The local chapter of Pakistan's Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) Islamist political party
held a rally on April 19 in the historic Kissa Khwani Bazaar of Peshawar to
protest the extremely low gas pressure and rolling blackouts that affect
Peshawar residents up to 10 hours per day.
As leaders announced the end of the rally and protesters started to leave, a
14-year old suicide bomber detonated his suicide vest, killing 23 persons and
injuring 50 others. The bomber successfully targeted local JI leaders and
police officers - among the dead were JI Peshawar vice amir Haji Dost Mohammad
and deputy superintendent of police Gulfat Hussain.
Due to the fact that Hussain was a Shi'ite Muslim, it was initially thought the
bomber had specifically targeted him. However, all
other evidence suggested the real targets of the bomber were the JI leaders.
Had it been by chance or mistake, they would not have continued to target more
JI leaders later on. In order to downplay its differences with the Taliban and
other jihadi groups, JI tried to blame the Americans for the bombing, with JI
leader Hafiz Hashmat accusing private security firm Blackwater (Xe Services
LLC) for the attack.
The suicide bombing of the JI rally was an attempt to widen the war that the
Pakistani Taliban are fighting against the state of Pakistan. Although the
bombing was not the only attack on JI leaders in recent months, it was the
biggest, and such targeted attacks have continued. On June 16, the Taliban in
Hangu assassinated JI leader Fida Saadi, a provincial executive council member.
Soon afterwards they killed JI leader Haji Mohammad Khan and kidnapped his son
in Darra Adamkhel on June 23.
The aim of the Pakistani Taliban is to establish an Islamic caliphate, one
excluding the participation of all other Islamist groups. When the Afghan
mujahideen found Kabul in sight after the fall of Dr Mohammad Najibullah's
regime in the early 1990s, they threw themselves at one another's throats. The
ensuing civil war gave birth to the Taliban movement.
Recently, the Pakistani Taliban intensified their war on the Barelvi movement
and Sufi Islam by bringing the conflict to Punjab. New fronts were opened
against the JI with the April 19 suicide bombing in Peshawar and against the
Ahmadi community with a suicide bombing in Lahore on May 28.
The enmity between the JI and different parts of the Pakistani Taliban is both
ideological and political. Although both JI and the Deobandi groups among the
Pakistani Taliban follow the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, JI places less
stress on ritual and more on political Islam. The Deobandis abhor the JI
leaders (some of whom wear Western dress) and accuse them of having a lust for
political power. [1]
However, the real existential threat to the JI comes from the
Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM), led by Maulana Sufi Mohammad and his
son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah. They lead the Pakistani Taliban in the Malakand
Division and the Swat Valley.
Maulana Sufi Mohammad was a local leader of the JI until the early 1980s, when
he developed differences with the party. In his desperation to grab political
power, Sufi Mohammad started opposing the JI's policy of attaining power
through elections.
He argued that an Islamic state could not be established through elections
because the majority of people never vote in favor of Islamist parties. He
started believing that the only way to establish an Islamic state was to follow
the jihad philosophy of Maulana Maududi (1903-1979), the late founder of the
Jamaat-i-Islami. Sufi Mohammad accused the JI leaders of deviating from
Maududi's example. [2]
The real, personalized enmity between the two started after the US-led invasion
of Afghanistan in October 2001. Most Islamist and jihadi groups started holding
public rallies across Pakistan in favor of the Afghan Taliban. JI was in the
forefront of these demonstrations, threatening that they would cross into
Afghanistan to fight the Americans if US forces landed there.
However, only Sufi Mohammad led thousands of his followers into Afghanistan.
Unprepared as they were, most of them died in US air strikes. Sufi Mohammad
retreated with his decimated militia to Pakistan, where he accused the JI of
luring him and his fighters into Afghanistan to weaken or eliminate them. Sufi
Mohammad never forgave the JI and started preparing his revenge. In interviews
the author conducted in 2004-2005, several TNSM commanders portrayed JI as a
bigger threat than the Americans. [3]
It is difficult to say which group of the Pakistani Taliban has an interest in
attacking the JI at this time. It is a safe bet, however, to believe that the
followers of Sufi Mohammad want to take their long-delayed revenge. In the
intense sectarian atmosphere, other groups would happily follow the lead.
Pakistan seems to be entering a period similar to that which Afghanistan went
through between the fall of Najibullah and the advent of the Taliban in the
1990s, when different factions of the mujahideen fought to eliminate their
rivals.
As the Pakistani Taliban spread their jihad to rival Islamist groups, the
possibility of other Islamist militias being drawn into a civil war between
extremist groups is looking more and more probable. If this happens, it will be
bloodier than the mujahideen battles in the 1990s in Afghanistan, with an
unimaginable international impact.
Notes
1. Author's interview with Maulana Ajmal Qadri, June 15, 2002.
2. Author's interview with Sufi Mohammad, Maidan, July, 2001.
3. Arif Jamal, “Sharia here, in the country, in the world,” The News on Sunday,
Karachi, March 6, 2005.
Arif Jamal is a visiting fellow at the New York University and author of
Shadow War - The Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir.
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