Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak

7
the war
Comes home
al-Qaeda
in Pakistan
o n the edge of a busy highway, near the northern city of Kohat,
hundreds of people would gather every day at a makeshift shrine
to pay homage and pray for four al-Qaeda fighters killed in a gunfight
with the Pakistani security forces. Colourful streamers tied to a pole
raised over a pile of rocks marked the spot where the ‘martyrs’ had
died. ‘It is a sacred place where the blood of the soldiers of God was
spilt,’ Noor Mohammed, a local trader, said as he knelt to kiss a stone,
still stained with blood.
The traffic slowed as a mark of respect as buses approached the
memorial and the faithful alighted to pray and collect sand from the
mound. ‘It is holy earth,’ said Abdul Ghani who, like many villagers,
believed that it would bring God’s blessings to his home. The shooting
had occurred in the first week of July 2002, when police stopped a
van carrying four Chechens at a security checkpoint in the village of
Jarma. 1 Fleeing from Afghanistan, they were in search of a safe haven.
The al-Qaeda militants, who were armed with machine guns and
rocket launchers, fought for over an hour, but were outnumbered by
the security forces and killed. Villagers thronged to the spot after the
fighting, many of them embracing the dead, while others even took
body parts to bury them inside the compounds of their houses. They