Militant Group Accuses Shi'ites, Iran of Murder

The Iranian Student Movement Up to the Minute Reports ^ | 10-09-03 | Zeeshan Haider

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Militant group accuses Shi'ites, Iran of murder

By Zeeshan Haider MSNBC

ISLAMABAD, Oct. 9 — The successor to a radical Pakistani Sunni Muslim militant leader slain by gunmen this week blamed rival Shi'ite leaders and Iran for his death and vowed to campaign against the country's minority Shi'ite community.

Maulana Azam Tariq, head of the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), was killed in a hail of bullets on Monday on the outskirts of Islamabad, stoking fears that a new wave of sectarian violence could erupt. The murder followed a recent wave of sectarian killings in the country, including a shooting spree by suspected Sunni extremists on a Shi'ite mosque in the city of Quetta in July in which more than 50 people died. ''We have evidence that these Shi'ite leaders and an Iranian official have conspired to kill Azam Tariq,'' said Maulana Mohammad Ahmed Ludhianvi on Wednesday. ''From the day our organisation was founded, we have been demanding that Shi'ites should be declared non-Muslims,'' Ludhianvi, who was elected Tariq's successor on Tuesday, told Reuters in a telephone interview. He said Tariq's supporters had filed a case against three senior Shi'ite Muslim leaders and an Iranian official in Pakistan, giving no further details. Only around 15 percent of Pakistan's 149 million people are Shi'ite, and religious parties and militant groups in the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim state are suspicious of Shi'ite Iran's involvement in sectarian violence. SSP, which exists under the new name of Millat-e-Islamia despite being outlawed by President Pervez Musharraf in his crackdown on extremism, is accused of sectarian killings and had close links with the ousted Taliban militia in Afghanistan.

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