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Hafiz
Mohammed Saeed: Pakistan's heart of terror
Abdullah
Azam was killed in a powerful bomb explosion at Peshawar, the capital of
Pakistan's Frontier province, that very year. Zafar Iqbal, who used to
head the Islamic Learning Centre at the government-run University of
Engineering and Technology. Lahore, the same one where Professor Saeed
served for 22 years, now looks after the Markaz affairs, being its
vice-chancellor.
Saeed, however, will not speak of bin Laden even though he is an ardent
supporter of the Taliban. He denies that Markaz Dawa Wal Irshad was a
foreign-funded project. He says the funds came from a group of affluent
traders who had offered money to buy cheap farm land near a village,
Nangal Saada (Muridke), about one km from the main Grand Trunk (GT) Raod.
A Saudi trader, Ahmed, contributed Rs 10 million (the same figure as
Osama's) while another, Saudi Sheikh, donated more millions for the
construction of Dawa Model School inside the Markaz premises. 'Generous
donations' were also received to build an industrial home for female
students inside the Centre.
The Lashkar, similarly, owes its existence to private donations. The
Professor is at pains to den the widely held belief that it is on the
payroll of the Inter Services Intelligence, the Pakistani Intelligence
agency that is seen by many as propping up the terrorist campaign on
Kashmir. 'We do not get a single rupees from the government,' says the
Professor.
Alongside the Markaz Dawa Wal Irshad, the Lashkar has grown from
strength to strength. Today, it is one of the most active militant
groups working inside Jammu and Kashmir, with operations based on the
Pakistani side of the border. It has growing base among the shopkeepers,
lower-level bureaucrats, soldiers, and students in Pakistan.
It has also become deadly effective. The Lashkar leadership claims to
have acquired Chinese anti-aircraft guns and 60 mm heavy mortars. 'Our
cadres have procured the latest Chinese-made guns which can be used
against fighter aircraft and to destroy bridges and buildings,' trumpets
the Lashkar-e-Toiba mouthpiece, Jihad Times. The Lashkar also has
heavy mortars that are accurate up to 2.5 km. These sophisticated arms
have already been pushed up to 2.5 km. These sophisticated arms have
already been pushed into Jammu and Kashmir. The Lashkar does not lack
communication lines either: militants use the latest technology to keep
in touch with their commanders across the border.
The militant organisation reached this level of sophistication after
receiving significant covert aid from the US Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) during the early 90s to fight off the Soviet invaders inside
Afghanistan. The Professor has no qualms in admitting that he
participated in the US-sponsored jihad against the Russians in
Afghanistan. 'The US supported us with guns during Afghan jihad,' he
says. 'If we were not terrorists at that time, then why are we
terrorists now?'
Maybe because of Kashmir. The Professor likens the 'Indian occupation of
the disputed territory' to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. For him
Kashmir is a battlefield for jihad, a fifty-three-year-old 'custody
battle', an open-and-shut case with Pakistan in the right. Not only does
he want Kashmir to become a part of Pakistan, he also wants Pakistan to
become a part of a global Islamic state - in the true sense. Because the
Professor, an avid student of religion in college, believes that there
is no Islamic government in the world. His worldview, knocked down into
two basic sentences, is straight and simple: 'God has ordained every
Muslim to fight until His rule is established,' he says. 'We have no
option but to follow God's order.'
The Professor is following God's order. And the instrument of God's
order is jihad. The Markaz Dawa Wal Irshad website quotes a saying of
Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him) that elaborates its interpretation
of jihad. 'Islam will live forever and for the sake of it,' quotes the
website, 'a class of Muslims will continue jihad until the dawn of
Doomsday. By means of jihad,' the site says, 'the Prophet spread light
in the Arabian Peninsula. By dint of this factor of jihad, he captured
even Qaisar and Kisraa. Keeping themselves on the same path, the
followers of the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) trampled under their
feet the two superpowers of their time - Iranian fire-worshippers and
Roman Christians. Hence, they raised the flag of the Quran and Sunnah so
high.'
The Professor, undoubtedly, wants to do the same. His two main targets
are India and Israel, Hindus and Jews, in that order, since they are the
main enemies of Islam and Pakistan. A Lashkare-e-Toiba pamphlet titled
Why Are We Waging Jihad? Clarifies matters further. It establishes the
Muslim right to revenge in history. Jihad is obligatory, it pronounces,
for taking back Spain where Muslims ruled for 800 years. The same with
Nepal and Myanmar. Of course, the whole of India, including Kashmir,
Hyderabad, Bihar, Junagadh and Assam, also has to be retaken.
Thus, the attack on the Red Fort in Delhi is seen as a significant step
in this direction. The Markaz website points out that the Fort was the
symbol of Muslim power in the subcontinent and later the main target of
the East India Company's machinations. It is also the site from where
India's Independence day speeches are made on 15 August. The Professor
confirms this: 'The fidayeen attack at the Red Fort was a symbolic
activity [sic] intended to warn India that it should withdraw its forces
from Jammu and Kashmir and stop the farcical show of talks.'
The Lashkar advocates the use of force in places like Palestine,
Chechnya, Kosovo and Eritrea and has vowed that it would plant the 'flag
of Islam' in Washington, Tel Aviv and New Delhi.
Ideologically, it helps that God's orders as believed by the Professor
do not countenance democracy. 'I reject democracy. The notion of the
sovereignty of the people is anti-Islamic. Only Allah is sovereign,'
says the Professor. 'Democracy is a menace we inherited from an alien
government. It is part of the system we are fighting against. Many of
our brothers feel that they can establish an Islamic society by working
within the system. They are mistaken. It is not possible to work within
a democracy and establish an Islamic system. You just dirty your hands
by dealing with it. If God gives us a chance, we will try to bring in
the pure concept of an Islamic Caliphate.'
So, when it comes to the affairs of his organisation, it is the
Professor, the faceless man of terror, who decides how many militants
have to be sent to the Valley. But the Professor is learnt to have only
a little know-how of ordinary weapons and has, so far, kept his distance
from combat training. Surprisingly, the Professor has never been found
involved in any act of violence or terrorism in Pakistan.
However, his decision to send in fighters is calculated on the number of
deaths that have taken place and the requirement and capacity of the
Lashkar-e-Toiba to absorb new fighters. The Lashkar and its political
wing, the Markaz, have for many years been calling for the expansion of
jihad to the rest of India to create two independent homelands for the
Muslims of South and North India. As first step, they had called for
intensified activities in Hyderabad and Junagadh.
For the past couple of years, the Lashkar has been claiming
responsibility for various acts of terrorism not only in Jammu and
Kashmir but also in other parts of India. The Lashkar came into
prominence with its much-trumpeted infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir
in 1993 in collaboration with the Islami Inquilabi Mahaz, a militant
outfit based in the Poonch district. Much before that, in the year the
Markaz was founded (1989), a special training camp in the Kunnar
province of Afghanistan was set up, reportedly in collaboration with the
Afghan leader, Professor Abdul Rasool Sayyaf. The training camp was
named Masada - the Lion's Dwelling.
The Kunnar camp took students coming out of the Markaz and trained them
in military tactics. It served as a base to push thousands of committed
youths to Kashmir.
The ongoing Lashkar operations in the Valley were reportedly given form
at the annual convention of the Markaz in November 1993, when the
Professor announced that Kashmir was the gateway to the liberation of
Indian Muslims. The Lashkar had supplied cadre to the militant group,
Al-Barq, earlier, but it launched its first independent operation in
Jammu and Kashmir on 5 February 1993, with 12 insurgents attacking the
headquarters of the 11 Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry at Balnoi,
Poonch. Two soldiers and three Lashkar-e-Toiba insurgents were killed in
the attack. Since then, the organisation has been held responsible for
hundreds of deaths and a large number of communal massacres in the
State.
The Lashkar later shifted its militant operations from the Kashmir
Valley to the Jammu region in 1997. Concomitantly, after 1997, there was
a rise in militant activities all along the border districts of Jammu
and Kashmir, particularly in the districts of Poonch and Doda.
The terror group also focuses on conducting a war of nerves. This, the
Professor claims, has so demoralised the indian Army that it has ended
up using heavy fire, destroying its own buildings and causing the deaths
of its own men in misguided attacks.
Analysts point to another factor behind the Lashkar-e-Toiba's success:
the Punjabi base of the outfit. The Lashkar mujahideen mix easily with
the local populaiton of Jammu, who are linguistically allied to Punjab.
Also, the Lashkar militants, unlike others, prefer to die in an
encounter with security forces rather than get caught. For instance,
1997, the largest group of militants killed in clashes with the security
forces belonged to the Lashkar.
The Lashkar, however, claims that it can sustain such losses. About a
hundred militants join the corps every month and a fresh batch of
'freedom fighters' queues up. The Lashkar-e-Toiba prefers not to reveal
the exact number of militants it has currently deployed in Jammu and
Kashmir. What is known, however, is that the Lashkar recruits and trains
many more men that it actually requires for fighting in Jammu and
Kashmir at any given time.
Compared to other similar organisations, the Lashkar has proved to be a
great success. Since its inception, It has managed to attract thousands
of committed young men to its fold. The driving force behind its success
in recruitment is deceptively singe. It uses its impressive
organisational network, which includes schools, social service groups
and religious publications, to create a passion for jihad. The
Lashkar-e-Toiba has some 1,000 small offices all other Pakistan, which
are supposed to recruit volunteers and collect donations for jihad.
But its militants are not sent to the war just to die as martyrs; they
are trained to kill: trained in the use of infantry tactics and small
arms - from handguns to assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade
launchers; trained in shoulder-fired Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs) like
the Stingers; trained through a 21-day basic course called Daura Aam;
and a three-month advanced course called Daura Khas geared
towards guerrilla warfare which equips students for the use of arms and
ammunition, and provided ambush and survival techniques.
The last page in the international edition of the Lashkar-e-Toiba's
Voice of Islam, even teaches readers how to use swords, spears and
daggers; how to set up an ambush and lay siege to camps and cantonments;
and the rudiments of attacking the forces of 'disbelievers'. 'Learn all
these things through the Holy Quran,' says the Voice of Islam, in
its recruitment pitch for jihad. The Markaz and the Lashkar-e-Toiba are
extremely secretive organisations and take great care to conceal the
identities of their office-bearers. For this purpose, they emulate the
Palestinian organisations in the use of 'Kuniat', which are Arabic
pseudonyms adopted from the 'Kuniat' of the Companions of the Prophet
and later Islamic heroes. The followers of the Lashkar-e-Toiba come from
all walks of life, from defence and nuclear establishments to industrial
labour.
There are some distinguishing characteristics of the Lashkar-e-Toiba
militants. They neither shave, nor have a haircut, allowing their beards
and hair to grow long. They are taught to employ extremely cruel methods
such as beheading victims who owe allegiance to the security forces and
are non-Muslim. Like fighters of many other jihadi organisations, they
generally wear shalwars that do not cover the ankles.
The Lashkar-e-Toiba is never short of manpower or resources because its
affluent patrons, both internal and external, fund it generously. And
though the Pervez Musharraf government has banned fund raising by jihadi
organisations, the funds are still coming in.
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