Union-Tribune

September 15, 2002

A1

Faith under fire
   Christians in Pakistan face a wave of attacks that could escalate as the war on terror continues 

Story by Marcus Stern, Copley News Service
Photos by John Gibbins, Staff Photographer 

ISLAMABAD – Edward Good lost his 20-year-old daughter and part of his right leg in a grenade attack on a Protestant service in March.

Six months later, Good doesn't blame the attackers.

"First of all, I should blame America," he said.

Good, like many Pakistani Christians, said the group safely coexisted as a religious minority in this Islamic country until the U.S.-led war on terrorism began. Since then, he said, a few Muslim "fanatics" have equated Christians with the West and made them a surrogate target.

Now, as the United States and Britain push for a military confrontation with Iraq, Christians in Pakistan say they are bracing for more attacks as a consequence of any international military efforts to topple Saddam Hussein.

If attacks against Christians occur because of military action in Iraq, America will have blood on its hands, said Joseph Lall, who was wounded during one of two deadly attacks on Christians in Pakistan last month. The first occurred Aug. 5, when six gunmen
attacked a Christian school in the town of Murree, killing three guards, a cook, a cobbler and a carpenter. Lall was injured in an attack four days later on a Christian hospital in Taxila that killed four nurses.

The West views the Pakistani Christian victims as "collateral damage," Lall said, adding that for terrorists on the run, "it's not so easy to get to the World Trade towers, but we are an easy target."

Western analysts see the wave of attacks as an effort to undermine Pakistan's unelected president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and destabilize the country. Islamic political parties in Pakistan are displeased with Musharraf for siding with the United States in the war on terrorism and for clamping down on their political activities.

The attacks are seen as further evidence that al-Qaeda forces escaped Afghanistan and are engaging in terrorism in Pakistan.

The attacks also are seen as an attempt to drive a wedge between Pakistan's Christian and Muslim communities. Christians make up less than 2 percent of the population, and many were Hindus before being converted by the British during the colonial era.

Regardless, a wide gulf in perceptions exists between Christians in Pakistan and at least some policy-makers in Washington.

In Taxila on Aug. 9, a welcome rain was falling as the morning service ended in the chapel of the Christian Hospital. Nurses went out into the rain, rejoicing at the break in a particularly long, hot, dry spell. They told each other that their prayers for rain had been answered.

Suddenly, a white flash and a blasting noise shattered the tranquil patter of rain. Two grenades had exploded on the walkway outside the chapel.

Ball bearings from the grenades blew out the windows,
pockmarked the chapel interior and stopped the clock beneath the picture of Christ above the front door at 7:48 a.m.

"At first, I thought it was lightning, but then the screaming started," recalled Lall, the hospital administrator.

Unaware that his ear was bleeding profusely, Lall pushed his way outside toward the sound of screams.

"Nurses were lying on the ground like dolls," he said.

About 115,000 patients are treated on the 28-acre compound each year. Although Christians run the hospital, its patients are primarily poor Muslims.

In a written recollection, Lall described the attack: "There were bodies, blood, smashed umbrellas, torn-off clothing, blown-off shoes, nurses' white caps. The rain was pouring down."

The attackers had lobbed two grenades at the crowd coming out of the chapel, and the explosions left two small craters, four dead nurses and 22 wounded.

If the U.S. continues its course in Afghanistan and Iraq, Lall said, "we will face more problems."


It also had been raining four days earlier, on Aug. 5, when six men attacked a Christian school in the cool, wet mountaintop resort town of Murree, 40 miles north of Islamabad.

The men used Kalashnikov assault rifles in their attack on the Murree Christian School, although they also carried grenades.

Recess had just ended when the attack began. Had it come a few minutes earlier, the courtyard would have been full of children.

Or if it had been a clear day, the courtyard still might have been relatively full because of the large number of classes taught outdoors.

But because of the rain, only one class was being conducted in the open-air courtyard when the shooting erupted.

Immediately, the teacher shooed the children into buildings.

Two attackers remained outside while four entered the grounds. One gunman's rifle jammed, and he quickly left. The other three continued methodically through the school grounds, kicking at locked doors and spraying bullets at anyone they saw.

By the time they were done, they had killed the three guards, the cook, the cobbler and the carpenter. But none of the 150 or so students had been in their sights.

In the back of the property, they confronted an unarmed, 65-year-old man named Muhammad Saleem who had worked at the school for 38 years. Now he lived just beyond the fence marking the end of the school property.

"Who are you and why are you killing people?" Saleem demanded of one of the gunmen through the cyclone fence. Then he yelled to his teen-age daughter, "Faiza, load the gun and shoot these guys!"

At that point, the gunman shot Saleem in both legs.

"No Muslim would do this," said Saleem, himself a Muslim, as he lay recovering on a rope bed on his porch overlooking the lush jungle valley into which the gunmen escaped.

They dropped an arsenal before disappearing: four Kalashnikovs, 11 magazines with 30 rounds each, and a dozen grenades.

Later, the three gunmen were cornered in a nearby village.

When police approached them, they pulled out their remaining grenades and laid them calmly at their own feet. Then they crouched in a circle, leaned their heads together and blew themselves up.

The three attackers who had stayed outside during the attack were caught later.

School manager Simon J. Malik had dodged bullets in the courtyard that morning. Although he recounted the attack calmly, he said the terror would be with him a long time.

"Suffering is part of being a Christian," he said.


Monsoon clouds were breaking high above St. Thomas Church on Sept. 8. From inside the red-brick church came the sounds of Urdu-language hymns being sung to the accompaniment of a sitar, a tabla, a flute and an organ.

St. Thomas, which is part of the Church of Pakistan, was overflowing with Pakistani Christians. As in a mosque, many had left their shoes on the portico outside. Men sat in the pews on the left, women and children in the pews on the right. Men wore traditional pajamalike shalwar kameeze and women covered their
heads with chadors.

The service began with Matthew 18:20 – "Whenever two or three of you come together in my name, I am there with you."

At the gate outside, three men stood guard. One had a shotgun, one a Kalashnikov and one an electronic wand to check people for weapons.

Afterward, the Rev. Irshad John said the people who have been attacking Christians in Pakistan in the past year believe that if they "persecute Christians in Pakistan, the Americans will stop the bombing in Afghanistan."

But, he said, "the Americans will not change their policies."

Like most Christians interviewed, John said the Christian community in Pakistan is neither isolated nor afraid, even after the attacks.

"We are not afraid of death," he said.


The March 17 attack that took Edward Good's lower right leg started like the others, with a scene of peaceful Christian worship. Services were under way at Protestant International Church in the heavily guarded diplomatic compound in Islamabad.

An attacker burst into the chapel hurling grenades. One landed in the front. Good was in the third row of chairs with his son, Asher, now 18, and 20-year-old daughter, Reba. The blast killed her on the spot, broke one of Asher's legs and left much of Good's body peppered with shrapnel from the grenade. He was
unconscious for 12 days. Two Americans, a woman who worked at the U.S. Embassy and her daughter, also were killed.

Six months later, Good blames U.S. policies in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Kashmir. Those policies, he said, hurt Muslims, who then hurt Christians out of frustration.

"These policies are good for America, but they are not good for us," he said.

Police made a round of arrests after the attacks last month in Murree and Taxila. Though authorities have made no official announcement, it has been widely reported that the attacks were the work of a banned extremist group called Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

The group is part of the Sunni sect of Islam and was accused of killing hundreds of sectarian rivals, the Shiites, in attacks on mosques during the 1990s.

The estimated 400 members of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi were trained in Afghanistan, and have returned to Pakistan from time to time.

Many analysts describe them as at least an outgrowth of the U.S.-assisted armed resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s.

"The Americans are the ones who trained these people, and now they are coming back to attack us," said Lall, director of the hospital in Taxila.