Taking Osama's name in
vain By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - Just as the mention of a book by
Osama bin Laden can send it hurtling up the
best-seller list, so the name of the al-Qaeda
leader can be manipulated by jihadis to serve
their cause.
Sales of Rogue State: A
Guide to the World's Only Superpower by former
US State Department employee William Blum rocketed
from
obscurity to the top 20 on Amazon's top-seller
list after bin Laden praised it in a video aired
on Al-Jazeera television network this month.
Similarly, the banned Pakistan-based
jihadi group Laskar-e-Toiba (LeT), or Jamaatut
Dawa as it is now known, unashamedly exploits bin
Laden's name to gain popularity among the masses,
even though the group has very strained ties with
al-Qaeda, while denouncing him to win support from
mentors.
"Osama is a hero" is the motto
the LeT spreads in Punjabi to draw in fresh
recruits for its jihad in Indian-administered
Kashmir, where it concentrates its activities.
"Osama is a deviant" is the Arabic phrase
the LeT uses to solicit patronage and funds from
Saudi Arabia, where Saudi-born bin Laden rejects
the current leadership.
The LeT, whose
name means Soldiers of the Pure, is uniquely
focused. On the one hand it operates against
Indian rule in Kashmir, on the other it bans its
members from joining the jihad in Pakistan's North
Waziristan tribal area (against the Pakistani
army) and from taking part in the Taliban-led
Afghan resistance.
The LeT has been blamed
for a number of attacks beyond Kashmir, the most
recent being in the technology hub, Bangalore. In
2000, it carried out audacious armed attacks
inside the Red Fort in Delhi.
The LeT
apparently does not want to dilute its goal,
described in a pamphlet titled "Why Are We Waging
Jihad?" as the restoration of Islamic rule in
India, by waging jihad anywhere else.
Ratting on al-Qaeda Soon after
September 11, 2001, a top al-Qaeda operator, Abu
Zubaida, came to Pakistan and handed over a sum of
money to Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, then chief of the
LeT and now head of the Jamaatut Dawam, into which
the LeT evolved after being banned, along with
other Islamic groups, in January 2002 under US
pressure.
According to sources in the LeT,
the amount of money was US$100,000, which was to
be used to take care of Arab jihadis and their
families displaced from Afghanistan by the US-led
invasion of 2001.
The LeT was the only
organization in Pakistan the Arabs from
Afghanistan would deal with. There were a number
of reasons for this, apart from both having Salafi
backgrounds, the most important being ties
established during the Afghan resistance against
the Soviets in the 1980s.
So the LeT
organized temporary housing for many Arab families
after the fall of Kabul and Kandahar. The next
step was to arrange forged travel documents and
air tickets.
But Hafiz, and the money,
were not forthcoming. Abu Zubaida, who was living
in a safe house of the LeT in Faisalabad, traveled
to Lahore to speak to Hafiz, who complained he did
not have enough money to help the Arabs.
Abu Zubaida was incensed, and returned to
his safe house. A few days later the house was
raided and he was arrested.
These events
are part of jihadi folklore. However, what is new
is added by a source who left the Pakistani army
to join the LeT, with which he soon became
disillusioned and left for Africa to become a
businessman.
"Abu Jabran was the chief
bodyguard of Abu Zubaida. He was also arrested
along with Abu Zubaida. The logical conclusion is
that he should be in Camp X-Ray," the US military
base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the source said.
"But he is serving as the personal adviser to the
No 1 man in the Laskar-e-Toiba, Zakiur Rehman,"
the commander-in-chief of the LeT in
Indian-administered Kashmir.
Asia Times
Online inquiries indicate that Abu Jabran was
freed by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation
eight days after being arrested with Abu Zubaida.
As soon as he was released, he was elevated as
adviser to Zakiur Rehman. Abu Jabran is known in
the internal circles of the LeT as Janab Jabran
Chaca.
Damage to al-Qaeda Since
al-Qaeda was structured on vertical lines at the
time of the arrest of Abu Zubaida (it is now set
up horizontally), his apprehension was followed by
the capture of a number of al-Qaeda operatives,
including Yasir al-Jazeri, who was chief of
financial matters.
And they all blamed it
on Hafiz for his initial betrayal. According to a
Guantanamo returnee, many inmates include loud
qanoots (in essence bad prayers) against
Hafiz, calling for his death.
Double-faced After September
11, the LeT was in a bind. It wanted to recruit
fresh blood, but this was impossible without
invoking bin Laden's name. And it wanted to retain
its pro-establishment ties without upsetting its
mentors in Islamabad and Riyadh.
On the
death of King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz last year, the
Jamaatut Dawa published an article on its website
in praise of the Saudi king. And since Saudi
rulers were demanding that their friends denounce
bin Laden, Hafiz did so.
Last year, for
instance, he wrote an article in an Arabic
magazine in which he described bin Laden and
al-Qaeda as khwarij (away from mainstream
Islam, or those extremists who do not make a
distinction between a minor and a major sin and
deal with sinners as infidels). Hafiz chose Arabic
so as not to upset his members still enamored with
al-Qaeda and the concept of worldwide jihad.
At the same time, the LeT - or Jamaatut
Dawa to be precise - is teaching a distorted
version of Islam. Many Koranic verses concerning
jihad have been deleted from the books its members
use, with emphasis placed on following the
ameer (chief).
The aim is to
prevent members joining the fighters in South and
North Waziristan and Afghanistan, where the pull
grows stronger by the day.
Asia Times
Online contacts claim that in the past few months
hundreds of people have broken their ties with the
LeT and headed for Waziristan, which is once again
a powerful hub of the Afghan resistance movement.
The battle for the hearts and minds of
potential jihadis is truly on, with twisted
ideologies and contradictory, tortuous positions a
part of the process, with a little help from the
Osama bin Laden brand name.
Syed
Saleem Shahzad is Bureau Chief, Pakistan Asia
Times Online. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.
(Copyright
2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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