Author: Wilson John
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: July 20, 2005
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's
call for zero-tolerance to terrorism in Washington on July 18 has come
at a time when there is an urgent need for a global consensus on this issue.
The Ayodhya and London attacks have clearly proved the re-emergence of
terrorism with a renewed vigour. The two attacks indicate the beginning
of the second phase of terrorism. The first was the emergence of a hierarchical,
pyramid structure of terrorism with Osama bin Laden at the head.
This phase witnessed the creation
of a loose confederation of terrorist network across the globe with its
main operational headquarters in Afghanistan-Pakistan. Laden and his team
of advisors created a chain of command with enough autonomy to local units
to carry out terrorist operations. Pipelines for weapons and money were
camouflaged through hawala channels, criminal syndicates, charity organisations
and parallel trading and financial institutions that worked outside the
legal banking and trading framework.
The phase was halted by the relentless
US-led war on terror, which saw the decapitation of the Taliban and crippling
attacks on Al Qaeda and its supporting arms across the globe. The war against
terror, however, left untouched terrorist groups that publicly denied ties
with the Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. These groups, Jemaah Islamiyah in
Indonesia and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) in Pakistan, to name just two, have,
in the midst of the war on terror, managed to survive and flourish. These
groups staffed by angry and educated youth are the torchbearers of the
second phase.
Pakistan's LeT, in this context,
needs special attention for two reasons. It is one of the few terrorist
groups (Hamas is another) which has a clearly defined agenda, hierarchy,
funding sources, state protection and infrastructure. Second, it is a group
that has attracted the young in countries across the world, from the US
to Australia. The group is currently recruiting a large number of youngsters
for terrorist activities, setting up new training camps and expanding its
base beyond the Indian subcontinent.
It is imperative to understand what
really drives the militant wing's ideological indoctrination and weapons
training. It is based on a concept evolved by Lashkar founder Hafiz Saeed.
His philosophy has been to merge jihadi education with modern curricula
to train young students not only in Islamic principles but also make them
adept in science and technology. This, he believes, will enable them to
work towards alternative models of governance and development while learning
fighting skills to wage jihad. Saeed believes that jihad was essential
to achieving political power. Jihad, he said during the All Pakistan Ulema
Convention held on July 17, 2003, at Lahore, was the only way Pakistan
could move towards dignity and prosperity. Incidentally, Saeed favourite
phrase from the Holy Quran is "Wajahidu fee sabilallah" (Wage a holy war
in the name of god).
This key to Hafiz Saeed's mind is
the genesis of Lashkar itself and its mother organisation, Markaz Dawat-ul
Irshad (Center for Religious Learning and Social Welfare). It was established
by Hafiz Saeed and Zafar Iqbal of the Engineering University, Lahore, and
Abdullah Azzam of the International Islamic University, Islamabad, in 1987.
LeT is the centre's militant wing. Several of Azzam's speeches and publications
are used as textbook material to motivate and teach the LeT cadre. Before
the ban, the Markaz Dawat-ul Irshad's (MDI) website had links to the official
website of Hamas and www.azzam.com, one of the several websites which the
Al Qaeda used to operate before September 11. Saeed has denied this, maintaining
that the contributions came from a rich Saudi trader, Ahmed.
Although Lashkar's involvement in
terrorist attacks in Kashmir and other parts of the country were well documented
by India and presented on numerous occasions to the international community,
there were no sanctions on the group. It was the attack on Parliament on
December 13, 2001, barely two months after the terrorist attacks in the
US, that led the US and Pakistan to impose a ban on the group, freeze its
bank accounts and severely restrict Saeed's activities. Undeterred, Saeed
addressed the media on December 24, 2001, outlining his plans to reorganise
and strengthen LeT. He was arrested on December 31, 2001, but not for terrorist
activities. The Lahore High Court set him free on November 19, 2002.
To circumvent these restrictions,
the terrorist group changed its name to Jamaat ul-Dawa (JuD) and Maulana
Abdul Wahid Kashmiri was appointed as the new LeT chief who, soon after,
declared that his group was shifting its base to Indian Kashmir. These
steps were aimed to circumvent the ban and avoid further international
sanctions. There was another clear change in Saeed's outlook: He had turned
against the US. Addressing the Pakistan Ulema Convention at Lahore, Saeed
said: "We do not fear America. We can defeat it through jihad very easily,
but Gen Musharraf is holding us up. He has become the biggest enemy of
jihad, and if we can get him out of the picture, we can take care of the
infidels."
The worrying aspect is not LeT's
continuing terrorist operations in Kashmir alone, but the group's linkages
with criminal syndicates and its determination to expand beyond the Indian
subcontinent. It has set up sleeper cells in the US and Australia, trained
terrorists from other countries, and has shown a willingness to enter new
operational areas like Iraq. There is evidence that the group has been
buying weapons with the help of Cambodian traffickers who are part of the
Chinese-led Snakehead syndicate, an evidence of the group's linkages with
criminal syndicates.
Two years ago, the FBI busted a
few LeT sleeper cells in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania and arrested
11 men who were later indicted for conspiring to "prepare for and engage
in violent jihad on behalf of Muslims in Kashmir, Chechnya, the Philippines
and other countries". The indictment said some of the accused had been
to Pakistan to train with LeT. Last year, in April, Australian authorities
stumbled upon a similar cell when they arrested 34-year-old Faheem Khalid
Lodhi and charged him with planning a terrorist attack. Authorities said
he was a leader of LeT in Australia.
Several months prior to that, Australian
authorities had deported a French, Willie Virgile Brigitte, with alleged
ties to Al Qaeda. Brigitte had reportedly trained with Lodhi at a LeT camp
in Pakistan. Brigitte reportedly told the French judge hearing his detention
case that there were 2000 to 3000 mujahideen in LeT camps. On September
22, 2003, Pakistan authorities arrested 15 Malaysian and Indonesian students
studying in various madarsas run by LeT in Karachi; the arrested included
Gun Gun Rusman Gunawan, brother of alleged Jemaah Islamiyah leader Hambali,
known ally of Al Qaeda. It is no secret that the terrorists who carried
out Ayodhya and London bombings were associated with LeT.
The action against LeT has to be
immediate and decisive. Hafiz Saeed should be arrested and tried for terrorist
activities. The group's Muridke headquarters should be taken over by the
Pakistan Government and converted into an educational and vocational training
institution. The training camps in Muridke, Sindh and Muzaffarabad should
be dismantled. Both Pakistan and India should evolve a joint mechanism
to unravel LeT's network in India. The US has a clear role to play in this
war. It will also be a chance to salvage the floundering war against terror.
(Wilson John is Senior Fellow, Observer
Research Foundation, New Delhi)
