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. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing
.)
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.
