The political situations in Pakistan have always been volatile and prone to take strange turns. Once accused of treason, and widely believed to have close financial and military ties with Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaida, Maulana Fazlur Rahman is now a candidate for the country’s highest executive office.

The political analysts and those in the top-tier US politics are concerned over the growing importance for Maulana Fazlur Rahman in Pakistan, as he might become a stumbling block to United State’s mission to identify and destroy transnational terrorist networks operating in and around Pakistan.

US government strongly believes that his pro-islamic and pro-taliban stand might deteriorate Pakistan’s human rights situation, especially as regards the restoration and strengthening of democratic institutions.

Maulana Fazlur Rahman, the portly, bearded and turbaned, Pro-taliban cleric who heads the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Islamic Party of Religious Leaders - JUI), is known for his close ties to Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime. His is one of the most influential and resourceful organizations in Pakistan, working for what is described as a “pure, Islamic state”.

When he and his alliance of six right-wing religious parties, the United Action Council, or ‘Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal’ (MMA) in its Urdu-language acronym, won 63 seats in 2002 elections, he began imposing conservative Islamic policies including banning music on public transport in the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan, on the Afghan Border. He claims himself to be the embodiment of the growing Islamic forces in Pakistan.

When US and allied forces began bombing Taleban strongholds in Afghanistan last year, Maulana Fazlur Rahman led large anti-US, anti-Musharraf, and pro-Taliban rallies in Pakistan’s major cities. The Maulana fiercely criticized Presidents Bush and Musharraf, and threatened to launch a jihad, - a holy war - against the US if the bombings continued.

Maulana, a senior preacher from the hardline Deobandi Sect, was at the front line during the first violent demonstration against Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in 1989. Unconfirmed reports claim that Rehman is also a cosigner of the fatwah published on February 23, 1998, in Al Quds Al Arabi as the leader of the Jihad movement in Bangladesh. In the fatwa he states it is every Muslim’s duty to kill Americans wherever and whenever possible.

Fazl ur-Rahman built his public image by supporting Benazir Bhutto during her second term as the prime minister. His cooperation with the PPP to some extent diminished temporarily his party’s image of an anti-secular religion-political entity.

General Musharraf kept him under house arrest in October 2001 on charges of inciting the people against the armed forces and for trying to overthrow the government. However he was set free in the next year March and all the cases against him were withdrawn.
During the 2002 election campaign, the MMA alarmed Washington by calling for all US bases in Pakistan to be closed, though it later said it wanted peaceful relations with the US.

Maulana is believed to have a 313-member armed guard with instructions to kill anybody suspected of harming him....a leader like him coming to power, is certainly not a good news for the future and people of Pakistan.

guardian