The Spillover Effect
Iraq's sectarian strife haunts Pakistan|International News|Reuters.com
As if he didn't have enough to worry about with al Qaeda, the Taliban, jihadi groups fighting the Indian army in Kashmir, and Baluch separatist rebels, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf shudders at the spectre of sectarian strife.
"The Islamic world is heading toward a crisis," Musharraf told university students earlier this month, at a time when the world was aghast over Shi'ite guards taunting Iraq's Sunni former ruler, Saddam Hussein, at the gallows.
"If we don't get our act together, there will be a sectarian catastrophe in the Islamic world," said Musharraf.
Could Pakistan also descend into Iraq-style anarchy? The conditions appear to be there:
Pakistani intelligence channelled funds, covertly supplied by the United States and Saudi Arabia, to hardline Sunni groups to recruit and arm fighters for a jihad, or holy war, against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Simultaneously, the success of the Islamic Revolution in neighboring Iran led to a wave of Shi'ite radicalism in Pakistan that set the scene for a feud with the Deobandi groups that has dragged on for the past quarter century.
