|
|
|
|
Musharraf in the firing
line
By B Raman
The
investigations into the two unsuccessful attempts
to assassinate Pakistan's President General Pervez
Musharraf in December 2003 brought to light the
penetration of jihadi terrorist organizations into
the Pakistan army and air force at the junior and
middle levels. Four officers of the army and six
of the air force were found to have joined hands
with an assortment of jihadi terrorist
organizations, such as the
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the
Jaish-e-Mohammad, the Jundullah, the
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ) and al-Qaeda in hatching
the conspiracy to have Musharraf killed as a
reprisal for his cooperation with the US in the
"war against terror".
They could not
forgive him for helping the US-led coalition in
Afghanistan in its military operations against the
Taliban and al-Qaeda. Musharraf became an apostate
in the eyes of al-Qaeda, despite his continued
support to jihadi organizations for their
activities in India's Jammu & Kashmir, and had
to be eliminated. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No 2 to
Osama bin Laden in al-Qaeda, has openly called for
the overthrow of Musharraf, and has warned that
his continuance in power will help the Hindus of
India in destroying Islam in Pakistan.
The
leadership role in the planning and execution of
this conspiracy was played by the LEJ and
al-Qaeda, represented by Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the
Libyan who was arrested by Pakistani security
forces this month.
There are still many
unanswered questions about this conspiracy. Who
took the initiative in planning it? These officers
or the leaders of these jihadi organizations? When
was the conspiracy hatched? How did Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the
intelligence directorates general of the army and
the air force remain unaware of this conspiracy,
despite the fact that the conspirators had
allegedly held some of their preparatory meetings
in their living quarters in military cantonments
and air force stations? Was there a complicity in
the intelligence establishment itself? If so, at
what level? Why has the government not been able
to identify so far those in the intelligence
establishment involved in the conspiracy? Was
there an involvement of the Hizbut Tehrir (HT), a
highly secretive organization which came into
existence in Pakistan for the first time in 2000,
in this conspiracy?
These questions have
resurfaced in the wake of the arrest of Abu Faraj
and the re-arrest of a civilian employee of the
air force involved in the conspiracy, who had
managed to escape from custody in November last
while under interrogation. It may be recalled that
when a section of army officers led by Major
General Zaheer-ul-Islam Abbasi joined hands with
the HUJI in 1995 in plotting to have Benazir
Bhutto, the then prime minister, and General Abdul
Waheed Kakkar, the then chief of army staff,
assassinated and then to capture power, the
directorate general of military intelligence had
come to know of the conspiracy and crushed it
before the conspirators could make progress. But
the detection at that time was accidental. The
capture of a jeep carrying arms and ammunition
from North-West Frontier Province in which an army
brigadier and Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the amir of
the HUJI, were travelling together, led to the
detection.
In the case of the conspiracy
against Musharraf there was no detection. The
conspirators were able to complete their
preparations and actually execute the conspiracy.
Musharraf survived partly due to God's grace and
partly to the use by his security guards of a
remote-control de-activation device.
That
there are apprehensions in the minds of those
close to Musharraf over the role of sections of
the intelligence establishment in the entire
conspiracy and over the failure of the
investigating agencies so far to unravel the
entire conspiracy became evident from an interview
given by Dr Aamir Liaqat Hussain, minister of
state for Religious Affairs, to the prestigious
Daily Times of Lahore, on May 5.
An
advance summary of the interview was carried by
the newspaper on May 6. This summary quoted the
minister as warning that Musharraf had a lot of
enemies "within" who could make an attempt on his
life again at any time. He said that there were
certain elements within the forces who could
attack the general.
He added: "No common
people could attack President Musharraf, but
certainly there are elements in the forces who can
launch yet another attack against him. There is an
ISI within the ISI, which is more powerful than
the original and still orchestrating many
eventualities in the country." The minister said
he feared a threat to his own life because he
supported Musharraf's call for an enlightened and
moderate Islam and has been given the task of
preparing the texts of sermons advocating
enlightened and moderate Islam to be used at all
mosques of the armed forces.
Well-informed
sources in Pakistan say that apart from the
failure of the intelligence establishment to
identify and weed out the pro-jihadi elements in
the armed forces and the intelligence
establishment, another cause for serious concern
is the continuing failure of the intelligence
establishment to identify all the leaders of the
highly secretive HT and its supporters in the
armed forces and arrest them.
This
organization, which has built up a world-wide
presence since 1953, made its appearance in
Pakistan for the first time in 2000. It had a
little role to play in the jihad of the 1980s
against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Like
al-Qaeda, it advocates an Islamic caliphate in
which the Sharia will be supreme, but says it
wants to achieve it through peaceful mass
agitations and not by resorting to terrorism or
other acts of armed violence. Even though it was
born long before al-Qaeda, many believe that the
HT now functions as the political wing of
al-Qaeda. What al-Qaeda seeks to propagate through
jihadi terrorism, it propagates through political
means.
There is nothing secretive about
its ideological propaganda in favor of an Islamic
caliphate, which is open. What is highly secretive
are details of its leadership, organizational
structure, methods of recruitment, membership and
sources of finance.
What is equally
disturbing is that the HT, while advocating open
"agitprop" (agitation-propaganda) methods for
spreading its ideology, lays equal emphasis on the
importance of a clandestine penetration of the
security forces since, in its view, it would not
succeed in establishing an Islamic caliphate if
the armed forces remained opposed to it.
The HT ideology and operational methods
were imported into Pakistan from the United
Kingdom by its supporters in the Pakistani
community in the UK. It is said that within five
years it has been able to make considerable
progress not only in setting up its organizational
infrastructure, but also in recruiting dedicated
members in the civil society as well as the armed
forces. It is said that no other jihadi
organization has been able to attract as many
young and educated members and as many supporters
in the armed forces as the HT, despite the fact
that it has been present in Pakistan for about
five years now.
It has been carrying on a
campaign - open as well as secret - against
Musharraf on various issues, such as his alleged
betrayal of Islam by supporting the US against the
Taliban and al-Qaeda, his failure to "liberate"
Jammu & Kashmir from the control of India, his
failure to condemn US policies in Iraq etc.
In a statement circulated on April 27, on
Musharraf's recent visit to New Delhi for talks
with Indian leaders, it said, "Musharraf's claim
that he has not taken a u-turn on Kashmir is an
absolute lie. As a matter of fact, in Delhi, his
statement that he has come to India with a 'new
heart' exposes that he has taken a u-turn on
Kashmir. In expressing his 'new heart' he proposed
to make the Line of Control [that separates the
Indian and Pakistani sections of Kashmir] a 'soft
border'. Not only this, the general also
explicitly called for working out arrangements
where 'boundaries become irrelevant'. During his
visit, Musharraf for the very first time claimed
that there existed a representative Kashmiri
leadership other than All Parties Hurriyat
Conference, a clear shift in policy. In the past
Pakistan was calling for solving Kashmir first,
but now it maintains that trade, cultural exchange
and other CBMs [confidence-building measures]
should get preference. Hence, the Indian stance,
ie all issues should not be linked to Kashmir, is
now being propagated by Musharraf himself. The
ummah should get rid of such rulers and the
Muslims be united under a single leadership by
establishing [caliphate]. Consequently, it will be
able to resolve problems such as Kashmir, Chechnya
and Palestine with a great ease."
There
was no credible evidence of the HT's possible
involvement in the anti-Musharraf plots of
December, 2003, but its present call for "getting
rid of such rulers", which is similar to the call
issued in the past by al-Zawahiri, is ominous.
B Raman is additional secretary
(retired), cabinet secretariat, government of
India, New Delhi, and, presently, director,
Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai, and
distinguished fellow and convener, Observer
Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter. Email:
itschen36@gmail.com
(Copyright 2005 B Raman) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
All material on this
website is copyright and may not be republished in any form without written
permission.
© Copyright 1999 - 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd.
|
|
Head
Office: Rm 202, Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Kong
Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
|
|
|
|
