Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP - An unmanned U.S. Predator drone flies over Kandahar Air Field, southern Afghanistan, on Jan. 31, 2010. The latest strike in North Waziristan could further sour U.S.-Pakistan relations in the wake of the bin Laden killing.
‘We are all Osama’
Pakistani Taliban members in Karachi, as well as some from an outlawed sectarian organization, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, received text messages this week that said bin Laden was alive. Western media, one message told them, were spreading disinformation to discourage Afghan insurgents as they launched their spring offensive.
The two countries are allies but their relationship has been plagued by mistrust over the last 50 years.
Another claimed, with no explanation, that the man killed early Monday was an Abbottabad resident named Zain Mohammed.
But more striking in a nation where conspiracy theories are rife was most militant organizations’ quick acceptance of bin Laden’s death as fact.
“You can kill the person, but you cannot kill his mind-set,” said Ahmed Malik, 35, a mechanic in Karachi who belongs to a group believed to be a front for the militant organization Lashkar-i-Taiba. “We are all Osama bin Laden.”
On Tuesday, hundreds of members of the front group held a funeral prayer for bin Laden in Karachi. On Friday, a newspaper affiliated with the group Jaish-e-Mohammed ran a front-page biography of the “Lion of Islam,” chronicling his journey “from Medina to martyrdom.”
“I started weeping and later shivering with anger,” said the 27-year-old, a Jaish member, describing his reaction to bin Laden’s death. His organization’s leaders immediately instructed followers to recite the entire Koran — a common Muslim practice to honor the dead — while they formulated their response. He said he has read it four times so far.
A fading message?
Condemnation of the killing has been widespread, but more for its method — by U.S. forces operating deep inside Pakistan without the government’s knowledge — than for the loss of bin Laden. According to a Pew Research Center survey, only 18 percent of Pakistanis had confidence in bin Laden last year, down from 52 percent in 2005.
“How many million people have been seen coming on the roads in grief for Osama bin Laden?” said Aseff Ahmed Ali, a former foreign minister and member of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party. “There’s been absolutely no sympathy with this man.”
Indeed, nationwide protests called Friday by the religious party Jamaat-e-Islami seemed halfhearted, despite calls by leaders to set the United States aflame. In Abbottabad, where bin Laden was killed, about 300 people showed up and shouted slogans such as “Go, America, go!” In Rawalpindi, reporters nearly outnumbered demonstrators, and organizers said they would keep the program short because it was raining.
Yet some observers say the effect of bin Laden’s killing could still be dangerous, inspiring more recruits to wage violent jihad.
“Because of what the Americans did with Osama’s dead body, it gives courage and support to the terrorist groups,” said Hafiz Muhammad Tahir, the chair of a nationwide clerics’ council, referring to the terrorist leader’s burial at sea.
At the protest in the eastern city of Lahore on Friday, Arshad Ahmed, 21, observed quietly from the sidelines. Ahmed, a seminary student, said he had recently moved to the city from his native Chitral — a mountain hamlet where, he had heard, bin Laden had visited.
He wished he had met bin Laden in Chitral, he said wistfully, but there was another way: fighting.
“If he is martyred, the best thing is to get martyred and see him in heaven,” Ahmed said, smiling. “I will try to go to Kashmir or Afghanistan, and I will try to go to heaven. I’ll definitely see Osama over there.”
Special correspondents Aoun Sahi in Lahore, Haq Nawaz Khan in Abbottabad and Nisar Mehdi in Karachi contributed to this report.
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