After
Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg
B
Raman
The savage murder through
beheading of Nick Berg, a 26-year-old American civilian, reportedly
somewhere in Iraq last week by a group of five masked men bring to
mind the cruel beheading under similar circumstances of Daniel
Pearl, a journalist of the 'Wall Street Journal" in the beginning of
2002 by a group of Pakistani jihadi terrorists belonging to the
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen--Al Alami
(HUM-International) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), all the three
members Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF), the
world-wide activities of which are now being co-ordinated by
Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET).
2. The modus
operandi is similar and the denunciation of not only President Bush,
but also Pakistan's military dictator Pervez Musharraf by the
killers in their statement read out before beheading Berg, is an
indicator of a Pakistani jihadi involvement in the killing.
3. Even though the
video-recording of the beheading as displayed on the jihadi web site
associated with Al Qaeda was titled "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown
slaughtering an American", reliable sources in Karachi, who had
seen the video, say that the beheading has the clear finger-print of
the same three organisations, which had kidnapped and brutally
killed Pearl.
4. If it is proved
to be correct that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was, in fact, the person who
did the beheading, this would show that these three Pakistani
organisations are working in tandem with the organisation of Abu
Musab.
5. Since the
beginning of last year, jihadis of these three organisations as well
as of the LET and the dregs of Al Qaeda, particularly its Chechen
component, have been moving into Iraq in small groups or in ones and
twos through Saudi Arabia as well as possibly Iran to participate
in the jihad against the US in Iraq and bring about its defeat just
as they believe they brought about the defeat of the erstwhile USSR
in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
6. These movements
to Iraq started during the Haj pilgrimage before the US-led invasion
of Iraq last year. Many members of the HUM and other organisations
went to Saudi Arabia under the garb of pilgrims and from there
crossed over into Iraq. More went subsequently after the US-led
occupation of Iraq. The recent Haj pilgrimage was also taken
advantage of for sending more jihadis to Iraq.
7. Of the
organisations from Pakistan presently operating in Iraq, the LEJ is
strongly anti-Shia with many years of close association with Abu
Musab. The HUM (Al-Alami) and the JEM too have a strong anti-Shia
streak. The LET avoids anti-Shia rhetoric and attacks, though.
8. There are
conflicting accounts of the jihadi career of Abu Musab. Abu Musab is
his kuniyat (assumed name) and not the real name. al-Zarqawi means
from Zarqa, which is a town in Jordan. His assumed name means
father of Musab of the town Zarqa in Jordan. One does not know why
he uses Musab as his kuniyat. His real name is believed to be Ahmad
Fadil Al-Khalailah, which means Ahmad son of Fadil of al-Khalil,
which is the name the Arabs use for the Israeli town of Hebran.His
family had apparently migrated to Jordan from al-Khalil (Hebran) and
he himself was born in Zarqa. He also uses the kuniyats Abu Ahmad,
Abu Muhammad and Sakr Abu Suwayd.
9. He fought
against the Soviet roops in Afghanistan in the late 1980s. After the
withdrawal of the Soviet troops, he went back to Jordan and tried to
organise a movement against the King. He was arrested by the
Jordanian authorities and jailed for seven years. After his release,
he took up residence in Europe and then returned to Afghanistan in
1998. He was associated with an organisation called the Jamaat al-Tawhid
wa'l-Jihad [Unity and Jihad Group], whose objective was the
overthrow of the monarchy in Jordan and the proclamation of an
Islamic Caliphate. The Al Tawhid is believed to have a presence in
Europe, independent of Al Qaeda, particularly in Germany, the UK and
Spain. It is not known to be a member of the IIF.
10. The German
authorities arrested on April 23, 2002,Shadi Abdalla, Mohamed Abu
Dhess, Aschraf al-Dagma, Ismail Shalabi and Djamel Moustfa on
charges of belonging to al-Tawhid and planning to carry out acts of
terrorism in Germany. The German account of Abu Musab's jihadi
career, according to which he had visited Iran in the past,
contradicted the perception of him as anti-Shia.
11.The Jordanian
authorities have linked him to al-Qaeda's Millennium bombing plot
targeting the Radisson SAS hotel in Amman as well as other American,
Israeli, and Christian religious sites in Jordan and to the October
28, 2002, assassination of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman.
Some reports had projected him as a close associate of Osama bin
Laden, but other reports had claimed that he had his own training
infrastructure in Herat in Afghanistan before 9/11, which was
independent of the Al Qaeda's in the Kandahar-Jalalabad region. His
name had not figured much in the accounts of the jihad of the 1980s
against the Soviet troops in which he had participated. His name
has been frequently appearing in reports only post-1998 when he was
reported to have brought a number of Jordanians to Afghanistan for
training, initially in bin Laden's training camp and subsequently in
his own. Whenever he visited Pakistan on his way to and back from
Afghanistan, he used to stay with the leaders of the LEJ in Jhang in
Punjab and in Karachi. He was a close personal friend of Maulana
Azam Tariq, former head of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, the
political wing of the LEJ, who was assassinated by unidentified
elements in October last year.
12. In his address
to the UN Security Council in February 2003, Gen. Colin Powell, the
US Secretary of State, had said: "Iraq today harbors a deadly
terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi an associate and
collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda lieutenants.
Zarqawi ,a Palestinian born in Jordan, fought in the Afghan war more
than a decade ago. Returning to Afghanistan in 2000, he oversaw a
terrorist training camp. One of his specialties, and one of the
specialties of this camp, is poisons. When our coalition ousted the
Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and
explosive training camp, and this camp is located in northeastern
Iraq." He then described a camp producing ricin and other poisons,
operated by the "radical organization Ansar al-Islam that controls
this corner of Iraq" and added: "He traveled to Baghdad in May of
2002 for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two
months while he recuperated to fight another day. During his stay,
nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a
base of operations there. These al-Qaida affiliates based in Baghdad
now coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and
throughout Iraq for his network, and they have now been operating
freely in the capital for more than eight months. Iraqi officials
deny accusations of ties with al-Qaida. These denials are simply not
credible. We know these affiliates are connected to Zarqawi because
they remain, even today, in regular contact with his direct
subordinates, including the poison cell plotters. And they are
involved in moving more than money and materiel."
The
writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of
India, and, presently, Director, Institute for Topical Studies,
Chennai, and Distinguished Fellow and Convenor, Observer Research
Foundation (ORF), Chennai chapter. |
