Red mosque

The red Mosque or Mosque Lal Masjid (Urdu لالمسجد , literally “red mosque”), is a mosque sunnite located at the Pakistan with Islamabad in the G6 district.

The building had been built on the request for Mohammad Abdullah (of the movement Deobandi) in 1965. Its influence strongly increased under the presidency of Zia ul-Haq which practices a policy of vigorous reislamisation, in particular after the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Under the direction of Mohammad Abdullah, the mosque becomes a central place of the Jihad.

Until 2007, this institution was directed by two wire of Mohammad Abdullah (he even assassinated in 1998): Abdul Aziz Ghazi, person in charge, and Abdul Rashid Ghazi. The mosque, built out of red bricks (from where it draws its name), sheltered two then Madrassas, one for the men and the other for the women. Both madrassas counted as a whole approximately: 9000 old students from 10 to 20 years, of which about half were young women.

Events of 2007

Since the beginning of the year 2007, this mosque is the seat and the source of tensions very sharp between the islamist radicals, close to Al-Qaida, which are installed there, and the government. Spectacular actions (Auto-da-fe, emission of Fatwa against a minister, etc) and violent (sequestration and violences on people having a behavior considered to be “immoral”, removal of seven nationals Chinese), were carried out since this mosque. The ultimate objective being introduction of the Charia to the Pakistan.

The tension crosses a threshold in July 2007, weapons are flights by students of the mosque to security agents. Following that, the Pakistani president, the general Pervez Musharraf makes the decision of launching an military operation against the occupants of the mosque and the Madrassas, which then include men, women and children. Being wary with respect to ISI, the intelligence services, it draws aside those of the operation to the profit of the Military intelligence.

The attack lasted two days and makes a hundred victims.

During several days of face to face and sporadic confrontations, of the attempts at conciliations on behalf of the government or of the religious delegations of local Oulémas took place. The besieged last refuse to go and announce being loans to be fought “until martyrdom” and indicate that many women and children remained with them “of their full liking”. Regarding these women and these children as human shields, the authorities push back as much as possible the final attack, fearing a blood bath.

The attack is given by the soldiers Pakistani Tuesday July 10th 2007 at dawn. They had to proceed with precaution because of the risk for the hostages and met a strong resistance. Abdul Rashid Ghazi, second leader of the mosque, was killed at the time of the final attack.

Following the attack, number 2 of Al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahiri, called the Moslems Pakistani with revenge and the holy war.

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