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Pakistan: An Ally In Crisis - Part One of Three
By Adrian Morgan
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Pakistan became an ally in the "war on terror" on September 14, 2001. Pervez Musharraf, as head of the army, had seized power in 1999. Heâd been made the president of the nation in June, 2001. His decision to become an ally with America was seen by some extreme Muslims as a betrayal. Last year, on September 21, Musharraf announced on CBS television a claim from a book he had written, entitled "In the Line of Fire". Musharraf said that he had become an ally in the "war on terror" under duress. He asserted that Richard Armitage, the Deputy Secretary of State at that time, had threatened to bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age if it did not cooperate with the US. Those claims were vehemently denied, and George W. Bush said he had been unaware of any such threat.
Musharraf refused to elaborate on the claims, citing the terms of his publishers' book deal as the reason. The curious nature and timing of his claim needed to be explained. However, it soon transpired that the purported "threat" had been conveyed to Musharraf by one Lt Gen Mahmood Ahmed, who at that time was head of the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency. Ahmed was removed from the ISI on October 8, 2001. Ahmed opposed the invasion of Afghanistan. He has since joined the Islamist group Tablighi Jamaat, which has links with the Taliban and which tried to stage a coup in Pakistan in 1995.
Mahmood Ahmed has since been accused by Indian intelligence agents of involvement with the funding of Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 terrorists. Ahmed was not the only ISI member to support both the Tablighi Jamaat and the Taliban. Javed Nasir was already a Tablighi member before he was made head of ISI from 1990 to 1993. During the Bosnian war, he approved airlifts of arms which were sent to the Muslim side. Nasir was later to become a key figure in establishing the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani US alliance has been shaky at times, but has survived more or less intact for five years. Musharraf stated on Thursday April 12 that there should be "mutual trust" between partners in the war on terror. He said: "Our sincerity must not be doubted. We have contributed a lot and suffered a lot... but we are not disillusioned. If I am bluffing or if the ISI is bluffing, we should be out of the coalition."
Musharraf has had some extreme situations to deal with during his tenure of office, but he is currently presiding over a nation in so much turmoil that it could be heading for a meltdown.
Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, is currently witnessing a drama in which radical Islamists are openly threatening suicide bombings and demanding that Pakistan implement sharia law. Islamism has been rife in Pakistan's political life for decades, but the current situation is unprecedented. Judges and lawyers have been in conflict with the police in major cities since March 11, and the opposition Islamist party members have also been mounting their own protests. In North-West Frontier Province, adjoining Afghanistan, where the "Pakistani Taliban" have control of some areas, hundreds of people have died in fighting over the last fortnight.
Since November 2002 when a democratic parliament was restored, there have been 66 Islamists sitting amongst the 342 members of Pakistan's National Assembly. These belong to a coalition of six parties, collectively known as the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal - the United Action Front or MMA. The leader of this coalition is Qazi Hussain Ahmed, who heads the Jamaat-e-Islami party, the main group within the MMA.
In September 2005 Ahmed, a supporter of the Taliban and suspected of being linked to Al Qaeda, had called for a revolution to bring about sharia law. The earthquake of October 8 prevented his plans for a national uprising. During the February 2006 cartoon protests, members of the MMA openly called for President Musharraf's death. Qazi Hussain Ahmed was placed under house arrest on April 2, but he promised to continue mounting demonstrations against the government.
The current demonstrations by the judiciary and the MMA are mainly in response to an action by President Musharraf. On Friday March 9, he suspended the nation's chief judge, Chief Justice Iftikar M Chaudhry. The Chief Justice was accused of abuse of office, though he had frequently criticized the government's human rights record and its occasional bypassing of legal procedure.
The protests by lawyers have brought about a breakdown in law and order in the country, and have deepened the crisis. However, the sense of the country descending into anarchy has been put into sharp focus by the activities of the mosque complex in Islamabad, where madrassa students and imams have openly threatened to mount suicide attacks. The police have been employed to put down the protests by lawyers, yet the illegal actions of imams and students continue with apparent impunity.
The Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), in Aapara area in the city center, stands less than a mile from the parliament building. It is close to the headquarters of ISI. This agency has become notorious for its furtive activities, and it is claimed that the ISI assisted Pakistan in its illicit acquisition of nuclear weapons technology. It has been reported that several members of the ISI regularly worship at the Lal Masjid. A cadre of former ISI members, including Javed Nasir, have also been named as being behind the agitation of lawyers. They also have been supporting the Pakistani Taliban in Northwest Frontier Province.
The Lal Masjid has two madrassas (Islamic seminaries) within its complex. In January, members of one of these madrassas, the Jamia Hafsa, decided to take action against a decision by the Capital Development Authority to demolish mosques which had been illegally built in Islamabad. 3,000 students from the madrassa then occupied the only children's library in Islamabad. The women among them, clad entirely in black with only their eyes visible, have threatened that any action to remove them from the library will be met with violence. The women carry long sticks (pictured) and they are sometimes accompanied by male students carrying Kalashnikov rifles.
One former ISI member, Khalid Khawaja, was arrested on January 26. He has since been facing a charge of instigating the illegal actions of women students from the Jamia Hafsa madrassa. Khawaja had met Osama bin Laden on several occasions while he fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, and has described him as "an angel". In March the women from the Jamia Hafsa madrassa were demanding that Khawaja be released.
There is another madrassa within the Lal Masjid mosque complex, called the Jamia Fareedia, and students from this establishment have also been involved in the recent protests and dissent. The madrassas are led by two brothers: Abdul Aziz heads the Jamia Hafsa madrassa, and also is the senior imam at the Red Mosque. His brother Abdul Rashid Ghazi runs the Jamia Fareedia madrassa.
The brothers' father was a "fire and brimstone" preacher of jihad known as Maulana Abdulla, who was the senior imam of the Lal Masjid. He flourished during the time of the Islamist dictator General Zia ul-Haq, who ruled from 1977 until his death in a plane crash in 1988. General Zia introduced Pakistan's notorious "Hudood" or sharia laws on February 10, 1979, which made a woman who complained of rape guilty of adultery, unless she could provide four male Muslim witnesses. In 1986, the dictator had introduced blasphemy laws, which stipulate under Pakistan's Penal Code, article 295-C, that anyone who insults Prophet Mohammed can be executed. This penalty was later made mandatory.
Under the regime of General Zia, the Lal Masjid made its reputation as a place where an uncompromising and purist form of Islam was preached. It did so with the approval and patronage of the government and the ISI. About a decade ago, Maulana Abdullah was assassinated - shot dead as he crossed the courtyard of the Lal Masjid - and his two sons took over the running of the mosque and its madrassas.
The brothers claim to have met Osama bin Laden, and during demonstrations by their students at the children's library, the protesters have chanted the names of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar (head of the Taliban). Abdul Aziz is the senior of the brothers, and he openly condemns President Musharraf. His brother Abdul Rashid Ghazi has recently claimed that they have the full support of the Pakistan Taliban, who are based in North-West Frontier province. Many of the students at the Red Mosque madrassas come from this province.
Since the president became an ally in the "war on terror", there have been calls at the Red Mosque for Musharraf's death. One such speech was delivered by Maulana Masood Azhar, head of terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed. According to Italian news agency AKI, there are links between the Lal Masjid and the four suicide bombers who killed 52 people in London on July 7, 2005.
The publicity which the recent demonstrations garnered have led Abdul Aziz to make more demands of Pakistani society. On Sunday March 25, he announced that he would set up his own FM radio station in the city. He said this would start with an initial radius of 4 miles, extending to 25 miles. The radio broadcasts have since been jammed by the government, and his website has been blocked.
The next day, women from the Jamia Hafsa madrassa rampaged through video and music stores in Islamabad. Aziz' brother Rashid Ghazi said: "Our students launched a campaign against the vulgar video films in the city. They approached shopkeepers and advised them to remove all vulgar films from the shops. One of the store owners pointed out that a brothel is operating in the area and it should be the priority."
The "brothel" was then invaded. This was the home of an elderly woman called Aunty Shamin. The women fanatics abducted the woman, her daughter, her daughter-in-law, and also her six-month old granddaughter. The kidnap victims were taken to the Jamia Hafsa madrassa.
On March 27, police attempted to arrest female teachers of the madrassa as they left their homes. Male madrassa students intervened, and two policemen were taken hostage. The policemen were released on March 28. On March 29, the women and baby were released, but only after they read out "confessions" of their immorality. Aunty Shamin said: "I apologize for my past wrongdoing and I promise in the name of God that in future I will live like a pious person." She later retracted her statement, and accused the fanatics of tying up the baby. She said: "I don't think Islam allows anyone to beat a woman and drag her through the streets like a dog. They tied me, my daughter and daughter-in-law and my six-month-old grand-daughter up with rope."
News of the mosque complex and its demands for sharia law had by this time attracted the attention of the international media. The leaders of the Red Mosque, faced with no arrests from police and an apparently acquiescent government, prepared to increase their demands.
Pakistan: An Ally In Crisis: Part Two of Three
By Adrian Morgan
The behavior of the students and imams at the Lal Masjid ("Red Mosque") complex grew increasingly more extreme after the kidnapping of women and a baby on March 26 and the imprisonment of two police officers on the following day. On March 30, after Friday prayers, the head of the mosque, Abdul Aziz, announced an ultimatum. He told the government that if sharia law was not enforced throughout Pakistan within one week, "clerics will Islamize society themselves." He also warned that students from his madrassa, the Jamia Hafsa, would also take direct action against "brothels". He said: "If we find a woman with loose morals, we will prosecute her in Lal Masjid."
The students from the mosque's two seminaries, Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Fareedia, were still occupying the only children's library in Islamabad. Abdul Aziz threatened suicide bombings if the students at the library were disturbed.
The capital's district administration threatened to "take action" against the madrassa students after April 3. On the same day that Abdul Aziz demanded Islamic law for Pakistan, the Council of Islamic Ideology warned that the government should take strong action against the mosque complex. On April 1 President Musharraf admitted that little action was being taken, for fear of being seen to be attacking a mosque and female students. He told religious scholars: "If I take an action against them, it will be considered a war between Islam and Kufr. Therefore, I appeal to you to persuade the madrassa girls and their leaders to behave before it is too late." With no decisive action, the situation worsened.
Abdul Aziz admitted to Dawn newspaper that he was supporting the Taliban both in Afghanistan in also in the Pakistani regions of North and South Waziristan, and that students from his madrassas were joining them. He said: "No doubt, our students are joining jihadis because we are teaching them jihad but we have not pressurised them to fight, rather they are doing it by their own."
The threats by the mosque leaders and students against CD and DVD stores selling Western material continued. Abdur Rashid Ghazi, the brother of Abdul Aziz and head of the Jamia Fareedia madrassa, went into hiding on April 3, while lawyers and Islamist parties continued their nationwide protests. Supposed supporters of Musharraf were physically attacked (pictured).
The Jamia Hafsa madrassa announced on Thursday April 5 that on Friday, on the deadline set by Abdul Aziz for Sharia Law to enforced, they would set up their own sharia court. Still, no punitive action was forthcoming. Even the leaders of the Islamist opposition coalition, the MMA, criticized the actions of the Red Mosque students and leaders. Bizarrely, they subsequently claimed that the government had manipulated the crisis in Islamabad to draw attention from its problems with the judiciary.
On Friday April 6, Abdul Aziz announced that he had selected ten Sharia judges for his Islamic court at the mosque complex. His brother Ghazi had reappeared from his hideout to deny claims that students had threatened traders. After Friday's Jumma prayers, Abdul Aziz formally inaugurated the Sharia court. He warned that "tens of thousands" of suicide attacks would take place if the court was shut down. Six hundred human rights activists marched through Islamabad that day, to protest the developments at the mosque complex.
On Monday April 9, the mosque's Sharia Court issued its first fatwa. In attention-seeking style, the subject of the fatwa was a minister in the Pakistan government. Nilofar Bakhtiar, the nation's tourism minister, had attended a paragliding session in Paris, as part of a fundraiser for victims of the October 8, 2005 earthquake. She had been photographed hugging her paragliding instructor. The "fatwa" claimed Bakhtiar committed an un-Islamic act, and the judges stressed the importance of women wearing the veil. The fatwa additionally stated: "Islam enjoins Muslim women to avoid leaving their homes unnecessarily."
The Pakistan government continued to appease the Islamist rebels, with Musharraf reportedly saying: "Talks should be the first priority and use of force the last resort." Satellite images showed armed men and "wanted criminals" patrolling the mosque compound. A petition was submitted to the Supreme Court on Monday, naming the two brothers for setting up the Sharia or "Qazi" court. They were said to have set up a "state within a state". The petition urged that no direct force should be made against the compound. The Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, confirmed that the government was trying to resolve the issue peacefully.
A senator from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (adjoining Afghanistan's border in North-West Frontier Province) offered to hold a jirga or tribal council to negotiate between the government and the mosque. Members of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q), the party formed by Musharraf in 2001, continued to talk with the leaders of the mosque. Despite this, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the younger of the two brothers, warned that there were guns in the compound, and they would be used, but he would not comment on intelligence reports about explosives being stored there. He said: "If it comes to a do-and-die situation we will use our right to self defense."
The protests against Musharraf's sacking of the nation's senior judge, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry continued, and on Friday April 13, Abdul Aziz claimed that "Our doors are open for negotiations, but we will not abandon our stand to impose the Islamic system in the entire country." While talks with the head of the PML-Q party continued, sittings at the Red Mosque's Sharia Court were suspended.
On Saturday April 14, Musharraf said: "The country is passing through the worst ever critical moment and is facing two major threats of religious extremism and sectarianism." Abdul Rashid Ghazi continued to demand sharia, as well as the rebuilding of seven illegal mosques which had been demolished in January, triggering the library occupation, which still continues. Rumors that the authorities might employ female commandos to storm the mosque complex began to circulate.
On the same day, eight students from Abdul Rashid Ghazi's madrassa, the Jamia Fareedia, stormed a video shop in Islamabad, and burned CDs. Five people were arrested for burning items in the open at the Bhara Kahu Bazaar. Three of these were students from the Lal Masjid complex. A van, registered in Peshawar and belonging to the mosque complex, was also impounded after the incident.
While such activities were happening in the capital, so-called Taliban were threatening traders in Peshawar, North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). This province adjoining Afghanistan has seen hundreds killed in fighting over the past few weeks. In Khar in NWFP, 20 men were beaten by "Taliban" for gambling on bird races.
One of the leaders of the Islamist MMA declared that the actions by the madrassa students at the Lal Masjid were damaging the reputation of all madrassas in the nation. The leader of Wafaqul Madaris Al Arbia Pakistan, the largest madrassa board in the country also condemned the Red Mosque student's activities. The Wafaqul practices the extremist form of Islam known as Deobandi, which was followed by the Afghan Taliban's leaders. It has control of 10,000 madrassas throughout Pakistan. Though they supported implementation of Sharia Law in the nation, the board members claimed that they were against fighting the government directly, as the Red Mosque students were threatening. The Wafaqul cancelled the registration of the Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Fareedia madrassas.
Another Islamist group, the Jamat-ud-Dawa, condemned the government for threatening to mount an attack upon the madrassa/mosque complex. The group's founder, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, had also founded terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. The US designated Jamat ud-Dawa as a terrorist entity in April 2006, but Pakistan refused to follow suit. The group's headquarters in Mudrike in Punjab province have been used to traffic Christian children as slaves.
On Sunday April 15, a mass rally, attended by tens of thousands of people, took place in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city. The protest condemned the actions of the Lal Masjid and the students at its two madrassas.
Meanwhile, Abdul Rashid Ghazi threatened on Sunday that the mosque complex would stop any sale of alcohol in Islamabad.
The three students who had been arrested on Saturday for burning CDs in the street were jailed. The owner of the shop was also jailed for burning some of his stock in the open.
The issues at the Lal Masjid, taking place in the capital of Pakistan, are of great importance. The mosque has links with the Pakistani Taliban in North-West Frontier Province. Here, a much greater battle has been waged for some years, and senior Al Qaeda leaders are known to have taken refuge here. Since last March, the Pakistani Taliban took over parts of Waziristan, and have been steadily increasing their influence. Though the Lal Masjid students threaten the stability of the capital, the Islamists in NWFP are threatening the stability of the alliance between the US and Pakistan.
Pakistan: An Ally In Crisis -Part Three of Three
By Adrian Morgan
In Part One of this series, I mentioned that Khalid Khawaja, a former member of ISI, Pakistanâs intelligence agency, faces charges of inciting the students from the Lal Masjid mosque complex. Some serving members of ISI are said to worship at the mosque. The South Asia Analysis Group has named other former ISI figures who are supporting the current anarchy in Pakistan.
These include Javed Nasir, the head of ISI from 1990 to 1993, Mahmood Ahmed, who was the head of ISI at the time of 9/11 but was fired a month later, and also Zahir-ul-Islam Abbasi, who was ISIâs station chief in New Delhi, India in the late 1980s, until accused of spying in 1988. Another former head of ISI is among the group - Hamid Gul. Gul is well known for his involvement with the Pakistan Taliban, and for being the strategic adviser for the MMA, the Islamist opposition currently involved in nationwide demonstrations against Musharraf. Gul is said to be active in encouraging these demonstrations.
Though Gul formerly had good relations with the CIA, by 2003 he was vehemently condemning the US. Gul has a high regard for both Osama bin Laden and the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar. In January 2007 a Taliban leader captured in Afghanistan, Abdul Haq Haji Gulroz, claimed that the ISI funds Afghan suicide bombings and that Hamid Gul supports and funds the Afghan insurgency.
When Musharraf restored democracy in November 2002, the MMA gained control of the Regional Assembly for North-West Frontier Province. The Islamist parties, who wish to impose sharia and have a deep hatred for the US, have popular support here. Mullah Omar and other Afghan Taliban leaders had been educated at the Haqqania madrassa in the province, which is run by Sami ul-Haq, a leader of one of the six parties in the MMA coalition. Ul-Haq boasted in 2005 that whenever the Taliban wanted fighters he would close down the Haqqania madrassa and send students off to fight.
North-West Frontier Province adjoins Afghanistan. The 1,500 mile border was artificially created in 1893 by British official Sir Mortimer Durrand, but it cuts through the tribal regions of the Pashtuns, who are the main ethnic group in Afghanistan. Pashtuns and other tribal peoples in NWFP are consequently sympathetic to fellow Islamists across the border. Many of the students at the Lal Masjid in Islamabad come from these regions. When the Taliban were ousted from Afghanistan at the end of 2001, many sought refuge in the mountains of NWFP. Senior figures from Al Qaeda came with them.
Many of the borderland regions of NWFP are forbidden to journalists. Seventy thousand Pakistani troops have been posted in the region since 2002, hunting "foreign" militants. These are Arabs, Afghans and Central Asians, including Islamists from Uzbekistan. During 2005, signs came that an emerging "Pakistan Taliban" was forming in the region. On December 1, 2005, an explosion happened in the village of Isori near the town of Miranshah in North Waziristan, one of the "Federally Admistrated Tribal Areas" in NWFP. Five people in a house were killed. It soon transpired that one of these was Egyptian-born Abu Hamza Rabia, who was then third-in-command of Al Qaeda.
Pakistan officially tried to claim the explosion had happened accidentally. A local journalist, Hayatullah Khan, had photographed shrapnel that appeared to come from a US Predator Drone. On December 5 he was kidnapped. His body was later found in the Khaisor mountains in June 2006. After the explosion, 500 students from a nearby madrassa staged protests, chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Pakistan".
Within days of the incident students ("Taliban" means students) had decapitated a "bandit" and strung his body on an electricity pylon outside a madrassa in North Waziristan. A note on the body warned that "anyone who helps these types of people will meet the same fate". The manâs head was stuck on a bamboo pole. Another man was also hanged on the pylon. Through these and similar actions, the Pakistani Taliban were becoming recognized.
The Pakistani authorities are reluctant to admit any cooperation with the US on air strikes on Islamist targets in NWFP. Politically, the consequences are dramatic. On January 7, 2006, residents of the village of Mosaki, 13 miles east of Miranshah, claimed a helicopter gunship had been used to attack the house of a Taliban-supporting "scholar". In November 2005 a mysterious explosion took place at Mosaki, where five foreign Arab Islamists and one local tribesman were killed.
When the US gained information that Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaedaâs second in command was due to attend a meeting in the village of Damadola on January 13, 2006 they mounted an air attack with Hellfire missiles. Eighteen people were killed. Damadola lies three miles inside the Pakistan border, in Bajaur agency, one of NWFPâs federally-administered agencies. Though Zawahiri had cancelled his attendance, other Al Qaeda members were among the dead. These included Midhat Mursi al-Sayid âUmar, who was Al Qaedaâs chemicals and poisons expert. Others said to have been killed in the attack were Abdul Rehman Al-Misri al Maghribi, Zawahiriâs son-in-law who worked for Al Qaedaâs media outfit, and Abu Obaidah al Misri, al-Qaedaâs regional commander for Afghanistanâs eastern province of Kunar.
The response from the MMA to the attack was predictable. The MMA led national demonstrations, including a protest march to Bajaur agency, but was prevented from reaching Damadola. The Regional Assembly of NWFP called for Ryan Crocker, US ambassador to Pakistan, to be expelled. US Senator John McCain said on January 17: "We apologize, but I canât tell you that we wouldnât do the same thing again."
In February 2006, the MMA led protests against the Danish cartoons across Pakistan. At least five people died in the accompanying violence. Protesters called for the death of Musharraf, and shouted their contempt for America.
Meanwhile, the Pakistan Taliban grew stronger in NWFP, consolidating a power base in Waziristan. In March 2006, the first independent Sharia Court was set up in Wana, regional capital of South Waziristan. A diplomat claimed at this time that since summer of 2005, more than 100 pro-government leaders had been killed by Islamists in Waziristan. By May 2006, that figure had been increased to 150.
On March 26, 2006, the first person was executed by the Wana Sharia court. One of the clerics who set up the Wana court is Sadiq Noor. A report from January 2007 says he heads the most powerful Pakistan Taliban group in North Waziristan. At his office in Miranshah, he hosts Taliban and Al Qaeda meetings. He also runs a private jail. In Mir Ali, an Arab called Abu Kasha runs a Taliban group, and an Uzbek faction is led by an individual called Najimuddin Uzbek.
In South Waziristan, Noor Islam, who also convened the Wana Sharia Court, is a Taliban leader, representing his Wazir tribe. He supported the Uzbeks in the region. Baitullah Mehsud leads another faction in the region.
The Pakistan government has been making "peace deals" with Islamists in NWFP, which have only served to validate such individualsâ status. In 2004, the government signed a peace deal with Haji Omar, a brother of Noor Islam and self-styled "Amir" of the South Waziristan Taliban. Omar has vowed to keep up a continuous jihad against the US. In February 2005 at Sararogha, Baitullah Mehsud signed a peace deal with the government. Part of the deal included the withdrawal of troops, and removal of protection for foreigners. After the deal, Baiitullah enforced sharia law and banned dancing, computers, television and music in his "territory".
The worst deal to be made with the "Pakistani Taliban" in Waziristan came on September 5, 2006. This "Waziristan Accord" again included an agreement for the Pakistan army to draw back from the region. One clause of the accord stated "There shall be no cross-border movement for militant activity in neighboring Afghanistan." The deal included a prohibition of "target killings" where people suspected of being US spies were often decapitated. Samina Ahmed of the International Crisis Group said the accord with the Pakistani Taliban was "irresponsible to say the least".
Xenia Dormandy, former South Asia director at the National Security Council said making such accords "is a potentially dangerous route to take because there is little pressure that you can bring to bear to make sure they can follow through on the agreements." She was proved right when days after the agreement was signed, the first target killing left a 71-year old man shot dead in North Waziristan, soon followed by a decapitated and mutilated corpse in South Waziristan. Within a month, clerics in the region were openly recruiting fighters to cross the border into Afghanistan to fight coalition troops.
Meanwhile, the government was considering making a similar accord with the Islamists in Bajaur agency. This never happened. On Saturday, October 28, 2006, a tribal jirga in the agency praised both Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar as heroes. On Monday October 30, 2006, a madrassa near Khar in Bajaur was bombed, using helicopter gunships, and the prospects of a peace deal evaporated. The madrassa was claimed by an army spokesman to be a terror training venue. He said: "These militants were involved in actions inside Pakistan and probably in Afghanistan. We received confirmed intelligence reports that 70 to 80 militants were hiding in a madrassa used as a terrorist-training facility, which was destroyed by an army strike, led by helicopters."
The MMA in the region went on the rampage, mounting demonstrations in Chenagai and Khar in the Bajaur agency. At Chenagai, where 2,000 tribesman and shopkeepers shouted "Death to Musharraf! Death to Bush!, one protester waved a severed hand retrieved from the madrassa wreckage. Qazi Hussain Ahmad, leader of the MMA, said: "It was an American plane behind the attack and Pakistan is taking responsibility because they know there would be a civil war if the American responsibility was known."
Nine days later, revenge came in the form of a suicide attack at an army barracks in Dargai in Malakand district, NWFP. An anonymous message claimed that 250 volunteers had offered to be suicide bombers against the Pakistani forces.
In August last year, the Pakistan government gave a deadline to another Islamist group, which was based in Khyber agency, one of the seven tribal "agencies" in NWFP. In June 2006, this group, the Lashkar-e-Islami or Army of Islam had issued a fatwa to the Bara community, imposing Sharia Law and banning satellite TV, video shops, and other "transgressions". The government said that the leader of the group, Mangal Bagh Alfridi, would face a crackdown, and issued a warrant for his arrest. This never came, and last month Alfridi was openly visible at a sharia killing. A woman and two men had been accused of adultery, and were stoned and shot to death publicly.
The steady growth of the Pakistan Taliban in the tribal regions of NWFP, perhaps assisted by former (or even serving) members of the ISI who assisted in creating the Afghan Taliban, has now reached a crisis point. The network of Pakistan Taliban leaders, some representing local tribes, and others representing foreign Islamists, has begun to break down.
On March 19 this year, a campaign began around Wana to oust the Uzbek Taliban from the region. In the initial fighting, 160 people died. At the end of the month, a ceasefire between the factions was enacted, but this collapsed on March 29. Within two days, another 56 people were dead in the region in and around Wana. Of the dead, 45 were said to be "foreign" Islamists. On April 2, a tribal council or "jirga" declared jihad against the Uzbeks.
On April 5, the governor of NWFP, Ali Jan Orakzai, blamed the foreign Islamists for violating the terms of the September accord, forcing the tribesmen to act against them. He claimed that the accord had stopped Islamists crossing into Afghanistan, implying that the US agreed with this.
On March 25, while the leaders of the Lal Masjid in Islamabad were making threats of suicide bombings, similar threats were being issued by the banned group Tehreek Nafaz-e-Sharia Muhammadi (TNSM). They claimed that if their imprisoned leader was not freed, they would mount suicide attacks across the nation. The group claimed to have 100 suicide bombers on standby. This group had controlled the madrassa in Bajaur agency, which had been bombed on October 30.
The fighting soon spread to the south of NWFP. In Tank, armed men entered a school, to lecture students on Holy War, on March 26. A shootout with the authorities followed, with five militants and one policeman killed in the exchange. Four government soldiers were injured by bombings in Tank district on April 8. An agreement had been made in Tank on April 2 to assist the government to restore peace in NWFP. On April 9, one town in South Waziristan claimed that a tribal army had cleared itself of Uzbak radicals. These radicals were from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which is led by Tahir Yuldashevh.
The effects of such instability have not gone unnoticed by the US, Pakistanâs official ally. A recent report by K Alan Kronstadt of the US Congressional Research Service (CRS) paints a gloomy picture of the Pakistan situation. Entitled "Pakistan and Terrorism", its author notes that many observers are cynical of Pakistanâs successes against its homegrown extremists. "Numerous experts raise questions about the determination, sincerity, and effectiveness of Pakistani government efforts to combat religious extremists." The report highlights expertsâ concerns "about the implications of maintaining present US policies toward the region, and about the efficacy of Islamabadâs latest strategy, which appears to seek reconciliation with pro-Taliban elements."
Ashok K Behuria, Research Fellow at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, writing on the growth of Pakistani Islamism, observed last year that "the administration has ignored the inability of such groups to remain quiet and non-coercive. These groups have moreover repeatedly challenged the might of the state. In the absence of an imaginative plan to counter such an assertive ideology at the grassroots level, Pakistan will continue to labor under a million mutinies, which will increasingly weaken the capacity of the state in the days to come."
How Pakistan will extricate itself from its current predicament, assuming that it can do so, remains to be seen. More dramatic mutinies seem to lie ahead.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Adrian Morgan is a British based writer and artist who has written for Western Resistance since its inception. He also writes for Spero News.
He has previously contributed to various publications, including the Guardian and New Scientist and is a former Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society.
© 2003-2007 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/global.php?id=894405
By Adrian Morgan
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Pakistan became an ally in the "war on terror" on September 14, 2001. Pervez Musharraf, as head of the army, had seized power in 1999. Heâd been made the president of the nation in June, 2001. His decision to become an ally with America was seen by some extreme Muslims as a betrayal. Last year, on September 21, Musharraf announced on CBS television a claim from a book he had written, entitled "In the Line of Fire". Musharraf said that he had become an ally in the "war on terror" under duress. He asserted that Richard Armitage, the Deputy Secretary of State at that time, had threatened to bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age if it did not cooperate with the US. Those claims were vehemently denied, and George W. Bush said he had been unaware of any such threat.
Musharraf refused to elaborate on the claims, citing the terms of his publishers' book deal as the reason. The curious nature and timing of his claim needed to be explained. However, it soon transpired that the purported "threat" had been conveyed to Musharraf by one Lt Gen Mahmood Ahmed, who at that time was head of the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency. Ahmed was removed from the ISI on October 8, 2001. Ahmed opposed the invasion of Afghanistan. He has since joined the Islamist group Tablighi Jamaat, which has links with the Taliban and which tried to stage a coup in Pakistan in 1995.
Mahmood Ahmed has since been accused by Indian intelligence agents of involvement with the funding of Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 terrorists. Ahmed was not the only ISI member to support both the Tablighi Jamaat and the Taliban. Javed Nasir was already a Tablighi member before he was made head of ISI from 1990 to 1993. During the Bosnian war, he approved airlifts of arms which were sent to the Muslim side. Nasir was later to become a key figure in establishing the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani US alliance has been shaky at times, but has survived more or less intact for five years. Musharraf stated on Thursday April 12 that there should be "mutual trust" between partners in the war on terror. He said: "Our sincerity must not be doubted. We have contributed a lot and suffered a lot... but we are not disillusioned. If I am bluffing or if the ISI is bluffing, we should be out of the coalition."
Musharraf has had some extreme situations to deal with during his tenure of office, but he is currently presiding over a nation in so much turmoil that it could be heading for a meltdown.
Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, is currently witnessing a drama in which radical Islamists are openly threatening suicide bombings and demanding that Pakistan implement sharia law. Islamism has been rife in Pakistan's political life for decades, but the current situation is unprecedented. Judges and lawyers have been in conflict with the police in major cities since March 11, and the opposition Islamist party members have also been mounting their own protests. In North-West Frontier Province, adjoining Afghanistan, where the "Pakistani Taliban" have control of some areas, hundreds of people have died in fighting over the last fortnight.
Since November 2002 when a democratic parliament was restored, there have been 66 Islamists sitting amongst the 342 members of Pakistan's National Assembly. These belong to a coalition of six parties, collectively known as the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal - the United Action Front or MMA. The leader of this coalition is Qazi Hussain Ahmed, who heads the Jamaat-e-Islami party, the main group within the MMA.
In September 2005 Ahmed, a supporter of the Taliban and suspected of being linked to Al Qaeda, had called for a revolution to bring about sharia law. The earthquake of October 8 prevented his plans for a national uprising. During the February 2006 cartoon protests, members of the MMA openly called for President Musharraf's death. Qazi Hussain Ahmed was placed under house arrest on April 2, but he promised to continue mounting demonstrations against the government.
The current demonstrations by the judiciary and the MMA are mainly in response to an action by President Musharraf. On Friday March 9, he suspended the nation's chief judge, Chief Justice Iftikar M Chaudhry. The Chief Justice was accused of abuse of office, though he had frequently criticized the government's human rights record and its occasional bypassing of legal procedure.
The protests by lawyers have brought about a breakdown in law and order in the country, and have deepened the crisis. However, the sense of the country descending into anarchy has been put into sharp focus by the activities of the mosque complex in Islamabad, where madrassa students and imams have openly threatened to mount suicide attacks. The police have been employed to put down the protests by lawyers, yet the illegal actions of imams and students continue with apparent impunity.
The Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), in Aapara area in the city center, stands less than a mile from the parliament building. It is close to the headquarters of ISI. This agency has become notorious for its furtive activities, and it is claimed that the ISI assisted Pakistan in its illicit acquisition of nuclear weapons technology. It has been reported that several members of the ISI regularly worship at the Lal Masjid. A cadre of former ISI members, including Javed Nasir, have also been named as being behind the agitation of lawyers. They also have been supporting the Pakistani Taliban in Northwest Frontier Province.
The Lal Masjid has two madrassas (Islamic seminaries) within its complex. In January, members of one of these madrassas, the Jamia Hafsa, decided to take action against a decision by the Capital Development Authority to demolish mosques which had been illegally built in Islamabad. 3,000 students from the madrassa then occupied the only children's library in Islamabad. The women among them, clad entirely in black with only their eyes visible, have threatened that any action to remove them from the library will be met with violence. The women carry long sticks (pictured) and they are sometimes accompanied by male students carrying Kalashnikov rifles.
One former ISI member, Khalid Khawaja, was arrested on January 26. He has since been facing a charge of instigating the illegal actions of women students from the Jamia Hafsa madrassa. Khawaja had met Osama bin Laden on several occasions while he fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, and has described him as "an angel". In March the women from the Jamia Hafsa madrassa were demanding that Khawaja be released.
There is another madrassa within the Lal Masjid mosque complex, called the Jamia Fareedia, and students from this establishment have also been involved in the recent protests and dissent. The madrassas are led by two brothers: Abdul Aziz heads the Jamia Hafsa madrassa, and also is the senior imam at the Red Mosque. His brother Abdul Rashid Ghazi runs the Jamia Fareedia madrassa.
The brothers' father was a "fire and brimstone" preacher of jihad known as Maulana Abdulla, who was the senior imam of the Lal Masjid. He flourished during the time of the Islamist dictator General Zia ul-Haq, who ruled from 1977 until his death in a plane crash in 1988. General Zia introduced Pakistan's notorious "Hudood" or sharia laws on February 10, 1979, which made a woman who complained of rape guilty of adultery, unless she could provide four male Muslim witnesses. In 1986, the dictator had introduced blasphemy laws, which stipulate under Pakistan's Penal Code, article 295-C, that anyone who insults Prophet Mohammed can be executed. This penalty was later made mandatory.
Under the regime of General Zia, the Lal Masjid made its reputation as a place where an uncompromising and purist form of Islam was preached. It did so with the approval and patronage of the government and the ISI. About a decade ago, Maulana Abdullah was assassinated - shot dead as he crossed the courtyard of the Lal Masjid - and his two sons took over the running of the mosque and its madrassas.
The brothers claim to have met Osama bin Laden, and during demonstrations by their students at the children's library, the protesters have chanted the names of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar (head of the Taliban). Abdul Aziz is the senior of the brothers, and he openly condemns President Musharraf. His brother Abdul Rashid Ghazi has recently claimed that they have the full support of the Pakistan Taliban, who are based in North-West Frontier province. Many of the students at the Red Mosque madrassas come from this province.
Since the president became an ally in the "war on terror", there have been calls at the Red Mosque for Musharraf's death. One such speech was delivered by Maulana Masood Azhar, head of terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed. According to Italian news agency AKI, there are links between the Lal Masjid and the four suicide bombers who killed 52 people in London on July 7, 2005.
The publicity which the recent demonstrations garnered have led Abdul Aziz to make more demands of Pakistani society. On Sunday March 25, he announced that he would set up his own FM radio station in the city. He said this would start with an initial radius of 4 miles, extending to 25 miles. The radio broadcasts have since been jammed by the government, and his website has been blocked.
The next day, women from the Jamia Hafsa madrassa rampaged through video and music stores in Islamabad. Aziz' brother Rashid Ghazi said: "Our students launched a campaign against the vulgar video films in the city. They approached shopkeepers and advised them to remove all vulgar films from the shops. One of the store owners pointed out that a brothel is operating in the area and it should be the priority."
The "brothel" was then invaded. This was the home of an elderly woman called Aunty Shamin. The women fanatics abducted the woman, her daughter, her daughter-in-law, and also her six-month old granddaughter. The kidnap victims were taken to the Jamia Hafsa madrassa.
On March 27, police attempted to arrest female teachers of the madrassa as they left their homes. Male madrassa students intervened, and two policemen were taken hostage. The policemen were released on March 28. On March 29, the women and baby were released, but only after they read out "confessions" of their immorality. Aunty Shamin said: "I apologize for my past wrongdoing and I promise in the name of God that in future I will live like a pious person." She later retracted her statement, and accused the fanatics of tying up the baby. She said: "I don't think Islam allows anyone to beat a woman and drag her through the streets like a dog. They tied me, my daughter and daughter-in-law and my six-month-old grand-daughter up with rope."
News of the mosque complex and its demands for sharia law had by this time attracted the attention of the international media. The leaders of the Red Mosque, faced with no arrests from police and an apparently acquiescent government, prepared to increase their demands.
Pakistan: An Ally In Crisis: Part Two of Three
By Adrian Morgan
The behavior of the students and imams at the Lal Masjid ("Red Mosque") complex grew increasingly more extreme after the kidnapping of women and a baby on March 26 and the imprisonment of two police officers on the following day. On March 30, after Friday prayers, the head of the mosque, Abdul Aziz, announced an ultimatum. He told the government that if sharia law was not enforced throughout Pakistan within one week, "clerics will Islamize society themselves." He also warned that students from his madrassa, the Jamia Hafsa, would also take direct action against "brothels". He said: "If we find a woman with loose morals, we will prosecute her in Lal Masjid."
The students from the mosque's two seminaries, Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Fareedia, were still occupying the only children's library in Islamabad. Abdul Aziz threatened suicide bombings if the students at the library were disturbed.
The capital's district administration threatened to "take action" against the madrassa students after April 3. On the same day that Abdul Aziz demanded Islamic law for Pakistan, the Council of Islamic Ideology warned that the government should take strong action against the mosque complex. On April 1 President Musharraf admitted that little action was being taken, for fear of being seen to be attacking a mosque and female students. He told religious scholars: "If I take an action against them, it will be considered a war between Islam and Kufr. Therefore, I appeal to you to persuade the madrassa girls and their leaders to behave before it is too late." With no decisive action, the situation worsened.
Abdul Aziz admitted to Dawn newspaper that he was supporting the Taliban both in Afghanistan in also in the Pakistani regions of North and South Waziristan, and that students from his madrassas were joining them. He said: "No doubt, our students are joining jihadis because we are teaching them jihad but we have not pressurised them to fight, rather they are doing it by their own."
The threats by the mosque leaders and students against CD and DVD stores selling Western material continued. Abdur Rashid Ghazi, the brother of Abdul Aziz and head of the Jamia Fareedia madrassa, went into hiding on April 3, while lawyers and Islamist parties continued their nationwide protests. Supposed supporters of Musharraf were physically attacked (pictured).
The Jamia Hafsa madrassa announced on Thursday April 5 that on Friday, on the deadline set by Abdul Aziz for Sharia Law to enforced, they would set up their own sharia court. Still, no punitive action was forthcoming. Even the leaders of the Islamist opposition coalition, the MMA, criticized the actions of the Red Mosque students and leaders. Bizarrely, they subsequently claimed that the government had manipulated the crisis in Islamabad to draw attention from its problems with the judiciary.
On Friday April 6, Abdul Aziz announced that he had selected ten Sharia judges for his Islamic court at the mosque complex. His brother Ghazi had reappeared from his hideout to deny claims that students had threatened traders. After Friday's Jumma prayers, Abdul Aziz formally inaugurated the Sharia court. He warned that "tens of thousands" of suicide attacks would take place if the court was shut down. Six hundred human rights activists marched through Islamabad that day, to protest the developments at the mosque complex.
On Monday April 9, the mosque's Sharia Court issued its first fatwa. In attention-seeking style, the subject of the fatwa was a minister in the Pakistan government. Nilofar Bakhtiar, the nation's tourism minister, had attended a paragliding session in Paris, as part of a fundraiser for victims of the October 8, 2005 earthquake. She had been photographed hugging her paragliding instructor. The "fatwa" claimed Bakhtiar committed an un-Islamic act, and the judges stressed the importance of women wearing the veil. The fatwa additionally stated: "Islam enjoins Muslim women to avoid leaving their homes unnecessarily."
The Pakistan government continued to appease the Islamist rebels, with Musharraf reportedly saying: "Talks should be the first priority and use of force the last resort." Satellite images showed armed men and "wanted criminals" patrolling the mosque compound. A petition was submitted to the Supreme Court on Monday, naming the two brothers for setting up the Sharia or "Qazi" court. They were said to have set up a "state within a state". The petition urged that no direct force should be made against the compound. The Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, confirmed that the government was trying to resolve the issue peacefully.
A senator from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (adjoining Afghanistan's border in North-West Frontier Province) offered to hold a jirga or tribal council to negotiate between the government and the mosque. Members of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q), the party formed by Musharraf in 2001, continued to talk with the leaders of the mosque. Despite this, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the younger of the two brothers, warned that there were guns in the compound, and they would be used, but he would not comment on intelligence reports about explosives being stored there. He said: "If it comes to a do-and-die situation we will use our right to self defense."
The protests against Musharraf's sacking of the nation's senior judge, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry continued, and on Friday April 13, Abdul Aziz claimed that "Our doors are open for negotiations, but we will not abandon our stand to impose the Islamic system in the entire country." While talks with the head of the PML-Q party continued, sittings at the Red Mosque's Sharia Court were suspended.
On Saturday April 14, Musharraf said: "The country is passing through the worst ever critical moment and is facing two major threats of religious extremism and sectarianism." Abdul Rashid Ghazi continued to demand sharia, as well as the rebuilding of seven illegal mosques which had been demolished in January, triggering the library occupation, which still continues. Rumors that the authorities might employ female commandos to storm the mosque complex began to circulate.
On the same day, eight students from Abdul Rashid Ghazi's madrassa, the Jamia Fareedia, stormed a video shop in Islamabad, and burned CDs. Five people were arrested for burning items in the open at the Bhara Kahu Bazaar. Three of these were students from the Lal Masjid complex. A van, registered in Peshawar and belonging to the mosque complex, was also impounded after the incident.
While such activities were happening in the capital, so-called Taliban were threatening traders in Peshawar, North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). This province adjoining Afghanistan has seen hundreds killed in fighting over the past few weeks. In Khar in NWFP, 20 men were beaten by "Taliban" for gambling on bird races.
One of the leaders of the Islamist MMA declared that the actions by the madrassa students at the Lal Masjid were damaging the reputation of all madrassas in the nation. The leader of Wafaqul Madaris Al Arbia Pakistan, the largest madrassa board in the country also condemned the Red Mosque student's activities. The Wafaqul practices the extremist form of Islam known as Deobandi, which was followed by the Afghan Taliban's leaders. It has control of 10,000 madrassas throughout Pakistan. Though they supported implementation of Sharia Law in the nation, the board members claimed that they were against fighting the government directly, as the Red Mosque students were threatening. The Wafaqul cancelled the registration of the Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Fareedia madrassas.
Another Islamist group, the Jamat-ud-Dawa, condemned the government for threatening to mount an attack upon the madrassa/mosque complex. The group's founder, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, had also founded terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. The US designated Jamat ud-Dawa as a terrorist entity in April 2006, but Pakistan refused to follow suit. The group's headquarters in Mudrike in Punjab province have been used to traffic Christian children as slaves.
On Sunday April 15, a mass rally, attended by tens of thousands of people, took place in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city. The protest condemned the actions of the Lal Masjid and the students at its two madrassas.
Meanwhile, Abdul Rashid Ghazi threatened on Sunday that the mosque complex would stop any sale of alcohol in Islamabad.
The three students who had been arrested on Saturday for burning CDs in the street were jailed. The owner of the shop was also jailed for burning some of his stock in the open.
The issues at the Lal Masjid, taking place in the capital of Pakistan, are of great importance. The mosque has links with the Pakistani Taliban in North-West Frontier Province. Here, a much greater battle has been waged for some years, and senior Al Qaeda leaders are known to have taken refuge here. Since last March, the Pakistani Taliban took over parts of Waziristan, and have been steadily increasing their influence. Though the Lal Masjid students threaten the stability of the capital, the Islamists in NWFP are threatening the stability of the alliance between the US and Pakistan.
Pakistan: An Ally In Crisis -Part Three of Three
By Adrian Morgan
In Part One of this series, I mentioned that Khalid Khawaja, a former member of ISI, Pakistanâs intelligence agency, faces charges of inciting the students from the Lal Masjid mosque complex. Some serving members of ISI are said to worship at the mosque. The South Asia Analysis Group has named other former ISI figures who are supporting the current anarchy in Pakistan.
These include Javed Nasir, the head of ISI from 1990 to 1993, Mahmood Ahmed, who was the head of ISI at the time of 9/11 but was fired a month later, and also Zahir-ul-Islam Abbasi, who was ISIâs station chief in New Delhi, India in the late 1980s, until accused of spying in 1988. Another former head of ISI is among the group - Hamid Gul. Gul is well known for his involvement with the Pakistan Taliban, and for being the strategic adviser for the MMA, the Islamist opposition currently involved in nationwide demonstrations against Musharraf. Gul is said to be active in encouraging these demonstrations.
Though Gul formerly had good relations with the CIA, by 2003 he was vehemently condemning the US. Gul has a high regard for both Osama bin Laden and the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar. In January 2007 a Taliban leader captured in Afghanistan, Abdul Haq Haji Gulroz, claimed that the ISI funds Afghan suicide bombings and that Hamid Gul supports and funds the Afghan insurgency.
When Musharraf restored democracy in November 2002, the MMA gained control of the Regional Assembly for North-West Frontier Province. The Islamist parties, who wish to impose sharia and have a deep hatred for the US, have popular support here. Mullah Omar and other Afghan Taliban leaders had been educated at the Haqqania madrassa in the province, which is run by Sami ul-Haq, a leader of one of the six parties in the MMA coalition. Ul-Haq boasted in 2005 that whenever the Taliban wanted fighters he would close down the Haqqania madrassa and send students off to fight.
North-West Frontier Province adjoins Afghanistan. The 1,500 mile border was artificially created in 1893 by British official Sir Mortimer Durrand, but it cuts through the tribal regions of the Pashtuns, who are the main ethnic group in Afghanistan. Pashtuns and other tribal peoples in NWFP are consequently sympathetic to fellow Islamists across the border. Many of the students at the Lal Masjid in Islamabad come from these regions. When the Taliban were ousted from Afghanistan at the end of 2001, many sought refuge in the mountains of NWFP. Senior figures from Al Qaeda came with them.
Many of the borderland regions of NWFP are forbidden to journalists. Seventy thousand Pakistani troops have been posted in the region since 2002, hunting "foreign" militants. These are Arabs, Afghans and Central Asians, including Islamists from Uzbekistan. During 2005, signs came that an emerging "Pakistan Taliban" was forming in the region. On December 1, 2005, an explosion happened in the village of Isori near the town of Miranshah in North Waziristan, one of the "Federally Admistrated Tribal Areas" in NWFP. Five people in a house were killed. It soon transpired that one of these was Egyptian-born Abu Hamza Rabia, who was then third-in-command of Al Qaeda.
Pakistan officially tried to claim the explosion had happened accidentally. A local journalist, Hayatullah Khan, had photographed shrapnel that appeared to come from a US Predator Drone. On December 5 he was kidnapped. His body was later found in the Khaisor mountains in June 2006. After the explosion, 500 students from a nearby madrassa staged protests, chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Pakistan".
Within days of the incident students ("Taliban" means students) had decapitated a "bandit" and strung his body on an electricity pylon outside a madrassa in North Waziristan. A note on the body warned that "anyone who helps these types of people will meet the same fate". The manâs head was stuck on a bamboo pole. Another man was also hanged on the pylon. Through these and similar actions, the Pakistani Taliban were becoming recognized.
The Pakistani authorities are reluctant to admit any cooperation with the US on air strikes on Islamist targets in NWFP. Politically, the consequences are dramatic. On January 7, 2006, residents of the village of Mosaki, 13 miles east of Miranshah, claimed a helicopter gunship had been used to attack the house of a Taliban-supporting "scholar". In November 2005 a mysterious explosion took place at Mosaki, where five foreign Arab Islamists and one local tribesman were killed.
When the US gained information that Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaedaâs second in command was due to attend a meeting in the village of Damadola on January 13, 2006 they mounted an air attack with Hellfire missiles. Eighteen people were killed. Damadola lies three miles inside the Pakistan border, in Bajaur agency, one of NWFPâs federally-administered agencies. Though Zawahiri had cancelled his attendance, other Al Qaeda members were among the dead. These included Midhat Mursi al-Sayid âUmar, who was Al Qaedaâs chemicals and poisons expert. Others said to have been killed in the attack were Abdul Rehman Al-Misri al Maghribi, Zawahiriâs son-in-law who worked for Al Qaedaâs media outfit, and Abu Obaidah al Misri, al-Qaedaâs regional commander for Afghanistanâs eastern province of Kunar.
The response from the MMA to the attack was predictable. The MMA led national demonstrations, including a protest march to Bajaur agency, but was prevented from reaching Damadola. The Regional Assembly of NWFP called for Ryan Crocker, US ambassador to Pakistan, to be expelled. US Senator John McCain said on January 17: "We apologize, but I canât tell you that we wouldnât do the same thing again."
In February 2006, the MMA led protests against the Danish cartoons across Pakistan. At least five people died in the accompanying violence. Protesters called for the death of Musharraf, and shouted their contempt for America.
Meanwhile, the Pakistan Taliban grew stronger in NWFP, consolidating a power base in Waziristan. In March 2006, the first independent Sharia Court was set up in Wana, regional capital of South Waziristan. A diplomat claimed at this time that since summer of 2005, more than 100 pro-government leaders had been killed by Islamists in Waziristan. By May 2006, that figure had been increased to 150.
On March 26, 2006, the first person was executed by the Wana Sharia court. One of the clerics who set up the Wana court is Sadiq Noor. A report from January 2007 says he heads the most powerful Pakistan Taliban group in North Waziristan. At his office in Miranshah, he hosts Taliban and Al Qaeda meetings. He also runs a private jail. In Mir Ali, an Arab called Abu Kasha runs a Taliban group, and an Uzbek faction is led by an individual called Najimuddin Uzbek.
In South Waziristan, Noor Islam, who also convened the Wana Sharia Court, is a Taliban leader, representing his Wazir tribe. He supported the Uzbeks in the region. Baitullah Mehsud leads another faction in the region.
The Pakistan government has been making "peace deals" with Islamists in NWFP, which have only served to validate such individualsâ status. In 2004, the government signed a peace deal with Haji Omar, a brother of Noor Islam and self-styled "Amir" of the South Waziristan Taliban. Omar has vowed to keep up a continuous jihad against the US. In February 2005 at Sararogha, Baitullah Mehsud signed a peace deal with the government. Part of the deal included the withdrawal of troops, and removal of protection for foreigners. After the deal, Baiitullah enforced sharia law and banned dancing, computers, television and music in his "territory".
The worst deal to be made with the "Pakistani Taliban" in Waziristan came on September 5, 2006. This "Waziristan Accord" again included an agreement for the Pakistan army to draw back from the region. One clause of the accord stated "There shall be no cross-border movement for militant activity in neighboring Afghanistan." The deal included a prohibition of "target killings" where people suspected of being US spies were often decapitated. Samina Ahmed of the International Crisis Group said the accord with the Pakistani Taliban was "irresponsible to say the least".
Xenia Dormandy, former South Asia director at the National Security Council said making such accords "is a potentially dangerous route to take because there is little pressure that you can bring to bear to make sure they can follow through on the agreements." She was proved right when days after the agreement was signed, the first target killing left a 71-year old man shot dead in North Waziristan, soon followed by a decapitated and mutilated corpse in South Waziristan. Within a month, clerics in the region were openly recruiting fighters to cross the border into Afghanistan to fight coalition troops.
Meanwhile, the government was considering making a similar accord with the Islamists in Bajaur agency. This never happened. On Saturday, October 28, 2006, a tribal jirga in the agency praised both Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar as heroes. On Monday October 30, 2006, a madrassa near Khar in Bajaur was bombed, using helicopter gunships, and the prospects of a peace deal evaporated. The madrassa was claimed by an army spokesman to be a terror training venue. He said: "These militants were involved in actions inside Pakistan and probably in Afghanistan. We received confirmed intelligence reports that 70 to 80 militants were hiding in a madrassa used as a terrorist-training facility, which was destroyed by an army strike, led by helicopters."
The MMA in the region went on the rampage, mounting demonstrations in Chenagai and Khar in the Bajaur agency. At Chenagai, where 2,000 tribesman and shopkeepers shouted "Death to Musharraf! Death to Bush!, one protester waved a severed hand retrieved from the madrassa wreckage. Qazi Hussain Ahmad, leader of the MMA, said: "It was an American plane behind the attack and Pakistan is taking responsibility because they know there would be a civil war if the American responsibility was known."
Nine days later, revenge came in the form of a suicide attack at an army barracks in Dargai in Malakand district, NWFP. An anonymous message claimed that 250 volunteers had offered to be suicide bombers against the Pakistani forces.
In August last year, the Pakistan government gave a deadline to another Islamist group, which was based in Khyber agency, one of the seven tribal "agencies" in NWFP. In June 2006, this group, the Lashkar-e-Islami or Army of Islam had issued a fatwa to the Bara community, imposing Sharia Law and banning satellite TV, video shops, and other "transgressions". The government said that the leader of the group, Mangal Bagh Alfridi, would face a crackdown, and issued a warrant for his arrest. This never came, and last month Alfridi was openly visible at a sharia killing. A woman and two men had been accused of adultery, and were stoned and shot to death publicly.
The steady growth of the Pakistan Taliban in the tribal regions of NWFP, perhaps assisted by former (or even serving) members of the ISI who assisted in creating the Afghan Taliban, has now reached a crisis point. The network of Pakistan Taliban leaders, some representing local tribes, and others representing foreign Islamists, has begun to break down.
On March 19 this year, a campaign began around Wana to oust the Uzbek Taliban from the region. In the initial fighting, 160 people died. At the end of the month, a ceasefire between the factions was enacted, but this collapsed on March 29. Within two days, another 56 people were dead in the region in and around Wana. Of the dead, 45 were said to be "foreign" Islamists. On April 2, a tribal council or "jirga" declared jihad against the Uzbeks.
On April 5, the governor of NWFP, Ali Jan Orakzai, blamed the foreign Islamists for violating the terms of the September accord, forcing the tribesmen to act against them. He claimed that the accord had stopped Islamists crossing into Afghanistan, implying that the US agreed with this.
On March 25, while the leaders of the Lal Masjid in Islamabad were making threats of suicide bombings, similar threats were being issued by the banned group Tehreek Nafaz-e-Sharia Muhammadi (TNSM). They claimed that if their imprisoned leader was not freed, they would mount suicide attacks across the nation. The group claimed to have 100 suicide bombers on standby. This group had controlled the madrassa in Bajaur agency, which had been bombed on October 30.
The fighting soon spread to the south of NWFP. In Tank, armed men entered a school, to lecture students on Holy War, on March 26. A shootout with the authorities followed, with five militants and one policeman killed in the exchange. Four government soldiers were injured by bombings in Tank district on April 8. An agreement had been made in Tank on April 2 to assist the government to restore peace in NWFP. On April 9, one town in South Waziristan claimed that a tribal army had cleared itself of Uzbak radicals. These radicals were from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which is led by Tahir Yuldashevh.
The effects of such instability have not gone unnoticed by the US, Pakistanâs official ally. A recent report by K Alan Kronstadt of the US Congressional Research Service (CRS) paints a gloomy picture of the Pakistan situation. Entitled "Pakistan and Terrorism", its author notes that many observers are cynical of Pakistanâs successes against its homegrown extremists. "Numerous experts raise questions about the determination, sincerity, and effectiveness of Pakistani government efforts to combat religious extremists." The report highlights expertsâ concerns "about the implications of maintaining present US policies toward the region, and about the efficacy of Islamabadâs latest strategy, which appears to seek reconciliation with pro-Taliban elements."
Ashok K Behuria, Research Fellow at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, writing on the growth of Pakistani Islamism, observed last year that "the administration has ignored the inability of such groups to remain quiet and non-coercive. These groups have moreover repeatedly challenged the might of the state. In the absence of an imaginative plan to counter such an assertive ideology at the grassroots level, Pakistan will continue to labor under a million mutinies, which will increasingly weaken the capacity of the state in the days to come."
How Pakistan will extricate itself from its current predicament, assuming that it can do so, remains to be seen. More dramatic mutinies seem to lie ahead.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Adrian Morgan is a British based writer and artist who has written for Western Resistance since its inception. He also writes for Spero News.
He has previously contributed to various publications, including the Guardian and New Scientist and is a former Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society.
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http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/global.php?id=894405
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