Pakistani minister shot and wounded - police

Reuters ^ | Wed Sep 2, 2009 7:34am EDT | Zeeshan Haider

[Pan_Yan]

ISLAMABAD, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen shot and wounded Pakistan's religious affairs minister, Hamid Saeed Kazmi, in a brazen attack in the capital on Wednesday that killed his driver, officials said.

Pakistan has been braced for retaliatory attacks by the Taliban and other groups linked to al Qaeda since a U.S. missile strike on Aug. 5 killed Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the hardline Islamist group in the nuclear-armed country.

Kazmi, a cleric and vocal opponent of the Taliban, belongs to the Barelvi sect, whose moderate adherents of Islamic sufi mysticism venerate saints and their shrines.

"We have been receiving threats because we are against terrorism, we are against Taliban, we are against Baitullah Mehsud, we are against suicide attacks," said Kazmi's brother, Mazhar Saeed Kazmi.

The attackers struck as the minister was leaving his office.

"I was standing outside our office when I saw two gunmen escaping on a motorcycle," Iqbal Siddiqui, a ministry official, told Reuters.

Local television news channels showed images of Kazmi with what appeared to be a leg wound. Khalid Hussain, a doctor at Islamabad's Federal Government Services Hospital, said Kazmi was in a stable condition.

The Pakistani army launched a campaign in April to clear the Taliban from Swat and Buner, two valleys a few hours drive from Islamabad, and has since bottled up the main militant stronghold in South Waziristan.

The army says it has killed more than 2,000 militants and lost 312 soldiers in Swat since the campaign began. Independent casualty estimates are unavailable.

[Pan_Yan]

There aren't a lot of safe places in Pakistan these days.

[webheart]

Of course, these are retaliatory attacks because we blew up their leader. Never mind that if we hadn’t blown up their leader, they would still have attacked. Moslems are all about retaliation anyway, the whole sunni-shiite thing is retaliation for some slight or other from hundreds of years ago. All the suicide bombings and mortar attacks on Israel are retaliation for something that happened to Mohammed hundreds of years ago. If it wasn’t for retaliation, they wouldn’t have anything to do. I would bet some Moslems somewhere are getting ready to retaliate against us for their martyrs dieing crashing planes into the World Trade Center. But let’s all celebrate Ramadan, a time of fasting and reconciliation.

[Pan_Yan]

Yep.

[353FMG]

“...shot and wounded Pakistan’s religious affairs minister...”

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Honor killing?

[Pan_Yan]

HE was shot for the reason the Taliban shoots most people. He publically disagreed with them. Pretty bold to do the hit in the middle of the capital. That’s as much a signal as who they shot.