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Pakistan Announces Security Operation After Recent Bombing Pakistani Shiites End Protest After Authorities Vow To Take On Extremists
(about 7 hours later)
KARACHI, Pakistan — The government announced a security operation against sectarian death squads in the western city of Quetta on Tuesday, four days after a sectarian bombing killed at least 89 people and led to unusually sharp criticism of the powerful military and its intelligence agencies. KARACHI, Pakistan — Shiites ended three days of protest across Pakistan on Tuesday after the government promised to hunt down sectarian extremists responsible for a devastating bombing that killed 89 people in the western city of Quetta on Saturday.
Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf vowed to target the extremists behind Saturday’s bombing, which killed dozens of women and children, and was squarely targeted at a neighborhood in Quetta where Hazara, minority Shiites, are concentrated. The attack, aimed at the city’s vulnerable Hazara minority, embarrassed the government because it came just five weeks after another attack that killed almost 100 Hazaras, also in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan.
On Tuesday evening, after talks with government officials, Hazara leaders called off countrywide protests that highlighted the failure of Pakistan’s civilian and military authorities to stem the rising tide of sectarian bloodshed. The bombing also drew unusually sharp criticism of the powerful military, and it highlighted the broader failure of Pakistani security services to stem a rising tide of sectarian bloodshed across the country.
Grieving Hazaras, who had demonstrated in the streets of Quetta beside the coffins of bombing victims, agreed to abandon the symbolically powerful protest and bury their dead. Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf sought to defuse Shiite anger on Tuesday by sending a team of six legislators to Quetta and announcing a “targeted operation” against the extremists responsible for the attack, widely presumed to come from Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a ruthless sectarian group.
But participants in the Quetta sit-in and other cities refused to end their protest, continuing to demand that soldiers be deployed in the city to provide protection to the Hazaras. Hours later, Qamar Zaman Kaira, the information minister, told reporters that the military operation, which started overnight on Monday, had resulted in the death of four militants. At least 170 people were detained and a large cache of weapons recovered, he said.
Qamar Zaman Kaira, the Pakistani information minister, told reporters that targeted operations against militants started in Quetta overnight on Monday, resulting in the killing of four militants. At least 170 people were detained and a huge cache of weapons was recovered. Grieving Hazaras, who had staged a symbolically powerful protest by sitting with the coffins of those killed in the attack, agreed after news of the security operation to bury their dead.
Still, pressing questions remained about the government’s ability to crack down on sectarian extremists who, in Quetta as in other parts of the country, appear to operate with impunity. The target of the operation announced by Mr. Ashraf is presumed to be Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a notorious sectarian group that claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack as part of a violent campaign that has lasted decades. The two attacks have renewed public attention on Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has claimed responsibility for both attacks yet operates with startling impunity in Baluchistan Province. Its leader roams the country freely, preaching sectarian hatred.
Lashkar militants bomb and shoot Shiites, whom they believe to be Muslim heretics, across Pakistan, although in Baluchistan Province, which includes Quetta, they concentrate on Hazaras, who immigrated from Afghanistan over a century ago and whose members have distinctive Central Asian physical features. Accusations that the powerful military has turned a blind eye to the group in Baluchistan, where human rights groups say it uses Sunni extremist militants to help quell a nationalist rebellion, have gained prominence since the latest attack.
Mr. Ashraf fired the police chief of Baluchistan Province and replaced him with Mushtaq Sukhera, the former head of counterterrorism operations in Punjab Province. Unusually, though, the brunt of the criticism has focused on role of the military and its powerful intelligence agencies. In the Senate on Tuesday, Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for President Asif Ali Zardari, said some extremists in Baluchistan had received “clandestine support” and pointedly noted that two Lashkar-e-Jhangvi leaders, whom he identified as Usman Kurd and Daood Badini, mysteriously escaped from jail in a military-controlled part of Quetta about four years ago.
In the Senate on Tuesday, Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for President Asif Ali Zardari, accused some extremists in Baluchistan of having received “clandestine support” — a veiled reference to allegations from human rights groups that the security forces have turned a blind eye to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in return for the militants’ help in quelling a nationalist revolt in Baluchistan. Militancy experts say that Mr. Kurd, who is thought to lead Lashkar in Baluchistan, has masterminded much of the carnage in recent years.
Earlier, the governor of Baluchistan Province, Zulfikar Ali Magsi, who has been in charge of Baluchistan since the federal government dissolved the provincial administration last month, accused the intelligence services of being “too scared” or “too clueless” to chase down the extremists. Those criticisms were echoed by the Baluchistan governor, Zulfikar Ali Magsi, who on Monday accused the intelligence services of being “too scared” or “too clueless” to chase down the extremists.
Mr. Babar, pointedly noted that two Lashkar-e-Jhangvi leaders, whom he named as Usman Kurd and Daood Badini, had mysteriously escaped jail in a military-controlled part of Quetta about four years ago. Saturday’s attack caused a new eruption of anger from Pakistan’s Shiites, who constitute up to 20 percent of the population and who have been rattled by steadily escalating attacks at the hands of Sunni extremists in the past year or so.
The military has strongly denied accusations of collusion with the killers, pleading that its forces are already thinly stretched across Baluchistan. Nonetheless, Pakistanis across the country have been become increasingly alarmed at the strength of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Protesters blocked the main airports in Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore, while businesses remained closed across Punjab Province for Monday and part of Tuesday.
The group’s leader, Malik Ishaq, travels freely around Pakistan, making speeches and whipping up sectarian hatred. In Baluchistan, Lashkar operates freely from Mastung, a small town south of Quetta, from which most of the attacks are believed to emanate. On Tuesday evening, thousands of young Shiites gathered at a major junction in Karachi opposite the mausoleum where the country’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah — his message of religious tolerance largely ignored these days — lies buried.
Mr. Ashraf, meanwhile, sent a six-member delegation of lawmakers, led by Mr. Kaira, the information minister, to hold talks with Hazara leaders in Quetta. “The main problem is that the government is doing nothing against Lashkar-e-Jhangvi,” said Hussain Ali, 41, an accountant who had been protesting for two days.
In Lahore, a spokesman for the Majlis-e-Wahdat ul Muslimeen, a Shiite lobbying group, said the hand-over of Quetta from civilian to military control was a central demand of the protesters. His cousin’s husband was shot dead in a sectarian attack in Karachi just a week earlier, he added. “He was killed on his way back from work,” he said.
Moments later, a group of Shiite clerics, wearing long black cloaks and standing before a large portrait of the Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomenei, announced that the protest strike was over. Cheers erupted from the crowd.
The government has also attempted to quell Hazara anger by offering the equivalent of $10,000 to the family of every bombing victim; on Tuesday it also fired the provincial police chief and replaced him with Mushtaq Sukhera, a senior counterterrorism police officer from Punjab Province.
The military has strongly denied accusations of collusion with the killers, arguing that its forces are already thinly stretched across Baluchistan. Nonetheless, Pakistanis around the country have become increasingly alarmed at the strength of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which kills Shiites because it believes them to be Muslim heretics.
In Baluchistan Province, Lashkar concentrates on Hazaras, who immigrated from Afghanistan over a century ago and whose members have distinctive Central Asian physical features. The group operates freely from Mastung, a small town south of Quetta, from which most of the attacks are believed to emanate.
In Lahore, a spokesman for the Majlis-e-Wahdat ul Muslimeen, a Shiite lobbying group, said the handover of Quetta from civilian to military control was a central demand of the protesters.
“We want the army to maintain peace and stop the massacre of Shiites,” said the spokesman, Mazahar Shigri.“We want the army to maintain peace and stop the massacre of Shiites,” said the spokesman, Mazahar Shigri.

Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Waqar Gilani from Lahore, Pakistan.

Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Waqar Gilani from Lahore, Pakistan.