Purging Pakistan's jihadi
legacy By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - The silent tug of war being fought
between the Pakistani army's Islamists and its liberal
army leadership appears to have reached a boiling point,
with well-placed sources telling Asia Times Online that
the army, for the first time in its history, has taken
on a different - and much more harsh - strategy to deal
with its internal struggles, one that includes the death
penalty. In the 1980s, for the sake of maintaining its
"strategic depth" against India, the Pakistani army
modified the structure of its jihadi outfits, with the
aim of boosting its leverage in Central Asia and
Afghanistan before forging a strategic alliance to
establish Pakistan's political hegemony on South Asia.
Since September 11, 2001, however, under immense US
pressure, Pakistan was forced to take a U-turn and undo
this policy, which resulted in many internal divisions
within the army - the only organized institution in the
country. Over the past year, several pictures have
emerged to support this connection, but the latest
discovery by Asia Times Online points to an obvious
change already in place.
Behind the iron
curtains of Pakistan's military bases, an army that for
two decades was oriented in Muslim renaissance and
pan-Islamism dwells. Whatever little news that spills
out from the closed doors of the army's cells is enough
to determine that a serious problem has indeed been
simmering since September 11; President General Pervez
Musharraf himself admitted after the two failed attempts
on his life in Rawalpindi late last year that army
officials were involved in the conspiracy.
Musharraf reacted to the situation in a number
of ways, including by court-martialing the renegade
officials and sending officials who were not ready to go
along with government's U-turn policy into early
retirement. But this was not enough. Well-placed sources
maintain that cases of indiscipline and defiance were so
rampant after the South Waziristan operation [1] on the
Afghanistan border this year that the government decided
to deal with the situation with an iron fist, and has
adopted a new modus operandi to deal with problem.
Under the new strategy, all those who were
officially assigned to government-sponsored military
training camps in the past, in Afghanistan and Pakistani
Azad (Free) Kashmir, are now viewed as a threat to the
government, and the process of "cleansing" them from the
army has already begun. This includes both commissioned
and non-commissioned army officials.
The basis
of this new assumption is a study on all those who
officially interacted with militants in training camps.
Instead of cultivating the militants, the camps imbibed
their radical influences and in many instances were
found to be taking part in activities geared against
Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and other
national targets. As a way to deal with these
dissenters, for the first time in the history of
Pakistan, defiant commissioned and non-commissioned army
officials can be given the death penalty.
According
to information from well-placed sources, the
first death sentence was issued to soldier Muhammed Islam
Siddiqi, army number 8831068, on October 20 by a military
court. Among the number of charges laid, the most
significant one relates to abetting a mutiny against
Musharraf. Siddiqi is also charged with receiving
terrorism training in Bhimber (Azad Jammu and Kashmir)
during August 2002 at the "Maasker", a training camp of
terrorist group Jaish-e- Mohammed; attempting to seduce
a person in the military forces of Pakistan from his
allegiance to the government of Pakistan; departing from
Pakistan without a passport at the Pak-Afghan border;
and maintaining associations with a tanzeem (organization) of
Pakistan air-force personnel that was advancing a plot
to eliminate Musharraf. He
was caught in South Waziristan, where he refused
to fight against the insurgent tribes.
It is
interesting to note that in Azad Kashmir, sources say
all jihadi camps have been closed by the Pakistani army
and all past training operations that were part of the
Inter-Services Intelligence's (ISI's) forward section
operation, and those who were trained in the camps -
whether operated by Jaish-e-Mohammed or any other
organization - were subject to prior approval by ISI
cell officials. Having said that, Siddiqi was posted
there on official assignment. Even the banned
Jaish-e-Mohammed (renamed as Khuddamul Islam) is still
part of the 13-member United Jihad Council, supported by
the government of Pakistan.
Sources say Siddiqi
is a model case, with several other soldiers said to
have secretly faced identical trials, who in many cases
were also issued the death sentence. These cases
indicate that the military leadership of the country has
decided to open a Pandora's box to expose its men and
their jihadi connections, with the aim of wiping the
slate clean.
Apart from all other aspects of the
charges, Siddiqi's case is indicative of the trends
simmering within the Pakistani army. Announcing a death
sentence for Siddiqi is symbolic of the struggle to
oppress the growing voices of dissent, and how pro- and
anti-US divisions have taken place within the army.
It is important to note, however, that
conspiracies and defiance in the Pakistani army are not
a new phenomenon; they have been occurring on a much
broader scale, but a review on the handling of those
cases indicates they were dealt with in a much less
harsh manner:
In February 1951, 13 army officers and four
civilians were arrested on conspiracy charges. The
detainees included among others Chief of General Staff
Major-General Akbar Khan, Air Commodore Mohammed Khan
Janjua, Major-General Nazir Ahmed, Brigadier Siddiq
Khan, Brigadier Latif Khan, Naseem Akbar Khan, and
famous poet and then editor of the Pakistan Times Faiz
Ahmed Faiz. They were accused of conspiring with
communists and revolutionary elements to bring about a
military takeover. After a few years of detention, all
accused were set free. However, military personnel were
expelled from service. The case is best known throughout
Pakistan as the Rawalpindi conspiracy.
On January 6, 1968, the government announced that 28
people had been arrested on charges of hatching a plot
to bring about the secession of East Pakistan (now
Bangladesh). The accused also included naval official
Lieutenant-Commander Muazzam Hussain, a non-commissioned
seaman. The then president, Field Marshal Ayub Khan,
released all accused after a few years' jail. The case
is known as the Agartala conspiracy.
Several officers of Pakistan's army and air force
were arrested on March 30, 1973, on charges of
conspiring to overthrow the government of Zulfiqar Ali
Bhutto. The detainees included Major Farooq Adam, Major
Nadir Pervez (who later became a federal minister in the
Nawaz Sharif government), Brigadier Wajid Ali Shah,
Colonel Hamdani, and Major Ayaz Sipra, and a total of 59
officers were declared conspirators. The case is well
known as the Attock conspiracy. Fifteen army and four
air-force officers were found guilty of conspiracy and
were handed jail terms ranging from three months to
life.
The Tajammul Hussain Malik conspiracy case is
another example in which several military officials
allegedly tried to launch a coup against the Zia ul-Haq
government in 1980. The officers involved were set free
after a plane crash in which General Zia ul-Haq died.
Several army officers were arrested on January 3,
1984, for hatching a conspiracy against the Zia ul-Haq
government in connivance with India. The case is known
as the Attock conspiracy case II. Several were freed
because of a lack of evidence and a few were sentenced
to jail.
Operation Khilafah is another case in which
Major-General Zaheerul Islam Abbasi and other army
officials allegedly try to topple Benazir Bhutto's
government in the mid-1990s. The military court only
sentenced the officials involved to a few years'
imprisonment, beside expelling the officers from
service.
All of the above incidents appear to
have been more serious than the one involving Siddiqi
and the dozens of other recent cases in which several
commissioned and non-commissioned officials were given
extreme penalties - including death - demonstrating just
how serious the situation really is.
Notes [1] On US pressure, 70,000
Pakistani troops were deployed to the tribal areas on
the Pak-Afghan border, where they fought a massive
operation in South Waziristan in early 2004 against
foreign fighters and their pro-Taliban supporters.
However, despite air-force supremacy, the ratio of
casualties on the government side remained very high and
dozens of commissioned and non-commissioned officers
refused to take part in action against tribals on
religious grounds.
Syed Saleem Shahzad
is bureau chief, Pakistan, Asia Times Online. He can be
reached atsaleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.
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