Recent remarks by Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi, head of the Pakistan Ulema Council, on suicide attacks in Afghanistan has triggered harsh criticism from various political circles in Afghanistan, even the President. And with that remarks, it seems unlikely that any conference of Pak-Afghan clerics accelerating peace talks with Taliban would take place in the near future. Release of Taliban prisons by Pakistan government was welcomed by the Afghan side. Nevertheless, legitimizing suicide attack has reversed almost all the recent developments.
On Monday, President Hamid Karzai in a joint press conference with Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Kabul said, "We are so sad about the recent speech by the Pakistani side over legitimizing suicide attacks. Though we have reached some realizations [of Pakistan’s viewpoint], we hope that the situation changes and they return to rationality." So said the NATO chief, “I strongly condemn endorsing suicide attacks and there is no justification for such terrorist attacks.”
Pronouncing of suicide attack as a legitimate act in Afghanistan but not in Pakistan by Mehmood Ashrafi, comes only about a week after an effort by Afghan government to bring together Pak-Afghan clerics in a conference in Kabul failed. The effort failed as the Pakistani clerics deemed the conference as anti-Taliban and emphasized that representatives of Taliban must participate if any such conference is to be held at the first place. Also, an effort to bring clerics from Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2011 under the banner of ‘Peace Jirga’ in Kabul did not succeed.
It was expected that Pak-Afghan clerics would come together in conference to discuss ways of ending the conflict in Afghanistan and issue their clear opinion on the legitimacy of suicide attacks according to the codes of Islam. Islam does not allow committing suicides. Nonetheless, Mehmood Ashrafi has announced the reverse. After Ashrafi’s comments it seems that there is no need the Afghan government should try to hold a conference for religious figures from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Meanwhile, it is quite important that the Afghan government should urge the Afghan clerics, the Afghanistan Ulema Council, to clarify their views about suicide attacks in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The kind of conflict Afghanistan is facing has roots in Islamic radicalism and therefore, clerics must play their part in countering growing extremism in Islamic countries, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, Ashrafi’s comment establishes the fact that clerics in Pakistan are either favoring the activities of Taliban in Afghanistan or they are simply afraid of talking against them.