Terror: What Japan has to
fear By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - A Pakistan-based Sunni
extremist group, the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP)
or Army of the Companions of the Prophet, is
reportedly attempting to spread its tentacles in
Japan. While little is known of how successful it
has been with its mission in Japan, its record in
Pakistan should put authorities in Tokyo on
maximum alert.
According to reports in the
Japanese media, a 30-year-old member of the SSP
entered Japan in 2003 with a visa for religious
activities. Apparently, he
told some worshippers at a mosque that he had come
to Japan to establish an SSP cell there. Police
have now arrested a Pakistani man who has been in
touch with him and are monitoring the activities
of suspected members of the group, according to
the Sankei Shimbum newspaper.
The SSP is
the pioneer of organized sectarian militancy in
Pakistan. Proscribed by the Pakistani government
in January 2002, it soon bounced back into
business, operating under the name
Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan.
The SSP was
founded in the city of Jhang in Pakistan's Punjab
province in September 1985 with an avowed
anti-Shi'ite agenda. It is anti-Shi'ite in its
ideology, orientation and activities and maintains
that Shi'ites are not Muslim. It is in favor of
Pakistan being declared a Sunni state in which all
other sects, including Shi'ites, would be declared
non-Muslim minorities.
Some attribute the
founding of the SSP to the growing Shi'ite
radicalism in Pakistan in the wake of the Iranian
revolution in 1979. Others trace its roots to the
feudal socio-economic set-up in Jhang, its
birthplace. Most of the big landlords in Jhang are
Shi'ite. The SSP challenged their economic and
political power but articulated it in the form of
violent sectarianism.
But while these
factors contributed to the emergence of the SSP,
it was General Zia ul-Haq's (1977-1988)
Islamization policies that played the most
significant role in the birth of the SSP. Zia's
Islamization drive claimed to manifest a universal
Islamic vision. In reality it was based on Sunni
interpretations of Islamic law. Throughout the
1980s, the military governors of Punjab and North
West Frontier Province helped the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) organize militant Sunni groups
in their respective provinces to counter the
"Shi'ite problem". Among the groups that were
created was the SSP.
Violence unleashed by
Sunni and Shi'ite extremist outfits in Pakistan
has resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 people
over the past two decades. The SSP has a bloody
record of anti-Shi'ite terrorism and has carried
out some of the worst massacres of Shi'ites in
Pakistan. It has assassinated Shi'ite leaders and
clerics and gunned down scores of worshippers in
mosques and at rallies. Shi'ite doctors and
lawyers have also been killed by the SSP. It has
assassinated several Iranians, including
diplomats.
Shi'ite terror outfits such as
the Sipahe Mohammed and the Tehreek-e-Jaferia
Pakistan have struck just as ferociously, killing
hundreds of ordinary Sunnis, as well as members of
extremist outfits and top leaders of the SSP.
There are several Sunni extremist outfits
in Pakistan today and their relationship with each
other is complex. On the face of it, these smaller
outfits seem to have broken away from the parent
organization, the SSP. However, they are said to
be operating as its front organizations. This
appears to be the case with one of the deadliest
of Sunni terror outfits, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, as
well.
In 1996, an apparent split in the
SSP led to the formation of the more violent
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Indian intelligence sources,
however, maintain that this split was a tactical
one aimed at projecting the SSP as a political
outfit - the SSP contests elections and has been a
constituent of a coalition government in Pakistan
- while allowing the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi to focus on
violent campaigns to further the Sunni extremist
agenda.
Indian sources say that there are
several small Sunni extremist cells, most of them
created by the SSP, which function as front
outfits that carry out terrorist attacks or engage
in fundraising. These cells consist of around 10
members, with each cell acting independently of
the others. They reportedly "disappear" when the
government cracks down on extremist groups and
resurface when the pressure eases, facilitating
the survival of the larger SSP.
Besides
its links with the ISI - although President
General Pervez Musharraf's government has
ostensibly banned the SSP - the outfit continues
to be nurtured by sections in the military and the
ISI. The SSP has benefited from ties with an array
of political parties and extremist organizations.
It is close to the Jamaat-e-Islami and the
Jamaat-e-Ulema-Islam. It has links with the
Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Pakistani terrorist
organization that has carried out several
high-profile attacks in India, as well as the
Harkat-ul Mujahideen and the Harkat-ul Jihad-al
Islami.
To portray the SSP as a
Pakistan-based Sunni extremist outfit is an
inadequate description of the organization. Its
violence is not restricted to Shi'ites in
Pakistan, nor are its activities confined to the
sectarian war in Pakistan. The SSP has been linked
to Ramzi Ahmed Yousuf, an accused in the New York
World Trade Center bombing of February 1993.
SSP cadres trained and fought in
Afghanistan right through the 1990s. There are
strong links with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. In
1996, the SSP was among the Pakistani extremist
outfits that fought alongside the Taliban during
the assaults on Jalalabad and Kabul. On September
20, 2001, the SSP and other pro-Taliban outfits
announced a jihad against the US-led coalition.
The SSP and some of its fronts are said to have
carried out attacks on Pakistani Christians as
well as Westerners working in Pakistan.
If
the SSP has indeed established a presence in Japan
over the past two years, it will not be the first
time it has spread its tentacles beyond
Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is known to have a
presence in at least 17 countries, including the
United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia (a key funder
of the outfit), Bangladesh, Canada, Britain and
the US.
Its front organizations operate in
countries such as the US and Britain. While most
of its funding comes from the Muslim world it is
also said to be receiving substantial funds from
Pakistanis living in the West.
Indian
Intelligence sources say that the SSP presence in
Japan could be in an incipient phase. "While it
might not have more than a dozen members at this
stage, in no way does this diminish the
seriousness of the threat," said an intelligence
official, pointing out that for its overseas
activities the SSP does not need a large network.
Japan has sent about 550 ground troops to
Iraq and fears that it could become a target of
attack by al-Qaeda and its allies. The SSP's
reported presence in Japan can be expected to
heighten alert in Tokyo and other Japanese cities.
Sudha Ramachandran is an
independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
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