AUSTRALIA (ANS) -- Al Qaeda-Taliban jihadists already control most of Pakistan's northern Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) that border Afghanistan. They hold on to power through terror and the regular execution of 'traitors' (anti-Taliban Pashtun tribal elders). From their bases in the self-declared 'Islamic Republic of Waziristan' they plot the assassinations and terror attacks perpetrated in major cities across Pakistan. The 13 September bombing of the Marriott Hotel in the heart of the capital, Islamabad, which killed 80 and wounded more than 250, is believed to have heralded an escalation in the jihad.

In recent months Pakistan's al-Qaeda-Taliban jihadists have advanced their jihad right into the heart of Peshawar, the capital city of North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Peshawar, some 150km west of Islamabad on the road to the Khyber Pass and Kabul, Afghanistan, is a strategic centre for both military deployments and aid distribution. In the past week, terror has surged. On Wednesday 12 November, gunmen ambushed the vehicle of an American aid worker and strafed it with bullets, killing the aid worker and his driver as they travelled through University Town in Peshawar's 'high security zone'. The next day, militants abducted an Iranian diplomat after killing his escort. Then on Friday 14th, two foreign journalists -- one Japanese and one Afghan -- were shot and wounded in a botched kidnapping.

Various local, regional and international forces have vested interests in advancing the jihad inside Pakistan. India has long provoked insecurity in Pakistan for domestic political and geo-strategic gain. Despite this, Indian intelligence agencies are used as major suppliers of information in the 'war on terror'. Similarly, America has frequently focused on short term achievements and scapegoating that can be exploited in the American domestic political arena for political gain rather than confess failings, do the intelligence gathering, and reassess strategy. Because of its alleged success at 'curing' Islamists of their militancy, Saudi Arabia, the world's leading disseminator of Wahhabism (hardline, intolerant, pro-jihad, pro-Sharia, anti-Shi'ite and anti-Christian Islam), has been asked to assist in pacifying the FATA. This may well mean that some interesting deals will be brokered.

Saudi Arabia started pumping money-coated Wahhabism into Pakistan after the 1979 Shi'ite Islamic Revolution in Iran, to the delight of Pakistan's then Sunni Islamist military dictator, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. As Islamisation and radicalisation escalated through the 1980s, fuelled considerably by the 'jihad' against the communists in Afghanistan, the rights and security of Pakistan's Christian minority declined. Pakistan's infamous anti-blasphemy law is one of the most savage tools of religious persecution in the world. This law mandates that any person accused of blasphemy against Islam or the 'prophet' (Muhammad) be immediately arrested --no evidence is required and the trial comes years later and is held under a cloud of Islamic threats and hysteria. The constant threat of an accusation of blasphemy is a sword at the neck of every Pakistani Christian. Wahhabist clerics, who are powerful simply because they can mobilise strikes and riots, ensure that social, political, educational, legal and religious reform is permanently paralysed. But wide-scale reform is desperately needed and wanted by the majority of urban Pakistanis.

An al-Qaeda-Taliban jihadist victory in Pakistan would not only be disastrous for global security, it would be devastating for Pakistan's three million Christians (two percent of the population), some of whom are already suffering Taliban repression or are fleeing jihad.

PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY FOR:

• God to protect, sustain and provide for Pakistani Christians in NWFP presently suffering under Taliban repression, persecution and advancing jihad.
  
  
• God to draw the Pakistani Church into the scriptures and prayer, building their faith, maturity and unity; may he protect them from terrorism.
  
  
• the Holy Spirit to empower the witness of the Pakistani Church so that confused, disillusioned Pakistani Muslims may be transformed by the gospel of grace (Romans 1:16).
  
  
• God to demonstrate his radical grace by witnessing directly through dreams and visions to jihadists throughout the FATA.

'And falling to the ground he heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" And he said, "Who are you Lord?" And he said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."' (Acts 9:4,5 ESV)

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PAKISTAN ON A PRECIPICE - CHURCH AT RISK

The security situation in Pakistan is deteriorating. Al-Qaeda-Taliban jihadists, having already captured most of the north-western tribal regions, are escalating their terror right in the heart of Peshawar, the capital city of North West Frontier Province. They are also ramping up their terror attacks in Pakistan's major cities, including Islamabad. Pakistan's Christians have seen their rights and security decline over nearly three decades of advancing Islamisation and escalating radicalisation. Pakistan's blasphemy law is one of the most insidious tools of religious persecution in the world today. An al-Qaeda-Taliban victory in Pakistan would be disastrous for global security and totally devastating for Pakistan's three million Christians (two percent of the population), some of whom are already suffering under Taliban rule in the north-west. Please pray for the Church in Pakistan.

Elizabeth Kendal is the Principal Researcher and Writer for the World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (WEA RLC) http://www.worldevangelicals.org/. This article was initially written for the WEA RLP(Religious Liberty Prayer) mailing list.