Lessons from Pakistan's Black Friday

Sunni Muslims assaulted two Ahmadi mosques in Lahore Pakistan on Friday.  Two groups of Sunni’s conducted coordinated attacks in the Model Town and Garhi Shahu neighborhoods.

The assault was sponsored by the Punjab province branch of the Pakistani Taliban, with logistical support from the Tableeghi Jamaat, a Muslim missionary group.

Approximately eighty worshippers were murdered in the assault.  The attackers started by firing AK-47′s into the crowd, then threw hand grenades at cowering victims.  Finally the detonated suicide vests with which they had been fitted.

This attack is an escalation of official and unofficial persecution of the Ahmadi religion minority in Pakistan. The Ahmadi’s consider themselves to be Muslims, but the Sunni-dominated Pakistani government has declared them non-Muslims and banned them from calling themselves Muslims and reciting Islamic prayers.

Pakistan’s Sunni Muslims have historically focused their murderous jihad’s on members of Pakistan’s Shiite minority, although attacks on Christians and Ahmadi’s have continued at a low-level for many years.

Shahbaz Sharif, the Chief Minister of the Punjab Province, accidentally revealed the ugly truth of his government’s view on Sunni terrorism when he stated “Attacks on places of worship is barbarianism. It is a shame to spill blood in mosques.”  It appears that Sharif and his government continue to condone the murders of non-Sunni’s — as long as they aren’t at church.  Perhaps he should have sent word of this rule to his friends in the Taliban before Friday.

In the U.S., the Obama administration is in a bit of a sticky spot over this attack.  There is no way for the administration to blame this barbaric and murderous rampage on the Jews, on Israel, or on the United States.  The administration which has recently announced that jihad is a good thing now faces a difficulty in explaining how the “peaceful” religion of Islam can yet again avoid responsibility for mass murder.

At least one of the lessons we should learn from this outrage is that appeasement doesn’t work.  The Ahmadi’s have been living peacefully among their fellow Muslims for many centuries and this has done nothing to protect them from persecution and murder.