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India-Pakistan
Intelligence reports fear new jihadi groups
2003-10-31
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While the government continues to battle extremist Islamist groups within the country as well as remnants of Al Qaeda-Taliban in areas adjacent to Afghanistan, intelligence agencies report the likely emergence in the near future of new sectarian groups. These reports say militants from banned sectarian outfits like Sipah-e-Mohammad Pakistan, Sipah-e-Sahaba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and even splinters groups of these organisations are in the process of forming new terror groups. “We have indications that they want to begin a new and more deadly round of sectarian violence,” says an official, adding: “The Deobandi sectarians are spoiling to avenge Azam Tariq’s murder.”
Sipah-e-Mohammad Pakistan is a Shia sectarian outfit, although it is much less active that its Deobandi counterparts.
One such report even talks about the formation of a group in Karachi and Quetta with the sole objective of avenging the killings of Hazara in Quetta in two major terrorist incidents in June and July. Thirteen police recruits, all Shia Hazara, were killed in an ambush in Quetta’s Saryab neighbourhood in June while more than fifty people of the same community were massacred in an attack on an imambargah in Quetta. “We fear that there will be new actors in these groups, harder to identify and perhaps more indoctrinated,” says a police officer. Officials also refer to a speech by Abdul Ghafoor Hyderi, a leader of the slain sectarian firebrand Azam Tariq’s Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan. Hyderi warned at a demonstration in Karachi of the possible formation of “Lashkar-e-Azam” if the government failed to arrest the killers of Tariq. Tariq, along with three gunmen and a driver, was killed in a drive-by shooting in Islamabad on October 6.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, or Army of Jhangvi, was named after Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, the founder of Sipah-e-Sahaba, who was assassinated by Shias a decade ago.
Intelligence officials are taking these threats very seriously. “The undercurrents are similar to those in 1996 when Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was formed and went on a killing spree,” says an official. Most observers think the situation could get worse than in the mid-nineties. “The situation is chaotic and it is difficult to keep track of all these groups and their agendas. The sectarians can morph into jihadis and vice versa overnight. Then there is the war on terrorism and the groups’ linkages. It’s just a nightmare for law enforcement agencies,” says a top official.
If you don't go to sleep, you don't have nightmares, do you?
There are also indications of a stir among the jihadi groups. At least four such organisations have already formed an alliance called the Muslim United Army. The name first came to surface on October 16 last year when international media reported a string of parcel-bomb explosions in Karachi. The responsibility for the attacks was taken by then-unknown MUA. The explosions, at the home secretary’s office and some police stations, injured eight people including six policemen. The supreme commander of his own faction of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Asif Ramzi sent emails to newswires and national newspapers in which he claimed to speak on behalf of MUA. Ramzi is believed to have been killed along with three of his accomplices in a mysterious bomb blast at a warehouse in Karachi’s Korangi area on December 19 last year. Most police officers did not take the MUA seriously and dismissed it as a fake name being used by some banned outfit to mislead the police. But this theory did not last long. On May 15, twenty-one petrol stations owned by Anglo-Dutch Shell Company in the city were attacked with bomblets. A day after the blasts, MUA claimed responsibility for the explosions and warned that major attacks could follow if the government did not relent in its campaign against the mujahideen (holy warriors). The group described the explosions at the 21 outlets of Shell Company as a “small glimpse” of its capability to generate violence.

A recent report also says five proscribed outfits have grouped under the codename of 313 (the number of companions with the Prophet (pbuh) at the battle of Badr) to target key political and religious leaders and professionals. Four of its members are Harkat-ul Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Harkat-ul Ansar and Harkat-e-Jihad-e-Islami. These self-styled jihadi groups have linked up with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a sectarian terrorist group accused of killings hundreds of Shias. However, some specialists who have watched the working of these outfits closely doubt the report. They contend that there is no example in the past of an alliance between sectarian and jihadi outfits. “They have different agendas and objectives,” says one such analyst.
They have the same agendas and objectives, and are in most cases the same people, they simply have different focuses, but they both wish to see a greater Pakistan, including Kashmir and Afghanistan, and they want to see the Shias apostesised so that Pakistan becomes a Deobandi-Sunni state.
Police officers have a different opinion. “We have evidence that there is no difference between jihadi and sectarian groups. Their cadres keep moving from one job to another,” he said.
When one sector slows down, might as well use those skills in another...
Meanwhile, the infighting between the two groups of banned Jaish-e-Mohammad has again picked up. One JeM dissident, Abdullah Shah Mazhar, recently escaped an armed attack. He was fired upon while he was entering a mosque in Karachi’s Sharfabad locality. Masood Azhar, the Jaish chief, expelled June 12 a group of dissenters. The group broke away and claimed to form its own group called Al-Furqan. Its two prominent leaders are Abdullah Shah Mazhar and Abdul Jabbar. Others, who were expelled, include Tahir Hayat, alias Bhai Farooq, Ghulam Murtaza, Ghulam Haider, Nasir Shirazi, Naveed Farooqi, Qari Abdul Majid alias Qari Shah Jalal, Aijaz Mehmood, Maqsood Ali Shah, Abdul Samad Soomro and Shaukat Hayat. Jabbar has nicknamed himself Maulana Umer Farooq and is now the amir of the breakaway faction. Mazhar has been nominated the nazim-e-aala (chief organiser) and secretary general of Al-Furqan. Sources said the conflict between the two groups came to the fore when the Mazhar faction did not allow Masood Azhar to give a sermon at Masjid-e-Bataha in Karachi’s Sakhi Hasan locality in North Nazimabad. In mid-June, the two groups clashed over the possession of the mosque. The faction led by Mazhar prevailed in the end. Another scuffle between the two factions was reported at a mosque in Korangi. This mosque was captured by Azhar’s group. A close aide of Masood Azhar said that a conflict on the possession of mosque was due to its precious real estate value and its madrassah. He told TFT the expelled leaders had no concern for jihad and their main objective was to occupy the properties belonging to the Jaish to make easy money.
Probably true enough, but Masood Azhar cares more for making money than Jihad too, as long as they recruit enough cannon fodder with incendiary speeches, the money will keep rolling in.
Masood Azhar was chief of his outlawed militant outfit Jaish-e Muhammad (JeM) before he renamed his party in December 2001 as Tehrik al-Furqan fearing its possible inclusion in the US State Department’s list of terrorist groups after the State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher hinted that the Bush administration was concerned over the alleged “terrorist” activities of Jaish-e-Mohammad and was considering placing it on the terrorist list. It was further renamed Khudam-ul Islam after the party leadership feared yet another ban on it.
Khudum ul Islam (Servants of Islam), is the biggest Deobandi Jihadi outfit in Pakistan, and incidently it has almost no Pashtun members, it is overwhelmingly Punjabi.
Related reports suggest the police in Karachi fears as much threat from militants of sectarian as from the jihadi organisations. “We have a report that says a number of leaders of the religious and sectarian groups and professionals, doctors in particular, are on the hit lists of terrorists. I cannot give you the exact number of such persons because we are updating our data frequently,” Sindh chief minister’s advisor for home affairs, Aftab Shaikh told TFT. Shaikh conceded the government has received reports of possible attacks on foreign diplomatic missions, Western targets, including multinationals and food franchise outlets, churches, imambargahs and mosques. “We are prepared for any contingency,” he told TFT.
Posted by:Paul Moloney

#3  Don't any of these guys have jobs?
Posted by: Bill   2003-10-31 4:42:25 PM  

#2  Sounds like Pakistan could use a good plutonium-powered cleaning out.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama   2003-10-31 12:28:33 PM  

#1  I's even worse than you thought--ER Docs in NYC have security now
Posted by: NotMikeMoore   2003-10-31 1:54:06 AM  

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