Author: PTI
Publication: The Asian Age
Date: September 11, 2003
The five Pakistani militant outfits,
including Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, which were banned last
year by President Pervez Musharraf following mounting international pressure,
are back in business with changed identities, a media report said on Wednesday.
After the initial crackdown on them
following the January 12, 2002 ban, these five jehadi outfits are back
in business with changed names and identities, Pakistan magazine Herald
quoting a report by Pakistani intelligence said in its latest issue.
Four of Pakistan's top sectarian
outfits have effectively regrouped and are operating their respective networks
as openly as before though under different names, it said. "
According to a report prepared by
Pakistani intelligence earlier this year to assess the situation a year
after the ban was enforced, the move has failed to check either the activities
or the relentless funding of these terror outfits from all corners of the
world," it said.
The military dominated government
in Pakistan has been able to do little to stop the "relentless funding"
from Saudi Arabia and other countries to the terror groups, even in cases
where Pakistani missions abroad were aware of the identities of financial
sponsors of these organisations, it said.
JeM, which was formed by Maulana
Masood Azhar after his release from an Indian prison following the hijacking
of Indian Airlines plane from Kathmandu to Kandahar in 1999, now operates
under a new name 'Khadam-e-Islam' and its military training camps in Batrasi
and Syed Ahmad Shaeed in Manshera and Balaskots are back in action, the
report said.
Jaish's finances are handled by
five men from Lahore and Shekhapura in Pakistan and the outfit has a network
of donors from different countries, the report said.
The report identifies the five men
who collect funds for the outfit as Hafiz Tariq Masood, Qari Eshan and
Shabaz Haider of Lahore and Qari Abdul Hafeez and Mohammad Tariq in Sheikhapura.
"These men were the key to the Jaish's
organisational gains in Lahore, where the group has established 21 local
offices in a short span of three years", it said.
Similarly, let whose mother organisation
has changed its name to "markaz dawa" to "jamat dawa" is back in action
with its leader Hafeez Muhammad Saeed busy touring Punjab province to re-organise
the group and recruit more jehadis. "The Lashkar donation boxes are also
back in many cities, including the posh F-10 Markaz Market in Islamabad".
While Lashkar's militant camps were
shut down following Gen. Musharraf's assurances to United States President
George W. Bush, Saeed continues to enjoy considerable support in military
circles thanks to his friend and former ISI General Hameed Gul, it said.
Both Azhar and Saeed were released
after being under preventive detention for about 10 months.
The magazine reported that sectarian
outfit Sipa-e-Sahaba subsequently changed its name to 'millat- e-islamia'
after the ban and continues to draw huge amounts of money from its foreign
patrons, while its leader Maulana Azam Tariq contested the last general
elections to the National Assembly and won as an independent.
Mr Tariq is a vocal supporter of
Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, Gen. Musharraf and a bitter
critic of the Opposition agitation against the President's constitutional
amendments.
Meanwhile, Pakistan-based militant
outfit Harkat-ul-Mujahideen has again started collecting money in Pakistan
under a new name, Jamiat-ul-Ansar, for carrying out subversive activities
in Jammu and Kashmir, media reports said here. HuM had re-christened itself
after the US had declared it as a terrorist outfit after the infamous 9/11
attacks in America. Its chief Fazalur Rehman Khalil had dissolved HuM and
formed JuA.
According to the New York Times,
the militant outfit under the new name was again at the front. Khalil,
whose name first figured during the al-Faran kidnapping of five foreign
hostages in 1995, had delivered a sermon at the red mosque in Islamabad
on Friday asking people to participate in jehad and observe the orders
of Allah and not America.
"Our salvation lies in obeying the
orders of Allah, not America," Khalil was quoted as saying. "If we don't
do jihad, our prayers and fasting will not be accepted. This is a sacred
duty."
Immediately, after the prayer meeting,
two members of the group started collecting money from worshipers on the
pretext of carrying "jihad in Kashmir."
