Pakistan Detains 500 Islamists in Crackdown on Clerics

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – About 500 people have been detained in Pakistan in a week-long crackdown on Islamic clerics and bookshop owners accused of inciting hatred and suspected militants, a government minister said yesterday.They are being held under the antiterrorism laws that allow the police to keep suspects in custody for up to a year without charges, Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said.The campaign against Islamic radicals began last week after President Musharraf renewed a call for tighter control over religious schools, long considered to be breeding grounds for Islamic militants in Pakistan.But officials have insisted the action is not linked with the deadly July 7 bombings in London. Investigators believe one of the suspected bombers may have been to an Islamic seminary in Pakistan.Many of those detained over the past week are Islamic clerics suspected of spreading hatred between members of Sunni and Shiite sects, and owners of bookshops selling literature deemed to spread religious disharmony.Others were suspected of links with outlawed militant groups, the interior minister said.A coalition of religious schools, or madrassas, yesterday demanded Pakistan “immediately” halt the action against the institutions.“We demand that madrassas should not be targeted, directly or indirectly, with allegations of terrorism, extremism, and militant training,” the Unity of Administrators of Religious Schools said in a statement.General Musharraf has angered Islamic radicals by backing the American-led war against terrorism that ousted the Taliban militia from power in Afghanistan in 2001 for harboring Al Qaeda.General Musharraf has outlawed several militant groups, some believed linked to Osama bin Laden’s terror network, which trained fighters in camps in Afghanistan when the Taliban militia was in power.The outlawed organizations also include Shiite and Sunni extremist groups accused of involvement in local sectarian violence that claims scores of lives in Pakistan every year.In an unrelated development, Mr. Sherpao said Pakistan will cooperate with Egypt in the probe into the weekend bombing in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheik.Mr. Sherpao made the offer in a meeting with the Egyptian ambassador in Pakistan, Hussein Haridy, an official statement said.The meeting came a day after Mr. Haridy said no Pakistani was involved in the attack at the Egyptian tourist resort.Mr. Haridy’s announcement followed reports that Egyptian police were searching for five missing Pakistani men in Sharm el-Sheik in connection with the investigation into the bombing that left 88 people dead.

Pakistan Detains 500 Islamists in Crackdown on Clerics

Pakistan Detains 500 Islamists in Crackdown on Clerics

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