle report that earlier today, a prominent Shia cleric, Allama Hasan Turabi, was killed in a suicide attack in the city of Karachi, in Sindh province in the southeast of Pakistan.

Turabi, pictured above right, was already aware that he was a target for assassination. He had survived a previous attack against him, made on Thursday April 6 this year. In that earlier attack, his son Murtaza, body-guard and two passers by were injured when a cart laden with oranges, parked near his residence, blew up.

In today's attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up, killing Turabi, his nephew Ali and two bodyguards. Turabi was the provincial leader of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, or MMA, the Islamist six-party coalition which is the main opposition. Leaders of the MMA today expressed their shock.

Turabi left behind two wives, five sons and eight daughters. Born in 1941, Turabi had moved to the Sindh province about forty years ago. For fourteen years he had been a madrassa teacher.

Turabi had warned that he was a sectarian target. When he was attacked in April, the banned Sunni outfit Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) was blamed, but denied responsibility and condemned the attack. Once again, the SSP condemned today's killing. The Sipah-e-Sahaba is involved with several attacks upon Shia, and as well as being banned in Pakistan, it is designated by the US State Department and proscribed by the UK as a terror organisation. It has offshoots, which are also banned, such as Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan. The Millat's spokesman also condemned the attack.

The attack happened today in the late afternoon outside Turabi's home (pictured left). When the cleric arrived in his jeep and dismounted, a young man wearing a shawl had called out his name, state eyewitnesses. When the cleric turned, the man approached and blew himself up, leaving a black blast mark against the wall, and body parts on the roadside.

The blast had been so ferocious that body parts were stuck to the second storey of Turabi's home, and flesh fragments were even found glued to houses three lanes away. Across the road from Turabi's residence, a bolted and locked gate was blown off its hinges, and the door of another house was destroyed.

Following the explosion, there was discovered at the scene a grenade which was missing its pin, yet had not detonated. As well as leading the Sindh province MMA, Turabi was president of the Pakistan Islami Tehrik, a renamed version of a group calling itself Tehreek-e-Jafaria, which had been banned.

After the blast, about 300 youths assembled near Turabi's home, and indulged in the usual Muslim response to a Muslim attack, shouting insults against America and Israel. As well as being a member of a virulent Islamist group, the MMA, Turabi also was typically anti-semitic. His last speech had been a tirade against the US-led West for the current Israeli operations against its enemies. Outside the Banori mosque, Turabi had said: "Hamas is a true representative of all the Muslims and the entire Ummah is backing and supporting it."

He also condemned secularism, "obscenity", and warned that these "policies" would lead to bad situations in the future. He also claimed that the West and its media were making war against Muslims, who were "peaceful". The manner of his death somewhat invalidates that claim.

While some of his supporters mourned his death by shouting slogans, others became more pro-active, and indulged in a "peaceful" Muslim speciality - rioting.

Six vehicles and a petrol pump were set ablaze in Karachi. Two buses, a coach, a minibus and two motorcycles were torched. Passing cars were pelted with stones, and police mobile units were also attacked. Dozens of traffic signals were destroyed, and cabins on roadsides were destroyed.

The "peaceful" Muslims then started ordering shops and businesses to close, and at a cold drinks store, gunfire broke out, injuring Sahib Zaman, a 20-year old man. He died in hospital. Police had to use teargas to disperse the "peaceful" Muslims.

The Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, and President, Pervez Musharraf, expressed sorrow at the death of the scholar. Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said: "It is a very tragic incident in which Allama Hassan Turabi has been martyred," and said that the perpetrators would not go unpunished.

Secretary General of the MMA, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, said Turabi's death was a "huge loss" for Pakistan, and said the attack "is the handiwork of those who want to destroy peace and create sectarian rift."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at July 14, 2006 9:13 PM

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