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Pakistani militants resurface stronger than ever

Pakistani militants resurface stronger than ever

Author: Juliette Terzieff, Chronicle Foreign Service
Publication: SF Gate
Date: January 31, 2003
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/01/31/MN65384.DTL

New names, old agenda one year after crackdown

A year after President Pervez Musharraf drew applause from the West for banning militant Islamic groups and announcing a crackdown on their activities, the organizations he sought to dismantle are alive and well, repackaging themselves to promulgate their message and increase their numbers.

"America is against Islam. They want to control the resources of the Muslims and enslave us," declares the lead article in this month's issue of Majalah al Dawa, one of more than a dozen strident publications entreating radical followers to action.

Published clandestinely by Jamaat al-Dawa (Army of Preachers) -- previously known as Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Righteous) -- the magazine regularly contains a mix of instructions for pious living, Koranic interpretation and condemnation of U.S., Indian and Israeli policies.

"Those who are afraid only of God cannot be scared away by machine guns. Honor is a strong weapon, and Pakistan must choose it. If we enforce the will of God and adopt jihad (holy war), no infidel weapons can harm us," the article promises.

A similar tactic has been adopted by another banned pro-Kashmiri independence group, Jaish-e- Mohammed (Army of the Prophet), which now publishes a magazine called al-Islah (Reform).

Both Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar were declared illegal after an attack on India's Parliament killed 14 people in 2001 and set off a chain reaction that brought the two rival nations to the brink of war last year.

Underscoring the militants' continued ability to act despite the arrest of over 2,000 members following the ban, Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Omar Saeed Sheikh masterminded the kidnap-murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

"Banning them and closing their official offices was never going to relegate them to history, it merely pushed them out of the public eye to work in the shadows," said Nejum Mushtaq, an analyst for the International Crisis Group, a think tank based in Belgium.

MOST OF THOSE ARRESTED FREED

In the end, most of those arrested were released without charge, including Lashkar's firebrand leader Hafiz Saeed, who was arrested after the ban, released in March and rearrested in May after the massacre of 25 Indian soldiers and their families.

"There is no border between Pakistan and Kashmir, so the question of cross- border terrorism is irrelevant," Saeed warned after his second release this past December. "Even if we are banned again, the government cannot stop this struggle for the liberation of Indian-held Kashmir."

As tensions with India and incidents of cross-border shelling on the rise again, Washington is once again exerting diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to do more.

Last week, U.S. Ambassador Nancy Powell unleashed a flurry of criticism from religious and political leaders here after publicly calling on Pakistan to "ensure its pledges are implemented to prevent infiltration (into Kashmir) and end the use of Pakistan as a platform for terrorism."

Secretary of State Colin Powell and other U.S. officials delivered a similar message to Pakistani Foreign Minister Kurshid Mehmood Kasuri during the latter's visit to Washington this week.

On Thursday, the State Department designated the Sunni militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi a foreign terrorist organization. It, too, is believed to have played a role in the Pearl slaying and is suspected of mounting last May's car bomb attack on a Karachi hotel that killed 16 people, including 12 French citizens.

"We know it is the same people meeting under different names, and that cannot be allowed because it is not the names that were made illegal but the groups themselves," said Abid Saeed, a police inspector in the town of Dera Ismail Khan.

RAID OUTSIDE ISLAMABAD

On Tuesday, police in Dera, about 180 miles southwest of Islamabad, raided a meeting and arrested two dozen men tied to a third banned group, Harkat-al- Mujahideen, confiscating a satellite phone, three rifles and militant literature.

Like the others, Harkat has reconstituted itself -- using the name Jamiat- ul-Ansar -- and police believe the Dera meeting was a gathering of regional militant leaders intending to plan attacks inside Indian-ruled Kashmir.

"We know who they are, and the law will be upheld," said the police inspector Saeed, echoing recent statements by the Interior Ministry.

Despite the crackdowns, many analysts and some Pakistani officials fear Musharraf is playing a dangerous game -- actively hunting down foreign Taliban or al Qaeda members hiding here while going relatively soft on Pakistan's homegrown militants, tens of thousands of whom provide a valuable proxy force for the fight over Kashmir.

Both India and Pakistan claim the Himalayan region in its entirety and have fought two wars for control. Separatist militant groups have long crossed the Line of Control, which partitions the province, from the Pakistani side to carry out attacks on the Indian side in the name of the Muslim population there.

New Delhi accuses Pakistan of arming, training and funding the groups while Islamabad insists it provides only moral and diplomatic support to indigenous freedom-fighting groups.

"What needs to happen is a floor-to-ceiling dismantling of the (militant) organizations," said ICG's Mushtaq. "While the groups may appear to serve the interests of some power brokers, they hijack the overall interests of the country."

ANALYSTS WARN OF DANGER

While moving too quickly against the well-established militant network could potentially topple the government, insufficient action is more dangerous,

analysts say. They say the United States is now the common enemy of both the Pakistani radical groups and the al Qaeda operatives they are believed to be protecting and assisting.

Lashkar leader Saeed has minced no words at rallies and dinners around the country since his release: "The U.S. is an international terrorist, and it is wrong to suggest that I should not talk about jihad. The Muslim world should take notice that the U.S. threat extends beyond Iraq, to Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

"We will continue jihad. It is the sole weapon of Muslims to defend their rights and honor."
 


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