Author: B. Raman
Publication: Outlook
Date: October 27, 2006
URL: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20061027&fname=raman&sid=1
Introduction: Karnataka Police claims the
arrest of two Pakistani terrorists belonging to Al Badr-the oldest of the
existing jihadi terrorist organisations of Pakistan, considered as close to
Pakistan's ISI as the LET.
The Karnataka Police has announced the arrest
in Mysore of two Pakistani terrorists belonging to Al Badr, a Pakistani jihadi
terrorist organisation, after an exchange of fire when they were moving on
a motorcycle. They have given out their names as Mohd Ali Hussain and Mohd
Fahad. Two constables and a terrorist suffered minor injuries in the exchange
of fire.
According to the Police, sketches of the state
secretariat Vidhan Soudha and its newly constructed annexe Vikasa Soudha,
a satellite phone with numbers linked to Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan, a
laptop and some commonly available chemicals used for making improvised explosive
devices (IEDs) were recovered from the terrorists. An AK-47 rifle, a foreign
made pistol, a cell phone, detonators, a digital camera and passports were
also recovered from them.
The police stated that the Karachi-based Fahad
is a post-graduate in analytical chemistry who had been trained in making
explosives. Fahad, who is also well-versed in computers and IT-related software,
and had an Indian visa, had been residing in Mysore for the past six to eight
months. He was running a shop called Royal Fancy Stores as a front for his
activities. Hussain, a school drop-out, was involved in terrorist activities
in Jammu and Kashmir before moving to Mysore three or four months ago, the
police said.
Earlier, on September 3, 2006, a Mumbai court
had remanded a Pakistani national and self-styled Divisional Commander of
Al Badr, Touhfeen Akmal Hashmi, alias Abu Amad, arrested in connection with
the 7/11 Mumbai blasts, to police custody. Akmal was reported to have been
arrested in Jammu and Kashmir on August 23, 2006, and was brought to Mumbai
for interrogation. On his arrest by the J&K Police, he was reported to
have claimed that he had knowledge about the Mumbai blasts which, according
to him, were carried out by the Lashkar-e-Toiba.
Al Badr is named after the historic Battle
of Badr (near the present day Medina) fought and won by the followers of the
Holy Prophet Mohammad on March 17, 624, against the army of Mecca. This victory
is seen by Muslims as due to divine intervention and as heralding the beginning
of the conquest of the world by Islam. This battle finds special mention in
the Holy Koran.
Al Badr Mujahideen, previously known as Al
Badr, is the oldest of the existing jihadi terrorist organisations of Pakistan
and is considered as close to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)
as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET). It is also reputed to be the richest of the
Pakistani jihadi terrorist organisations. Like the LET, it is Wahabi in orientation,
and, again like the LET, has not come to notice for any anti-Shia acts of
terrorism. While Punjabi Muslims constitute the largest single group in the
LET, which has its headquarters at Muridke in Pakistani Punjab, Pashtuns constitute
the largest single group in Al Badr Mujahideen, which has its headquarters
at Manshera in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Al Badr was the first
jihadi organisation to introduce suicide terrorism in the sub-continent. Whereas
the LET restricts its recruitment to the Muslims of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh
as well as the sub-continental Muslim diaspora in the Gulf, West Europe and
the USA, Al Badr, in addition to recruiting sub-continental Muslims, also
recruits Afghans and Arabs. Of all the Pakistani jihadi terrorist organisations,
it is believed to have the largest number of Muslims from outside the sub-continent.
Both the LET and Al Badr support Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and accept his
pan-Islamic ideology. But, while the LET has joined Osama Bin Laden's International
Islamic Front (IIF) for Jihad Against the Crusaders and the Jewish People,
Al Badr, for reasons which are not clear, has kept out of it so far.
Al Badr was brought into existence by the
Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) of the then East Pakistan in 1971 at the instance of
the ISI to counter the independence movement for the creation of Bangladesh.
It became notorious before the liberation of Bangladesh in December,1971,
for carrying out the massacre of hundreds of Bengali intellectuals, who supported
the liberation movement. It drew its membership largely from the Pashtuns
and Punjabis of the then West Pakistan---many of them ex-servicemen from the
Pakistan Army--- and Bihari Muslims from East Pakistan.
Before the fall of Dhaka, the ISI removed
all the members of Al Badr to West Pakistan to prevent their falling into
the hands of the liberation forces and the Indian Army lest they be tried
on charges of massacring the Bengali intellectuals. Since its organised massacre
of the intellectuals had come in for world-wide condemnation from human rights
organisations and renowned intellectuals like Andre Malraux, the French Minister
for Culture under President Charles de Gaulle and well-known French writer,
the ISI disbanded the organisation and it was dormant during the 1970s.
It was re-activated by the ISI under President
Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s and used to fight against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan.
It worked in tandem with the Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan on the one side and
Gulbuddin Heckmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami (HEI) on the other. In the 1980s, nearly
6,000 Arabs from West Asia and North Africa flocked to Peshawar to participate
in the jihad against the Soviet troops. The ISI entrusted Al Badr with the
task of training and motivating them and guidng them in the jihad. The late
Abdullah Azam, the Palestinian, who is considered the mentor of bin Laden,
and bin Laden himself were put through their jihadi paces after they had arrived
in Peshawar by Al Badr.
After the withdrawal of the Soviet troops
from Afghanistan, Al Badr played an active role in helping the Afghan Mujahideen
overthrow the Government of President Najibullah and capture power in Kabul
in April,1992, and was closely associated with the Mujahideen Government till
it was overthrown by the Taliban in September,1996. Its close association
with the the HEI of Gulbuddin Heckmatyar, who was at that time at daggers
drawn with the Taliban, which was born in 1994, created tension in the relations
of the Al Badr with the Taliban. This tension remained till 9/11, but thereafter,
the Taliban, the HEI and Al Badr have come together for a joint jihad against
the US and other NATO forces in Afghanistan.
In an article contributed to the Asia Times
Online on August 12, 2004, Syed Saleem Shahzad, its well-informed Bureau Chief
in Pakistan, wrote as follows:
<Quote>
"The present problems in the "war
on terror" are linked to the labyrinth of groups developed during the
decade-long Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the
1980s. The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sponsored much of the jihadi
movement, using the ISI as a front and a conduit.
"For example, US planes used to fly supplies,
arms and ammunition for the Afghan fighters to Islamabad, from where they
were transferred to the ISI Afghan cell's facility at Rawalpindi, from where
the ISI had its own network to distribute the merchandise to the mujahideen
groups of its choice.
"This modus operandi exposed a serious
flaw in US strategic thinking. By not dealing directly with the Afghan groups,
the US had no control over which ones benefited, and invariably only those
factions that were both anti-Western capitalism and anti-Soviet socialism
were cultivated by the ISI.
"In this environment, late Pakistani
dictator General Zia ul-Haq and his closest associate, the then director general
of the ISI, Lieutenant-General Akhtar Abdur Rehman, both of whom died in a
plane crash in 1988, saw their opportunity to lay the foundations for a global
Muslim liberation movement.
"Blissfully unaware of this perspective,
the CIA supported Pakistani efforts to recruit Muslim youths from the Pacific
to Africa, and a whole generation of youngsters was trained in jihad, and,
importantly, with strong anti-US overtones. Youngsters were drawn from groups
such as Abu Sayyaf from the Philippines and Muslims from Arakan province in
Myanmar.
"To keep the movements under the strict
control of the ISI, the ISI established proxies such as al-Badr, the Harkat-i-Jihad-i-Islami
and Harkatul Ansar (or Harkatul Mujahideen ).
"Crucially, all this was done without
the CIA and, for that matter, the leaders of the Islamic movements knowing
just how much control the ISI actually had.
"To keep the Arab movements under control,
an al-Badr facility was organized in Khost province in Afghanistan. A dynamic
law and master of arts graduate from Karachi University, Bakhat Zameen Khan,
a member of the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), a powerful religious party (who originally
hailed from Dir in North West Frontier Province), was chosen as commander.
He brought together all Arab jihadis at the facility, and linked senior ones
to the ISI. Out of this camp, the Palestinian Hamas emerged, as well as the
Arab-sponsored Moro liberation movement led by Abu Sayyaf.
"Khan was gradually weaned from the JI,
and he exclusively allied al-Badr with the Hezb-i-Islami (HIA) led by Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar, who today plays a key role in the Afghan resistance. As a result,
the JI announced its separation with al-Badr when it launched the Hizbul Mujahideen
militant movement in Kashmir in 1989.
"Al-Badr was kicked out of Afghanistan
after the emergence of the Taliban in the mid-1990s because of its affiliation
with the HIA. The ISI then set up new camps for al-Badr in Pakistani Azad
Kashmir - that portion of Kashmir administered by Pakistan.
"In the Kargil operation of 1999, which
almost brought Pakistan and India to all-out war, al-Badr fighters were initially
sent by the Pakistan army to occupy Indian bunkers.
"Former Afghan prime minister and legendary
mujahideen Hekmatyar went into exile in Tehran once the Taliban came to power
in 1996. But as the Taliban regime disintegrated in late 2001, the US put
pressure on Tehran to expel Hekmatyar, planning to arrest him as soon as he
returned to Afghanistan, where he believed he could reinvent himself as an
anti-US resistance guerrilla leader.
"By this time, though, Islamabad, having
been persuaded to abandon the Taliban and join the United States' "war
on terror", was in the process of finding a substitute connection in
Afghanistan. Hekmatyar was the obvious choice. Khan was sent to Tehran to
assure Hekmatyar of Pakistan's support should he return to Afghanistan.
"Al-Badr members were tasked to escort
Hekmatyar from Iran to Afghanistan and to keep him away from the Americans.
He was kept in a safe house in Chitral, where al-Badr members, along with
Pakistan commandos, guarded the premises. As soon as al-Badr members located
other diehard HIA commanders, such as Kashmir Khan and Ustad Fareed, Hekmatyar
was launched in Afghanistan's Kunar province to reorganize the HIA as a proxy
of the ISI in Afghanistan.
"Meanwhile, al-Badr, with its long experience
in the region, helped many Arabs and their families, desperately wanted by
the US, by providing them shelter and arranging fake passports for them to
return to their countries of origin.
"From the mid-1980s, then, to the present
the ISI and al-Badr have virtually been one and the same thing.The US State
Department declared al-Badr a terrorist organization a few years ago, and
has steadily put pressure on Islamabad to arrest its operators. However, Pakistan,
for obvious reasons, has been reluctant to comply with US demands.
<Unquote>
Herald, the monthly journal of the Dawn group
of publications of Karachi, reported in its issue of June 2006, that Al Badr
in Pakistan has re-named itself as the Al Suffa Foundation and now projects
itself as a humanitarian relief and charity organisation just as the LET has
renamed itself as the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD) and similarly projects itself as
a humanitarian relief and charity organisation.
The Herald added:
"Nearly 1000 Kashmiri militants are presently
lodged in three training camps located in the Batrasi and Hisari areas of
District Manshera and the Boi area of District Abbotabad. These camps are
run by the JI (Jamaat-e-Islami) backed Hizbul Mujahideen and house militants
from the Badgam, Baramulla, Athmuqam and other districts of Kashmir. Meanwhile,
thousands of Punjabi, Pakhtun, Hazarawal, and Afghan militants are housed
in a number of camps run by Al Badr Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen,
Tehrikee Mujahideen, JUD, and some smaller outfits in the Batrasi, Khewari,
Oghi and other areas of Hazara. Most of these organisations have forward camps
in the Kotli region of Kashmir and send regular contingents for infiltration
into Indian Kashmir."
All the places where the camps are located
are in the North-West Frontier Province
B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet
Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute
For Topical Studies, Chennai.
