"If a military dictatorship like Pakistan is afraid of a muslim backlash,"
I don't doubt that they are afraid, given how many attempts on Mussharaf's life there have been.
OBLaden first met Afghanistan's Sheikh Mohammad Omar at the Banuri town mosque near Karachi. Banuri is the home of an infamous Deobandi madrassa, an ultra-Islamist religious school that achieved fame under Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, author of more than 2,000 fatwas -- most predictably reactionary. The Government of Pakistan, and Musharraf in particular, seems afraid to attack this nest of vipers.