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SSP vows to establish caliphate worldwide

* Around 5,000 SSP activists rally in Islamabad

ISLAMABAD: Activists of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) vowed to establish a global caliphate, beginning with Pakistan.

In a rally attended by thousands of activists of the banned group to commemorate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) on Friday, leaders of the SSP called for an Islamic theocracy in Pakistan. “The concept of nation state is an obstacle in the way of the establishment of Khilafat. We will start the establishment of Khilafat in Pakistan and then will do so across the world,” said Zaheerul Islam Abbasi, a former general who was sacked and arrested in 1995 for trying to topple the government of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Activists distributed pamphlets in Islamabad preaching jihad and hatred against Shias, as their leaders delivered fiery speeches to a crowd of around 5,000 late on Thursday.

They also sold video compact discs of the beheadings of American soldiers in Iraq, and militant activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan at the rally, which they said was convened to celebrate the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) this month. One of the organisers thanked the Islamabad administration for allowing the rally, which was held under floodlights in a bus depot, with hundreds of riot police watching on. SSP is known to have close links with Jaish-e-Mohammad, a militant group fighting in Indian-occupied Kashmir and with links to Al Qaeda.

Some of the crowd briefly chanted anti-Shia slogans, until they were told to refrain by their leaders. They also swore allegiance to their late leader, Maulana Azam Tariq, a fiery pro-Taliban cleric who was assassinated in Islamabad in 2003, and founder of the organisation Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, who was killed in 1980s.

Last July, President Pervez Musharraf ordered a major crackdown against clerics and organisations inciting sectarian violence. The SSP was banned by the government in 2002.

The SSP has often been blamed for violence against Shias, planting bombs in mosques or attacking religious processions. Thousands of people have been killed in tit-for-tat attacks by militants from the two sects over the past 20 years. Most of the victims are Shias, who account for about 15 percent of Pakistan’s predominantly Sunni Muslim population of 150 million.

On Thursday, a prominent Shia Muslim cleric narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in Karachi after his car was hit by a remote-controlled bomb Authorities have launched several crackdowns on militant outfits since Pakistan joined a US-led war on terrorism in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States, but critics say that the steps taken have been half-hearted and many groups have resurfaced under new names.

Like other groups, SSP remerged under the new name of Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan.

Founded in the 1980s, SSP wants Pakistan to be officially declared a Sunni Muslim state.

It had recently been reported in the press that the government might relax some restrictions on the group and allow it to commence political activities in a “very low profile”. Reuters

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