Lal Masjid cleric’s arrest not in sight: Telegraph

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s security agencies believe Maulana Abdul Aziz of Lal Masjid is building a new militia and preparing for another tilt at forcing the country to adopt Islamic law, says report published by British daily Telegraph.
In December, a Pakistani court issued an arrest warrant for Maulana Aziz but the police have been unable to enforce it. “We are trying our best to implement it,” a police official said.
In an interview, Aziz cut a serene figure in a light brown robe, but offered no comfort to Pakistan’s government and those who regard him as the spiritual voice of the country’s most deadly terrorists.
He repeated his assertion that while the “brutal murder of young children” at Peshawar’s Army Public School “cannot be justified”, the killers were responding to offensives by the army in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
The only solution for Pakistan’s problems, he continued, was for its government to adopt shariah. And he gave a chilling warning. Unless the government implements his vision of Islamic law soon, he and his followers “will solve it”.
Pakistan’s intelligence services believe he is in control of an armed militia. In a report seen by the Telegraph, a senior intelligence official said: “It’s evident that he is following an agenda of reviving Lal Masjid mafia in the heart of the federal capital. His links with the TTP [Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan] and land grabbers poses a security threat to law and order.”
It added that he had organised a militant wing, the Ghazi Force, operating under two Taliban leaders in the tribal areas. While it was the government’s job to promote sharia, he said he would not rule out sending the madrassa girls on to the streets and into confrontation with the authorities again. “If the government fails, that might happen,” he said.But arresting Aziz, despite his growing influence, deadly history and command over armed fighters, seems a step too far while the battle rages in the border areas.
“While this is going on what we don’t want is to open a third front. We can pick this idiot up any time we want to but we don’t want to pick on him now and his people start suicide bombing....if he stays away from the mosque we can live with that,” said a senior government official.
The government’s biggest mistake was to allow the mosque to be rebuilt and Maulana Aziz to preach there, he conceded. But when it comes to religion, Pakistan had mixed feelings.“We should not have allowed it to be rebuilt for any reason, but people thought they were doing a good job, a religious thing, and were guaranteed a place in heaven,” he said.