Author: HT Correspondent
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: September 27, 2001
While much attention has been focussed
on the inclusion of the Harkut-ul-Mujahideen in the list of terrorist organisation
identified by the United States, an organisation that is active in Kashmir
and is also on the list, has passed largely unnoticed.
That organisation is the Al-Rasheed
Trust run by the notorious Maulana Masood Azhar, the extremist who was
released from an Indian jail in exchange for the hostages on board IC-814.
Azhar's brother was one of the hijackers of that plane.
The Al-Rasheed Trust is based in
Karachi, Pakistan, and was originally set up as a welfare organisation.
In the 1980s, it was co-opted by the ISI to channel Saudi Arabian funds
to Afghan mujahideen. The trust paid compensation to the families of those
killed in the Afghan 'jehad'.
After the Taliban took over in Afghanistan,
the ISI shifted the Trust's focus to Kashmir and used it to finance insurgency
in that state. When Maulana Masood Azhar was released in December, 1999,
the ISI put him in charge of handling the Trust's assets.
While Azhar has maintained the Trust's
links with the Taliban, he has expanded the concept of jehad to include
Kashmir. The Trust now openly funds Kashmiri mujahideen and pays compensation
to their families.
It runs a network of Deobandi madrassas
all over Pakistan that act as recruiting centres for jehadis and runs a
small hospital in Muzaffarabad for the treatment of jehadis.
Unlike many other organisations
on the US list, the Trust makes no secret to its activities. It publishes
an Urdu paper called Zarb-e-Momin as well as an English paper, Dharb-e-Momin,
and even runs a radio station out of Kabul.
The Dharb-e-Momin openly supports
the Jaish-e-Mohammad, a terrorist group that is involved in suicide attacks
in Kashmir. It publishes advertisements in the Pakistani press asking for
funds for 'welfare work' in "Kashmir, Chechnya, Kosovo" etc, but clearly
informs donors that it will decide how to spend the money. For instance,
it says, if there is "a dire need of the mujahideen", the money will be
used for that purpose.
Unusually for a group that makes
no secret of raising funds to finance violence, its advertisements list
all its accounts with Karachi's Habib Bank, giving separate account numbers
for donations received in dollars or pounds sterling. Pakistan has just
announced it has frozen these accounts.
The Americans have, however, not
asked for action against the jehadis.
For instance, Maulana Masood Azhar,
who controls the Trust, made headlines in Pakistani papers in January 2000
when he called for a jehad on both India and the US. Despite this, Azhar
remains a valued ISI asset. And despite the circumstances of his release
after the IC-814 hijacking, Pakistan has no hesitation in allowing him
to function openly on its territory.
