Daud Badeni is a member of the Lashkar-I-Jhangvi terrorist group. He told a court in Quetta, Pakistan, that he took part in attacks on Shiite Muslims that killed at least one-hundred people. These included the machine-gun-and-grenade attack on an Ashura religious procession in March. Parvez Bhatti, Pakistan's Deputy Inspector General of Police, told the British Broadcasting Corporation that Badeni was trained in Afghanistan and took part in terrorist attacks there as well.
Lashkar-I-Jhangvi was formed in 1996. Its goal is to establish a Sunni Muslim state. It has attacked Shia Muslims and Pakistani government officials, among others. In 1999, it attempted to assassinate former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother. The terrorist group has also been linked to the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002. The former Taleban regime in Afghanistan gave Lashkar-I-Jhangvi safe haven and support.
Pakistan outlawed Lashkar-I-Jhangvi in August 2001. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said the ban was justified. “Extremism, suicide attacks. and terrorism are against the teachings of Islam,” he said, “but some elements are damaging the true image of Islam by doing such practices.” Calling for a “culture of tolerance and patience,” Mr. Musharraf called for an end to extremism and sectarian violence.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says “the motives of terrorist groups differ,” but their methods are the same:
“Some, like al-Qaida, have global ambitions and apocalyptic motives. Others have more geographically specific and narrowly defined political aims, but the murder of innocents that defines modern terrorism is common to them all. That is what we oppose and must fight against unconditionally. There is no political justification for the deliberate murder of innocent people, period. End. Stop. There can be no rationalization, no nuance. It's what it is, the murder of innocent people."
Mr. Powell said that it is not enough to defeat the tactics of terrorism. “It is also our obligation,” he said, “to understand and defeat the ideology of the small fringe groups of evildoers who deeply distorted the principles of a great and profound world religious tradition.”
