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The jihad lives on
By Amir Mir
KARACHI - Contrary to the
much-touted claims of the government of President
General Pervez Musharraf having taken concrete
measures to uproot the extremist jihadi mafia and
its terror network in Pakistan, a cursory glance
over the activities of four "banned" militant
organizations in the country shows they are once
again back in business, with changed names and
identities, operating freely and advocating jihad
against infidels to defend Islam.
While
banning six leading jihadi and sectarian groups in
two phases - on January 12, 2002, and November 15,
2003 - Musharraf had declared that no organization
or person would be allowed to indulge in terrorism
to further its cause. However, after the initial
crackdown, the four major jihadi outfits operating
from Pakistan - Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT),
Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM)
and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), resurfaced and
regrouped effectively to run their respective
networks as openly as before, though under
different names.
Hafiz Mohammad Saeed,
Maulana Masood Azhar, Maulana Fazalur Rehman
Khalil and Syed Salahuddin - the respective
leaders of these organizations - are again on the
loose. The pattern of treatment being meted out to
these leading lights of jihad by the Musharraf-led
administration shows that they are being kept on
the leash, ostensibly to wage a controlled jihad
in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K).
After
the
terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the four
jihadi leaders were placed under house arrest in
their respective home towns in Punjab, since they
were becoming increasingly vocal in their
condemnation of Musharraf's policy of "slavery to
the Americans". A countrywide crackdown also had to
be launched against activists of the jihadi
groups who were furious over Musharraf's u-turn on
the Afghan jihad. Groaning under US pressure,
Islamabad also had to temporarily stop
cross-border infiltration into J&K, which
eventually reduced violence levels in the Valley.
Though most of the jihadi groups accepted the
establishment's advice and adopted a "lie low and
wait and see" policy, the fact remains that no
concrete step was taken by the authorities to
dismantle the jihadi infrastructure. This was
chiefly due to the fact that the unholy alliance
between the state agencies and the jihadi groups
was quite old and had an ideological basis.
The
failure of the Musharraf regime to counter extremist jihadis is,
however, inexplicable within the current
environment, as Islamabad has handed over
more than 500 al-Qaeda operatives to the administration
of US President George W Bush since the
"war on terror" began. As the political will to
dismantle the Islamist extremist groups that are
not on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
"most wanted" list seems to be absent, almost all
the major jihadi groups based in Pakistan continue
to operate and pursue their agenda without any
restrictions.
Musharraf, by his own
admission, no longer controls the jihadis that the
state had long supported, and the self-proclaimed
holy warriors are far from ready to call it quits.
On the other hand, the Pakistani establishment
continues to maintain its long alliance with
fundamentalist parties, which share a common goal
with the jihadis: the liberation of "Occupied
Jammu & Kashmir" through jihad.
Had the six-party religious alliance
Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) not sided with Musharraf to
pass the 17th constitutional amendment last year,
the latter would have been left with no option but
to quit the post of army chief by December 31,
2004. But then the military, the mullahs and the
jihadis share a common belief in Pakistan's
rightful claim over J&K. Consequently,
Pakistan, the most trusted US ally in its "war
against terror", confronts a surging wave of
Islamist fundamentalism.
The
growing influence
of the fundamentalists in the country can
be gauged by the fact that the MMA at present
controls 20% of the seats in the Pakistani
parliament. This means that the religious right,
which had been a vocal supporter of the former
Taliban regime in Afghanistan, has successfully
moved from the periphery to the center stage of
national politics. As a result, support for the
militant cause has also grown within sections of
Pakistani society where it never existed before.
Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)
Although
the ongoing peace talks between India and Pakistan
are being taken as bad news by most of the
militant outfits waging armed struggle against the
Indian forces in J&K, the leadership of one of
the most feared jihadi groups, the LeT, and its
parent organization, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, are keeping
their fingers crossed. Sources close to
Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed say he
has been persuaded by the establishment to go low
key and to abstain from issuing statements
criticizing the Indo-Pak peace parleys.
In
return, however, Saeed has been given assurance
that no action would be taken against the
Jamaat-ud-Dawa and its militant wing, the
Lashkar-e-Toiba, and no restrictions on
activities, including collection of funds, holding
of public rallies or the recruitment of jihadi
cadres and their training. The result is that,
after a year of hibernation under official
pressure, Saeed, who founded the Lashkar in 1988,
is again active and making fiery speeches across
Punjab. Saeed's close associates claim that young
jihadis from various parts of the country continue
to throng the Lashkar camps at Muzaffarabad in
Azad (Free) Kashmir - Pakistan-administered
Kashmir - before being pushed into J&K, though
at a limited scale now.
The Lashkar
is the only jihadi group operating from Azad
Kashmir that still keeps a comparatively large
group of activists at its Khairati Bagh camp in
the Lipa Valley. Another Lashkar camp is functional
at Nala Shui in Muzaffarabad, from where
young militants are launched after being given initial
training at the Jamaat-ud-Dawa's Muridke
headquarters in Punjab. Unlike the past strategy
of launching large groups comprising of 25-50 militants on a
regular basis from the camps located on the Line
of Control (LoC) that separates the two sections
of Kashmir, Lashkar sources disclose it has now
decided to keep training militants in limited
numbers to launch smaller groups of not more than
five to 15 people; that too, at intervals.
Despite the official ban, banners can
easily be seen in the urban and rural areas of
Punjab, urging young boys to enroll with the
Lashkar for jihad. These banners usually carry
telephone numbers of the area offices. Similarly,
Lashkar and Dawa activists can be seen outside
mosques after Friday prayers distributing
pamphlets and periodicals preaching the virtues of
jihad in Kashmir, Palestine, Chechnya, Kosovo and
Eritrea, besides vowing that the Lashkar would
plant the flag of Islam in Washington, Tel Aviv
and New Delhi.
The Lashkar leadership
describes Hindus and Jews as the main enemies of
Islam, claiming India and Israel to be the main
enemies of Pakistan. The donation boxes of the
Lashkar and the Dawa, which had initially
disappeared after the January 2002 ban, have
reappeared in public places, as well as mosques
all over Punjab.
After the US State
Department included the Lashkar on the list of its
officially designated terrorist groups in December
2001, apparently acting under the establishment's
directives, the then Lashkar chief, Hafiz Saeed,
addressed a press conference in Lahore (on
December 24, 2001) and announced that Maulana
Abdul Wahid, who hails from Poonch district in
Jammu, would head the Lashkar. While stepping down
as Lashkar chief, Saeed said he would lead the
Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the new name for the Markaz Dawa
Wal Irshad.
During the news briefing,
Saeed said the changes were aimed at countering
intense Indian propaganda that Pakistan had been
sponsoring the jihad in the Kashmir Valley, though
he added, in the same breath, that his departure
from the high office of amir of the Lashkar was
not due to any internal or external pressures, be
it Islamabad or Washington. A week later (on
December 31, 2001), Saeed was placed under house
arrest on flimsy charges of making inflammatory
speeches and inciting people to violate law and
order. He was then asked to evolve a new role for
Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which would be more acceptable to
the world.
Over the following years, the
Dawa successfully evaded many official
restrictions, mainly because it had dissociated
itself from the LeT. At the same time, to give an
impression that the Kashmir insurgency was an
indigenous freedom struggle - the Lashkar was made
to announce in 2002 that it was formally shifting
its base to "Indian-held Kashmir".
Over
the past two years, Hafiz Saeed has taken a number
of steps to camouflage his jihadi agenda and to
assume a role for the Dawa which could help evade
the category of terrorism. The Dawa has
increasingly shifted its focus on
khidmat-e-khalq (social welfare), which is
part of its dawat (Islamic mission), just
like jihad. While giving more importance to taking
its dawat to all sections of the populace,
it has considerably expanded the base of its
operations. Giving greater importance to college
students as well, the Dawa leadership recently
launched Tulaba Jamaatul Dawa, its student wing,
which is working aggressively to take its
dawat to youngsters across Punjab.
Saeed's close circles say the changing
focus of the Dawa activities, coupled with the
caution exercised by him, have helped their
organization survive the fresh ban Musharraf
imposed on several extremist outfits in November
2003. However, explaining Musharraf's decision to
spare Saeed's organization, well-informed
intelligence sources say the Dawa chief was more
amenable to the establishment's control than the
leaders of any other jihadi outfit, as he can
readily agree to wage a controlled jihad in the
Valley whenever required to do so. Further, his
vulnerability has increased manifold after a split
in Jamaat-ud-Dawa over distribution of the group's
assets, that gave birth to a breakaway faction -
Khairun Naas (People's Welfare), led by Professor
Zafar Iqbal.
These circles are convinced
that Musharraf will abandon neither the militants
nor the military option until there is a formal
resolution of the lingering Kashmir dispute. They
pointed out that the last time Musharraf had made
the promise of curbing militancy to the visiting
US deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, in
May 2003, the militants were held back for only a
couple of months before being allowed to resume
infiltration across the LoC. And should the
Indo-Pak peace initiative fail; there are those in
the military establishment who believe the Lashkar
could once again be the frontline jihadi outfit in
J&K, and Hafiz Saeed the new public face of
the militancy there.
Jaish-e-Mohammad
(JeM)
Acting under the establishment
dictum, one of the most dangerous jihadi
organizations operating from Pakistan and active
in J&K, the JeM, restyled itself as the
Khudamul Islam, claiming it is devoted to
preaching Islam and social work. The Jaish chief,
Maulana Masood Azhar, who had to be released by
the Indian government in December 1999 after an
Indian airplane was hijacked, is one of India's 20
most-wanted men.
However, Azhar had to
face the wrath of the Pakistani intelligence
establishment after his group was found involved
in the December 2003 suicide attacks against
Musharraf in Rawalpindi. Investigations into these
attacks later cleared Azhar's name after it
transpired that one of the two suicide bombers -
Mohammad Jameel - actually belonged to the Jaish's
dissident group - Jamaatul Furqaan, led by Maulana
Abdul Jabbar alias Maulana Umer Farooq. Much
before the suicide attacks, Azhar had informed the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) high-ups in
writing that Jabbar and 11 of his associates had
revolted against him and he was no more
responsible for their actions.
That
the military and intelligence establishment
of Pakistan continues to protect Azhar is
evident from Islamabad's refusal to a request by
the International Police (Interpol) for taking
the Jaish chief into custody. Interpol had
been prompted to act at the behest of the US
Department of Justice, which wanted charges filed against
the Maulana from Bahawalpur and against Sheikh
Ahmed Omar Saeed for their involvement in at least
two crimes committed against US citizens - the
2002 murder of journalist Daniel Pearl and the
1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight IC-814
(with a US citizen, Jeanne Moore, aboard). The
Americans had maintained that under US law, they
had the right to investigate crimes against their
citizens committed anywhere in the world.
The Jaish, which was launched by Azhar
after being released from India, has largely
confined its military operations within J&K.
The only recorded instance of its operations
outside Kashmir had been the December 13, 2001,
attack on parliament in New Delhi. Earlier, on
October 10, 2001, a month after the terror attacks
struck the US, Azhar had renamed Jaish as Tehrikul
Furqaan. The move was motivated by reports that
the US was contemplating declaring JeM a foreign
terrorist. Despite its renaming, the US State
Department designated the Jaish a foreign
terrorist organization in December 2001,
compelling Musharraf to ban the group in January
2002. Azhar got his outfit registered under the
new name of Khudamul Islam within no time.
The Jaish chief was kept under house
arrest for a few months after September 11, but
was subsequently set free. Though Azhar, while
conceding to the ISI's pressure, had directed his
henchmen not to target American interests in
Pakistan, there are strong fears in the Pakistani
intelligence circles that the dissident members of
the Jaish, who are unknown and have gone
underground, constitute the real threat. They are
spread all over Pakistan, and are desperate to
avenge the Taliban's fall and Musharraf's U-turn
on Afghanistan and Kashmir. Both the Jaish
factions - Khudamul Islam and Jamaatul Furqaan,
already banned by the Musharraf Government - are
now openly in conflict.
The murmurs of
dissent in the outfit first surfaced when Azhar
failed to react to Musharraf's policy change on
Afghanistan after September 11. Several prominent
Jaish members favored retaliatory attacks against
US interests in Pakistan to pressurize the
military ruler against supporting the Bush
administration. But acting under the agencies'
command, Azhar refused to acquiesce. As things
stand, there are fears that ongoing disputes over
possession of the various Jaish offices, mosques
and other material assets could lead to more
serious clashes between the two banned factions.
At this stage, it is difficult to predict which of
the two will eventually survive.
Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) and United
jihad Council (UJC)
Led by
Rawalpindi-based Yousaf Shah alias Syed
Salahuddin, HM is the outfit to watch in the
coming months. Of all the militant groups
operating in J&K, the HM is the largest, with
a 20,000-strong cadre base drawn from both
indigenous and foreign sources. The Hizb happens
to be one of the most lethal jihadi groups, and
controls about 60% of militants operating in
J&K.
With India and Pakistan finally
agreeing to allow travel across the LoC by bus
between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad, the Pakistani
establishment has asked HM chief Salahuddin to
halt, for the time being, all militant operations
against the Indian security forces in J&K.
However, the UJC, an alliance of 13 Kashmiri
jihadi organizations led by Salahuddin, has been
restructured and three Pakistan-based jihadi
groups, the LeT, JeM and Al-Badar Mujahideen, have
been brought into the UJC. This new adjustment is
called muwakhaat (agreement on the basis of
brotherhood) that is aimed at putting an end to
the internal differences among the jihadi groups
waging the Kashmir jihad.
According to
intelligence sources, reorganizing the command and
control structure of the HM-led UJC was part of a
strategy change to enable Pakistani intelligence
to have tighter control over its running. With the
restructuring of the UJC, they said, no component
member of the UJC would be allowed to launch an
attack in J&K, unless approved by the council.
That is why most of the smaller groups, which had
been irritants for the ISI, have been merged to
reduce the number of their representation in the
jihad council from 13 to five. Al-Barq,
Tehreek-e-jihad, Islamic Front, Brigade 313 and
the Kashmiri component of HuM have been merged to
form the Kashmir Freedom Force, which would be led
by Farooq Qureshi of Al-Barq. The Muslim Janbaz
Force, Al Jihad Force, Al Fateh Force, Hizbullah
and Jamiatul Mujahideen have also been merged to
form the Kashmir Resistance Force, which would be
led by Ghulam Rasool Shah. Similarly, many of the
militant training camps have been moved from Azad
Kashmir to Pakistan in Punjab and the North West
Frontier Province area, with strict restrictions
on the movement of militants. The training camps
have reportedly been relocated at Taxila, Haripur,
Boi, Garhi Habibullah and Tarbela Gazi.
The HM has witnessed four splits since
1990, and all were meant to remove Salahuddin. But
the "supreme commander" has survived and continues
to control the HM and the UJC, while sitting in
Rawalpindi. The Jamiatul Mujahideen of General
Abdullah, the Muslim Mujahideen of Ahsan Dar, the
Hizb-e-Islami of Masood and al-Badar of Bakht
Zameen, are the major groups that have discarded
the umbrella of the HM in the past few years. In
the words of one ex-intelligence official, "One of
the tricks in the book is not to allow any
individual jihadi group to become too strong. This
is a tried and tested mode of keeping overall
control on such groups. Whenever one group is seen
as getting too strong or influential, the agencies
try to split it and sometimes pit one against the
other. And the Hizbul Mujahideen is no exception."
Harkatul Mujahideen (HuM)
Led by Maulana Fazalur Rehman Khalil until recently,
the HuM has regrouped and is working in a
low-key manner under the name of the Jamiatul Ansar,
but insisting that it has a non-militant agenda.
As the government's anti-extremism drive brought
into sharp focus Maulana Khalil's alleged
al-Qaeda links, he had to resign from the top slot of
the organization in January, as advised by his
spy masters.
Khalil, who was released
in December after an eight-month detention in a
tiny cell, submitted his resignation at a January
meeting of the "executive committee" of the HuM
and asked the committee members to elect Maulana
Badar Munir from Karachi as the new chief. Khalil
was reportedly interrogated on the charge of
sending trained fighters to Afghanistan even after
September 11, 2001. The second allegation was that
some militants involved in the suicide attempts on
Musharraf in Rawalpindi in December 2003 belonged
to his organization. Intelligence sources,
however, insist that Khalil remains in the good
books of the establishment and will continue
calling the shots from behind the scene, despite
his resignation as the Harkat chief, which was
nothing more than eye-wash.
Since early 2002, the Harkatul Mujahideen al-Alami (HuMA)
- an offshoot of the HuM, has been accused
of mounting several deadly attacks in Karachi,
including two abortive attempts on Musharraf's life and
a number of suicide bombings in the port city
of Karachi. On September 29, 2001, the government
had banned the HuM after the Bush
administration's September 24 decision to freeze HuM assets
along with those of 26 other organizations and
individuals in connection with a worldwide
campaign against the possible sources of
al-Qaeda-sponsored terrorism.
According to
intelligence sources, about 50 highly trained
operatives of the Harkatul Mujahideen, using the
cover of the Harkatul Mujahideen al-alami, are
bent on targeting Musharraf and US interests in
Pakistan. HuM's association with Osama bin Laden
was established on August 20, 1998, when US planes
bombed the al-Qaeda training camps near Khost and
Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan in retaliation to
US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The US
bombs destroyed two HuM training camps and killed
21 of its activists. As of today, the US
intelligence agencies believe the Harkat still
retains links, like most other jihadi groups, with
the Taliban remnants and al-Qaeda operatives
hiding on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. They
recall that Khalil took hundreds of his men to
Afghanistan after the US-led allied forces had
launched operations in the country in 2001.
Despite enthusiastic applause from the
West for the anti-militancy efforts of Pakistan's
"visionary" military ruler, it is evident that
much remains to be done on the ground before these
efforts will actually bear fruit. With changing
scenarios all over the world, there has been a
change of minds, yet what is required is a change
of hearts.
Amir Mir is senior
assistant editor, Monthly Herald, Dawn Group of
Newspapers, Karachi.
Published with
permission from the South Asia Intelligence Review
of the South Asia Terrorism Portal.
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