The Jihadi face of the Jamaat
1- Pakistani security agencies had been keeping a close watch on the activities of the Jamaat and its top leadership since the March 2003 arrest of al-Qaeda’s chief operational commander and the 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad from the Rawalpindi residence of a local Jamaat-e-Islami leader Farzana Qudoos. It was on March 1, 2003 that an FBI-guided raiding party broke into the modest brick house in the Westridge area of the garrison town of Rawalpindi at around 2.30 a.m. and arrested Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, a Kuwaiti national who had played a crucial part in orchestrating the 9/11 attacks. Ahmed Abdul Qadoos, the owner of the house who was sheltering Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, was also arrested during the raid.
Almost four months after Khalid Sheikh was arrested, the then interior minister, Faisal Saleh Hayat had asserted while speaking in the National Assembly on August 13, 2004 that the JI had been supporting the al-Qaeda. Two days later on August 16, 2004, Faisal addressed a press conference and listed a number of incidences in which members of the JI had been tied to the al-Qaeda, and called on its leadership to explain these links.
While quoting intelligence findings, Faisal Saleh Hayat confirmed links of the JI activists with al-Qaeda members saying the houses of the JI people were used as hideouts and shelters for the al-Qaeda terrorists. Quoting instances, he reminded that a lady namely Malooka Khatoon w/o Abdul Raheem, an activist of Jamaat-e-Islami was arrested from Clifton, Karachi on October 4, 2002. “She revealed her links with Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. On December 18, 2002, Khawaja brothers, who were associated with the Jamaat and who were nabbed from Manawan near Lahore, admitted sheltering an al-Qaeda leader, Yasser Al-Jazeri. On January 4, 2003, an Australian Terrance Jack Thomas was arrested from the Karachi airport for his alleged links with the al-Qaeda network.
He admitted using the house of a former Pakistani hockey star and goalkeeper, Shahid Ali Khan as his hideout. Shahid’s wife is a Jamaat activist. On March 1, 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was nabbed from the Rawalpindi residence of Farzana Qudoos, a local Jamaat leader”.
2-The security agencies are suspicious [even today] about the Jamaat-e-Islami’s alleged al-Qaeda and Taliban links. In fact, Attaur Rehman, an alleged leader of the Jundullah group which was responsible for the June 2004 attack on the motorcade of the Karachi Corps Commander Lt Gen Ahsan Saleem Hayat, was once the nazim of the JI’s student wing - Islami Jamiat Tuleba (IJT) - in the Department of International Relations of Karachi University.
The interrogation report of the two Pakistani doctor brothers, cardiac surgeon Dr. Akmal Waheed and orthopedic surgeon Dr. Arshad Waheed, motivated the authorities to at least charge sheet the strongest political voice of Islamists in Pakistan and the real mother of many of the international Islamic movements.
3- The doctors, who are ideologically inspired by the Jamaat-e-Islami, were arrested from Karachi in connection with the attack on Corps Commander Karachi that left 10 security personnel dead. According to investigators, the doctor brothers were active members of the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA), which is a JI affiliate. Those who interrogated the doctors had in their possession a videotaped confession by the two brothers, admitting that they used to raise funds for militants besides treating Arab fighters in the South Waziristan agency. However, both the doctor brothers were set free by the courts because of lack of evidence.
However, their al-Qaeda connection was confirmed when Dr. Arshad Waheed was killed in a US drone attack in South Waziristan on March 16, 2008. And his death was announced on a 40-minute videotape produced by Al-Sahab, the propaganda organ of al-Qaeda. On the tape, Waheed was eulogized by Abu Mustafa Yazid, the chief operational commander of al-Qaeda who had claimed responsibility for Benazir Bhutto’s killing in Dec 2007.
4- And last but not the least, the security agencies’ concerns about the possible links of Jamaat-e-Islami with al-Qaeda have been heightened with the recent arrest of a six-member team of al-Qaeda’s suicide bombers along with their local handler from the Punjab University.
Those detained were operating in friendly territory, which made their blending into the background all the easier. They allegedly had the support of Islami Jamiat Tuleba - the student wing of the Jamaat which has refuted having any link with the arrested ones.
But the law enforcement agencies insist that the arrested militants are al-Qaeda operative who were being provided shelter by the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami.
The Jihadi face of the Jamaat: Is the alliance with the establishment over now? - thenews.com.pk