Asia Times: Pakistani dissidents play deadly game


	March 20, 2002	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Pakistani dissidents play deadly game
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Pakistani intelligence agencies are focusing their investigations into the grenade attack on a Christian church in Islamabad on Sunday, in which five people, including two Americans, were killed, on dissident elements within militant organizations.

Initial inquiries have failed to link any of the leaders of the country's militant groups to the attack, which was carried out in the maximum security diplomatic enclave of the city. The theory now is that disgruntled elements within the groups launched the attack as a part of a campaign to target American and Western interests.

The January 23 abduction (and subsequent murder) of US reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi as he worked on a story about Islamic militants was their first target in this regard, and the attack on the Protestant International Church on Sunday was a further one.

Asia Times Online pointed to the existence of these dissident groups several months ago. Many of them were associated with militant groups at the time of the US-led war in Afghanistan. Once the main war ended with the rout of the Taliban, Pakistani intelligence agencies shifted the assignments of these groups to the separatist struggle in Indian Kashmir. However, many members of militant organizations, including those from the Harkatul Mujahadin, maintained close relations with different Afghan warlords or Arab fighters.

These dissidents became disillusioned in the months after September 11 as their leaders, many of whom were said to be on the payroll of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), did not respond to events as the dissidents would have liked - such as pushing for widespread anti-US demonstrations.

After the Taliban's retreat from Kabul, this correspondent spoke to a high-profile figure in the banned Harkatul Mujahadin. He had been associated with the outfit since 1989, but he also carried out many projects independently. The Indian Airline hijacking of January 2000 was one such incident in which he was involved.

The man claimed that the majority of religious leaders were not sincere in the Islamic cause and that they were hand-in-glove with the military establishment. "They formed the Sepah-i-Sahabah and motivated thousands of youths to kill Shi'ite Muslims. When Shi'ite-Sunni riots started in Pakistan, the military establishment pressurized them, so they [the leaders] adopted a softer policy without caring for the sacrifices that thousands of youths had made in destroying their careers through the rhetoric of the leaders."

The Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is an extremist version of the Sepah-i-Sahabah. It has a loose organizational structure and its office bearers are not known. Whenever it carries out killings, it sends messages to the media claiming responsibility. However, since the police don't have a clue about the organization, they instead arrest Sepah-i-Sahabah office bearers and activists.

"The Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is a silent revenge against the hypocritical leaders of the Sepah-i-Sahabah. Now, when the Lashkar activists carry out killings, the Sepah-i-Sahabah suffers the consequences. This will continue until the Sepah-i-Sahabah is left with no choice but to surrender or return to their hardline, anti-Shi'ite cause," the banned militant told Asia Times several months ago.

"The same strategy has been earmarked for the so-called leaders of the militant groups who collected millions of rupees on the name of jihadi, but when the real test came and the US attacked Afghanistan and [President General Pervez] Musharraf supported the attacks, they [the leaders] requested [in a secret deal] that the government detain them at their residences so that they would not be pressurized into taking action on their calls for jihadi."

The banned militant vowed during the interview, "You will see in a couple of months that we will carry out such actions that the militant groups will be under fire and they will be left with no choice - either a complete surrender or they must return to the cause they promised us when we joined them."

With the latest church killings on Sunday, these words are already ringing true.

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