Author: Sudha Ramachandran
Publication: Asia Times
Date: January 12, 2006
URL: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HA12Df02.html
A Pakistan-based Sunni extremist group, the
Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) or Army of the Companions of the Prophet, is
reportedly attempting to spread its tentacles in Japan. While little is known
of how successful it has been with its mission in Japan, its record in Pakistan
should put authorities in Tokyo on maximum alert.
According to reports in the Japanese media,
a 30-year-old member of the SSP entered Japan in 2003 with a visa for religious
activities. Apparently, he told some worshippers at a mosque that he had come
to Japan to establish an SSP cell there. Police have now arrested a Pakistani
man who has been in touch with him and are monitoring the activities of suspected
members of the group, according to the Sankei Shimbum newspaper.
The SSP is the pioneer of organized sectarian
militancy in Pakistan. Proscribed by the Pakistani government in January 2002,
it soon bounced back into business, operating under the name Millat-e-Islamia
Pakistan.
The SSP was founded in the city of Jhang in
Pakistan's Punjab province in September 1985 with an avowed anti-Shi'ite agenda.
It is anti-Shi'ite in its ideology, orientation and activities and maintains
that Shi'ites are not Muslim. It is in favor of Pakistan being declared a
Sunni state in which all other sects, including Shi'ites, would be declared
non-Muslim minorities.
Some attribute the founding of the SSP to
the growing Shi'ite radicalism in Pakistan in the wake of the Iranian revolution
in 1979. Others trace its roots to the feudal socio-economic set-up in Jhang,
its birthplace. Most of the big landlords in Jhang are Shi'ite. The SSP challenged
their economic and political power but articulated it in the form of violent
sectarianism.
But while these factors contributed to the
emergence of the SSP, it was General Zia ul-Haq's (1977-1988) Islamization
policies that played the most significant role in the birth of the SSP. Zia's
Islamization drive claimed to manifest a universal Islamic vision. In reality
it was based on Sunni interpretations of Islamic law. Throughout the 1980s,
the military governors of Punjab and North West Frontier Province helped the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) organize militant Sunni groups in their
respective provinces to counter the "Shi'ite problem". Among the
groups that were created was the SSP.
Violence unleashed by Sunni and Shi'ite extremist
outfits in Pakistan has resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 people over the
past two decades. The SSP has a bloody record of anti-Shi'ite terrorism and
has carried out some of the worst massacres of Shi'ites in Pakistan. It has
assassinated Shi'ite leaders and clerics and gunned down scores of worshippers
in mosques and at rallies. Shi'ite doctors and lawyers have also been killed
by the SSP. It has assassinated several Iranians, including diplomats.
Shi'ite terror outfits such as the Sipahe
Mohammed and the Tehreek-e-Jaferia Pakistan have struck just as ferociously,
killing hundreds of ordinary Sunnis, as well as members of extremist outfits
and top leaders of the SSP.
There are several Sunni extremist outfits
in Pakistan today and their relationship with each other is complex. On the
face of it, these smaller outfits seem to have broken away from the parent
organization, the SSP. However, they are said to be operating as its front
organizations. This appears to be the case with one of the deadliest of Sunni
terror outfits, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, as well.
In 1996, an apparent split in the SSP led
to the formation of the more violent Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Indian intelligence
sources, however, maintain that this split was a tactical one aimed at projecting
the SSP as a political outfit - the SSP contests elections and has been a
constituent of a coalition government in Pakistan - while allowing the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
to focus on violent campaigns to further the Sunni extremist agenda.
Indian sources say that there are several
small Sunni extremist cells, most of them created by the SSP, which function
as front outfits that carry out terrorist attacks or engage in fundraising.
These cells consist of around 10 members, with each cell acting independently
of the others. They reportedly "disappear" when the government cracks
down on extremist groups and resurface when the pressure eases, facilitating
the survival of the larger SSP.
Besides its links with the ISI - although
President General Pervez Musharraf's government has ostensibly banned the
SSP - the outfit continues to be nurtured by sections in the military and
the ISI. The SSP has benefited from ties with an array of political parties
and extremist organizations. It is close to the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Jamaat-e-Ulema-Islam.
It has links with the Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Pakistani terrorist organization
that has carried out several high-profile attacks in India, as well as the
Harkat-ul Mujahideen and the Harkat-ul Jihad-al Islami.
To portray the SSP as a Pakistan-based Sunni
extremist outfit is an inadequate description of the organization. Its violence
is not restricted to Shi'ites in Pakistan, nor are its activities confined
to the sectarian war in Pakistan. The SSP has been linked to Ramzi Ahmed Yousuf,
an accused in the New York World Trade Center bombing of February 1993.
SSP cadres trained and fought in Afghanistan
right through the 1990s. There are strong links with the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
In 1996, the SSP was among the Pakistani extremist outfits that fought alongside
the Taliban during the assaults on Jalalabad and Kabul. On September 20, 2001,
the SSP and other pro-Taliban outfits announced a jihad against the US-led
coalition. The SSP and some of its fronts are said to have carried out attacks
on Pakistani Christians as well as Westerners working in Pakistan.
If the SSP has indeed established a presence
in Japan over the past two years, it will not be the first time it has spread
its tentacles beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is known to have a presence
in at least 17 countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia
(a key funder of the outfit), Bangladesh, Canada, Britain and the US.
Its front organizations operate in countries
such as the US and Britain. While most of its funding comes from the Muslim
world it is also said to be receiving substantial funds from Pakistanis living
in the West.
Indian Intelligence sources say that the SSP
presence in Japan could be in an incipient phase. "While it might not
have more than a dozen members at this stage, in no way does this diminish
the seriousness of the threat," said an intelligence official, pointing
out that for its overseas activities the SSP does not need a large network.
Japan has sent about 550 ground troops to
Iraq and fears that it could become a target of attack by al-Qaeda and its
allies. The SSP's reported presence in Japan can be expected to heighten alert
in Tokyo and other Japanese cities.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher
based in Bangalore.
