The rule of General Musharraf saw many a controversial decision, but perhaps none had a more lasting consequence than the one to storm the Lal Masjid in the summer of 2007. It was the siege of the Red Mosque in Islamabad, and its bloody ending, that marked the beginning of Musharraf’s 11-year rule and the expansion of a catastrophic war from periphery to the center of Pakistan. Between 11 July (when Operation Silence ended) and 31 August 2007, there were 18 suicide bombings in various parts of Pakistan. Was such an outcome inevitable?
Despite the significance of the event, politically and ideologically motivated maneuvering of facts has led to a poor understanding of the circumstances around the incident. But a new book by Adam Dolnik and Khuram Iqbal –titled Negotiating the siege of Lal Masjid and published by Oxford University Press – digs deep into the siege and provides an insightful yet dispassionate indictment on how the Pakistani government attempted to deal with the confrontation and why the negotiations to end the siege peacefully failed.
The Lal Masjid saga began with the demolition of Amir Hamza mosque, built illegally on government land, after the Capital Development Authority’s decision to demolish 80 other illegally built mosques and seminaries in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
Jamia Hafsa, the seminary for girls adjoining Lal Masjid – supervised by Maulana Abdul Aziz and his brother Ghazi Abdul Rashid – was among them. Since 2001, the Jamia Hafsa had been expanding over a 3,389 square-yard plot adjacent to the mosque.
First, the CDA demolished the Amir Hamza mosque – the first sign that the government’s patience was running out. Sensing a threat to Jamia Hafsa, scores of Burqa-clad students raided and occupied a Children’s Library adjacent to their seminary, demanding the demolished mosque be rebuilt.
The government caved in soon, and then federal minister Ijazul Haq laid the foundation stone of a new mosque in February 2007.
The sense of achievement emboldened the students and clerics of Lal Masjid, who first started what they called a campaign against vice in the neighborhood, kidnapping alleged prostitutes and Chinese women, harassing video shop owners and demanding immediate implementation of Sharia law in the entire country.
The government wavered between wanting to act tough and trying to avoid a fallout, appeasing and emboldening the ambitions of the Lal Masjid clerics in the process. The authors emphasize this point throughout the book, stating that “from the start, Government approached the negotiations from a point of weakness, demonstrating willingness to change its own legal verdicts as Abdul Rashid Ghazi moved goal posts. The Lal Masjid students took radical and illegal actions, only to be allowed to do so time and time again.”
This created a perception of saber-rattling and desensitized students to the threat of possible use of force. “Besides, the possibility of an armed assault having been publically debated for months had allowed time to those inside to prepare by stockpiling food, weapons, ammunition and a mental expectation of the possibility of a prolonged siege… the element of surprise was thus lost.”
By the time police, rangers and army personnel finally barricaded the Lal Masjid on July 3, forces had moved in and out three times. The militants inside had enough time and warning to make preparations for an armed resistance, with sandbags placed on the walls, gas masks, water buckets, and wet rags.
The authors stress that the authorities had invested considerable effort into negotiating a peaceful resolution to the crisis. The government used a wide range of third party intermediaries, including politicians, clerics, human rights activists, and militant leaders. But they “lacked basic instructions from authorities on how to behave, what to say, what to do in certain situations and what to avoid…. their scope of authority was never fully clarified.”
Clerics and ministers had made proactive counter offers to the Lal Masjid administration without having the authority, leading to a loss of trust. As their distrust of religious leaders grew, “the reliance on militant and like-minded allies further diminished influence of non-violent actors/clerics… a growing sense of betrayal and isolation along with perceived divine sanction for their actions, led to increased radicalism and siege mentality.”
By the second day of the siege, Abdul Rashid Ghazi showed willingness for a conditional surrender if he were given a safe passage. The arrest of Abdul Aziz, the book notes, provided a golden opportunity, which was mishandled. “The form in which Abdul Aziz was interviewed (clad in the same Burqa in which he was arrested while trying to escape) was counter-productive. It sent the message of public humiliation… Had the authorities allowed Abdul Aziz to save face and send a message to his followers in a dignified manner, it could have been more productive or at least less destructive.”
At least 1,221 male and female students had left the Lal Masjid by Day 3. Many, however, remained inside. The government claimed they were being held hostage. According to the authors, the “students who were inside at the time of the siege, said they were never held inside by force”. But the book notes that this does not mean there was complete freedom to leave. “Psychological factors including peer pressure, emotional extortion based on abandoning comrades in moment of crisis, scare rhetoric about what awaited outside meant that there were other factors involved.”
Meanwhile, “the statements of Ghazi on the issue of surrender were an important indicator of progress”, notes the book. He first said he would surrender if the forces were withdrawn, and later demanded a public surrender in the presence of the media. Last ditch efforts on part of the negotiators produced an agreement between a delegation led by Chudhry Shujaat, and Abdul Rashid Ghazi, which included safe passage for him and his family. But Musharraf wanted a set of conditions not immediately acceptable to Ghazi, and issued a 30-minute deadline for the negotiations team. “This decision, in the light of the immediate and strategic fallout, was anything but a disaster.” What circumstances led to this decision by Musharraf are not clearly highlighted and the analysis could have been enriched by including the version of the former president.
By that time, 19 people, including a colonel of Special Services Group, Rangers personnel, journalists, and seminary students had been killed during violent clashes and sporadic incidents of shooting between law enforcement agencies and students holed up inside the mosque. “This meant that a threshold of lethal violence had already been crossed.”
Regardless of the failure of negotiations, Abdul Rashid Ghazi had masterminded a brilliant PR campaign from inside the Lal Masjid during the siege. Ghazi allegedly used 200 pre-paid SIM cards, monitored all incoming and outgoing calls through a computerized exchange and operated an illegal FM radio station out of the mosque. The media interest in itself turned Ghazi into a contemporary celebrity, increasing his sense of importance and invulnerability and “complicating the negotiation efforts designed to achieve peaceful resolution.”
A decision was made to storm the mosque, and by July 11, the Operation Silence was over. Abdul Rashid Ghazi and at least 100 others died.
We will never know with certainty whether Ghazi would have eventually surrendered, but the authors of the book note that the siege appeared to feature all characteristics of a ‘negotiable incident’.
The post-operation media strategy of the government also gets heavy criticism. “It was poorly coordinated and too heavily reliant on deception and unpersuasively clumsy propaganda,” the book notes.
The fallout of the siege included splits in the Jihadi movement with groups traditionally close to the military establishment suffered fractionalization, and a number of their foot soldiers deserted and relocated to FATA. The book cites the examples of Asmatullah Muaviya and Ilyas Kashmiri.
Though the book does not unearth any new eye-opening details, it is an essential read for everyone who wants to understand how effective negotiations can achieve better outcomes and contains lessons for crisis negotiators, incident commanders, law enforcing agencies and political decision makers.
Despite the significance of the event, politically and ideologically motivated maneuvering of facts has led to a poor understanding of the circumstances around the incident. But a new book by Adam Dolnik and Khuram Iqbal –titled Negotiating the siege of Lal Masjid and published by Oxford University Press – digs deep into the siege and provides an insightful yet dispassionate indictment on how the Pakistani government attempted to deal with the confrontation and why the negotiations to end the siege peacefully failed.
The Lal Masjid saga began with the demolition of Amir Hamza mosque, built illegally on government land, after the Capital Development Authority’s decision to demolish 80 other illegally built mosques and seminaries in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
The government negotiated from a point of weakness
Jamia Hafsa, the seminary for girls adjoining Lal Masjid – supervised by Maulana Abdul Aziz and his brother Ghazi Abdul Rashid – was among them. Since 2001, the Jamia Hafsa had been expanding over a 3,389 square-yard plot adjacent to the mosque.
First, the CDA demolished the Amir Hamza mosque – the first sign that the government’s patience was running out. Sensing a threat to Jamia Hafsa, scores of Burqa-clad students raided and occupied a Children’s Library adjacent to their seminary, demanding the demolished mosque be rebuilt.
The government caved in soon, and then federal minister Ijazul Haq laid the foundation stone of a new mosque in February 2007.
The sense of achievement emboldened the students and clerics of Lal Masjid, who first started what they called a campaign against vice in the neighborhood, kidnapping alleged prostitutes and Chinese women, harassing video shop owners and demanding immediate implementation of Sharia law in the entire country.
The government wavered between wanting to act tough and trying to avoid a fallout, appeasing and emboldening the ambitions of the Lal Masjid clerics in the process. The authors emphasize this point throughout the book, stating that “from the start, Government approached the negotiations from a point of weakness, demonstrating willingness to change its own legal verdicts as Abdul Rashid Ghazi moved goal posts. The Lal Masjid students took radical and illegal actions, only to be allowed to do so time and time again.”
This created a perception of saber-rattling and desensitized students to the threat of possible use of force. “Besides, the possibility of an armed assault having been publically debated for months had allowed time to those inside to prepare by stockpiling food, weapons, ammunition and a mental expectation of the possibility of a prolonged siege… the element of surprise was thus lost.”
By the time police, rangers and army personnel finally barricaded the Lal Masjid on July 3, forces had moved in and out three times. The militants inside had enough time and warning to make preparations for an armed resistance, with sandbags placed on the walls, gas masks, water buckets, and wet rags.
The authors stress that the authorities had invested considerable effort into negotiating a peaceful resolution to the crisis. The government used a wide range of third party intermediaries, including politicians, clerics, human rights activists, and militant leaders. But they “lacked basic instructions from authorities on how to behave, what to say, what to do in certain situations and what to avoid…. their scope of authority was never fully clarified.”
Clerics and ministers had made proactive counter offers to the Lal Masjid administration without having the authority, leading to a loss of trust. As their distrust of religious leaders grew, “the reliance on militant and like-minded allies further diminished influence of non-violent actors/clerics… a growing sense of betrayal and isolation along with perceived divine sanction for their actions, led to increased radicalism and siege mentality.”
By the second day of the siege, Abdul Rashid Ghazi showed willingness for a conditional surrender if he were given a safe passage. The arrest of Abdul Aziz, the book notes, provided a golden opportunity, which was mishandled. “The form in which Abdul Aziz was interviewed (clad in the same Burqa in which he was arrested while trying to escape) was counter-productive. It sent the message of public humiliation… Had the authorities allowed Abdul Aziz to save face and send a message to his followers in a dignified manner, it could have been more productive or at least less destructive.”
At least 1,221 male and female students had left the Lal Masjid by Day 3. Many, however, remained inside. The government claimed they were being held hostage. According to the authors, the “students who were inside at the time of the siege, said they were never held inside by force”. But the book notes that this does not mean there was complete freedom to leave. “Psychological factors including peer pressure, emotional extortion based on abandoning comrades in moment of crisis, scare rhetoric about what awaited outside meant that there were other factors involved.”
Meanwhile, “the statements of Ghazi on the issue of surrender were an important indicator of progress”, notes the book. He first said he would surrender if the forces were withdrawn, and later demanded a public surrender in the presence of the media. Last ditch efforts on part of the negotiators produced an agreement between a delegation led by Chudhry Shujaat, and Abdul Rashid Ghazi, which included safe passage for him and his family. But Musharraf wanted a set of conditions not immediately acceptable to Ghazi, and issued a 30-minute deadline for the negotiations team. “This decision, in the light of the immediate and strategic fallout, was anything but a disaster.” What circumstances led to this decision by Musharraf are not clearly highlighted and the analysis could have been enriched by including the version of the former president.
By that time, 19 people, including a colonel of Special Services Group, Rangers personnel, journalists, and seminary students had been killed during violent clashes and sporadic incidents of shooting between law enforcement agencies and students holed up inside the mosque. “This meant that a threshold of lethal violence had already been crossed.”
Regardless of the failure of negotiations, Abdul Rashid Ghazi had masterminded a brilliant PR campaign from inside the Lal Masjid during the siege. Ghazi allegedly used 200 pre-paid SIM cards, monitored all incoming and outgoing calls through a computerized exchange and operated an illegal FM radio station out of the mosque. The media interest in itself turned Ghazi into a contemporary celebrity, increasing his sense of importance and invulnerability and “complicating the negotiation efforts designed to achieve peaceful resolution.”
A decision was made to storm the mosque, and by July 11, the Operation Silence was over. Abdul Rashid Ghazi and at least 100 others died.
We will never know with certainty whether Ghazi would have eventually surrendered, but the authors of the book note that the siege appeared to feature all characteristics of a ‘negotiable incident’.
The post-operation media strategy of the government also gets heavy criticism. “It was poorly coordinated and too heavily reliant on deception and unpersuasively clumsy propaganda,” the book notes.
The fallout of the siege included splits in the Jihadi movement with groups traditionally close to the military establishment suffered fractionalization, and a number of their foot soldiers deserted and relocated to FATA. The book cites the examples of Asmatullah Muaviya and Ilyas Kashmiri.
Though the book does not unearth any new eye-opening details, it is an essential read for everyone who wants to understand how effective negotiations can achieve better outcomes and contains lessons for crisis negotiators, incident commanders, law enforcing agencies and political decision makers.