Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who died on Sunday at a hospital in Dubai, resigned from his position in 2008 after the ruling coalition threatened to impeach him. Musharraf’s ouster from power was the culmination of not one particular reason. Towards the end of his tenure, the leader was in the soup because of several conflicts brewing within Pakistan. He faced massive protests from lawyers after firing former Pakistan Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. His decision to declare a state of emergency met with a huge backlash. Musharraf was also accused of playing a role in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. And his political party, PML-Q, performed poorly in the 2008 general elections. However, many analysts believe that the biggest reason for his downfall was the 2007 operation at the Lal Masjid in Islamabad, which changed the course of not only Musharraf’s rule but also Pakistan’s relationship with Islamist militancy. It led to the rise of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has carried out numerous deadly attacks across the country over the years. Even now, the TTP, which called off its June 2022 ceasefire with the government in November last year, presents the biggest internal security threat to Pakistan. On January 30, a TTP suicide bomber killed more than 100 people at a mosque in Peshawar. History of Lal Masjid Since its inception in 1965, Lal Masjid had served as a platform for propagating Islamic extremism. Its founder, Muhammad Abdullah Ghazi, was “famous for his speeches on jihad” and shared a close relationship with Pakistan's former dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq, according to a BBC report. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the mosque supplied a steady stream of mujahideen, who played a pivotal role in fighting the Red Army. Once the war ended, it continued to impart “radical Islamic learning, housing several thousand male and female students in adjacent seminaries”, the report said. After Ghazi was assassinated in 1998, his sons, Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid took over the complex, which had by now expanded and also consisted of a madrassa for women, called Jamia Hafsa. As per the BBC report, Ghazi’s sons accepted they had “good contacts” with several al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama Bin Laden himself, several years before the 9/11 attack. However, after America began its “war on terror”, they denied having any links to the terrorist organisation. The tussle with the Pakistan government Once President Musharraf declared his support for America’s “war on terror”, the leaders and students of Lal Masjid openly condemned his move and called for his assassination. Kidnappings, violent demonstrations, arson, and armed clashes with the authorities followed. According to a report in Dawn, the mosque also “announced a charter for proposed Islamic rule of the country, which envisaged a new social, political and judicial system based on the Sharia. The clerics called for the formation of revolutionary committees for the implementation of the charter”. The situation worsened in June 2007, when both male and female students of the complex raided a massage parlour in Islamabad, which they alleged was a brothel and kidnapped nine people working there, including seven Chinese nationals. They were released the next day but the Chinese authorities pressured the national government to take action against the culprits. The siege of Lal Masjid The report by Dawn pointed out that the Pakistan military for months “hesitated” to take action against the leaders and students of Lal Masjid because it shared close ties with them. Finally, on July 3, 2007, the forces, backed by tanks and artillery guns, surrounded the area under the orders of President Musharraf. In retaliation, students and militants not only fired upon the Pakistani troops but also set fire to a Ministry of Environment building near the complex. The conflict escalated after July 7, when snipers “positioned inside a minaret shot Lieutenant-Colonel Haroon Islam, the commander of the Special Forces leading the operation.” He succumbed to his injuries the next day. This was the last straw for the Pakistan forces and, three days later, they entered the premises of Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa to begin “Operation Silence”. Notably, during the siege, the military discovered that elements from jihadi groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad and Harkat-ul Jihad-al-Islami were present inside the seminary, armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, LMGs, hand grenades, petrol bombs, and rocket-launchers, according to an analysis published in The Indian Express. At the end of the stand-off, more than 100 people, including commandos, were dead. The mosque was also severely damaged. The aftermath of the operation After the Lal Masjid operation, Islamic hardliners turned strongly against Musharraf. Ayman al-Zawahiri, then number 2 in al-Qaeda, vowed revenge. Abdul Rashid, who was killed while fighting against the army, was described as a “hero of Islam” by Bin Laden in an audio he released soon after the incident. “Al Qaeda and other militant groups have since used the storming of the Lal Masjid as a rallying cry to fight the Pakistani government and its military”, Dawn reported. It further mentioned that in the first year after the incident alone, more than 88 bombings killed 1,188 people and wounded 3,209. The fallout of the Lal Masjid operation added to the problems of President Musharraf, and ultimately resulted in his resignation in 2008. Years later, he sought to disown his responsibility and denied ordering the operation while he faced a trial regarding the incident.
