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BOOK REVIEW
Deadly double game
The True Face of Jehadis: Inside Pakistan's
Network of Terror by Amir Mir
Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia
Pakistan's status as the frontline state for worldwide jihad
is central to its governmental institutions and their
absolute command over society. The role of the establishment
in injecting religious fanaticism and hatred is a classic
case of ideological mobilization of society in the name of
God. Journalist Amir Mir's new book uncovers the overt and
covert roots of Pakistan's descent into intolerance and
terrorism and its deadly impact on South Asia and beyond.
In the Foreword, Khaled Ahmed of The Friday Times describes
how the jihad in Kashmir had a deleterious effect on
Pakistani society. Massive state-sponsored public
indoctrination in favor of holy war against India produced
"a society deeply influenced by
the rhetoric of jihad". The denial mode and "fantasy for
jihad" among ordinary Pakistanis today is the result of
decades of brainwashing and deficit of objective information
about terrorism.
After the Afghan war, Kashmir's "liberation" became the sole
agenda of thousands of Pakistani terrorists. By 1995, the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) collaborated with the
Jamaat-e-Islami to raise a Taliban-type force of young
Pakistani students to fight Indian forces in Kashmir. Since
September 11, 2001, Islamabad has been "struggling hard to
control the jihadi monster it created". (p 6) With the
state's active connivance, Pakistani support structures
continue to breed more jihadis. The leaders of Jaish-e-Muhammad
(JeM), Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM)
and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) "enjoy full freedom of movement
and speech despite an official ban". (p 8) Terrorist
training camps flourish with renewed vigor on both the
Indian and Afghan borders of the country.
The suicide bombers who tried to assassinate Pakistani
President General Pervez Musharraf in December 2003 belonged
to JeM and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI). They colluded
with Pakistani air force, army and military intelligence
personnel, an indication that "jihadi tentacles have spread
far and wide" and boomeranged on their own masters. (p 21)
Since the soldiery hails from the ranks of the urban and
rural poor, it is practically impossible for it not to be
infected by the virus of Islamist bigotry being propagated
by thousands of deeni madrassas (religious
seminaries). Musharraf's half-hearted attempts to give the
army a liberal outlook acceptable to the West barely ruffle
the deeply ingrained zealotry that runs in its veins.
Pro-jihad officers occupy the top echelons of the military,
making a mockery of the so-called "purges" in favor of
moderation.
The murder of journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi in 2002 was
masterminded by Sheikh Omar Saeed, a double agent of the ISI
and JeM who was previously involved in terrorist attacks on
high-profile targets in India. Musharraf himself admitted
that Pearl had been "over-intrusive" in his investigations.
Saeed had foreknowledge of the September 11 terrorist
strikes and immediately informed Lieutenant-General Ehsanul
Haq, then ISI director and corps commander for Peshawar.
Saeed's capture spurred ISI higher-ups to intervene and
obstruct his interrogation findings from being made public.
Holding him in an isolated cell "helps Musharraf keep a key
witness out of American, British and Indian hands". (p 43)
Since the end of 2003, JeM seems to have lost the favor of
ISI because Washington is convinced of its links to al-Qaeda
and the Taliban. Abdul Jabbar, the former right-hand man of
JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar, was released by security
agencies in 2004 to set him up in open conflict with his
mentor. LeT founder Hafiz Muhammad Saeed is now in the good
books of the establishment since he is "agreeable to waging
a controlled jihad in Indian Kashmir whenever asked to do
so". (p 66) The government cooperates fully with LeT
fundraising, public rallies, recruitment and training. The
terror outfit's sprawling 80-hectare headquarters in Muridke
has been transformed into a "mini-Islamic state" where
uninterrupted jihad is planned.
Hafiz Saeed's confidants are convinced that Musharraf will
abandon neither terrorism nor the military option on
Kashmir. The military regime is avoiding any action against
LeT on the pretext that it has no links with Jamaat-ul-Dawa,
the powerful political patron whose hand has been revealed
in terror as far afield as Indonesia and Iraq. Mir notes
that as LeT focuses on "global jihad outside Pakistan, it
has a free hand to operate within the country". (p 72)
HuM's al-Qaeda connections are second to none. The naib
ameer (commander) of the group, Muhammad Imran,
announced openly in a courtroom that it was a brainchild of
the Pakistani rangers and intelligence agencies. When HuM
supremo Maulana Fazlur Rahman was taken into custody in
2002, Pakistan refused to oblige US demands for a
debriefing. As soon as international pressure eased off, he
was set free. Unlike Qari Saifullah Akhtar's HuJI, Rahman is
still allowed to call the shots on jihadist foreign policy.
Notwithstanding splits and desertions in HM, its leader Syed
Salahuddin remains fully in control because of the ISI's
backing. At present, he operates from Rawalpindi with
"instructions to wait and see". (p 91) He has received
clearances from Jamaat-e-Islami to assume a new role as a
politician in Indian Kashmir. The Jamaat's own cadres and
office bearers are aiding al-Qaeda's surviving members and
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami across Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
Tableeghi Jamaat, supposedly a preaching organization, is
clandestinely assisting jihadist forces with the blessings
of Pakistan's elite bureaucracy, military, scientists and
intelligence agencies. HuM, LeT and HuJI recruit through
Tableegh in the guise of spreading Islamic theology. US
intelligence believes that Tableegh is the fountainhead of
the Pakistan-based jihad infrastructure.
Dawood Ibrahim, a billionaire gangster and Islamic
extremist, lived with Pakistani government protection in
Karachi for several years. Islamabad's claim that he is no
longer around is discounted by the US Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) as "a face-saving exercise because it is
in its interest not to give the don up". (p 109) Mir
discloses that Ibrahim may have moved to Islamabad after the
September 11 attacks.
On the monster of sectarian violence, Mir comments that
"fundamentalist Islam remains at the heart of the Musharraf
establishment's strategy of national political mobilization
and consolidation" (p 114) The former head of the anti-Shi'ite
Sipah-e-Sahiba (SSP), Maulana Azim Tariq, maintained a cozy
working relationship with the ISI for more than a decade
before being mysteriously killed in 2003. The SSP not only
ran amok against minorities in Pakistan but also sent
thousands of jihadis to fight in Indian Kashmir. The
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a spinoff of the SSP with highly vicious
killers, might be working as al-Qaeda's "Delta Force" in
Karachi.
The surprise rise of the religious right in the 2002
elections in Pakistan was attributable to the encouragement
of the Musharraf regime. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA)
has a special relationship with the military by sustaining
the latter's Afghan and Kashmir policies. The MMA provides
Islamabad an alibi to argue that it cannot moderate its
policies in Kashmir to the degree that Washington desires.
The 10,000-odd deeni madrassas of Pakistan continue
to churn out radical terrorists by the dozens every day. The
government is unwilling to act against the madrassas
for fear of unsettling its religious allies. The army sees
in the large number of madrassa-trained jihadis a
valuable asset for its proxy war against India. Mir asserts
that "the Pakistani military dictator's priority has never
been eradication of Islamic extremism". (p 147)
Sectarianism and virulence are not limited to madrassas
alone. Public schools in Pakistan instruct students on jihad
and martyrdom to construct "a national chauvinistic
mindset". (p 152) Jihadist journalism committed to
pan-Islamic discourses receives state subsidies and jihadist
publications thrive on government advertisements. Thanks to
this propaganda barrage, al-Qaeda enjoys in Pakistan a
virtually bottomless pool of ad hoc members, donors and
harborers, particularly in Karachi. Many within the
Pakistani security apparatus bear direct responsibility for
the resurgence of the Taliban, which masses in the
Waziristan, Chaman and Kurram Agency areas to cause mayhem
across the Afghan border and then retreat to the safety of
Pakistani territory.
Mullah Omar himself is said to be hiding in the tribal areas
close to Quetta. In April 2004, the Pakistani army made
peace with Taliban commander Nek Mohammad in an amnesty
agreement mediated by two MMA parliamentarians. Abdullah
Mahsud, the most wanted commander of the Taliban in South
Waziristan has a brother and four cousins in the Pakistani
army. According to the US 9-11 Commission Report, Pakistan
benefits from the Taliban-al-Qaeda relationship as Osama bin
Laden's camps trained and equipped fighters for the
insurgency in Kashmir. Mir remarks that the United States'
"reluctance to act against Pakistan and make it pay a
prohibitive price for helping jihadi terrorists encouraged
the Musharraf regime to keep the jihadis alive and active".
(p 186)
Al-Qaeda's Abu Zubaydah, captured in 2002, claimed that the
late head of the Pakistani air force, Mushaf Ali Mir, had
prior knowledge of the September 11 terrorist plot. Mir had
allegedly struck a deal with al-Qaeda in 1996 to supply arms
and offer protection, a pledge that was renewed in 1998 in
the presence of Saudi intelligence boss Prince Turki. Mir's
plane crashed in 2003 without explanation and it is
speculated that the US forces carrying out anti-Taliban
operations had shot it down near Kohat because of his links
with al-Qaeda.
Investigations into the September 11 plot revealed that
ISI's then-head, hardliner pro-Taliban Lieutenant-General
Mahmood Ahmad, ordered Sheikh Omar Saeed to wire US$100,000
to Mohammad Atta, the chief hijacker. In October 2001,
Musharraf forced Ahmad into retirement after the FBI
displayed credible evidence of his involvement in the terror
attacks and knowledge that he was playing a "double game".
So frustrated was the FBI with the calculated blockading of
counter-terrorist operations by the ISI that it formed its
own secret Spider Group of former Pakistani army and
intelligence operatives to monitor fundamentalist activities
through the length and breadth of Pakistan.
For all of Musharraf's denials, his government "clearly
seems guilty of exporting terror to different parts of the
world". (p 257) British and Indian intelligence have nailed
down proof of the ISI's jihadist mafia imprint in several
terrorist attacks of the past two years. The "real problem
is sympathy for Islamic extremism in Pakistan's military and
intelligence establishments". (p 261)
Banned Islamic charities such as Al-Rashid Trust, Al-Akhtar
Trust and Ummah Tameer-e-Nau took full advantage of the
October 2005 earthquake in Pakistani Kashmir and resumed
their so-called welfare activities, with deadly
consequences. Confident about their future as covers for
jihadist funding and nuclear trading, they freely admit that
"despite the US action, the Pakistani government has not
imposed any restriction on our working". (p 275) Musharraf
does not want to hack at his own feet and deny himself the
force multipliers from jihadist ranks by genuinely ending
their stranglehold over Pakistan's resources.
The evidence compiled by Mir in this book throws light on
the real reasons Musharraf manages to stay in power in spite
of ostensibly reversing Pakistan's Taliban and Kashmir
policies after September 11, 2001. But for his great "double
game" of cooperation with the US and simultaneous
obstructionism to help jihadis, a political typhoon would
have long swept him out of the top seat.
The True Face of Jehadis: Inside Pakistan's Network of
Terror by Amir Mir. Roli Books, New Delhi, 2006. ISBN:
81-7436-430-7. Price: US$8.75, 310 pages.
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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