Author: B. Raman
Publication: South Asia Analysis
Group
Date: November 26, 2002
URL: http://www.saag.org/papers6/paper554.html
Pakistan-based pan-Islamic terrorist
organisations, which are allied with Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda in his
International Islamic Front(IIF), have been consistent in the pursuit of
their long-term strategy directed against India. They look upon Jammu &
Kashmir (J&K) as the gateway to India and repeatedly underline that
the "liberation" of J&K would be only the first stage of their jihad
against India. According to them, the second stage would be the "liberation"
of Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh and Junagadh in Gujarat, which they look
upon as rightly belonging to Pakistan and the third and final stage would
be the "liberation" of the Muslims in the rest of India as a prelude to
the formation of an Islamic Caliphate in South Asia.
2. All these organisations project
their jihad as directed not only against the Indian State, but also against
the Hindu religion and against what they describe as the corrupting influence
of Hinduism on Islam not only in India, but also in the Sindh and Balochistan
provinces of Pakistan and in Bali in Indonesia. It is as part of their
jihad against Hinduism that they have been attacking Hindu places of worship
and Hindu pilgrims not only in J&K as one saw again in Jammu on November
24, 2002, in Hyderabad a few days before that and in Gandhinagar in Gujarat
in the last week of September, 2002.
3. The most virulent and the most
active of these organisations is the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), whose headquarters
previously used to be based at Muridke, near Lahore, in Pakistan. It has
been responsible for most of the suicide attacks in India since it joined
bin Laden's IIF shortly after its formation in 1998. Before it joined the
IIF, it did not believe in suicide terrorism.
4. After the attack on the Indian
Parliament House on December 13, 2001, the USA, which had designated the
LET and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), another pan-Islamic terrorist organisation
allied with Al Qaeda in the IIF, as Foreign Terrorist Organisations under
a 1996 Law, exercised pressure on the military regime in Pakistan to act
against the Pakistani pan-Islamic organisations allied with Al Qaeda in
the IIF.
5. In response to this pressure,
Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military dictator, ostensibly banned
on January 15, 2002,the LET, the JEM and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), arrested
many of their leaders and administrative cadres and imposed restrictions
on their open fund collection drive in Pakistani territory. However, he
did not ban the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), which was declared by the US
as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation as early as October,1997, and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami
(HUJI), both of which have a large number of trained cadres operating not
only in J&K, but also in Bangladesh, in the Arakan area of Myanmar,
southern Philippines, the Central Asian Republics (CARs) and Chechnya in
Russia.
6. The Pakistani authorities, while
briefing the media at that time, had said that another order banning the
HUM and the HUJI would follow. This has not happened so far. This reluctance
to ban these organisations is attributable to the large following they
have in the lower and middle ranks of the Pakistani Army.
7. Among those ordered to be arrested
by Musharraf under US pressure were Prof. Hafiz Mohammad Sayeed of the
Markaz Dawa Al Irshad (MDI), the plolitical wing of the LET, and Maulana
Masooid Azhar, the head of the JEM. But, he did not order the arrest of
Maulana Fazlur Rahman Khalil, the head of the HUM, who was one of the signatories
of bin Laden's first fatwa of 1998 against the US and Israel, and Qari
Saifullah Akhtar, the head of the HUJI.
8. Many of the arrested cadres of
the LET and the JEM were subsequently released on the ground that there
was no evidence of their involvement in terrorism. Maulana Azhar was released
from jail, but placed under house arrest. Prof. Sayeed was released, re-arrested
and has recently been released again, ostensibly on the orders of a court.
9. The MDI changed its name as Markaz
Ud Dawa (MUD) and proclaimed itself as delinked from the LET. The LET,
the JEM, the HUM and the HUJI transferred their training infrastructure
and cadres to camps in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and the Northern
Areas ( NA--Gilgit and Baltistan), which were not covered by the ban order
of January 15, 2002. Pakistani Government spokesmen had indicated in January,
2002, that a separate order banning their activities not only in the POK
and the NA, but also in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)
bordering Afghanistan would follow. This too has not happened so far.
10. Taking advantage of the exclusion
of these areas from the purview of the ban order, Al Qaeda, the Taliban
and the Chechen and Uzbeck components of the IIF moved their training infrastructure
and surviving cadres to the FATA and the Pakistani pan-Islamic organisations,
except the LEJ, to the POK and the NA. The LEJ defied the ban order and
moved its cadres to Karachi, where it paved the way for the creation of
shelters in the Binori madrasa and other places for the survivors of Al
Qaeda, including bin Laden. The HUM floated a new organisation called the
HUM (Al Almi, meaning Universal) to evade the provisions of the ban order
of January 15, 2002, and set up its headquarters in the Binori madrasa.
11. By March, 2002, the LET resumed
its activities in other parts of Pakistan too in violation of the ban order.
This became evident after the arrest of Abu Zubaidah, a top functionary
of Al Qaeda, at Faislabad in Punjab towards the end of March. He had been
given shelter by the local LET office-bearers. At that time, there was
considerable speculation in Pakistan that bin Laden had also been shifted
from the FATA to Faislabad, but he managed to evade capture and escape
to Karachi. Despite this proved nexus between the LET and Al Qaeda, the
military-intelligence establishment has not acted against the resumption
of the LET activities in Punjab in violation of the ban.
12. Drawing attention to the spread
of Al Qaeda cadres to different parts of Pakistan, with the complicity
of the Pakistani pan-Islamic organisations without the State acting against
it, Khaled Ahmed, the highly respected Pakistani analyst, wrote in the
"Daily Times" (July19, 2002), the presitgious daily of Lahore, as follows:
" While our religious leaders deny that there is such a thing as Al Qaeda
existing on the face of the earth and say that the Americans had created
it to be able to attack Muslim sovereign States, the empire of Al Qaeda
keeps unfolding in Pakistan. The Government troops are fighting Al Qaeda
foreigners and the local warriors aligned with them in the tribal areas
and the major cities of the country. What is coming to light is the astounding
depth of Al Qaeda's penetration of Pakistan. One is compelled to realise
that the State itself was co- operating with the elements that planned
to take over Pakistan on behalf of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden."
13. Alluding to the linkages of
the LET with Al Qaeda and the emergence of Karachi as the new clandestine
hub of Al Qaeda, he further wrote: "The State of Pakistan allowed the centralisation
of jihad in Karachi at the Banuri (My comment: Same as Binori) mosque complex,
whose founder Maulana Yusuf Banuri was empowered through induction into
the Council of Islamic Ideology in 1977 by Gen. Zia. It was in Banuri mosque
that Osama bin Laden and Mulla Umer (My comment: The Amir of the Taliban)
reportedly met for the first time during the Afghan war. The above report
from Karachi makes clear the connection of Al Qaeda with Pakistan's jihad
movement. The Ahle Hadith connection (My comment: the reference is to the
LET) with Osama was revealed when Osama bin Laden himself possibly and
his lieutenant Abu Zubaida took shelter in Faislabad. That in all the big
cases of terrorism an official of the State agencies was also caught along
with the jihadi terrorists points to the lingering connection of the State
with Al Qaeda."
14. During the Afghan war of the
1980s, bin Laden had financed the construction of a mosque and a guest
house for his use in the headquarter complex of the LET at Muridke. During
his visits to Pakistan, he used to stay in this guest house. After 1996,
this guest house was used as transit accommodation for Al Qaeda recruits
from Saudi Arabia and Yemen on their way to and from the Al Qaeda training
camps in Afghanistan. It is said in Pakistan that some of the 19 terrorists
involved in the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US had also stayed in this
guest house when they had transited through Pakistan on their way to Kandahar
to meet bin Laden.
15. The MDI and its successor the
MUD did not join the six-party religious coalition during the recent elections
in Pakistan as Prof. Sayeed is strongly opposed to Western-style democracy
which he views as anti-Islam. However, the MUD extended its propaganda
support and made financial contributions to the coalition partners. It
was at its insistence that the coalition included in its manifesto a promise
of increased assistance to the jihadis in Palestine, J&K, Arakan, southern
Philippines and Chechnya.
16. Al Qaeda and the other components
of the IIF generally step up their acts of terrorism and pro-jihad propaganda
during the holy fasting period of Ramadan and in the days preceding it.
Many of their terrorist acts such as the Mumbai (Bombay) blasts of March,1993,
the New York World Trade Centre explosion of February,1993 etc took place
during the fasting period. The last but one and the last Fridays of the
fasting period are particularly important occasions for them to draw the
attention of the world to their continuing jihad. The recently -stepped
up propaganda offensive, either by bin Laden himself or someone on his
behalf, has also coincided with the fasting period. November 29 is the
last Friday of the fasting period and there would be need for extra vigilance
on and around that day.
17. After the elections in Pakistan,
what was described as a jihad conference was held at the initiative of
the MUD. The exact dates of the conference are not known, but the Pakistani
media carried reports on the conference in the first week of November,
2002. The conference was held at a place called Yarmook, which has been
projected as the new headquarters of the MUD, the parent organisation of
the LET. I do not as yet know where this place is located.
18. Among those who addressed the
conference were Sajid Mir of the Jamiat Ahle Hadis, Amir Hamza of the MUD,
Ghulam Mohammad Safi, the POK-based representative of the Hurriyat of J&K,
Amir Abdullah of Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen and Sheikh Jamitur Rehman of the
Tehrik-ul- Mujahideen. The speakers strongly criticised the USA and India
and called for the intensification of the jihad against both the countries.
They said that jihad was the only way to compel India to come to terms.
The Pakistani military regime did not take any action to stop this conference
and to prevent the participation in it of persons belonging to organisations
ostensibly under a ban since January 15, 2002.
19. The intensification of terrorist
attacks in J&K and elsewhere has come in the wake of this conference.
The overtures made by the new Government of J&K to the indigenous Kashmiri
organisations will not have any impact on these Pakistani pan-Islamic organisations
whose agenda is totally different from that of the indigenous organisations.
Their agenda is an Islamic Caliphate in South Asia and not better governance,
more autonomy and a new political dispensation in J&K. Most of them
are the Pakistani jihadi warriors of bin Laden's IIF and not sons of the
Kashmiri soil. They have to be ruthlessly eliminated, if necessary, by
taking our counter-terrorism operations into Pakistani territory through
appropriate covert actions. Unless and until we do so, our innocent civilians
will continue to bleed.
(The writer is Additional Secretary
(retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director,
Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com )
