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The troublesome Lashkar – The Express Tribune
The troublesome Lashkar
Among the many jihadi outfits that were spawned by a malevolent mix of Cold War opportunism and presidential zealotry during the Zia years, the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) has the most intriguing pedigree. Its founding leader Hafiz Saeed was a member of the Council on Islamic Ideology created by Zia. He was a popular lecturer of Islamic studies at the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore but became increasingly radicalised following a sojourn in Saudi Arabia, where he had been sent by the government for higher studies. The organisation which he founded as Markaz al Dawa al Irshad became the prime organisation for preaching the Salafi (Wahabbi) school of thought in Pakistan and continues to this day to be a formidable force.
The ISI may have been seduced into supporting Saeeds organisation during the 1990s because of their focused, and somewhat misplaced, stance on the Kashmiri jihad. When doing research on madrassas in Pakistan some years ago, I had the opportunity to visit the enormous complex of the Markaz near Muridke. The sheer scale of the complex with hectares of crop fields, aquaculture ponds, training buildings and schools, surrounded by fortified walls and watch towers suggested some level of state support for the organisation. While international pressure forced the overt training infrastructure to be dismantled, the organisation morphed into Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and continued with its activities. To this day, the Pakistani state and the international community remain unwilling or unable to dismantle the JuD. Yet the existence of the JuD is currently the most significant stumbling block in improving relations between India and Pakistan. There are several reasons for this impasse. First, the JuD has followed the model of Hamas as a militant organisation that also has a very powerful charitable wing. During Pakistans recent natural disasters, it mobilised its activists to help people in need and this has won the organisation much grass-roots support. With this, it is extremely difficult to dismantle an organisation and castigate its leadership. For this reason it is impossible to find witnesses to testify against any of the JuD leadership with regard to their connections to particular terrorist acts. Following the dismissal of the case against Hafiz Saeed in the Lahore High Court, Justice Asif Khosa famously said: In the name of terrorism we cannot brutalise the law.
Furthermore, as noted by Steven Tankel in his authoritative new book on the LeT titled Storming the World Stage, (Columbia University Press, 2011) Pakistan is so embroiled in a struggle against anti-state jihadis (such as the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan) that it does not have the capacity to deal with all outfits simultaneously. Tankel notes towards the end of his book that Dismantling Lashkar must be a gradual process in order to avoid provoking a major backlash that could destabilise the country.
India needs to appreciate this sensitive internal reality within Pakistan and should not make the arrests of JuD officials a prerequisite for substantive movement in the peace process. Indeed, moving forward with a serious peace effort internally within Kashmir, as well as with Pakistan would be the most potent way of eroding the militant strands of the Lashkar.
Targeting the JuD will also not serve much purpose. Indeed, its charitable arm could provide an important means of repatriating the jihadis towards more socially beneficial functions once there is comprehensive regional peace. At the same time, it is important for the religious parties to do some soul-searching as well and consider the results achieved by their militancy. With current power differentials and global norms against violent extremism, the Kashmiri jihadis are far more likely to achieve success through non-violent civil disobedience. The Mumbai attacks have done nothing to further the cause of Kashmir. Often Pakistanis blame India for intervention in Balochistan we need to consider that Indians view us in the same way vis-à-vis Kashmir. Amidst all this, the West has to realise that both India and Pakistan have a nefarious record of covert intervention that is a legacy of the Cold War modus operandi mastered by the US and the Soviets. Instead of futile blame games, there needs to be greater effort made to address the genuine internal grievances of ethnic minorities within both India and Pakistan such an approach would most directly delegitimise the subcontinents vigilante Lashkars.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 20th, 2011.
---------- Post added at 03:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:56 AM ----------
Looking the other way
According to a report in this newspaper, the banned terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammad is trying to make a comeback, collecting funds through ‘ushr’ in south Punjab — where the government has failed to collect agriculture tax — and limbering up to claim its pound of flesh in a troubled and confused Pakistan on behalf of its master, al Qaeda. All its banned publications like Al Qalam and Muslim Ummah, together with the banned Al Rasheed Trust’s Zarb-e-Momin and Islam are allowed to be printed by the state through issuance of ABC certificates by the ministry of information and this enables them to solicit advertisements. (Zarb-e-Momin was once edited jointly by the Jaish chief Maulana Masood Azhar and jailed terrorist Omar Sheikh.)
In December 2003, Jaish tried to kill General Pervez Musharraf through one of its activists near Rawalpindi, after receiving some level of inside information from a sympathiser in the police, evidence of which was discovered later from the attacker’s cellphone. Musharraf had also been targeted earlier, by some low-ranking employees of the Pakistan Air Force (some of them were eventually sentenced by a court to prison terms) — since the jihadis the state had nurtured against India were put off by his policy of going with America after 9/11. Today, the entire nation is put off with Musharraf for ‘enslaving’ Pakistan to the Americans, and writers/journalists who allege in their books that the military has been penetrated by al Qaeda activists or that personnel have sympathies with militant outfits are mysteriously killed. If one reads the Jaish newspapers, one will realise that the war in Kashmir is still going on and the ‘martyrs’ of Jaish are routinely being received back from Indian-administered Kashmir.
Yet, Musharraf was not what he appeared to be, a liberal general willing to fight terrorism. The irony is that his favouring the jihadis did not incline the jihadis in his favour. It is worth pointing out that when the Jaish-e-Mohammad leader Maulana Masood Azhar, was released from an Indian jail in a prisoner exchange in December 2000, following the hijack of an Indian aircraft to Kandahar, he was permitted to stage a huge rally in Karachi attended by gun-toting followers. In 2001 the various Kashmiri guerrilla groups fighting the jihad were asked to unite under Azhar but this move was unsuccessful. Clearly, times have changed and such groups, (once?) nurtured by the state, are now out to force their former masters to stand aside.
British-Pakistani terror suspect Rashid Rauf, who ‘escaped’ from the custody of police in Rawalpindi in 2007 was a Jaish activist and had planned a terrorist act at Heathrow Airport. Jaish activists are ‘allegedly’ also said to be working with al Qaeda and the Haqqani Network in North Waziristan and around Darra Adam Khel with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Its leader Maulana Masood Azhar — Pakistan says he is not in Pakistan — writes articles under a pen name in his banned publications and, from the looks of what he writes, travels to North Waziristan quite frequently. After the recent release of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi’s Malik Ishaq from a jail in Lahore, the sectarian clout of Sipah-e-Sahaba has increased. Both are devotees of the founder of Sipah, late Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, and today are said to have considerable influence in south Punjab.
The nexus with the state has often been mentioned in the international press. A large body of literatures exists that details the interface the state of Pakistan enjoys with Jaish and LeT and there are recent publications pointing to the helplessness of the state to cleanse itself of these old terrorist connections because of ‘penetration’ of its rank and file with jihadi zeal. The phenomenon of journalists dying after disclosing new facts about this interface has scared the Pakistani citizen who is already less informed about such shadowy outfits as Jaish than his counterpart abroad. And the official doctrine of ‘India-centrism’ tends to confirm this bond. In Bahawalpur’s Model Town, Madrassa Usman-o-Ali is the nerve centre of sectarian jihad, established by Maulana Masood Azhar, intelligence reports about whose activities are regularly being sent by the Intelligence Bureau to the chief minister and governor of Punjab. We are forewarned — but will we do anything about it?
Published in The Express Tribune, August 22nd, 2011.
Looking the other way – The Express Tribune
The troublesome Lashkar
Among the many jihadi outfits that were spawned by a malevolent mix of Cold War opportunism and presidential zealotry during the Zia years, the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) has the most intriguing pedigree. Its founding leader Hafiz Saeed was a member of the Council on Islamic Ideology created by Zia. He was a popular lecturer of Islamic studies at the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore but became increasingly radicalised following a sojourn in Saudi Arabia, where he had been sent by the government for higher studies. The organisation which he founded as Markaz al Dawa al Irshad became the prime organisation for preaching the Salafi (Wahabbi) school of thought in Pakistan and continues to this day to be a formidable force.
The ISI may have been seduced into supporting Saeeds organisation during the 1990s because of their focused, and somewhat misplaced, stance on the Kashmiri jihad. When doing research on madrassas in Pakistan some years ago, I had the opportunity to visit the enormous complex of the Markaz near Muridke. The sheer scale of the complex with hectares of crop fields, aquaculture ponds, training buildings and schools, surrounded by fortified walls and watch towers suggested some level of state support for the organisation. While international pressure forced the overt training infrastructure to be dismantled, the organisation morphed into Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and continued with its activities. To this day, the Pakistani state and the international community remain unwilling or unable to dismantle the JuD. Yet the existence of the JuD is currently the most significant stumbling block in improving relations between India and Pakistan. There are several reasons for this impasse. First, the JuD has followed the model of Hamas as a militant organisation that also has a very powerful charitable wing. During Pakistans recent natural disasters, it mobilised its activists to help people in need and this has won the organisation much grass-roots support. With this, it is extremely difficult to dismantle an organisation and castigate its leadership. For this reason it is impossible to find witnesses to testify against any of the JuD leadership with regard to their connections to particular terrorist acts. Following the dismissal of the case against Hafiz Saeed in the Lahore High Court, Justice Asif Khosa famously said: In the name of terrorism we cannot brutalise the law.
Furthermore, as noted by Steven Tankel in his authoritative new book on the LeT titled Storming the World Stage, (Columbia University Press, 2011) Pakistan is so embroiled in a struggle against anti-state jihadis (such as the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan) that it does not have the capacity to deal with all outfits simultaneously. Tankel notes towards the end of his book that Dismantling Lashkar must be a gradual process in order to avoid provoking a major backlash that could destabilise the country.
India needs to appreciate this sensitive internal reality within Pakistan and should not make the arrests of JuD officials a prerequisite for substantive movement in the peace process. Indeed, moving forward with a serious peace effort internally within Kashmir, as well as with Pakistan would be the most potent way of eroding the militant strands of the Lashkar.
Targeting the JuD will also not serve much purpose. Indeed, its charitable arm could provide an important means of repatriating the jihadis towards more socially beneficial functions once there is comprehensive regional peace. At the same time, it is important for the religious parties to do some soul-searching as well and consider the results achieved by their militancy. With current power differentials and global norms against violent extremism, the Kashmiri jihadis are far more likely to achieve success through non-violent civil disobedience. The Mumbai attacks have done nothing to further the cause of Kashmir. Often Pakistanis blame India for intervention in Balochistan we need to consider that Indians view us in the same way vis-à-vis Kashmir. Amidst all this, the West has to realise that both India and Pakistan have a nefarious record of covert intervention that is a legacy of the Cold War modus operandi mastered by the US and the Soviets. Instead of futile blame games, there needs to be greater effort made to address the genuine internal grievances of ethnic minorities within both India and Pakistan such an approach would most directly delegitimise the subcontinents vigilante Lashkars.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 20th, 2011.
---------- Post added at 03:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:56 AM ----------
Looking the other way
According to a report in this newspaper, the banned terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammad is trying to make a comeback, collecting funds through ‘ushr’ in south Punjab — where the government has failed to collect agriculture tax — and limbering up to claim its pound of flesh in a troubled and confused Pakistan on behalf of its master, al Qaeda. All its banned publications like Al Qalam and Muslim Ummah, together with the banned Al Rasheed Trust’s Zarb-e-Momin and Islam are allowed to be printed by the state through issuance of ABC certificates by the ministry of information and this enables them to solicit advertisements. (Zarb-e-Momin was once edited jointly by the Jaish chief Maulana Masood Azhar and jailed terrorist Omar Sheikh.)
In December 2003, Jaish tried to kill General Pervez Musharraf through one of its activists near Rawalpindi, after receiving some level of inside information from a sympathiser in the police, evidence of which was discovered later from the attacker’s cellphone. Musharraf had also been targeted earlier, by some low-ranking employees of the Pakistan Air Force (some of them were eventually sentenced by a court to prison terms) — since the jihadis the state had nurtured against India were put off by his policy of going with America after 9/11. Today, the entire nation is put off with Musharraf for ‘enslaving’ Pakistan to the Americans, and writers/journalists who allege in their books that the military has been penetrated by al Qaeda activists or that personnel have sympathies with militant outfits are mysteriously killed. If one reads the Jaish newspapers, one will realise that the war in Kashmir is still going on and the ‘martyrs’ of Jaish are routinely being received back from Indian-administered Kashmir.
Yet, Musharraf was not what he appeared to be, a liberal general willing to fight terrorism. The irony is that his favouring the jihadis did not incline the jihadis in his favour. It is worth pointing out that when the Jaish-e-Mohammad leader Maulana Masood Azhar, was released from an Indian jail in a prisoner exchange in December 2000, following the hijack of an Indian aircraft to Kandahar, he was permitted to stage a huge rally in Karachi attended by gun-toting followers. In 2001 the various Kashmiri guerrilla groups fighting the jihad were asked to unite under Azhar but this move was unsuccessful. Clearly, times have changed and such groups, (once?) nurtured by the state, are now out to force their former masters to stand aside.
British-Pakistani terror suspect Rashid Rauf, who ‘escaped’ from the custody of police in Rawalpindi in 2007 was a Jaish activist and had planned a terrorist act at Heathrow Airport. Jaish activists are ‘allegedly’ also said to be working with al Qaeda and the Haqqani Network in North Waziristan and around Darra Adam Khel with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Its leader Maulana Masood Azhar — Pakistan says he is not in Pakistan — writes articles under a pen name in his banned publications and, from the looks of what he writes, travels to North Waziristan quite frequently. After the recent release of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi’s Malik Ishaq from a jail in Lahore, the sectarian clout of Sipah-e-Sahaba has increased. Both are devotees of the founder of Sipah, late Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, and today are said to have considerable influence in south Punjab.
The nexus with the state has often been mentioned in the international press. A large body of literatures exists that details the interface the state of Pakistan enjoys with Jaish and LeT and there are recent publications pointing to the helplessness of the state to cleanse itself of these old terrorist connections because of ‘penetration’ of its rank and file with jihadi zeal. The phenomenon of journalists dying after disclosing new facts about this interface has scared the Pakistani citizen who is already less informed about such shadowy outfits as Jaish than his counterpart abroad. And the official doctrine of ‘India-centrism’ tends to confirm this bond. In Bahawalpur’s Model Town, Madrassa Usman-o-Ali is the nerve centre of sectarian jihad, established by Maulana Masood Azhar, intelligence reports about whose activities are regularly being sent by the Intelligence Bureau to the chief minister and governor of Punjab. We are forewarned — but will we do anything about it?
Published in The Express Tribune, August 22nd, 2011.
Looking the other way – The Express Tribune
