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April 19, 2007

Pakistan: Islamists Cripple The Nation - Part Three

This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared earlier today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.

Pakistan: An Ally In Crisis

Part Three (of three)

In Part One, I mentioned that Khalid Khawaja, a former member of ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency, faces charges of inciting the students from the Lal Masjid mosque complex. Some serving members of ISI are said to worship at the mosque. The South Asia Analysis Group has named other former ISI figures who are supporting the current anarchy in Pakistan.

These include Javed Nasir, the head of ISI from 1990 to 1993, Mahmood Ahmed, who was the head of ISI at the time of 9/11 but was fired a month later, and also Zahir-ul-Islam Abbasi, who was ISI's station chief in New Delhi, India in the late 1980s, until accused of spying in 1988. Another former head of ISI is among the group - Hamid Gul (right). Gul is well known for his involvement with the Pakistan Taliban, and for being the strategic adviser for the MMA, the Islamist opposition currently involved in nationwide demonstrations against Musharraf. Gul is said to be active in encouraging these demonstrations.

Though Gul formerly had good relations with the CIA, by 2003 he was vehemently condemning the US. Gul has a high regard for both Osama bin Laden and the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar. In January 2007 a Taliban leader captured in Afghanistan, Abdul Haq Haji Gulroz, claimed that the ISI funds Afghan suicide bombings and that Hamid Gul supports and funds the Afghan insurgency.

When Musharraf restored democracy in November 2002, the MMA gained control of the Regional Assembly for North-West Frontier Province. The Islamist parties, who wish to impose sharia and have a deep hatred for the US, have popular support here. Mullah Omar and other Afghan Taliban leaders had been educated at the Haqqania madrassa in the province, which is run by Sami ul-Haq, a leader of one of the six parties in the MMA coalition. Ul-Haq boasted in 2005 that whenever the Taliban wanted fighters he would close down the Haqqania madrassa and send students off to fight.

North-West Frontier Province adjoins Afghanistan. The 1,500 mile border was artificially created in 1893 by British official Sir Mortimer Durrand, but it cuts through the tribal regions of the Pashtuns, who are the main ethnic group in Afghanistan. Pashtuns and other tribal peoples in NWFP are consequently sympathetic to fellow Islamists across the border. Many of the students at the Lal Masjid in Islamabad come from these regions. When the Taliban were ousted from Afghanistan at the end of 2001, many sought refuge in the mountains of NWFP. Senior figures from Al Qaeda came with them.

Many of the borderland regions of NWFP are forbidden to journalists. 70,000 Pakistani troops have been posted in the region since 2002, hunting "foreign" militants. These are Arabs, Afghans and Central Asians, including Islamists from Uzbekistan. During 2005, signs came that an emerging "Pakistan Taliban" was forming in the region. On December 1, 2005, an explosion happened in the village of Isori near the town of Miranshah in North Waziristan, one of the "Federally Admistrated Tribal Areas" in NWFP. Five people in a house were killed. It soon transpired that one of these was Egyptian-born Abu Hamza Rabia, who was then third-in-command of Al Qaeda.

Pakistan officially tried to claim the explosion had happened accidentally. A local journalist, Hayatullah Khan, had photographed shrapnel that appeared to come from a US Predator Drone. On December 5 he was kidnapped. His body was later found in the Khaisor mountains in June 2006. After the explosion, 500 students from a nearby madrassa staged protests, chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Pakistan".

Within days of the incident students ("Taliban" means students) had decapitated a "bandit" and strung his body on an electricity pylon outside a madrassa in North Waziristan. A note on the body warned that "anyone who helps these types of people will meet the same fate". The man's head was stuck on a bamboo pole. Another man was also hanged on the pylon. Through these and similar actions, the Pakistani Taliban were becoming recognized.

The Pakistani authorities are reluctant to admit any cooperation with the US on air strikes on Islamist targets in NWFP. Politically, the consequences are dramatic. On January 7, 2006, residents of the village of Mosaki, 13 miles east of Miranshah, claimed a helicopter gunship had been used to attack the house of a Taliban-supporting "scholar". In November 2005 a mysterious explosion took place at Mosaki, where five foreign Arab Islamists and one local tribesman were killed.

When the US gained information that Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's second in command was due to attend a meeting in the village of Damadola on January 13, 2006 they mounted an air attack with Hellfire missiles. 18 people were killed. Damadola lies three miles inside the Pakistan border, in Bajaur agency, one of NWFP's federally-administered agencies. Though Zawahiri had cancelled his attendance, other Al Qaeda members were among the dead. These included Midhat Mursi al-Sayid 'Umar, who was Al Qaeda's chemicals and poisons expert. Others said to have been killed in the attack were Abdul Rehman Al-Misri al Maghribi, Zawahiri's son in law who worked for Al Qaeda's media outfit, and Abu Obaidah al Misri, al-Qaeda's regional commander for Afghanistan's eastern province of Kunar.

The response from the MMA to the attack was predictable. The MMA led national demonstrations, including a protest march to Bajaur agency, but was prevented from reaching Damadola. The Regional Assembly of NWFP called for Ryan Crocker, US ambassador to Pakistan, to be expelled. US Senator John McCain said on January 17: "We apologize, but I can't tell you that we wouldn't do the same thing again."

In February 2006, the MMA led protests against the Danish cartoons across Pakistan. At least five people died in the accompanying violence. Protesters called for the death of Musharraf, and shouted their contempt for America.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Taliban grew stronger in NWFP, consolidating a power base in Waziristan. In March 2006, the first independent Sharia Court was set up in Wana, regional capital of South Waziristan. A diplomat claimed at this time that since summer of 2005, more than 100 pro-government leaders had been killed by Islamists in Waziristan. By May 2006, that figure had been increased to 150.

On March 26, 2006, the first person was executed by the Wana Sharia Court court. One of the clerics who set up the Wana court is Sadiq Noor. A report from January 2007 says he heads the most powerful Pakistan Taliban group in North Waziristan. At his office in Miranshah, he hosts Taliban and Al Qaeda meetings. He also runs a private jail. In Mir Ali, an Arab called Abu Kasha runs a Taliban group, and an Uzbek faction is led by an individual called Najimuddin Uzbek.

In South Waziristan, Noor Islam, who also convened the Wana Sharia Court, is a Taliban leader, representing his Wazir tribe. He supported the Uzbeks in the region. Baitullah Mehsud leads another faction in the region.

The Pakistan government has been making "peace deals" with Islamists in NWFP, which have only served to validate such individuals' status. In 2004, the government signed a peace deal with Haji Omar (pictured), a brother of Noor Islam and self-styled "Amir" of the South Waziristan Taliban. Omar has vowed to keep up a continuous jihad against the US. In February 2005 at Sararogha, Baitullah Mehsud signed a peace deal with the government. Part of the deal included the withdrawal of troops, and removal of protection for foreigners. After the deal, Baiitullah enforced sharia law and banned dancing, computers, television and music in his "territory".

The worst deal to made with the "Pakistani Taliban" in Waziristan came on September 5, 2006. This "Waziristan Accord" again included an agreement for the Pakistan army to draw back from the region. One clause of the accord stated "There shall be no cross-border movement for militant activity in neighbouring Afghanistan." The deal included a prohibition of "target killings" where people suspected of being US spies were often decapitated. Samina Ahmed of the International Crisis Group said the accord with the Pakistani Taliban was "irresponsible to say the least".

Xenia Dormandy, former South Asia director at the National Security Council said making such accords "is a potentially dangerous route to take because there is little pressure that you can bring to bear to make sure they can follow through on the agreements." She was proved right when days after the agreement was signed, the first target killing left a 71-year old man shot dead in North Waziristan, soon followed by a decapitated and mutilated corpse in South Waziristan. Within a month, clerics in the region were openly recruiting fighters to cross the border into Afghanistan to fight coalition troops.

Meanwhile, the government was considering making a similar accord with the Islamists in Bajaur agency. This never happened. On Saturday, October 28, 2006, a tribal jirga in the agency praised both Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar as heroes. On Monday October 30, 2006, a madrassa near Khar in Bajaur was bombed, using helicopter gunships, and the prospects of a peace deal evaporated. The madrassa was claimed by an army spokesman to be a terror training venue. He said: "These militants were involved in actions inside Pakistan and probably in Afghanistan.We received confirmed intelligence reports that 70 to 80 militants were hiding in a madrassa used as a terrorist-training facility, which was destroyed by an army strike, led by helicopters."

The MMA in the region went on the rampage, mounting demonstrations in Chenagai and Khar in the Bajaur agency. At Chenagai, where 2,000 tribesman and shopkeepers shouted "Death to Musharraf! Death to Bush!, one protester waved a severed hand retrieved from the madrassa wreckage. Qazi Hussain Ahmad, leader of the MMA, said: "It was an American plane behind the attack and Pakistan is taking responsibility because they know there would be a civil war if the American responsibility was known."

Nine days later, revenge came in the form of a suicide attack at an army barracks in Dargai in Malakand district, NWFP. An anonymous message claimed that 250 volunteers had offered to be suicide bombers against the Pakistani forces.

In August last year, the Pakistan government gave a deadline to another Islamist group, which was based in Khyber agency, one of the seven tribal "agencies" in NWFP. In June 2006, this group, the Lashkar-e-Islami or Army of Islam had issued a fatwa to the Bara community, imposing Sharia Law and banning satellite TV, video shops, and other "transgressions". The government said that the leader of the group, Mangal Bagh Alfridi, would face a crackdown, and isued a warrant for his arrest. This never came, and last month Alfridi was openly visible at a sharia killing. A woman and two men had been accused of adultery, and were stoned and shot to death publicly.

The steady growth of the Pakistan Taliban in the tribal regions of NWFP, perhaps assisted by former (or even serving) members of the ISI who assisted in creating the Afghan Taliban, has now reached a crisis point. The network of Pakistan Taliban leaders, some representing local tribes, and others representing foreign Islamists, has begun to break down.

On March 19 this year, a campaign began around Wana to oust the Uzbek Taliban from the region. 160 people died in the initial fighting. At the end of the month, a ceasefire between the factions was enacted, but this collapsed on March 29. Within two days, another 56 people were dead in the region in and around Wana. 45 of the dead were said to be "foreign" Islamists. On April 2, a tribal council or "jirga" declared jihad against the Uzbeks.

On April 5, the governor of NWFP, Ali Jan Orakzai, blamed the foreign Islamists for violating the terms of the September accord, forcing the tribesmen to act against them. He claimed that the accord had stopped Islamists crossing into Afghanistan, implying that the US agreed with this.

On March 25, while the leaders of the Lal Masjid in Islamabad were making threats of suicide bombings, similar threats were being issued by the banned group Tehreek Nafaz-e-Sharia Muhammadi (TNSM). These claimed tat if their imprisoned leader was not freed, they would mount suicide attacks across the nation. The group claimed to have 100 suicide bombers on standby. This group had controlled the madrassa in Bajaur agency, which had been bombed on October 30.

The fighting soon spread to the south of NWFP. In Tank, armed men entered a school, to lecture students on Holy War, on March 26. A shootout with the authorities followed, with five milinats and one policeman killed in the exchange. Four government soldiers were injured by bombings in Tank district on April 8. An agreement had been made in Tank on April 2 to assist the government to restore peace in NWFP. On April 9, one town in South Waziristan claimed that a tribal army had cleared itself of Uzbak radicals. These radicals were from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which is led by Tahir Yuldashevh (pictured right).

The effects of such instability have not gone unnoticed by the US, Pakistan's official ally. A recent report by K Alan Kronstadt of the US Congressional Research Service (CRS) paints a gloomy picture of the Pakistan situation. Entitled "Pakistan and Terrorism", its author notes that many observers are cynical of Pakistan's successes against its homegrown extremists. "Numerous experts raise questions about the determination, sincerity, and effectiveness of Pakistani government efforts to combat religious extremists." The report highlights experts' concerns "about the implications of maintaining present US policies toward the region, and about the efficacy of Islamabad's latest strategy, which appears to seek reconciliation with pro-Taliban elements."

Ashok K Behuria, Research Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, Writing on the growth of Pakistani Islamism, observed last year that "the administration has ignored the inability of such groups to remain quiet and non-coercive. These groups have moreover repeatedly challenged the might of the state. In the absence of an imaginative plan to counter such an assertive ideology at the grassroots level, Pakistan will continue to labour under a million mutinies, which will increasingly weaken the capacity of the state in the days to come."

How Pakistan will extricate itself from its current predicament, assuming that it can do so, remains to be seen. More dramatic mutinies seem to lie ahead.

Adrian Morgan

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Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at April 19, 2007 9:22 AM

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