Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) is a banned sectarian organization and a former registered political party in Pakistan, primarily established to deter Shia Muslim influence.^[1][2] Formerly known as Anjuman-e-Sipah-e-Sahaba and the Army of the Friends of the Prophet, the organization was founded in the early 1980s by the Sunni cleric Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi.^[2] Connected to terrorist violence, primarily against Shia Muslims, the SSP was declared a terrorist organization and banned by President Pervez Musharraf in 2002.^[1] An SSP leader was a minister in the Coalition Government in Punjab in 1993 and the group had actively contested elections. The group supported a proclamation to establish Pakistan as a Sunni republic. In 2003, the organization was reestablished under the Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan but was again banned in November of that year.^[2]

According to Shahbaz Bhatti, the federal minister for minorities in Pakistan, the August 2009 Gojra riots against Pakistan's Christian minority were organized and perpetrated by Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan.^[3] Police arrested more than 65 people for their alleged involvement in the violence. The arrested men include Qari Abdul Khaliq Kashmiri, a leader of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan.^[4]

[edit] See also

• Terrorism in Pakistan
• Islamic Terrorism

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan: Terrorist Group as described at the Southeast Asian Terrorism Portal