JAISH-E-MOHAMMAD REBAPTISED ?
by B.Raman
Shortly after taking over as the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Committee and after the customary courtesy call on
Gen.Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's self-reinstated Chief of the Army Staff (COAS),
self-styled Chief Executive and self-promoted President, Gen.Mohammad Aziz,
the clandestine Chief of Staff of the Army of Islam, reportedly met at
Islamabad the leaders of the various jehadi organisations constituting the
Army of Islam on October 10,2001.
The next day, the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), hitherto headed
by Maulana Masood Azhar, reportedly renamed itself the
Tehrik-al-Furqan (TAF), following reports that the USA was examining
the question of declaring the JEM a foreign terrorist organisation in the
wake of its involvement in the explosion outside the Jammu & Kashmir
(J&K) Legislative Assembly on October 1,2001.
A spokesman of the JEM has been quoted as saying
:"We have reports that the Pakistan Government is going to seal our
offices and freeze our accounts all over the country."
Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai has been named the
patron-in-chief of the Tehrik-al-Furqan, while
Maulana Mazhar Shah the convenor. The spokesman further said:
"We have already withdrawn money from our bank accounts and reopened
them in the names of our low-profile supporters instead of the front
line leadershipThe workers and supporters of Al-Furqan have been
asked to move to Afghanistan at short notice. Some 10,000
trained mujahideen of Al-Furqan are ready to enter Afghanistan any time to
fight against US troops."
On July 1,1999, at the height of the Kargil war, Mufti
Nizamuddin Shamzai, Mufti Jamil Khan and Dr. Abdur Razaq had issued a
Fatwa of Jihad against India in Islamabad in response to a request from
the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM). The fatwa ordered that all madrasas
in Pakistan should suspend their classes and send their students to
J&K to participate in the jehad. They described Lt.Gen.(retd)
Hamid Gul and Lt.Gen.(retd) Javed Nasir , former Directors-General of the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and Musharraf as Allah's gifts to
the nation.
After the Kargil war, Shamzai started a campaign against
Mr.Nawaz Sharif, the then Prime Minister, for allegedly betraying the
jehadis and the Pakistan Army by succumbing to the US pressure to withdraw
the Pakistani troops and the jehadis from the Kargil heights and accused
him of collaborating with the USA against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.
"Jasrat", the Urdu daily of the
Jamaat-e-Islami, reported that while addressing a meeting organised by the
HUM at Karachi, Shamzai declared that the Americans were "warring
infidels" and it was, therefore, "permissible to kill them, loot
their wealth and enslave their women".
At a religious congregation held at the Binori mosque in
Karachi on February 4,2000, it was Maulana Mohammad Yusuf Ludhianvi, who
was subsequently assassinated, and Mufti Shamzai, who announced the
formation of the JEM headed by Azhar. Shamzai, who is the chairman
of the Majlis-i-Taawun Islami Pakistan (Organisation for Islamic
Cooperation), said that the new jehadi organisation came into
existence as a result of the decision of the Ulema, who would be
patronising it with the sole purpose of organising the Mujahideen who had
been forced out of various organisations.
He added: "Our objectives are limited to responding
effectively to the Indian repression and extending support to the Kashmiri
Mujahideen in their struggle against the Indian yoke. We will have
no concern whatsoever with politics in Pakistan. We are loyal to
Pakistan, its government and its people."
Writing in the "Friday Times" (August
18-24,2000), Khalid Ahmed, the well-known Pakistani analyst, said:
* "In 1996, Harkat-ul- Ansar was a powerful
Deobandi militia fighting in Held Kashmir. Its activities were so
violent that the US declared it (in October 1997)a terrorist
organization. Thereafter, a split occurred in it and the two factions
that emerged abandoned the old name.
* "Harkat-ul-Mujahideen under Fazlur Rehman Khalil
emerged as a big organization, while Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami, led by
Saifullah Akhtar, failed to widen its influence. One reason was
the involvement of Saifullah Akhtar in the unsuccessful rebellion by a
section of army officers led by Major-General Zaheer-ul-Islam Abbasi and
Major Mustansir Billah in 1995. Saifullah Akhtar saved himself by
turning state witness.
* "The Harkat-ul-Mujahideen formally announced
itself as a new
organization in June 1996 in Muzaffarabad. In January 2000, Masood
Azhar of Harkat-ul Mujahideen was sprung from an Indian jail after the
Kathmandu hijack. Masood Azhar had gone into India through 'proper
channels', as a journalist endorsed by Islamabad (that is, the ISI).
He was a follower of Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, the founder of the
anti-Iran and anti-Shia organization Sipah-e-Sahaba, who was killed
in 1990.
* "After his release, Masood Azhar wished to
revive the legacy of his master. By this time Harkat had become a
major Deobandi organization in Pakistan. Its main strength
remained the militants of Punjab who not long ago had been the militants
of Sipah-e-Sahaba.
* "His return therefore caused an upheaval which
climaxed in a grand split in the Harkat. The split was soon
followed by the assassination of Maulana Yusuf Ludhianvi, a key figure
in the Deobandi movement because of his status as a spiritual guide to
two important Deobandi leaders, his Khalifas: Maulana Fazlur Rehman of
JUI and Maulana Azam Tariq of Sipah-e-Sahaba.
* "Their Deobandi connection with Mullah Omar,
the Amir of Afghanistan, strengthened their presence in Pakistan,
especially in Karachi where Binuri Masjid emerged as the big centre of
the Pakistani Taliban. The Binuri Town complex of the Deobandi
seminary was headed by Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai who was also a member of
the Majlis-i-Shoora of JUI under Maulana Fazlur Rehman.
* "The split in Harkat-ul-Mujahideen was
caused by the militants in Punjab. Masood Azhar and his Punjabi following
isolated the Harkat leader Fazlur Rehman Khalil. The formation of
Jaish-i-Muhammad as a new organization was announced, but Masood Azhar
and Fazlur Rehman Khalil began to fight over the Harkat assets.
* "On 19 March 2000, the two submitted to a hakam
(arbitration) of their elders. Harkat was represented by
Muhammad Farooq Kashmiri and Jaish was represented by Maulana Abdul
Jabbar (a key figure in the Kathmandu hijack) on the pledge given that
they would abide by hakam. The verdict was given by three elders: Mufti
Rasheed Ahmed of Zarb-i-Momin Jihadi militia,
Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai of the Binuri Town complex and Dr Sher
Ali Shah of Waziristan. The decision was that all offices of the
Harkat, occupied by Jaish in Punjab, would be returned to the Harkat,
which in turn would pay the Jaish Rs 40 lakh as its share of the
division of assets.
* "The implementation of the hakam, however, was
not so smooth. The vehicles and offices returned by Jaish to
Harkat were in such bad repair that Harkat refused to accept them and
thus also refused to pay the stipulated 40 lakhs. Meanwhile, in
the field, the splinter groups fell upon each other. At Ath Maqam
in Kashmir members of Harkat suffered serious injuries in ambush by the
Jaish (Daily Insaf, 30 May 2000).
* "In the following month, Jaish was also
involved in the alleged killing of a Harkat militant in Kabul (Daily
Insaf, 27 June 2000), which led to a case of qisas being registered in
the Taliban court. Despite summons, the leaders of Jaish did not appear
in court to defend their militants.
* "Meanwhile, another rumour reached Lahore about
a serious incident caused by Jaish and Lashkar militants in Kabul.
Six members of the Jaish were found guilty by a Taliban court of the
rape and murder of a Shia family and were executed. This news was
never confirmed but the upshot was that the Taliban authorities closed
the Reshkhor camp and banished Jaish and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
militants from Afghanistan.
* "In Pakistan the Jaish emerged as the more
radical and more sectarian part of the Harkat because of its
Sipah-e-Sahaba background. Maulana Yusuf Ludhianvi, it is said,
inclined to their creed more than to Harkat's moderate view. Mufti
Shamzai seemed to vacillate between the two splinter groups, thus
allowing the Harkat's over-all leader Fazlur Rehman Khalil to be
eclipsed.
* "Finding himself thus isolated, Khalil is said
to have gone to Osama bin Laden and made up some of his losses by
getting from him 12 new double-cabin pick-ups trucks to replace those
ruined by the Jaish in Punjab. It is said that the split in the
old Harkat-ul-Mujahideen was so deep that Maulana Fazlur Rehman did not
find himself in a position to prevent armed clashes between them.
* "Meanwhile, the image of Masood Azhar was
greatly enhanced in Punjab when he was allowed to travel to Lahore with
scores of Alashnikov-bearing guards. The agencies restrained him
only when his statements against the Musharraf government became too
aggressive.
* "Meanwhile Pakistan's pressure on the Taliban
to surrender Pakistani terrorists coincided with the Taliban's own
decision to banish Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jaish from Afghanistan.
This was followed by a flurry of arrests of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi terrorists
on their return to Pakistan in June and July. The Lashkar leader
Riaz Basra is said to have disappeared in Afghanistan to avoid being
caught by Pakistan.
* "The Taliban have closed other militant
training camps, including one in Zhavar built by Osama bin Laden during
the Afghan war with the help of forced labour from Soviet POWs.
This closure is bound to have effect on the Sipah-Taliban ties
based on the former's running blood-feud with the Shia community of the
Kurram Agency considered hostile by the Taliban.
* "Another split nearly happened in 1997 in the
Lashkar-i-Tayba headed by Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, also a former head of
the Islamiat Department of the Engineering University in Lahore.
The Department came to be controlled by its teachers, Prof. Hafiz
Muhammad Saeed, Prof. Zafar Iqbal and Prof. Makki. These teachers
were greatly influenced by the Ahle Hadith faith based on direct
contacts with Saudi Arabia.
* "There was resentment in the collective
leadership about Hafiz
Saeed's tendency to give important posts to his Gujjar biraderi. A
number of meetings took place among the Doctors Wing of the Lashkar
headed by Dr Ayub of the Urology Department at Mayo Hospital, which
proposed replacing Hafiz Saeed with Dr Zafar Iqbal. The split was
prevented through timely organisational reform by Hafiz Saeed. The
rumour was that the split was being engineered by an ISI Major.
* " It is not surprising that the Jehadi militias
have begun to split. This tendency, as we have seen, has been
there since 1996, but in the year 2000 the additional element of
Jihad fatigue is also to be considered. The Afghan Jihad as a
model for Kashmir could not have suited Pakistan in the long
run because of its inherent lack of discipline and organization and the
consequent 'softness' among the militias to penetration by
informers damaging Islamabad's policy of 'deniability'.
* "The Afghan Jihad was also split in its early
stages. The splits were to the advantage of the agencies
handling them, who then established better control over the Jihad.
The splits in the Kashmir Jihad, engineered or not, must redound to the
advantage of its handlers for the same reason."
The "Asia Times" of August 22, 2001,reported as
follows:
* "A very strong Muslim lobby has emerged to
protect his (bin Laden's) interests. This includes Saudi Crown
Prince Abdullah, as well as senior Pakistani Generals. Prince
Abdullah has good relations with bin Laden as both are disciples of
slain Doctor Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian scholar and former
leader of the Muslim Brotherhood Organization (Al-Iqwanul Muslamoon).
Azzam was the main motivational force in the Arab world for the Afghan
jihad (holy war) against the former Soviet Union. Bin Laden
fought, and helped finance, opposition to the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan.
* "Focus has been on Pakistan as a staging ground
for a mission to arrest bin Laden since US Central Command Chief General
Tommy R Franks met President General Pervez Musharraf and other senior
Pakistani military officials in Rawalpindi in January of this
year. This and subsequent meetings were used to remind Pakistan of
its obligations in compliance with UN resolution 1333 that require the
Taliban to immediately surrender bin Laden to a third
country. Pakistan, along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates, are the only countries to recognize the Taliban government.
* "Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah,
meanwhile, wants bin Laden to stand trial in his country. He is
said to believe that any trial against the fugitive would see him
acquitted as no case has been registered against him in Saudi
Arabia. In addition, there is no precedent of Saudi Arabia ever
handing over one of its citizens to the United States (even though
bin Laden has technically lost his Saudi citizenship), so the Crown
Prince considers that bin Laden will be safer in Saudi Arabia than in
Afghanistan.
* "Bin Laden left Saudi Arabia in 1991. He
was asked by the Saudi Government to return, but he refused, so
they withdrew his citizenship, cancelled his passport and froze his
assets. Bin Laden is believed to have amassed a fortune with his
family's construction business.
* "Prince Abdullah made a clandestine visit to
Pakistan a few months ago and met senior army officials, and he visited
Afghanistan with the Director-General of the powerful Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI), Lieutenant-General Mehmood. According to
sources, Prince Abdullah met Taliban strongman Mullah Omar and tried to
convince him that the United States was likely to launch an attack on
Afghanistan and insisted bin Laden be sent to Saudi Arabia, where he
would be held in custody and not handed over to any third country.
Mullah Omar apparently rejected the Crown Prince's proposal, saying that
despite the threat of US attacks, the question of bin Laden had become
one of honor and he would not be handed over in any circumstances.
* "As an alternative to snatching him, the US,
too, would appear to support the idea of bin Laden going to Saudi
Arabia. Although aware that Prince Abdullah is almost certain to
take over from the ailing pro-US King Fahad, who suffered a stroke in
1995, when he dies, US authorities believe that there is a sufficiently
strong US lobby within the country - and sufficient palace intrigues - for them to have their way with bin Laden.
* "Fahad and Abdullah are from the same father,
but have different mothers. Abdullah was appointed Crown Prince
only because he was next in line, and after his appointment King Fahad
posted his brothers (King Fahad's mother's family is known as Sudari and
he has seven blood brothers) to important positions to counter
Abdullah's authority as Crown Prince.
* "The Governor of the capital Riyadh, the
Defense Minister, the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of
Foreign Affairs are all Fahad's brothers. Abdullah's only power
within the Saudi establishment is with the National Baduvian Guards,
which is headed by Abdullah's blood brother. Outside the country,
though, there is a strong body of support for Prince Abdullah among
those who opposed the US using Saudi Arabia as a base during the
Gulf War in 1991.
* "In Pakistan, there is also a very strong lobby
within the Army not to assist in any US moves to apprehend bin
Laden. These include Rawalpindi Corps Commander Lieutenant-General
Jamshed Gulzar (since shifted as Adjutant-General by Musharraf), one of
the coup leaders of October 12, 1999, Lahore Corps Commander
Lieutenant-General (Mohammad) Aziz Khan (since kicked upstairs as
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee) and Deputy Chief of Army
Staff Lieutenant-General Muzzaffar Usmani (since prematurely retired).
* "This was the strong army backing that
enabled a Pakistani religious scholar,Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, who is
well respected among the Taliban leadership, to put pressure on
Pakistan's Minister of the Interior, a retired Lieutenant-General,
Moinuddin Haider, not to deport any more Arabs from Pakistan. In
the past, Pakistan has deported known associates of bin Laden from
Jordan, Algeria and Egypt to their mother countries, which in turn have
handed them over to the US or other Western countries where they have
stood trial for terrorism.
* "According to sources, Mufti Shamzai threatened
the Interior Minister that if any more Arabs were deported
from Pakistan, what the jihadi groups did in Pakistan would not be
his or anyone else's responsibility. Knowing the support Shamzai has,
and the vulnerability of the Government if they were to retaliate
against jihadi forces in the country, the Interior Minister
has subsequently not sanctioned the deportation of Arabs. This is a
strong example to the Government of the opposition it will face should
it allow Pakistani soil to be used for a raid into Afghanistan to
capture bin Laden."
Shamzai was a member of the ulema delegation which went to
Kandahar on September 28,2001, along with Lt.Gen.Mahmood Ahmed, then DG,
ISI, for discussions with Mullah Omer on the bin Laden issue.
The other members were Mufti Saleemullah, Mufti Taqi Usmani, Mufti
Muhammad Jamil, Maulana Fazale Rahim, Qari Saeedur Rahman, Maulana Abdul
Ghani, Maulana Muhammad Hasan Jan, Qari Mufti Sher Ali Shah and Maulana
Haji Abdul Rahman.
The Darul Uloom Islamia Binori Town mosque in Karachi
has one of the largest religious seminaries in Pakistan. It is
perceived as one of the most influential centres of hardline
Deobandi Sunni Muslim ideology in the world. Along with the Akora
Khattak madrasa-- the largest seminary in Pakistan -- the Binori Town
madrasa has imparted doctrinal training to the leading lights of the
Taliban as well as to men like Maulana Azam Tariq, of the Sunni extremist
Sipah-e- Sahaba (Soldiers of the Prophet's Companions).
Since its establishment in 1951, the mosque and its
madrasa have been in the forefront of the anti-Ahmadiya and anti-Shia
movements in Pakistan. It imparts religious education to some 3,500
students at one time, most of them drawn from Afghanistan and the Pushto-speaking
areas of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. Students also come
from Africa, the Philippines and Malaysia. It has a large number of
smaller affiliated madrasas, both within and outside Karachi.
It is funded by Muslims in the United States, Britain,
France, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Switzerland and other countries. Many
of the Taliban leaders and militia studied here. It is suspected to
have played an active behind-the-scene role in the Kandahar hijacking of
an Indian Airlines plane in December, 1999, and in the terrorist strikes
in the US on September 11,2001.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet
Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For
Topical Studies, Chennai. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com
)
