| Moammar just called. He wants his sheriff badge back. |
President Pervez Musharraf on Monday condemned fighting between Shiite and Sunni Muslims that left 14 people dead, and said he was trying to make Pakistan a moderate Islamic state and not one controlled by terrorists. His comments came after gunmen on Saturday attacked a car carrying Shiite leader Agha Ziauddin, wounding him. But one of his bodyguards and one of the assailants was killed in an exchange of fire. Angry supporters of Ziauddin then went on a rampage, setting buildings on fire and clashing with rival Sunni Muslims in Gilgit, about 250 kilometres north of the capital. The violence left some 14 people dead.Authorities imposed a curfew in Gilgit with police, army and paramilitary troops patrolling the city. "We shall not allow the extremists to take the society as hostage," the military-run Inter-Services Public Relations department quoted Musharraf as saying in an address at a military college in Islamabad. He said was making efforts to make Pakistan a "moderate and enlightened Islamic welfare state."
| As far as I can tell, Pakland has been held hostage to religious extremists for years and years. Religious extremism is to Pakistan as disco was to the U.S., only more deeply entrenched and not as wholesome. Pakland will never get rid of religious extremism until it stops concentrating on being Islamic and starts concentrating on being a state. |