In this second and concluding part of the article,"Anti-Shia campaign: Blowback from Pakistan", the author examines various developments, particularly the groundswell of anti-Saudi mood in Pakistan and avers that the emerging scenario points to the anti-Shia sentiment metamorphosing into a new global Sunni campaign with Pakistan in the forefront.

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Attacks on Shias in Afghanistan is a spill-over of the anti-Shia tirade in Pakistan. Noted American journalist Tim Craig voiced such a fear more than a year ago. In his dispatch from Islamabad to The Washington Post (Jan 15, 2014), he wrote: "A surge in sectarian killings is raising new fears about Pakistan's stability. But observers say any sectarian tension in Pakistan could easily spill over into Afghanistan, where security remains perilous and where religious and ethnic rivalries simmer, too."

Muhammad Amir Rana, director of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, sees the sectarian violence as a very dangerous trend. "It is starting to take the shape of structural violence," he told the Post.

The Shia genocide is a nameless crime. "We are in the presence of a crime without a name, and faceless victims," laments noted Pakistani columnist Dr Mohammad Taqi.

According to Kugelman, "The reason why the plight of Shias in Pakistan is so alarming is that the Pakistani state has institutionalized sect-based discrimination." While these experts are right in their assessment, not many analysts have as yet focussed their attention on the possibility of Pakistan's anti-Shia crime findings its way into Saudi Arabia. Entertaining such a possibility will be no more than an act of blasphemy.

Over the years, Saudi Arabia has acquired a larger-than-life profile in Pakistani discourse. Saudi Aria, America and Allah have become the presiding trinity, though not necessarily in that order.

The royal family has acquired the role of arbitrator in matters of Pakistani polity too.

Recent developments show that all is not hunky-dory between Islamabad and Riyadh. Saudi government has not earned any brownie points by executing Pakistanis who are into drug business. Arrests and trial are not limited to peddles. A Pakistani intellectual earned the wrath of Saudi authorities and had to cool his heels till Islamabad stepped in with a good word under public pressure. Topping this ground-swell of anti-Saudi mood is the Mina tragedy on September 24 and has created a fertile ground for anti-Shia blow back effect on the Kingdom. The Mina tragedy was the deadliest stampede in the history of Haj pilgrimage, and the death toll is put at anywhere beyond 1600.

The Saudi government is yet to yet to provide an updated death toll from the crush and stampede near Makkah. What is worse there is as yet no account of hundreds of pilgrims, many of them Pakistanis.

Both the media and political parties in Pakistan have taken to task Riyadh for what they termed as poor management and asked Nawaz Sharif government to convey Pakistanis' anger to the Saudis. Some editorials even ticked off the royal family, which, though unusual, showcases the public mood.

"The Saudi Grand Mufti has cleared the royal family of all responsibility for the tragedy, saying that 'fate and destiny are inevitable'. Considering that Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy and everything is overseen by the royal family, the cleric's remarks seem premature. Moreover, the Saudi health minister's comments blaming pilgrims soon after the tragedy were hasty and insensitive -- how could the official make such a sweeping statement so soon after the disaster?" asked an editorial in the sedate English daily, Dawn.

Like in the past, this time also, the government in Islamabad did not cross its Red Line since Saudi Arabia has been one of the main pillars of support for Pakistan -- politically, diplomatically and financially. It was the Saudi money that had bankrolled the American sponsored Jihad against the Soviets and gave birth to Taliban, Sunni vigilantism, and sectarianism; the religiosity of the then-dictator, Gen Zia-ul-Haq, pump primed them.

The official Pakistani agency that controls airwaves in the country has warned television channels not to criticise Saudi response to Mina tragedy. "Avoid targeted criticism of the royal family," it told the media houses.

The diktat was received with disdain, and the Sharif government itself came on the firing line.

"Oddly enough, unlike most other affected Muslim-majority states, Pakistan's response to the tragedy has been one of indifference. Such inaction coupled with a head-in-the-sand approach to mismanagement of the pilgrimage is shocking. The government must not only take a proactive approach, it must be seen to be doing so. The scale of the recent tragedy demands a strong response," Dawn wrote on Oct 10.

Now, is it justified to see the attacks on the Shia mosque in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere- Bangladesh including - as an extension of the anti-Shia sentiment that Pakistan Sunnis harbour? The answer appears as a resounding yes.

"Attack on Shias fans fears of jihadi blowback in Sunni Saudi Arabia," the Guardian reported last November after a ten-member group killed five people on the Shia religious holiday of Ashura in the village of al-Dalwa in the country's eastern province.

"The fear is that the Sunni-Shia tensions unleashed by the war in Syria and the rise of the Sunni jihadis of Islamic State (Isis) now pose a real security threat inside the conservative kingdom -- just as the fighters returning from the Saudi-backed anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan, later to make up al-Qaida, were seen as 'blowback' against the ruling Al Saud dynasty," the British daily said.

While the London daily looked at the issue through the Middle East prism, there is need to look at the issue in the larger context of stirrings in Pakistan. Because giving legitimacy to these fears is the Pakistan hand in the Kuwait blast.

The investigations have brought to light that the blast was engineered by five people. All hail from Pakistan. Of them, three were women, Yasmin Mohammad Abdul Kareem Moedin looked after finances, and is identified as the ring leader while the remaining two, Nasma Mohammed and Saher Mohammed, acted as facilitators, and were engaged in motivating their acquaintances to join "Daesh". Saher and Nasma are sisters.

Not many details about these ladies are in public domain. Police reports say Yasmin is from Khaitan area of Kuwait. It is not clear whether she is living there temporarily or has settled there.

Of the two men who landed in Kuwaiti Police net, one is a tailor by profession and the other an Afghan national with a Pakistani passport. The tailor has been identified as Sahir Qasim Ali Ghulam. The Afghan national is said to be one Mohammad Ghani; he is said to have prepared the jacket for the suicide bomber, who reportedly visited Kuwait a number of times before 26 June from Saudi Arabia.

Two brothers-in-law of the tailor have been with him in Salmiya. All the three have since been gone back to Pakistan after deportation.

In the past, involvement of Pakistan was traced in numerous attacks across the world in some form or the other. Either the attackers were themselves Pakistanis or they were trained in Pakistan. Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden lived merrily very close to Islamabad till the US Navy Seals sealed his fate. Taliban's one-eyed Mullah Omar used to hold his Shura in Quetta, even as the CIA drones used to take off from nearby airfields for attack on Taliban targets. Even the terrorists involved in the 2005 London serial blasts reportedly received training in Pakistan -- a country that is packed with scores of religious outfits putting forward their best foot to turn the land of the pure into a truly Sunni Islamist state. Primarily through violent means!

Clearly, the emerging scenario points to an anti-Shia sentiment metamorphosing into a new global Sunni campaign with Pakistan in the forefront.

(Concluded)

Authors Bio:
A blogger since July 2008 James Duglous Crickton is a London based consultant working with a consultancy firm focusing on Asia, particularly South Asia and East Asia. Political Research is his functional focus area. While his interests are conflict management solutions, he loves adventurous and James Bond type movies, and works of Dan Burton.