Asia-Pacific, Headlines, Human Rights, Migration & Refugees, Religion

PAKISTAN: Sunni-Shia Strife Triggers Exodus Along Afghan Border

Ashfaq Yusufzai

PESHAWAR, Jan 31 2008 (IPS) - Violent sectarian strife in the border Kurram tribal area, already riven with conflict between pro-Taliban and Pakistan government forces, has led to over 500 deaths, and an exodus of civilians to the neighbouring North Western Frontier Province (NWFP).

Sectarian tensions have spilled over into Peshawar, the NWFP capital. On Jan. 17, a suicide attack on a religious procession of Shias to honour the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Mohammad, in 680 AD, killed 14 people and injured 25. The blast occurred close to a similar tragic attack on the procession last year, on Jan. 27.

"At least 500 persons were killed in two rounds of Shia and Sunni violence, in April and November, last year. The deep-rooted tension has been ignored by the government," said Zulfiqar Ali, a resident of Kurram Agency, who reports for Pakistan’s major English-language daily, Dawn.

The last round of sectarian clashes, including in the agency capital, Parachinar, which began Nov. 21, lasted for a month. Both sides used heavy weapons. More than 300 persons were reported killed, and over 100 shops torched, as the administration looked the other way.

Thousands of people, both Shia and Sunni, have abandoned their houses in the Kurram Agency (population 448,310) and moved to Peshawar, capital of NWFP.

Kurram is one of seven agencies in the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA), between the NWFP and Afghanistan. It has the distinction of being the only agency where Taliban and al Qaeda have no presence because the majority Shia are opposed to the Taliban – a Sunni movement that emerged from Afghanistan in the mid-90s.

The Taliban who ruled Afghanistan till they were ousted by U.S-led foreign troops in 2001, are believed to have crossed the porous 2,400-km border into FATA, along with the al-Qaeda, disturbing the sectarian balance.

Pakistan’s previous martial law dictator, Gen. Ziaul Haq, in the 1980s, broke a delicate politico-military administrative arrangement in Kurram, comprising Shia and Sunni officers. Ever since, the agency, mountainous and unusually green and fertile compared to the other six agencies, has been prone to sectarian conflicts.

The Shia-Sunni divide intensified in Pakistan under the general who used Muslim youth, enrolled at different seminaries in Pakistan, as cannon fodder in the 10-year-long Afghan war.

The Shia-Sunni sectarian war began when the Zia regime introduced one theology book for students of both sects. Shias, led by the late Mufti Jaffar Hussain, staged a sit-in in Islamabad and forced the regime to restore the separate theology book for Shia students.

In April last year, clashes in Kurram Agency, triggered by an attack on a Shia procession, left nearly 200 dead and over a hundred injured before elders from rival camps managed to broker a truce. Many homes and businesses were also ransacked or destroyed in that round of carnage.

Since the early 1960s, sectarian animosity has occasionally spilled over into sporadic clashes. It was not until the 1980s, however, that matters came to a head following a massive influx of Afghan refugees.

While locals outnumbered the refugees almost four-to-one in the NWFP, FATA and Balochistan as a whole, outsiders at the time equalled or outnumbered Pakistanis in parts of Kurram Agency, seriously distorting the area’s demographics and changing its way of life.

Many Afghans have since settled permanently in Kurram, introducing a hard-core brand of Taliban-style Sunni ideology that threatens peaceful coexistence. Hate literature and incitement by clerics have served to fan the flames of violence, while the local administration has often ignored the problem and even taken sides.

Still, the large Shia presence is one of the reasons why the influence of the Taliban is not as strong in Kurram as it is in some other tribal agencies. Both FATA and NWFP’s Sunnis and Shias are Pashtuns (called Pakhtuns in Afghanistan) like the Taliban.

Shafique Bangash, president of Imamia Students Organisation (ISO), the student wing of Shia Muslims, says it is the responsibility of the federal government to provide security to people and take action against criminals involved in firing, killing and ransacking private property in Kurram Agency.

ISO’s leader alleged that despite the presence of army troops in the town, looters were attacking houses and shops.

"Sunnis and Shias had been enjoying cordial relations and living in peace over decades but with the influx of Afghan refugees following the Soviet attack on Afghanistan, sectarianism strengthened its roots in Parachinar," he told IPS.

"Remnants of the Afghan war or Taliban, are the main trouble makers, who are also part of international terrorism," he alleged. "Kurram (Sunni) militia is behind fanning sectarian riots by using force against people," he told IPS.