B.RAMAN
An S.O.S.message has been disseminated through the Internet by an organisation calling itself the Voice of Parachinar in the Kurram Agency of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, which, it is believed, represents the Shias of the Agency against whom an economic blockade has been imposed by the Sunni extremists of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Lashkar-e-JhangvI (LEJ) for over two years now without any action allegedly being taken by the Government of Pakistan to break the blockade. The message is reproduced below in Annexure I as it was received without correcting the spelling or grammar mistakes in the text. This may please be read in continuation of my article of September 3,2008, titled KURRAM AGENCY CONTINUES TO BLEED---International Terrorism Monitor---Paper No. 435 at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers29%5Cpaper2829.html which is at Annexure II. (3-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyoone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE I
OPEN LETTER:-FREEDOM CONVEY needed for pakistani Gaza(Parachinar) also & SALAM Plus tribute to Syed Talat Hussain.
We SALAM and pay our tribute to great Pakistani Journalist/Anchor Syed Talat Hussain for being a part of Freedom Flotila to end the Zionists siege imposed on Gaza strip.It is worth mentioning here that We the people of Pakistani Gaza(PARACHINAR) are also facing inhuman siege imposed jointly by militants so called Taliban(worse than Zionists) and establishment since April 2007 as the Gaza in palestine. And It was the same courageous Journalist/Anchor Syed Talt Hussain who only visited the Be-sieged Pakistani Gaza(PARACHINAR)and highlighited the misries and problems of the area in his Programme Live with Talt.Great syed talat Hussain for highlighting oppressed areas.
We demand the Pakistani Civil society ,media & Human Rights that they should try to broke the three years continous inhuman siege and blockadge of Pakistani Gaza(Parachinar) by sending FREEDOM CONVEY to end the Humantarian Crisis.
For this the boldness and courage like Syed talat Hussain is required if someone have.
We also want to FOCUS Via Media the step mother treatment of PIA that it have daily two flights to Gligit from Islamabad & Similarly from Peshawar to Chitral with nominal charges of Rs3500/-per head.
In PARACHINAR a full pledge Airport bigger than Chitral is present BUT PIA do not resume/start Flights to Parachinar EVEN the Parachinar is facing 3 years long imposed siege & blockagde jointly by estiblishment & milltants Taliban..................
Here it is the matter of great concern that Private aeroplanes of Peshawar Flying Club and one write-off plane of governor(Capicity of three & five seats respectively) are going to Peshawar charging Rs 9300/- per passenger as one side fare. Sources says that the PA admin(bureaucracy) & governor are reciving commission in flying club planes fare that is why they are creating hardles in starts or resun=ming of PIA Flights for Parachinar.As the demand supply is not fulfilled from these planes Therefore regular two PIA Flights are immediately required.
With addition to this on may31.2010 Chief or army staff visted Parachinar with three protocols helicopters But he did not announced Heli Service or C130 service for Be-siege Parachinar people…
RAISE & SHARE THIS ISSUE SO THAAT GOVT & PIA can start Daily Flights to parachinar.
BY:-PATRIOTIC TURI & BANGASH TRIBALS PEOPLE OF PARACHINAR VIA VOICE OF PARACHINAR.(E-MAIL FOR CONTACT/FEEDBACK:- voiceofparachinar.pakistan@gmail.com
ANNEXURE II
3-Sep.-2008
KURRAM AGENCY CONTINUES TO BLEED---International Terrorism Monitor---Paper No. 435 (http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers29%5Cpaper2829.html )
By B. Raman
(An update of my earlier articles on the subject written since November 20, 2007)
"Al Qaeda is trying to replicate Iraq in Pakistan by exacerbating the already existing divide between the Shias and the Sunnis in the civil society as well as in the Army." --- Extract from my earlier paper of November 15, 2007, titled "The State of Jihadi Terrorism in Pakistan" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers25/paper2459.html
Till 1977, the Shias were in a preponderant majority in the Kurram Agency in Pakistan's Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on its border with Afghanistan and in the Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan) of Jammu and Kashmir, which is presently under Pakistani occupation.
2. After the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in February, 1979, there was a radicalisation of the Shias of these areas. They started demanding the creation of a separate Shia majority province to be called the Karakoram Province, consisting of the Kurram Agency, the Northern Areas and other contiguous Shia majority areas. The leadership of this movement came mainly from the Turi tribe of the Kurram Agency. The movement was allegedly funded by the Iranian intelligence.
3. Gen. Zia-ul-Haq put down this movement ruthlessly. He also started a policy of re-settling the Sunnis in these areas in order to control the Shias and dilute their preponderant majority. While Sunni ex-servicemen from other parts of Pakistan were re-settled in the Northern Areas, Afghan Sunni refugees from the refugee camps were re-settled in the Kurram Agency. This led to widespread resentment among the Shias against the Government as well as the Sunni settlers. The Iraqi intelligence of Saddam Hussein too allegedly funded these Sunni settlers in the Kurram Agency to enable them to fight the radical Shias.
4. There were serious riots in Gilgit in 1988 which were ruthlessly put down by Zia with the help of a combined force of Sunni tribals and Arabs led by Osama bin Laden. Hundreds of Shias were killed. It is generally believed that the anger caused by this massacre contributed to the death of Zia-ul-Haq in a plane crash in August 1988. Enquiries into the crash reportedly brought out that the crash took place when a Shia airman belonging to Gilgit released tear-smoke or some other gas in the cockpit, thereby disorienting the crew.
5. The Kurram Agency has also been the scene of frequent Shia-Sunni clashes, with most of the attacks by the Shias directed against the Afghan and Pakistani Sunni settlers brought in by Zia. There were three major Shia-Sunni clashes in the Agency in 1983, 1988 and 1996, which resulted in the deaths of a total of 1,200 persons belonging to both the sects.
6. There was a recrudescence of the violence in April, 2007, after a gap of 11 years. For nearly three weeks from April 6, 2007, the Kurram Agency became the scene of a no-holds barred jihad waged by the local Shias and Sunnis against each other following an incident of firing allegedly by the Shias on a procession taken out by the Sunnis to mark the Holy Prophet's birthday. The local adherents of the two sects of Islam used not only small arms and ammunition, but also mortars and rocket-launchers against each other, resulting in heavy casualties. The clashes initially started in Parachinar, the capital of the Agency. It then spread to the interior areas. The imposition of a curfew by the Pakistani authorities and severe action against the local leaders and volunteers of the two sects ultimately restored an uneasy normalcy. The Pakistan Army extensively used helicopter gunships to put down the violence.
7. There were conflicting figures of the fatalities inflicted by the two sects against each other and by the security forces on the warring sects. While the Pakistani authorities estimated the total number of fatalities as around 50, non-Governmental sources estimated that at least 80 persons died in the violence.
8. During the clashes of April, 2007, the local leaders of the two sects accused the Pakistani Army of siding with the other sect. Some Sunni leaders also accused Iran of fomenting the Shia attacks against the Sunnis.
9. Addressing the media at the Peshawar Press Club on April 9, 2007, Mast Gul, a Sunni jihadi leader, alleged that since April 6, 2007, Shias had killed hundreds of innocent Sunnis. According to him, just on one day about 28 Sunni women and children were slaughtered in the Kurram Agency. He accused Iran of providing financial resources and weapons to the Shias in the Agency. He warned the Pakistan Army that if it did not take effective action against the Shias, he would appeal to the Sunnis in the other parts of Pakistan and in Jammu and Kashmir to come to Kurram and help the local Sunnis.
10. Mast Gul used to belong to the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), which is a founding member of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF) formed in 1998. He used to operate in J&K till 1995. He and his followers were responsible for the burning down of the Islamic holy shrine at Charar-e-Sharief in J&K in 1995.
11. After violence instigated by Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda Sunni tribal elements escalated in South and North Waziristan in October, 2007, there were reports of fresh tension in the Kurram Agency in the wake of reports that the jihadi terrorists loyal to Osama bin Laden were targeting the Shia members of the Frontier Constabulary and the Frontier Corps deployed in these two Agencies. It was alleged that while the terrorists brutally killed the captured Shia soldiers, they let free the Sunnis. Some of the Shias beheaded by the terrorists belonged to the predominantly Shia tribe of Turis in the Kurram Agency. Some Shia leaders of the civil society in these two agencies were also targeted by pro-Al Qaeda elements and killed.
12. These incidents led to a fresh outbreak of violence between the Shias and the Sunnis in the Kurram Agency since the night of November 15, 2007. Despite the imposition of a curfew by the Pakistani authorities and the use of helicopter gunships to quell the riots, violence continued for days. It was reported that the fighting in November was more fierce than in April, 2007, and that about 100 persons, including 11 members of the para-military forces, died in the violence. Police sources suspected that the fresh violence had been engineered by Al Qaeda in order to divert the attention of the Pakistan army from its on-going operations against the jihadis in the Swat Valley.
13. In December, 2007, there was a fresh flare-up of clashes between the Shia Turi tribals and Sunni tribals belonging to Al Qaeda and the newly-formed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Many of the Sunni tribals involved in the fresh clashes had reportedly infiltrated into the agency from South Waziristan and the Swat Valley.
14. During the clashes of December, 2007, the Shias and the Sunnis used mortars, rocket launchers etc against each other's places of worship and schools, causing large casualties and severe damages to places of worship. Each side accused the other of starting the fresh violence. There were over 150 fatalities in the intermittent clashes, which continued for over a month. The Taliban and Al Qaeda also targeted the Shia members of the local para-military forces.
15. The Pakistan Army, which was preoccupied with the operations against the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) in the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) during December,2007, was not in a position to send reinforcements to the Kurram Agency. It left the anti-Al Qaeda and anti-Taliban operations there in the hands of the para-military forces. Their requests for helicopter gunships were not accepted. The Shias hit back at Al Qaeda and Taliban elements with considerable effectiveness. The Sunni leaders once again accused Iran of sending arms and ammunition to the local Shias. This was denied by the local Shia leaders.
16. While official spokesmen and the Pakistani mainstream media refrained from identifying the dramatis personae and giving details of the fighting, the "Frontier Post" of Peshawar (December 27, 2007) reported, inter alia, as follows: "It is worth mentioning that the recent clashes started when a group of local Taliban militants attacked and opened fire on security forces (FC) at Sada. Plus they also attacked the nearby Balishkhel village where Turi tribe is living. As the Sada is the strongest base of Taliban militants therefore the government writ is nil; that is why due to lack of monitoring and writ of government, clashes spread throughout the Kurram Agency and now its control is quiet difficult due to invasion of Taliban militants."
17. The "Post", another Pakistani daily, reported as follows on December 31, 2007: "A delegation of notables from Kurram Agency has appealed to President Pervez Musharraf and Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani to stop the ongoing violence that has resulted in the loss of more than 100 lives and billions of rupees' worth of property. Haji Latif Hussain, President, Kurram Welfare Society, said the residents had been fighting the Taliban infiltrating from Afghanistan, North and South Waziristan and Al Qaeda operatives in the area who were thousands in number. He added over 70 people had been killed in furious clashes during the last 45 days. "The armed forces of Pakistan are playing the role of silent spectators instead of countering the attackers and protecting the residents under attack," he said.Latif Hussain said Al Qaeda fighters had occupied various areas of Kurram Agency and blocked the main road from Peshawar to Parachinar, resulting in a shortage of basic commodities. "There is an acute shortage of medicines, food, electricity and water," he added. The Kurram Welfare Society President said that as a result of the war, hundreds of women, children and the elderly had taken refuge in Peshawar while over a hundred students who were unable to move to their native areas because of the war had been forced to stay in Islamabad. Mehdi Ghulam from Kurram Agency said Alizai, Balyamin, Tangi Amro Khail, Arravali, Santikot, Singk, Burqi and Pevar were under Taliban and Al Qaeda attacks while dozens of injured were waiting for their death in the Parachinar hospital owing to a shortage of medicines. He said that although the current confrontation was not sectarian, shrines and mosques of both Sunni and Shiite sects were being damaged by Taliban and Al Qaeda forces. Mehdi said that in Pevar firing from the other side of the border was causing multiple deaths daily. Muhammad Hussain Turi, secretary, Ittehad-e-Ummat Committee, said: "We are not only fighting for our lives and the area but also for the sovereignty of our country. We are fighting the international war against terrorism on our borders by shedding our blood but, instead of helping us, everyone is creating trouble for us by trying to stop us from defending our area." Turi appealed to the President and the Chief of the Army Staff to issue a directive to the army to intervene to save the lives of thousands of people. Gull Ishrat, member, Kurram Welfare Society, said: "We are fighting the battle of the Pakistan Army against those who managed to escape from Swat, Bajaur, North and South Waziristan and Afghanistan and are involved in furious attacks on the Pakistan Army."
18. The clashes, which never really stopped, have picked up fresh intensity since the beginning of July, 2008, reportedly resulting in over a thousand fatalities on both sides. The Shias have been fighting with great ferocity. According to some accounts, there have been more fatalities among the Sunnis than among the Shias. Since the beginning of this year, the blood-letting has been worse in the Kurram Agency than it has been in the Bajaur, South Waziristan and the North Waziristan Agencies of the FATA. The permanent sanctuaries of Al Qaeda and the Taliban are located in Bajaur and the two Waziristans. There has been blood-letting in the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) too. The US has been repeatedly expressing its concern over the activities of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Bajaur and the two Waziristans. The situation there has repeatedly found mention in US Congressional testimonies and in the statements of US military officers. The spokesmen of the Afghan National Army too have been expressing their worries over the situation there. The US and the Hamid Karzai Government have been repeatedly urging the Pakistan Army to do more against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in those areas.
19. But, surprisingly---- and intriguingly--- they have been silent on the terrible blood-letting in the Kurram Agency. The situation in Kurram hardly finds mention in US testimonies and statements. There has hardly been any pressure on Pakistan to do more to bring the situation in Kurram under control. Everybody---- Pakistan, the US, Afghanistan, Iran and Al Qaeda---- have been behaving as if it suits them fine if the Shias and the Sunnis---Pakistani and Afghan--- keep killing each other in the Kurram Agency. The more the Sunnis killed by the Shias in Kurram, the less the problems for Pakistan, the US and Afghanistan in Bajaur and the two Waziristans and the less the problems for Iran in its Sunni-majority Baloch areas. Iran suspects that the so-called Jundullahs (Soldiers of Allah) attacking, kidnapping and killing Iranian National Guards in its Baloch areas are operating from sanctuaries in Kurram. The more the Shias killed by the Sunnis, the better it is for Al Qaeda, which suspects that many of the newly-recruited human sources of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the Pashtun tribal belt come from the anti-Sunni Shia community. So money and arms and ammunition keep flowing to the two warring communities.
20. The Shia community in the rest of Pakistan is getting increasingly restive over what it sees as the strange silence of the Pakistan Army over the continuing violence in Kurram.While Sunni Pashtuns from other parts of the FATA and the NWFP have been going to the assistance of the Sunnis of Kurram, Shias from other parts of Pakistan have not been doing so till now, but they are now threatening to go in large numbers to Kurram to join the Shia jihad against the Sunnis.
21. On September 1, 2008, a big Shia demonstration was held in Karachi at which Shia leaders warned the Government that if the eight-month long siege and economic blockade in Kurram Agency by the Taliban is not ended, they would issue a call for a long march to the Kurram Agency to free the besieged Shias by force. The demonstrators shouted slogans against the Government over its failure to stop the aggression of the Taliban against the Shia community in the Kurram Agency and Dera Ismail Khan in the NWFP.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
ISRAELI ACTION AGAINST SO-CALLED FREEDOM FLOTILLA
B.RAMAN
According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, the so-called Freedom Flotilla carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza, which was intercepted by the Israeli Navy in international waters on May 31,2010,consisted of three cargo ships and three passenger ships.
2.Most of the casualties were reported on Mavi Marmara, a passenger ferry, one of three ships provided by Insani Yardim Vakfi (IHH), a Turkish humanitarian organisation,which is also known as the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedom and Humanitarian Relief –IHH. It is banned in Israel, which accuses it of links to Hamas and Al Qaeda. The other ships were organised by the Free Gaza Movement, an international coalition of activist groups
3.The ships were reportedly carrying supplies including cement, wheelchairs, paper and water purification systems. The flotilla's nearly 700 passengers were mainly Turkish, but also included nationals of the US, the UK, Australia, Greece, Canada, Belgium, Ireland, the Swedish author Henning Mankell, two Australian journalists and three German MPs.
4.According to reports from Pakistan, there were also some Pakistanis on board the IHH ferry. The Pakistani authorities were trying to enquire what happened to them. While the Israeli authorities were prepared to allow the humanitarian supplies to reach the people of Gaza after inspecting them at a port designated by them, the organisers of the flotilla were opposed to any inspection of the cargo by the Israeli authorities.
5.Israeli fears over the passengers on board the ships and over their contents were understandable because of strong suspicions nursed by the intelligence and security authorities of many countries over the background of the IHH, which came into existence in 1992 ostensibly to provide humanitarian assistance to the Muslims of Bosnia. Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, with the connivance of the Bill Clinton Administration then in power in the US, helped the Bosnian Muslims in their fight against the Serbs.
6.Many Bosnian Muslims were brought to Pakistan for being trained in the camps of the Markaz Dawa Al Irshad (MDI) as the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), the political wing of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET,) was then known and then taken back to Bosnia. There was considerable flow of money and arms and ammunition to the Bosnian separatists. Many Pakistanis from Pakistan itself as well as from the Pakistani diaspora in the UK were trained by the JUD and taken to Bosnia for participating in the jihad against the Serbs. Some Indian-origin Muslims from Saudi Arabia were also taken to Bosnia.
7.All these activities for the provision of volunteers, money and arms and ammunition to the Bosnian separatists were allegedly co-ordinated by the IHH, under the cover of a humanitarian organisation, with the collaboration of the MDI. Amongst the Pakistanis who played an active role in organising assistance for the Bosnians through the IHH and the MDI were Lt.Gen.(retd) Hamid Gul and Lt.Gen (retd).Assad Durrani, former heads of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the then Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI, and Prof.Hafeez Ahmed Sayeed, who was then the Amir of the MDI. Lt.Gen. Assad Durrani, who was posted as the Pakistani Ambassador to Germany by Mrs.Benazir Bhutto, the then Pakistani Prime Minister, co-ordinated the assistance from the Ummah to the Bosnians.
8.All these Pakistanis frequently used to visit Bosnia. Mrs.Benazir herself made a joint visit to Bosnia along with Mrs.Tansu Ciller, the then Turkish Prime Minister, in February 1994. Among Pakistani volunteers from the diaspora in the UK who allegedly worked for the IHH in Bosnia was Omar Sheikh, who is now in jail in Pakistan after having been sentenced to death for his role in the kidnapping and execution of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, in Karachi in January-February,2002. He has appealed against the death sentence.
9.All indications from reliable Pakistani and other sources were that the IHH’s role in Bosnia was not solely humanitarian. The humanitarian cover was allegedly used for keeping alive the Bosnian jihad and enabling it to succeed against the Serbs. The IHH allegedly played a similar role in Chechnya by helping the local Muslims in their jihad against the Soviet and then Russian troops. It then turned its attention to helping the Kashmiris by funding refugee camps for Kashmiris set up by the MDI and other Pakistani jihadi organisations in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK). These refugee camps also became training centres for training Kashmiri and Pakistani jihadis for fighting against the Indian security forces.
10.The IHH also played an active role, in collaboration with the JUD, in organising humanitarian relief after the devastating earthquake in the POK in 2005. The flow of money and other assistance from the Muslims in other countries for the quake victims was co-ordinated by the IHH.
11.The IHH has also been contributing funds to the International Islamic University in Pakistan, which has been providing ideological motivation to the jihadis fighting in Afghanistan. Amongst other Pakistani organisations with which the IHH has allegedly been collaborating are the Al Rashid Trust, which was designated by the US and the Terrorism Monitoring Committee of the UN Security Council after 9/11 as an organisation allegedly funding terrorism, and the Khubaib Foundation, which reportedly runs a network of orphanages. The Foundation frequently organises visits by IHH delegations to the POK and Gilgit-Baltistan.
12.The Israeli authorities have valid reasons to be concerned over the links of the IHH with the Hamas. One cannot find fault with their decision to stop the Flotilla in order to prevent its cargo from reaching Gaza uninspected. Any intelligence agency worth its salt would be concerned over the dangers of arms and ammunition and weapons of mass destruction material like material for dirty bombs being smuggled into Gaza along with the humanitarian cargo. It would have been the height of irresponsibility to have allowed the cargo to proceed to Gaza without being inspected.
13.It is tragic that there were casualties among the passengers of the ferry hired by the IHH, which was boarded by Israeli commandoes following resistance put up by the passengers of the ferry, but this could not have been helped. Israel exercised its right of self-defence to protect the lives of its citizens from any dangerous cargo carried by the ships. India should refrain from criticising Israel for its action. ( 2-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, the so-called Freedom Flotilla carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza, which was intercepted by the Israeli Navy in international waters on May 31,2010,consisted of three cargo ships and three passenger ships.
2.Most of the casualties were reported on Mavi Marmara, a passenger ferry, one of three ships provided by Insani Yardim Vakfi (IHH), a Turkish humanitarian organisation,which is also known as the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedom and Humanitarian Relief –IHH. It is banned in Israel, which accuses it of links to Hamas and Al Qaeda. The other ships were organised by the Free Gaza Movement, an international coalition of activist groups
3.The ships were reportedly carrying supplies including cement, wheelchairs, paper and water purification systems. The flotilla's nearly 700 passengers were mainly Turkish, but also included nationals of the US, the UK, Australia, Greece, Canada, Belgium, Ireland, the Swedish author Henning Mankell, two Australian journalists and three German MPs.
4.According to reports from Pakistan, there were also some Pakistanis on board the IHH ferry. The Pakistani authorities were trying to enquire what happened to them. While the Israeli authorities were prepared to allow the humanitarian supplies to reach the people of Gaza after inspecting them at a port designated by them, the organisers of the flotilla were opposed to any inspection of the cargo by the Israeli authorities.
5.Israeli fears over the passengers on board the ships and over their contents were understandable because of strong suspicions nursed by the intelligence and security authorities of many countries over the background of the IHH, which came into existence in 1992 ostensibly to provide humanitarian assistance to the Muslims of Bosnia. Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, with the connivance of the Bill Clinton Administration then in power in the US, helped the Bosnian Muslims in their fight against the Serbs.
6.Many Bosnian Muslims were brought to Pakistan for being trained in the camps of the Markaz Dawa Al Irshad (MDI) as the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), the political wing of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET,) was then known and then taken back to Bosnia. There was considerable flow of money and arms and ammunition to the Bosnian separatists. Many Pakistanis from Pakistan itself as well as from the Pakistani diaspora in the UK were trained by the JUD and taken to Bosnia for participating in the jihad against the Serbs. Some Indian-origin Muslims from Saudi Arabia were also taken to Bosnia.
7.All these activities for the provision of volunteers, money and arms and ammunition to the Bosnian separatists were allegedly co-ordinated by the IHH, under the cover of a humanitarian organisation, with the collaboration of the MDI. Amongst the Pakistanis who played an active role in organising assistance for the Bosnians through the IHH and the MDI were Lt.Gen.(retd) Hamid Gul and Lt.Gen (retd).Assad Durrani, former heads of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the then Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI, and Prof.Hafeez Ahmed Sayeed, who was then the Amir of the MDI. Lt.Gen. Assad Durrani, who was posted as the Pakistani Ambassador to Germany by Mrs.Benazir Bhutto, the then Pakistani Prime Minister, co-ordinated the assistance from the Ummah to the Bosnians.
8.All these Pakistanis frequently used to visit Bosnia. Mrs.Benazir herself made a joint visit to Bosnia along with Mrs.Tansu Ciller, the then Turkish Prime Minister, in February 1994. Among Pakistani volunteers from the diaspora in the UK who allegedly worked for the IHH in Bosnia was Omar Sheikh, who is now in jail in Pakistan after having been sentenced to death for his role in the kidnapping and execution of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, in Karachi in January-February,2002. He has appealed against the death sentence.
9.All indications from reliable Pakistani and other sources were that the IHH’s role in Bosnia was not solely humanitarian. The humanitarian cover was allegedly used for keeping alive the Bosnian jihad and enabling it to succeed against the Serbs. The IHH allegedly played a similar role in Chechnya by helping the local Muslims in their jihad against the Soviet and then Russian troops. It then turned its attention to helping the Kashmiris by funding refugee camps for Kashmiris set up by the MDI and other Pakistani jihadi organisations in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK). These refugee camps also became training centres for training Kashmiri and Pakistani jihadis for fighting against the Indian security forces.
10.The IHH also played an active role, in collaboration with the JUD, in organising humanitarian relief after the devastating earthquake in the POK in 2005. The flow of money and other assistance from the Muslims in other countries for the quake victims was co-ordinated by the IHH.
11.The IHH has also been contributing funds to the International Islamic University in Pakistan, which has been providing ideological motivation to the jihadis fighting in Afghanistan. Amongst other Pakistani organisations with which the IHH has allegedly been collaborating are the Al Rashid Trust, which was designated by the US and the Terrorism Monitoring Committee of the UN Security Council after 9/11 as an organisation allegedly funding terrorism, and the Khubaib Foundation, which reportedly runs a network of orphanages. The Foundation frequently organises visits by IHH delegations to the POK and Gilgit-Baltistan.
12.The Israeli authorities have valid reasons to be concerned over the links of the IHH with the Hamas. One cannot find fault with their decision to stop the Flotilla in order to prevent its cargo from reaching Gaza uninspected. Any intelligence agency worth its salt would be concerned over the dangers of arms and ammunition and weapons of mass destruction material like material for dirty bombs being smuggled into Gaza along with the humanitarian cargo. It would have been the height of irresponsibility to have allowed the cargo to proceed to Gaza without being inspected.
13.It is tragic that there were casualties among the passengers of the ferry hired by the IHH, which was boarded by Israeli commandoes following resistance put up by the passengers of the ferry, but this could not have been helped. Israel exercised its right of self-defence to protect the lives of its citizens from any dangerous cargo carried by the ships. India should refrain from criticising Israel for its action. ( 2-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
BLEEDING LAHORE
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO 656
B.RAMAN
In a daring attempt to free a captured terrorist Moaz alias Amir Muavia, who was undergoing treatment for injuries in the Jinnah Hospital of Lahore, a group of at least four terrorists wearing police uniforms raided the hospital on the night of May 31,2010, and killed three policemen guarding the terrorist and a woman. The police claim that they could not succeed in freeing the injured terrorist and withdrew from the hospital after an exchange of fire lasting about 90 minutes with police reinforcements, which were rushed to the hospital. The terrorists managed to flee from the hospital in an armoured personnel carrier belonging to the police. After driving the APC for some distance, the terrorists abandoned it and escaped on foot.
2. Moaz alias Amir Muavia, whom they wanted to free, belonged to two groups of terrorists which had raided two mosques of Ahmadis on May 28 during which they killed over 80 Ahmadis praying in the mosques. Moaz, believed to be a Pashtun, was injured and was captured by the police. Another terrorist, reported to be a Punjabi, was also captured, but he was not admitted in hospital as he did not sustain any injuries. On coming to know of the admission of Moaz in the Jinnah Hospital, the terrorists raided it, but could not succeed in freeing him, if the police version is to be believed.
3. Even if the raid did not achieve the objective of the terrorists, the fact that they were able to get information about where the injured terrorist had been admitted for treatment, organize a raid within three days of his admission, engage the police in an exchange of fire and escape in an APC captured from the police speaks disturbingly of the high level of motivation and training of the terrorists and the poor motivation and training of the police.
4.Talking to pressmen before the incident in the hospital, Mr.Rehman Malik, the Interior Minister, had blamed the so-called Punjabi Taliban for the massacre of the Ahmadis and talked of a possible military action in Southern Punjab, which is their stronghold, in order to neutralize the growing threat from them.
5. When he talked of the Punjabi Taliban, he meant the Sipah-e-Sahaba (SES), the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM). He did not speak of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) and the 313 Brigade of Ilyas Kashmiri as part of the Punjabi Taliban.
6. The SES and the LEJ are Sunni extremist organizations which have been attacking the Shias for over 20 years and have now been operating jointly with Al Qaeda and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). They have shifted their bases from Southern Punjab to North Waziristan in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The JEM was born in 2000 as the result of a split in the HUM. It used to be close to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), but fell out with the Pakistan Army because of the support extended by Gen.Pervez Musharraf to the US. It was suspected of involvement in the two unsuccessful assassination attempts on Musharraf in Rawalpindi in December,2003. After the raid into the Lal Masjid in Islamabad by commandoes of the Special Services Group (SSG) of the Pakistan Army in July 2007, it has started operating jointly with the TTP. It has also shifted its bases from southern Punjab to North Waziristan.
7. Though these three organizations now operate from North Waziristan, they continue to get a regular flow of Punjabi volunteers and funds from the mosques and madrasas controlled by them in Southern Punjab. They also get sanctuaries in these mosques and madrasas whenever they organize attacks in Lahore and other places in the Punjab.
8. The Government of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) of Mr.Nawaz Sharif, which has been in power in Punjab under the Chief Ministership of Mr.Shabaz Sharif, a brother of Mr.Nawaz, has allegedly not been co-operating with the federal Government in Islamabad headed by the Pakistan People’s Party of President Asif Ali Zardari in taking action against the elements of the Punjabi Taliban which have been collaborating with Al Qaeda and the TTP.
9. One is seeing a situation similar to what one had seen between 1988 and 1990 when Mrs.Benazir Bhutto was the Prime Minister of Pakistan and Mr.Nawaz Sharif was the Chief Minister of Punjab. The anti-Shia terrorists against whom Mrs.Benazir sought to take action were given shelter by the Punjab Special Branch allegedly on the orders of Mr.Nawaz Sharif. It was during that period that the LEJ evolved into a dreaded anti-Shia organization without any action being taken against it by the Punjab Police. Though there is no evidence of any nexus between the JEM and the PML (N), there has been a long history of nexus between elements in the PML (N) and the LEJ. It is suspected that this nexus continues even now and that is how the LEJ is repeatedly able to operate in Punjab with impunity.
10. The FATA comes under the direct control of the federal Government, which is able to undertake military operations there without having to rely on the consent from any local administration. The federal Government has to depend on the consent and co-operation of the PML(N) Government in Lahore for undertaking any major operation in Southern Punjab. It is alleged that this co-operation has not been forthcoming in adequate measure.
11. Mr.Zardari’s efforts to strengthen the role of the police and the Intelligence Bureau in internal security matters have made some headway in Sindh, but not in Punjab where the local police, controlled by the PML (N), has frustrated the efforts of the IB to develop a good network of agents capable of collecting intelligence about the Punjabi Taliban.
12. The result: Punjab in general and Lahore in particular continue to bleed ( 1-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
In a daring attempt to free a captured terrorist Moaz alias Amir Muavia, who was undergoing treatment for injuries in the Jinnah Hospital of Lahore, a group of at least four terrorists wearing police uniforms raided the hospital on the night of May 31,2010, and killed three policemen guarding the terrorist and a woman. The police claim that they could not succeed in freeing the injured terrorist and withdrew from the hospital after an exchange of fire lasting about 90 minutes with police reinforcements, which were rushed to the hospital. The terrorists managed to flee from the hospital in an armoured personnel carrier belonging to the police. After driving the APC for some distance, the terrorists abandoned it and escaped on foot.
2. Moaz alias Amir Muavia, whom they wanted to free, belonged to two groups of terrorists which had raided two mosques of Ahmadis on May 28 during which they killed over 80 Ahmadis praying in the mosques. Moaz, believed to be a Pashtun, was injured and was captured by the police. Another terrorist, reported to be a Punjabi, was also captured, but he was not admitted in hospital as he did not sustain any injuries. On coming to know of the admission of Moaz in the Jinnah Hospital, the terrorists raided it, but could not succeed in freeing him, if the police version is to be believed.
3. Even if the raid did not achieve the objective of the terrorists, the fact that they were able to get information about where the injured terrorist had been admitted for treatment, organize a raid within three days of his admission, engage the police in an exchange of fire and escape in an APC captured from the police speaks disturbingly of the high level of motivation and training of the terrorists and the poor motivation and training of the police.
4.Talking to pressmen before the incident in the hospital, Mr.Rehman Malik, the Interior Minister, had blamed the so-called Punjabi Taliban for the massacre of the Ahmadis and talked of a possible military action in Southern Punjab, which is their stronghold, in order to neutralize the growing threat from them.
5. When he talked of the Punjabi Taliban, he meant the Sipah-e-Sahaba (SES), the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM). He did not speak of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) and the 313 Brigade of Ilyas Kashmiri as part of the Punjabi Taliban.
6. The SES and the LEJ are Sunni extremist organizations which have been attacking the Shias for over 20 years and have now been operating jointly with Al Qaeda and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). They have shifted their bases from Southern Punjab to North Waziristan in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The JEM was born in 2000 as the result of a split in the HUM. It used to be close to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), but fell out with the Pakistan Army because of the support extended by Gen.Pervez Musharraf to the US. It was suspected of involvement in the two unsuccessful assassination attempts on Musharraf in Rawalpindi in December,2003. After the raid into the Lal Masjid in Islamabad by commandoes of the Special Services Group (SSG) of the Pakistan Army in July 2007, it has started operating jointly with the TTP. It has also shifted its bases from southern Punjab to North Waziristan.
7. Though these three organizations now operate from North Waziristan, they continue to get a regular flow of Punjabi volunteers and funds from the mosques and madrasas controlled by them in Southern Punjab. They also get sanctuaries in these mosques and madrasas whenever they organize attacks in Lahore and other places in the Punjab.
8. The Government of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) of Mr.Nawaz Sharif, which has been in power in Punjab under the Chief Ministership of Mr.Shabaz Sharif, a brother of Mr.Nawaz, has allegedly not been co-operating with the federal Government in Islamabad headed by the Pakistan People’s Party of President Asif Ali Zardari in taking action against the elements of the Punjabi Taliban which have been collaborating with Al Qaeda and the TTP.
9. One is seeing a situation similar to what one had seen between 1988 and 1990 when Mrs.Benazir Bhutto was the Prime Minister of Pakistan and Mr.Nawaz Sharif was the Chief Minister of Punjab. The anti-Shia terrorists against whom Mrs.Benazir sought to take action were given shelter by the Punjab Special Branch allegedly on the orders of Mr.Nawaz Sharif. It was during that period that the LEJ evolved into a dreaded anti-Shia organization without any action being taken against it by the Punjab Police. Though there is no evidence of any nexus between the JEM and the PML (N), there has been a long history of nexus between elements in the PML (N) and the LEJ. It is suspected that this nexus continues even now and that is how the LEJ is repeatedly able to operate in Punjab with impunity.
10. The FATA comes under the direct control of the federal Government, which is able to undertake military operations there without having to rely on the consent from any local administration. The federal Government has to depend on the consent and co-operation of the PML(N) Government in Lahore for undertaking any major operation in Southern Punjab. It is alleged that this co-operation has not been forthcoming in adequate measure.
11. Mr.Zardari’s efforts to strengthen the role of the police and the Intelligence Bureau in internal security matters have made some headway in Sindh, but not in Punjab where the local police, controlled by the PML (N), has frustrated the efforts of the IB to develop a good network of agents capable of collecting intelligence about the Punjabi Taliban.
12. The result: Punjab in general and Lahore in particular continue to bleed ( 1-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Monday, May 31, 2010
WANTED: A NEW PAKISTAN
B.RAMAN
The dilemma posed by Pakistan to US policy-makers and opinion-moulders is reflected in an editorial titled “Dealing With Pakistan” published by the “New York Times” of May 28,2010. Its text is annexed.
2. Terrorists are the main foreign exchange earners of Pakistan. The more the terrorists operating from its soil, the more the aid from the West to deal with them. The more the aid from the West, the more the terrorists on its soil.
3. The Pakistani leaders----military and political--- feel that as the main source of threat to the security of the US and other countries of the West, the terrorists on its soil have brought for it a strategic importance and attention which it would not have otherwise secured.
4. When Pakistan was born in 1947, it had a two-commodity economy--- cotton and cotton-based textiles and leather goods. It continues to have a two-commodity economy. It has not been able to diversify it. In the past, what it earned from the export of these two commodities was sufficient to keep it going and to meet its imports bill. Today, it is not.
5. Today, it needs a substantial extra source of income to be able to meet its imports bill and service its external debt. In the absence of any significant economic development, it is dependent on assistance from the West---mainly from the US--- to keep the economy and the State going and to avoid bankruptcy.
6. During the cold war, its willingness to let its territory be used by the US for its campaign against the erstwhile USSR brought it the required aid flow from the US. The end of the cold war saw its importance in the eyes of the US decline. This was accompanied by a decrease in cash flow.
7. Pakistan’s value as the surrogate of the West in its campaign against the USSR was replaced by the spectre of its becoming the main source of threat to the security of the US and other Western countries from the terrorists operating from its soil. The cash flow was resumed and it kept increasing----this time not for assisting the US in fighting against the USSR, but for its supposedly collaborating with the US in its efforts to contain and neutralize terrorism originating from its soil.
8.A two-pronged policy of collaboration became its new strategic weapon---- seeming collaboration with the US against the terrorists in return for the cash flow and collaboration with the terrorists against the US for keeping the US fears of a terrorist attack on the US homeland alive and for preventing any threat to its own security from the terrorists.
9. If terrorism emanating from the Pakistani soil dries up, its importance in the eyes of the US will again decline just as it happened when the threat from the USSR ended. It is in its interest to keep terrorism alive so that the fears of the US remained alive and money continued to flow from the US for keeping the terrorists under control.
10.The US finds itself in a thankless situation. The more the aid it gives to Pakistan to deal with the terrorists, the more the incentive for Pakistan to keep the terrorists alive and active to keep alive the fears of the US. If it reduces its aid to Pakistan, there is a danger of Pakistan not doing even what it is doing now to deal with the terrorists.
11.The only way the US can get out of this vicious circle is by taking in its own hands the responsibility for destroying the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory instead of depending on Pakistan for this.
12. This policy has many risks:
• An increase in anti-Americanism in Pakistan and a consequent rise in the flow of volunteers to the terrorist organizations.
• An increase in the influence of Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan.
• A spell of political instability in Pakistan with a further weakening of the mainstream political elements.
• The emergence of another Afghanistan, which cannot be easily brought under control.
13. One way of avoiding a risky direct role by the US will be by assisting elements in Pakistan such as the Balochs, the Sindhis and the Mohajirs, which have been unhappy over the state of affairs in the country and over the increase in the activities of the fundamentalists and other Talibanised jihadis, to achieve their political objectives ---- whether those objectives are independence or autonomy.
14. Terrorism is unlikely to end in Pakistan as it is constituted today. A Pakistan reduced to its fundamentalist Punjabi core surrounded by non-fundamentalist liberal Islamic states of different ethnic origin may not be able to exploit the terrorist weapon in the same way as the present-day Pakistan has been doing.
15. Pakistan of the 1971 vintage is becoming an increasing threat to the homeland security of many nations of the world----in the West as well as the East, in the Ummah as well as in the non-Islamic world. One has to work for a reduced Pakistan to make this threat manageable and ultimately eliminate it. ( 31-5-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE
NY TIMES EDITORIAL
Dealing With Pakistan
Published: May 28, 2010
Nine years after the 9/11 attacks, the United States is still trying to figure out how to manage relations with Pakistan — and what mix of inducements and public and private pressures will persuade Islamabad to fully commit to the fight against extremists.
The Obama administration is working hard to cultivate top Pakistani officials. There are regular high-level visits. In March, a senior Pakistani delegation visited Washington for a strategic dialogue with the Americans that seems to be building trust and cooperation across a range of government agencies.
An April visit to Islamabad by the president’s national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, and Leon Panetta, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was a reminder of the limits of American power. They warned officials of severe consequences if an attack on American soil is traced back to Pakistan. Given Pakistan’s proximity to Afghanistan, its nuclear arsenal and the fragility of its government, it is not clear how much punishment Washington would ever mete out.
Pakistan has its own horrifying reminders that the fight against terrorism is not just America’s fight. On Friday, gunmen and suicide bombers stormed two mosques in Lahore, killing at least 80 worshipers.
Pakistan’s Army has mounted big offensives against Pakistani Taliban factions in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan. It has hesitated in North Waziristan where Faisal Shahzad, the suspect in the failed Times Square bombing, reportedly received support and training. Intelligence-sharing has improved, but there is a lot more to be done as the Shahzad case showed.
So why isn’t Pakistan doing all it needs to?
Part of that is the strategic game. Islamabad has long used extremist groups in its never-ending competition with India. Part is a lack of military capability and part political cowardice. While some of Pakistan’s top leaders may “get it,” the public definitely does not.
The United States still does not have a good enough strategy for winning over Pakistan’s people, who are fed a relentless diet of anti-American propaganda.
As The Times reported on Wednesday, the United States is often blamed for everything from water shortages to trying to destroy the Pakistani state. The Obama administration came in determined to change that narrative. When he was in the Senate, Joseph Biden, now the vice president, worked with Richard Lugar on a $7.5 billion, five-year aid package that would prove American concern for the Pakistani people (not just the military) by investing in schools, hospitals and power projects.
Congress approved the first $1.5 billion for 2010, but the State Department is still figuring out how to spend it. The projects need to move as quickly as possible. And Pakistani leaders who demand more help, but then cynically disparage the aid, need to change their narrative.
The State Department also needs to move faster to implement its public diplomacy plan for Pakistan. Officials need to think hard about how to make sure Pakistanis know that aid is coming from the United States — like the $51 million for upgrading three thermal power plants announced by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in October. It is a delicate issue, but the “made in America” label has to be affixed.
The State Department has committed to spend $107 million over two years to help Pakistanis better understand the United States. Plans include bringing 2,500 Pakistani academics and others on exchange visits and expanding after-school English classes in Pakistan. There also are proposals to bring more American academics to Pakistan and to reopen cultural centers. They should move ahead. An initiative to make more American officials available to speak directly to Pakistanis has shown promise.
Changing Pakistani attitudes about the United States will take generations. The Shahzad case is one more reminder that there is no time to lose.
The dilemma posed by Pakistan to US policy-makers and opinion-moulders is reflected in an editorial titled “Dealing With Pakistan” published by the “New York Times” of May 28,2010. Its text is annexed.
2. Terrorists are the main foreign exchange earners of Pakistan. The more the terrorists operating from its soil, the more the aid from the West to deal with them. The more the aid from the West, the more the terrorists on its soil.
3. The Pakistani leaders----military and political--- feel that as the main source of threat to the security of the US and other countries of the West, the terrorists on its soil have brought for it a strategic importance and attention which it would not have otherwise secured.
4. When Pakistan was born in 1947, it had a two-commodity economy--- cotton and cotton-based textiles and leather goods. It continues to have a two-commodity economy. It has not been able to diversify it. In the past, what it earned from the export of these two commodities was sufficient to keep it going and to meet its imports bill. Today, it is not.
5. Today, it needs a substantial extra source of income to be able to meet its imports bill and service its external debt. In the absence of any significant economic development, it is dependent on assistance from the West---mainly from the US--- to keep the economy and the State going and to avoid bankruptcy.
6. During the cold war, its willingness to let its territory be used by the US for its campaign against the erstwhile USSR brought it the required aid flow from the US. The end of the cold war saw its importance in the eyes of the US decline. This was accompanied by a decrease in cash flow.
7. Pakistan’s value as the surrogate of the West in its campaign against the USSR was replaced by the spectre of its becoming the main source of threat to the security of the US and other Western countries from the terrorists operating from its soil. The cash flow was resumed and it kept increasing----this time not for assisting the US in fighting against the USSR, but for its supposedly collaborating with the US in its efforts to contain and neutralize terrorism originating from its soil.
8.A two-pronged policy of collaboration became its new strategic weapon---- seeming collaboration with the US against the terrorists in return for the cash flow and collaboration with the terrorists against the US for keeping the US fears of a terrorist attack on the US homeland alive and for preventing any threat to its own security from the terrorists.
9. If terrorism emanating from the Pakistani soil dries up, its importance in the eyes of the US will again decline just as it happened when the threat from the USSR ended. It is in its interest to keep terrorism alive so that the fears of the US remained alive and money continued to flow from the US for keeping the terrorists under control.
10.The US finds itself in a thankless situation. The more the aid it gives to Pakistan to deal with the terrorists, the more the incentive for Pakistan to keep the terrorists alive and active to keep alive the fears of the US. If it reduces its aid to Pakistan, there is a danger of Pakistan not doing even what it is doing now to deal with the terrorists.
11.The only way the US can get out of this vicious circle is by taking in its own hands the responsibility for destroying the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistani territory instead of depending on Pakistan for this.
12. This policy has many risks:
• An increase in anti-Americanism in Pakistan and a consequent rise in the flow of volunteers to the terrorist organizations.
• An increase in the influence of Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan.
• A spell of political instability in Pakistan with a further weakening of the mainstream political elements.
• The emergence of another Afghanistan, which cannot be easily brought under control.
13. One way of avoiding a risky direct role by the US will be by assisting elements in Pakistan such as the Balochs, the Sindhis and the Mohajirs, which have been unhappy over the state of affairs in the country and over the increase in the activities of the fundamentalists and other Talibanised jihadis, to achieve their political objectives ---- whether those objectives are independence or autonomy.
14. Terrorism is unlikely to end in Pakistan as it is constituted today. A Pakistan reduced to its fundamentalist Punjabi core surrounded by non-fundamentalist liberal Islamic states of different ethnic origin may not be able to exploit the terrorist weapon in the same way as the present-day Pakistan has been doing.
15. Pakistan of the 1971 vintage is becoming an increasing threat to the homeland security of many nations of the world----in the West as well as the East, in the Ummah as well as in the non-Islamic world. One has to work for a reduced Pakistan to make this threat manageable and ultimately eliminate it. ( 31-5-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE
NY TIMES EDITORIAL
Dealing With Pakistan
Published: May 28, 2010
Nine years after the 9/11 attacks, the United States is still trying to figure out how to manage relations with Pakistan — and what mix of inducements and public and private pressures will persuade Islamabad to fully commit to the fight against extremists.
The Obama administration is working hard to cultivate top Pakistani officials. There are regular high-level visits. In March, a senior Pakistani delegation visited Washington for a strategic dialogue with the Americans that seems to be building trust and cooperation across a range of government agencies.
An April visit to Islamabad by the president’s national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, and Leon Panetta, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was a reminder of the limits of American power. They warned officials of severe consequences if an attack on American soil is traced back to Pakistan. Given Pakistan’s proximity to Afghanistan, its nuclear arsenal and the fragility of its government, it is not clear how much punishment Washington would ever mete out.
Pakistan has its own horrifying reminders that the fight against terrorism is not just America’s fight. On Friday, gunmen and suicide bombers stormed two mosques in Lahore, killing at least 80 worshipers.
Pakistan’s Army has mounted big offensives against Pakistani Taliban factions in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan. It has hesitated in North Waziristan where Faisal Shahzad, the suspect in the failed Times Square bombing, reportedly received support and training. Intelligence-sharing has improved, but there is a lot more to be done as the Shahzad case showed.
So why isn’t Pakistan doing all it needs to?
Part of that is the strategic game. Islamabad has long used extremist groups in its never-ending competition with India. Part is a lack of military capability and part political cowardice. While some of Pakistan’s top leaders may “get it,” the public definitely does not.
The United States still does not have a good enough strategy for winning over Pakistan’s people, who are fed a relentless diet of anti-American propaganda.
As The Times reported on Wednesday, the United States is often blamed for everything from water shortages to trying to destroy the Pakistani state. The Obama administration came in determined to change that narrative. When he was in the Senate, Joseph Biden, now the vice president, worked with Richard Lugar on a $7.5 billion, five-year aid package that would prove American concern for the Pakistani people (not just the military) by investing in schools, hospitals and power projects.
Congress approved the first $1.5 billion for 2010, but the State Department is still figuring out how to spend it. The projects need to move as quickly as possible. And Pakistani leaders who demand more help, but then cynically disparage the aid, need to change their narrative.
The State Department also needs to move faster to implement its public diplomacy plan for Pakistan. Officials need to think hard about how to make sure Pakistanis know that aid is coming from the United States — like the $51 million for upgrading three thermal power plants announced by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in October. It is a delicate issue, but the “made in America” label has to be affixed.
The State Department has committed to spend $107 million over two years to help Pakistanis better understand the United States. Plans include bringing 2,500 Pakistani academics and others on exchange visits and expanding after-school English classes in Pakistan. There also are proposals to bring more American academics to Pakistan and to reopen cultural centers. They should move ahead. An initiative to make more American officials available to speak directly to Pakistanis has shown promise.
Changing Pakistani attitudes about the United States will take generations. The Shahzad case is one more reminder that there is no time to lose.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
THE HEADLEY INTERROGATION CHARADE
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO.655
B.RAMAN
A day before the start of the Indo-US Strategic Dialogue at Washington DC and three days before President Barack Obama’s appearance at a reception to be hosted for the Indian delegation by Mrs.Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, one more charade in Indo-US cooperation will be enacted with the departure of a four-member team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) of the Government of India for Chicago to interrogate David Coleman Headley of the Chicago cell of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) on his secret visits to India at the instance of the LET to collect operational information that would facilitate one more terrorist strike by the LET in India----this time directed mainly at Israeli and other Jewish targets.
2. On May 1,2010, Faisal Shahzad, a US citizen of Pakistani origin, tried unsuccessfully to cause an explosion in the Times Square of New York. He was identified and arrested on May 3 as he was trying to flee to Pakistan. Within a week, the US made the Pakistani authorities detain for questioning over 15 persons in Karachi, Islamabad and other places in this connection and US officials including Gen.James Jones, the US National Security Adviser, Mr.Leon Panetta, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and officers of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) flew to Pakistan thereafter to insist on follow-up action by the Pakistani agencies and to warn the Pakistani leaders of the consequences of their non-cooperation.
3. One admired the seriousness and the sense of urgency shown by US officials for protecting American lives. If the protestations of President Barack Obama and his officials of friendship for India and their repeated assurances of the high priority attached by him to the US relations with India were sincere and honest, one would have expected from them a similar seriousness and sense of urgency in protecting Indian lives by facilitating immediate access to Headley for Indian investigators.
4. The immediate follow-up which they insisted upon from Pakistan to protect American lives, they did not concede to India to protect Indian lives. Headley was arrested by them in the beginning of October, 2009. It has taken them eight months to grant access to the Indian investigators. Even the access which they have now agreed to give after a delay of eight months is a limited one. During this delay of eight months, the LET would have been able to cover up its trail in India, withdraw from India those of its cadres whose identities were known to Headley and reorganize and relocate its sleeper cells.
5. The Indian investigators, it has been reported, will be allowed to question Headley in the presence of his lawyer and an official of the FBI. Do you call this interrogation? What is interrogation? It is not just questioning a person and typing out his replies. It is much more than that. It is a psychological process by which you make the suspect contradict himself by confronting him with evidence which you have been able to collect independently. Ultimately, he realizes the game is up and comes out with the truth.
6.With Headley’s lawyer and the FBI officer sitting there all the time, will the Indian investigators be able to do it? No. Headley will just give proforma replies to the Indian questions and these replies would have been rehearsed with his lawyer and got approved by him. Of what use, his proforma replies? Will we be able to prosecute him in India? If we decide to do so, will the US extradite him to India?
7.The departure of the Indian team to the US just before the Strategic Dialogue and the appearance of Mr.Obama at the State Department to talk to the Indian delegation is meant to prevent this issue from casting a shadow on the dialogue.
8.Do you remember what we were told after the so-called State visit of our Prime Minister, Dr.Manmohan Singh, to Washington DC in November last? We were told of a counter-terrorism initiative which the two countries have embarked upon. We were told of the personal interest taken by Mr.Obama in the Headley case. We were told of his instructions to the FBI chief, Mr.Robert Mueller, to visit India and reassure his Indian counterparts of the FBI’s readiness to co-operate with India in this matter. Subsequently, the US Ambassador to India, Mr.Timothy Roemer, has been repeatedly telling Indian officials and people that the US was working “day and night” to meet the Indian request for access to Headley.
9. The outcome: A delay of eight months in giving us access and that too a limited access which reduces the entire exercise to a charade.
10. Should India have agreed to go along with this charade? Should the Manmohan Singh Government have literally colluded with the Obama Administration in playing a fraud on the Indian people by creating an illusion of Mr.Obama’s cooperation when the US has not been co-operating with India as it expects others to co-operate with it?
11. It would have been more in keeping with our national self-respect and dignity for the Manmohan Singh Government to have politely withdrawn its request to the US for access to Headley because of the lack of sincerity on the part of the Obama Administration and its belated action, which has reduced the utility of any interrogation by Indian investigators. ( 30-5-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
A day before the start of the Indo-US Strategic Dialogue at Washington DC and three days before President Barack Obama’s appearance at a reception to be hosted for the Indian delegation by Mrs.Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, one more charade in Indo-US cooperation will be enacted with the departure of a four-member team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) of the Government of India for Chicago to interrogate David Coleman Headley of the Chicago cell of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) on his secret visits to India at the instance of the LET to collect operational information that would facilitate one more terrorist strike by the LET in India----this time directed mainly at Israeli and other Jewish targets.
2. On May 1,2010, Faisal Shahzad, a US citizen of Pakistani origin, tried unsuccessfully to cause an explosion in the Times Square of New York. He was identified and arrested on May 3 as he was trying to flee to Pakistan. Within a week, the US made the Pakistani authorities detain for questioning over 15 persons in Karachi, Islamabad and other places in this connection and US officials including Gen.James Jones, the US National Security Adviser, Mr.Leon Panetta, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and officers of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) flew to Pakistan thereafter to insist on follow-up action by the Pakistani agencies and to warn the Pakistani leaders of the consequences of their non-cooperation.
3. One admired the seriousness and the sense of urgency shown by US officials for protecting American lives. If the protestations of President Barack Obama and his officials of friendship for India and their repeated assurances of the high priority attached by him to the US relations with India were sincere and honest, one would have expected from them a similar seriousness and sense of urgency in protecting Indian lives by facilitating immediate access to Headley for Indian investigators.
4. The immediate follow-up which they insisted upon from Pakistan to protect American lives, they did not concede to India to protect Indian lives. Headley was arrested by them in the beginning of October, 2009. It has taken them eight months to grant access to the Indian investigators. Even the access which they have now agreed to give after a delay of eight months is a limited one. During this delay of eight months, the LET would have been able to cover up its trail in India, withdraw from India those of its cadres whose identities were known to Headley and reorganize and relocate its sleeper cells.
5. The Indian investigators, it has been reported, will be allowed to question Headley in the presence of his lawyer and an official of the FBI. Do you call this interrogation? What is interrogation? It is not just questioning a person and typing out his replies. It is much more than that. It is a psychological process by which you make the suspect contradict himself by confronting him with evidence which you have been able to collect independently. Ultimately, he realizes the game is up and comes out with the truth.
6.With Headley’s lawyer and the FBI officer sitting there all the time, will the Indian investigators be able to do it? No. Headley will just give proforma replies to the Indian questions and these replies would have been rehearsed with his lawyer and got approved by him. Of what use, his proforma replies? Will we be able to prosecute him in India? If we decide to do so, will the US extradite him to India?
7.The departure of the Indian team to the US just before the Strategic Dialogue and the appearance of Mr.Obama at the State Department to talk to the Indian delegation is meant to prevent this issue from casting a shadow on the dialogue.
8.Do you remember what we were told after the so-called State visit of our Prime Minister, Dr.Manmohan Singh, to Washington DC in November last? We were told of a counter-terrorism initiative which the two countries have embarked upon. We were told of the personal interest taken by Mr.Obama in the Headley case. We were told of his instructions to the FBI chief, Mr.Robert Mueller, to visit India and reassure his Indian counterparts of the FBI’s readiness to co-operate with India in this matter. Subsequently, the US Ambassador to India, Mr.Timothy Roemer, has been repeatedly telling Indian officials and people that the US was working “day and night” to meet the Indian request for access to Headley.
9. The outcome: A delay of eight months in giving us access and that too a limited access which reduces the entire exercise to a charade.
10. Should India have agreed to go along with this charade? Should the Manmohan Singh Government have literally colluded with the Obama Administration in playing a fraud on the Indian people by creating an illusion of Mr.Obama’s cooperation when the US has not been co-operating with India as it expects others to co-operate with it?
11. It would have been more in keeping with our national self-respect and dignity for the Manmohan Singh Government to have politely withdrawn its request to the US for access to Headley because of the lack of sincerity on the part of the Obama Administration and its belated action, which has reduced the utility of any interrogation by Indian investigators. ( 30-5-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
INDIA-US: NEED FOR RELOOK AT SOME PAST IDEAS
B.RAMAN
The Indo-US Strategic Dialogue being held at Washington DC from June 1 to 4, 2010, should try to impart fresh life and momentum to some ideas mooted in the past, which have not made satisfactory progress in implementation.
2. The first relates to co-operation between the two countries in the fields of protection of critical information infrastructure and critical infrastructure. During the first tenure of Mr.George Bush as the President, the two countries had set up a joint Indo-US Cyber Security Forum to promote co-operation for the protection of the critical information infrastructure in the two countries. The Forum consisted of experts of not only the two Governments, but also of the private sector. The association of the private sector with a highly classified joint governmental forum indicated the realisation of the two Governments that considerable expertise on cyber security was available in the private sector, which had to be tapped for mutual benefit. It was also meant to create an awareness in the private sector of the need for strengthening cyber security in order to be able to protect the critical information infrastructure.
3. The joint Cyber Security Forum had a good start. It used to meet twice a year alternately in New Delhi and Washington DC and discussed a number of new ideas on the subject. It came under a cloud in the second tenure of Mr.Bush after it was found out by the Indian counter-intelligence that the Forum had been misused by the US intelligence for penetrating the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) of the Government of India and allegedly planting moles there. Since then, Indian enthusiasm for the Forum seems to have declined and there has been an understandable reluctance on the part of the Indian security agencies to consider any new ideas for co-operation with the US in such sensitive areas.
4. As a result, ideas for close Indo-US co-operation for the protection of critical infrastructure do not have many takers in the Indian security establishment. The US has undoubtedly developed new technologies for the protection of the critical information infrastructure and the critical infrastructure. India would stand to benefit from these technologies and from a regular exchange of ideas with US experts on the subject. To my knowledge, the setting-up of the joint Cyber Security Forum was not followed up with the setting-up of a joint Forum on the protection of the Critical Infrastructure. This needs to be done.
5. While the misuse of the Cyber Security Forum by the US intelligence agencies for penetrating the NSCS needs to be condemned, we should not allow this to come in the way of future co-operation between the two countries, with appropriate safeguards to ensure that the past misdeed by the US was not repeated. The two countries will benefit by resurrecting this idea and moving it forward.
6.The other idea relates to the promotion of Indo-US co-operation in the use of Science & Technology in Counter-terrorism and joint projects for research and development of homeland security technologies. A joint meeting of leading scientists and counter-terrorism experts of the two countries was held at Goa in January 2004, to discuss this idea. Among those, who addressed this meeting and welcomed the initiative were the then Indian President, Dr.Abdul Kalam, and Mr.Robert Blake, the present Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, who was then the No.2 in the US Embassy in New Delhi. As one who was associated with that meeting, I have been disappointed by the poor follow-up on this idea.
7. Closely associated with this was the idea of joint projects involving India, the US and Israel for the research and development of homeland security technologies. The idea came out of the thinking of an Israeli expert who addressed a gathering of security experts from the three countries, including this writer, who met in Israel in the beginning of 2004 to discuss how the three countries can co-operate in counter-terrorism. This idea too, like other good ideas, has remained without serious follow-up.
8. One of the problems in developing the strategic relationship between the two countries has been the plethora of generalities and platitudes which mark the periodic exchanges at the political and bureaucratic levels and dearth of concrete ideas whose implementation would be of benefit to both the countries and a marked lack of seriousness in following up on the few worthwhile ideas which keep coming up from time to time. It is time to identify concrete areas for bilateral cooperation and bring to bear a laser sharp focus on their implementation. (30-5-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai and Associate of the Chennai Centre for China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
The Indo-US Strategic Dialogue being held at Washington DC from June 1 to 4, 2010, should try to impart fresh life and momentum to some ideas mooted in the past, which have not made satisfactory progress in implementation.
2. The first relates to co-operation between the two countries in the fields of protection of critical information infrastructure and critical infrastructure. During the first tenure of Mr.George Bush as the President, the two countries had set up a joint Indo-US Cyber Security Forum to promote co-operation for the protection of the critical information infrastructure in the two countries. The Forum consisted of experts of not only the two Governments, but also of the private sector. The association of the private sector with a highly classified joint governmental forum indicated the realisation of the two Governments that considerable expertise on cyber security was available in the private sector, which had to be tapped for mutual benefit. It was also meant to create an awareness in the private sector of the need for strengthening cyber security in order to be able to protect the critical information infrastructure.
3. The joint Cyber Security Forum had a good start. It used to meet twice a year alternately in New Delhi and Washington DC and discussed a number of new ideas on the subject. It came under a cloud in the second tenure of Mr.Bush after it was found out by the Indian counter-intelligence that the Forum had been misused by the US intelligence for penetrating the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) of the Government of India and allegedly planting moles there. Since then, Indian enthusiasm for the Forum seems to have declined and there has been an understandable reluctance on the part of the Indian security agencies to consider any new ideas for co-operation with the US in such sensitive areas.
4. As a result, ideas for close Indo-US co-operation for the protection of critical infrastructure do not have many takers in the Indian security establishment. The US has undoubtedly developed new technologies for the protection of the critical information infrastructure and the critical infrastructure. India would stand to benefit from these technologies and from a regular exchange of ideas with US experts on the subject. To my knowledge, the setting-up of the joint Cyber Security Forum was not followed up with the setting-up of a joint Forum on the protection of the Critical Infrastructure. This needs to be done.
5. While the misuse of the Cyber Security Forum by the US intelligence agencies for penetrating the NSCS needs to be condemned, we should not allow this to come in the way of future co-operation between the two countries, with appropriate safeguards to ensure that the past misdeed by the US was not repeated. The two countries will benefit by resurrecting this idea and moving it forward.
6.The other idea relates to the promotion of Indo-US co-operation in the use of Science & Technology in Counter-terrorism and joint projects for research and development of homeland security technologies. A joint meeting of leading scientists and counter-terrorism experts of the two countries was held at Goa in January 2004, to discuss this idea. Among those, who addressed this meeting and welcomed the initiative were the then Indian President, Dr.Abdul Kalam, and Mr.Robert Blake, the present Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, who was then the No.2 in the US Embassy in New Delhi. As one who was associated with that meeting, I have been disappointed by the poor follow-up on this idea.
7. Closely associated with this was the idea of joint projects involving India, the US and Israel for the research and development of homeland security technologies. The idea came out of the thinking of an Israeli expert who addressed a gathering of security experts from the three countries, including this writer, who met in Israel in the beginning of 2004 to discuss how the three countries can co-operate in counter-terrorism. This idea too, like other good ideas, has remained without serious follow-up.
8. One of the problems in developing the strategic relationship between the two countries has been the plethora of generalities and platitudes which mark the periodic exchanges at the political and bureaucratic levels and dearth of concrete ideas whose implementation would be of benefit to both the countries and a marked lack of seriousness in following up on the few worthwhile ideas which keep coming up from time to time. It is time to identify concrete areas for bilateral cooperation and bring to bear a laser sharp focus on their implementation. (30-5-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai and Associate of the Chennai Centre for China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
Saturday, May 29, 2010
MASSACRE OF AHMADIS IN LAHORE
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO 654
B.RAMAN
Eighty persons were killed and over 120 others injured in two acts of terrorism directed against Ahmadi worshippers in two mosques belonging to their community in Lahore on May 28,2010. Among those killed were former sessions judge Ameer Ahmad Sheikh, the Amir of the Ahmadia community in Lahore Ejazul Haq, and Major General (retd) Nasir Ahmad.
2.Though the Ahmadis had been subjected in the past to persecution and atrocities by the Sunni extremists, these were the most brutal acts of terrorism directed against them since Pakistan was born in 1947. There had been worse acts of terrorism directed against the Shias, who are in a much larger number and much more influential politically and economically in the Pakistani society, but the Ahmadis, who are a marginalized community with no political or economic power, had been spared such acts of terrorism till now.
3. The two commando-style terrorist attacks were staged at the time of Friday prayers in the two Ahmadi mosques located in the Garhi Shahu and Model Town areas of Lahore. Since the Ahmadis are treated as non-Muslims in Pakistan because they do not recognize Prophet Mohammad as the only Prophet of Islam, their places of worship are not recognized as mosques.
4.These attacks have, therefore, been described by the Pakistani officials and media as attacks on places of worship and not mosques. The Ahmadis, who regard themselves as Muslims despite their reverence for the founder of their community as another Prophet, look upon their places of worship as mosques no different from other mosques. Thus, the two incidents were two more instances of brutal attacks by Sunni extremists on another group of Muslims worshipping in mosques. However, in Pakistan, to describe the Ahmadis as Muslims and their places of worship as mosques would be considered blasphemous. There are five million Ahmadis in Pakistan’s total population of about 180 million.
5. Seven heavily armed terrorists throwing hand-grenades into the packed gathering of worshippers and opening fire with assault rifles forced their way into the Garhi Shahu mosque. Two terrorists raided the Model Town mosque. While the worshippers in the Model Town mosque beat back the raiding terrorists before the police intervened, the worshippers in the Garhi Shahu mosque were kept hostage for nearly three hours by the terrorists before they were rescued by the security forces.
6. The security forces are reported to have captured two of the nine terrorists involved in the two attacks. Three allegedly blew themselves up and the remaining four were killed in the exchange of fire. According to the “Daily Times” of Lahore, the attackers also fired shots and hurled a hand grenade at a nearby mosque of Ahl-e-Hadees, adjacent to the City Law College.
7. A TV channel quoted the Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah as saying that one of the captured terrorists belonged to Rahim Yar Khan district and used to be a student of a madrassa in Karachi and that the other terrorist captured is a Pashtun.
8. On March 8, a suicide bomber had rammed his car packed with explosives into a Federal Investigation Agency building in Lahore, killing 11 people. On March 12, two suicide bombers had attacked Pakistani Army vehicles in a military cantonment in the city, killing more than 50 people. There were no major terrorist incidents in Lahore in April.
9. A statement disseminated from London through the Internet on behalf of the international Ahmadiya community said: “The attacks are the culmination of years of un-policed persecution of the Ahmadiya Muslim Jamaat, which is a minority sect in Pakistan. In 1974 legislation was passed that declared Ahmadis to be ‘non-Muslim’ and in 1984 further legislation was passed in which the practice of the faith was outlawed. At regular intervals since then Ahmadis have been attacked but today’s attack is the most cruel and barbaric. All Ahmadis, who are based in 195 countries, are peace loving and tolerant people and yet they are continually targeted by extremist factions. During his Friday Sermon at 1pm today (May 28) the Head of the Ahmadiya Muslim Jamaat,His Holiness Hadhrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, said: “Today two of our mosques in Lahore were attacked by extremists. At the moment we do not have full details of what has happened. It is clear though that a number of our Ahmadis have been killed and many others have been injured. These people had merely come to the mosques to offer their Friday prayers and yet became victims of a heinous terrorist attack. May God grant patience to the bereaved and elevate the status of those who have been martyred.”
10. A report disseminated from Lahore by the Associated Press said: “Ahmadis are reviled as heretics by mainstream Muslims for their belief that their sect’s founder was a savior foretold by the Quran, Islam’s holy book. The group has experienced years of state-sanctioned discrimination and occasional attacks by radical Sunni Muslims in Pakistan, but never before in such a large and coordinated fashion.” The AP report further said that before the attacks the suspect from Rahim Yar Khan had stayed at a center belonging to the Tableeghi Jamaat.
11.Geo TV reported that the Punjab province branch of the Pakistani Taliban had claimed responsibility, but the authenticity of the claim is yet to be established.
12.On April 17, 2010, “Dawn” of Karachi had reported an increase in kidnappings for ransom and murderous attacks on members of the Ahmadiya community in the industrial town of Faislabad in the Punjab. A member of the local Ahmadiya community had alleged that the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD) headed by Prof.Hafiz Mohammad Sayeed, which is the political wing of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), was responsible for these incidents and that the local police were not taking action against those involved. Faislabad is a stronghjold of the LET. Abu Zubaidah of Al Qaeda, now held in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, was captured in 2002 from the house of an LET activist in Faislabad. The Ahmadis have been alleging that the JUD and some members of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) of Mr.Nawaz Sharif, former Prime Minister, have been acting in tandem in attacking the members of the community in Punjab. In this connection, they have named Syed Saqlain Shah, a member of the National Assembly, his uncle Syed Iqbal Shah, a former member of the Punjab Provincial Assembly, and Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, senior Vice-President of PML (N).
13. The LET, which is close to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), never indulges in acts of terrorism in Pakistani territory. It is doubtful whether it would have carried out the terrorist attacks on the Ahmadis despite its past acts of atrocities and intimidation against them. A strong suspect is the Sunni extremist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), which has been involved in acts of terrorism in Pakistani territory for many years. Like the LET, it too is close to Al Qaeda and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.
14. Two other suspects are the Jaish-e-Mohammad, whose leader Maulana Masood Azhar, had served for some years in the LEJ, and an organization mysteriously calling itself the Asian Tigers with no allusions to Islam or the Holy Koran, which looks upon the Ahmadis as American agents. The Asian Tigers were allegedly responsible for the recent kidnapping and execution of Sq.Leader Khalid Khawaja, a retired officer of the Pakistan Air Force, who had served for some years in the ISI. After his retirement, he used to hobnob with a number of jihadi terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, the TTP, the JEM, the LET and the LEJ, and had come under suspicion in connection with the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist in the beginning of 2002. The Asian Tigers had accused him of being an agent of the US and the Ahmadis. Not much is known about its origin and background. It is possible that the LET or Ilyas Kashmiri’s 313 Brigade also operate under the name Asian Tigers in order to avoid attracting the suspicion of the ISI and the US. (29-5-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
Eighty persons were killed and over 120 others injured in two acts of terrorism directed against Ahmadi worshippers in two mosques belonging to their community in Lahore on May 28,2010. Among those killed were former sessions judge Ameer Ahmad Sheikh, the Amir of the Ahmadia community in Lahore Ejazul Haq, and Major General (retd) Nasir Ahmad.
2.Though the Ahmadis had been subjected in the past to persecution and atrocities by the Sunni extremists, these were the most brutal acts of terrorism directed against them since Pakistan was born in 1947. There had been worse acts of terrorism directed against the Shias, who are in a much larger number and much more influential politically and economically in the Pakistani society, but the Ahmadis, who are a marginalized community with no political or economic power, had been spared such acts of terrorism till now.
3. The two commando-style terrorist attacks were staged at the time of Friday prayers in the two Ahmadi mosques located in the Garhi Shahu and Model Town areas of Lahore. Since the Ahmadis are treated as non-Muslims in Pakistan because they do not recognize Prophet Mohammad as the only Prophet of Islam, their places of worship are not recognized as mosques.
4.These attacks have, therefore, been described by the Pakistani officials and media as attacks on places of worship and not mosques. The Ahmadis, who regard themselves as Muslims despite their reverence for the founder of their community as another Prophet, look upon their places of worship as mosques no different from other mosques. Thus, the two incidents were two more instances of brutal attacks by Sunni extremists on another group of Muslims worshipping in mosques. However, in Pakistan, to describe the Ahmadis as Muslims and their places of worship as mosques would be considered blasphemous. There are five million Ahmadis in Pakistan’s total population of about 180 million.
5. Seven heavily armed terrorists throwing hand-grenades into the packed gathering of worshippers and opening fire with assault rifles forced their way into the Garhi Shahu mosque. Two terrorists raided the Model Town mosque. While the worshippers in the Model Town mosque beat back the raiding terrorists before the police intervened, the worshippers in the Garhi Shahu mosque were kept hostage for nearly three hours by the terrorists before they were rescued by the security forces.
6. The security forces are reported to have captured two of the nine terrorists involved in the two attacks. Three allegedly blew themselves up and the remaining four were killed in the exchange of fire. According to the “Daily Times” of Lahore, the attackers also fired shots and hurled a hand grenade at a nearby mosque of Ahl-e-Hadees, adjacent to the City Law College.
7. A TV channel quoted the Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah as saying that one of the captured terrorists belonged to Rahim Yar Khan district and used to be a student of a madrassa in Karachi and that the other terrorist captured is a Pashtun.
8. On March 8, a suicide bomber had rammed his car packed with explosives into a Federal Investigation Agency building in Lahore, killing 11 people. On March 12, two suicide bombers had attacked Pakistani Army vehicles in a military cantonment in the city, killing more than 50 people. There were no major terrorist incidents in Lahore in April.
9. A statement disseminated from London through the Internet on behalf of the international Ahmadiya community said: “The attacks are the culmination of years of un-policed persecution of the Ahmadiya Muslim Jamaat, which is a minority sect in Pakistan. In 1974 legislation was passed that declared Ahmadis to be ‘non-Muslim’ and in 1984 further legislation was passed in which the practice of the faith was outlawed. At regular intervals since then Ahmadis have been attacked but today’s attack is the most cruel and barbaric. All Ahmadis, who are based in 195 countries, are peace loving and tolerant people and yet they are continually targeted by extremist factions. During his Friday Sermon at 1pm today (May 28) the Head of the Ahmadiya Muslim Jamaat,His Holiness Hadhrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, said: “Today two of our mosques in Lahore were attacked by extremists. At the moment we do not have full details of what has happened. It is clear though that a number of our Ahmadis have been killed and many others have been injured. These people had merely come to the mosques to offer their Friday prayers and yet became victims of a heinous terrorist attack. May God grant patience to the bereaved and elevate the status of those who have been martyred.”
10. A report disseminated from Lahore by the Associated Press said: “Ahmadis are reviled as heretics by mainstream Muslims for their belief that their sect’s founder was a savior foretold by the Quran, Islam’s holy book. The group has experienced years of state-sanctioned discrimination and occasional attacks by radical Sunni Muslims in Pakistan, but never before in such a large and coordinated fashion.” The AP report further said that before the attacks the suspect from Rahim Yar Khan had stayed at a center belonging to the Tableeghi Jamaat.
11.Geo TV reported that the Punjab province branch of the Pakistani Taliban had claimed responsibility, but the authenticity of the claim is yet to be established.
12.On April 17, 2010, “Dawn” of Karachi had reported an increase in kidnappings for ransom and murderous attacks on members of the Ahmadiya community in the industrial town of Faislabad in the Punjab. A member of the local Ahmadiya community had alleged that the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD) headed by Prof.Hafiz Mohammad Sayeed, which is the political wing of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), was responsible for these incidents and that the local police were not taking action against those involved. Faislabad is a stronghjold of the LET. Abu Zubaidah of Al Qaeda, now held in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, was captured in 2002 from the house of an LET activist in Faislabad. The Ahmadis have been alleging that the JUD and some members of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) of Mr.Nawaz Sharif, former Prime Minister, have been acting in tandem in attacking the members of the community in Punjab. In this connection, they have named Syed Saqlain Shah, a member of the National Assembly, his uncle Syed Iqbal Shah, a former member of the Punjab Provincial Assembly, and Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, senior Vice-President of PML (N).
13. The LET, which is close to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), never indulges in acts of terrorism in Pakistani territory. It is doubtful whether it would have carried out the terrorist attacks on the Ahmadis despite its past acts of atrocities and intimidation against them. A strong suspect is the Sunni extremist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), which has been involved in acts of terrorism in Pakistani territory for many years. Like the LET, it too is close to Al Qaeda and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.
14. Two other suspects are the Jaish-e-Mohammad, whose leader Maulana Masood Azhar, had served for some years in the LEJ, and an organization mysteriously calling itself the Asian Tigers with no allusions to Islam or the Holy Koran, which looks upon the Ahmadis as American agents. The Asian Tigers were allegedly responsible for the recent kidnapping and execution of Sq.Leader Khalid Khawaja, a retired officer of the Pakistan Air Force, who had served for some years in the ISI. After his retirement, he used to hobnob with a number of jihadi terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, the TTP, the JEM, the LET and the LEJ, and had come under suspicion in connection with the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist in the beginning of 2002. The Asian Tigers had accused him of being an agent of the US and the Ahmadis. Not much is known about its origin and background. It is possible that the LET or Ilyas Kashmiri’s 313 Brigade also operate under the name Asian Tigers in order to avoid attracting the suspicion of the ISI and the US. (29-5-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
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