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Pakistan:
HQ, Jihad Incorporated
B
Raman
India
has been the victim of the use of cross-border terrorism by the
State of Pakistan and its intelligence agencies since 1956 to
achieve their strategic objectives, which are three in number.
First, to create a religious divide between the Hindus, who are in a
majority, and the Muslims, who are in a substantial minority.
Second, to keep the Indian State destabilised and preoccupied with
internal security tasks in order to hamper the economic development
of the country. And third, to annex the State of Jammu & Kashmir
(J&K), which is an integral part of India.....
In 1989, the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment turned
its attention to Jammu & Kashmir and to the Muslim community in
other parts of India in order to spread terrorism to the
Muslim-inhabited areas and exploit the anger caused by the State's
counter-terrorism operations for driving a wedge between the Muslims
and the Hindus and between the Muslims and the State.
Even before 1989, there had been sporadic incidents of terrorism in
J&K, but these were few and far between. For example, in 1971
two members of the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF)
hijacked a plane of the Indian Airlines Corporation to Lahore and
blew it up with explosives given at Lahore by the Pakistani
authorities after asking the passengers and the crew to leave the
aircraft. In 1983,some members of the JKLF in the UK kidnapped an
Indian diplomat posted in Birmingham and killed him when the
Government of India refused to concede their demand for the release
of their leader from jail.
In the late 1980s, the ISI set up a number of training camps in
Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and the North-West Frontier Province
(NWFP) of Pakistan where recruits brought from J&K were trained
and armed. They were then sent to Afghanistan to get jihad
experience from the Afghan Mujahideen and thereafter infiltrated
into J&K to indulge in acts of terrorism.
Since then, the Pakistan Army and its ISI have been waging a proxy
war against the Indian Security Forces through these surrogates
without themselves getting involved in any direct confrontation with
the Indian Army. This proxy war has passed through the following
phases:
1989-93: The terrorists involved were mostly Kashmiris from India
and Pakistan. Very few foreign mercenaries were involved. They
initially operated mostly with hand-held weapons, but subsequently
started using explosive devices, land mines and hand-grenades to
indiscriminately kill civilians. The average number of local
terrorists killed by the Security Forces came to 848 per annum. As
against this, the average number of foreigners, mostly Pakistanis,
killed came to 32 per annum only. The average recoveries of military
material other than AK-47 rifles, light-machine guns, rocket
launchers etc by the Security Forces came to 100 KGs of explosives,
426 mines and 2760 hand-grenades per annum.
1994 to 1998:Finding that the indigenous terrorists were not making
any headway in their operations against the Indian Security Forces,
the Pakistan Army and the ISI started infiltrating foreign
merceneries, who had fought against the Soviet troops in
Afghanistan, most of them Pakistani nationals, in increasing numbers. There
was an increase in the use of explosives, landmines and hand-grenades. The
average number of local terrorists killed came to 1069 per annum and
the average number of foreign jihadi terrorists killed came to 172
per annum. The average recoveries per annum came to 405 KGs of
explosives,628 mines and 4085 hand-grenades.
1999 to 2003:This period saw two important developments. The
Pakistan Army headed by Gen.Pervez Musharraf staged a coup and
seized power in October,1999. Four Pakistani jihadi organisations
operating in J&K joined Osama bin Laden's International Islamic
Front (IIF) for Jihad Against the Crusaders and the Jewish People,
which had been formed in 1998. These were the HUM, the HUJI, the LET
and the JEM. Under the influence of bin Laden, they introduced
suicide terrorism for the first time in J&K. Before 1999, there
was no suicide terrorism in the State. Since, 1999, there have been
46 acts of suicide terrorism or fedayeen attacks, of which 44 were
carried out by the LET and the JEM. The remaining two were by
unidentified (possibly local) terrorists. The infiltration of
foreign mercenaries, mostly Pakistani nationals, increased and they
started operating under the guise of Kashmiris and took over the
leadership of the militant movement.The average number of local
terrorists killed came down to 726 per annum and the average number
of foreign mercenaries killed went up steeply to 951 per annum. The
average recoveries per annum were 866 KGs of explosives and 5336
hand-grenades.Figures in respect of mines are not available.
The killing of a large number of foreign mercenaries has not yet
affected the capability of the Pakistani terrorist organisations to
maintain a high level of violence since those killed are immediately
replaced through fresh infiltration of trained mercenaries.The
Pakistan Army and the ISI have managed to maintain a total of about
1,600 foreign mercenaries always active in J&K---more in the
Jammu Division where the Hindus are in a majority and less in the
Kashmir Division, where the Muslims are in a majority.
In addition to the foreign mercenaries, about 1,700 Kashmiris
recruited from J&K as well as the Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK)
have also been got trained by the ISI in camps located in the POK
and elsewhere and infiltrated into J&K. They largely belong to
the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), the militant wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami,
which calls for the merger of J&K with Pakistan.The JEI of
J&K is an appendage of the JEI of Pakistan, which is a strongly
anti-US , anti-India and anti-Israel organisation. Khalid Sheikh
Mohammad, of Al Qaeda, believed to be the master-mind of the 9/11
terrorist strikes in the US which brought down the World Trade
Centre in New York killing over 3,000 innocent civilians and damaged
the Pentagon building in Washington DC killing many more, was caught
in the house of a women's wing leader of the JEI in Rawalpindi in
Pakistan in March last. Some other Al Qaeda members were also found
to have been sheltered by the JEI of Pakistan.
An idea of the extent of the Pakistani assistance to the terrorists
in J&K could be had from the fact that the total recoveries
since 1989 of hand-held weapons, rocket-launchers etc supplied by
the ISI to the terrorists would be sufficient to equip one Division
of a conventional army.One does not know how many weapons are still
left with the terrorists. None of the countries which have been
designated by the US as a State-sponsor of International Terrorism
is known to have issued hundreds of mines of different kinds to
terrorists as Pakistan has been doing.
The second significant development after 1993 relates to the
spread of jihadi terrorism to other parts of India outside J&K.
The Kashmiri terrorist organisations describe their objective as
confined to J&K and claim that they do not have any agenda
outside the State. But, the four Pakistani jihadi organisations,
which are members of bin Laden's IIF, follow his pan-Islamic
ideology and call for the re-organisation of the Islamic Ummah into
a number of Caliphates, including one in the South Asian region.
In pursuance of this, they describe J&K as the "gateway to
India" and say that after having "liberated" J &
K, they would "liberate" the Muslims living in other parts
of India, as a prelude to the formation of an Islamic Caliphate
consisting of Pakistan, the "liberated Muslim homelands"
of India, Bangladesh, the Muslim majority areas in the Eastern
Province of Sri Lanka and the Maldive Islands in the Indian
Ocean.....
The JEM and the HUM have also been setting up secret cells in New
Delhi and other parts of India.Since 1999, the LET has carried out a
number of terrorist strikes in New Delhi (attack inside the Red Fort
and on the Parliament House), Ahmedabad (attack on Hindu worshippers
in a temple in Gandhi Nagar) and Mumbai, where a number of
explosions has been organised, the latest being the twin blasts on
August 25,2003, which killed 53 innocent civilians.
The third significant development relates to the ISI's
resumption of the use of hijacking as a weapon to force the
Government of India to release Pakistani terrorists arrested and
detained by the Indian Police. The ISI had instigated the Sikh
terrorists to carry out five hijackings in the 1980s, but it gave up
the use of hijacking as a weapon in its proxy war against India
after the death of Gen.Zia-ul-Haq in 1988 which led to the
restoration of democracy in Pakistan.
Between 1988 and 1999, when democratically elected civilian
Governments were in power in Islamabad, there was no hijacking by
Pakistan-trained terrorist groups. In December,1999, hardly two
months after the army, under the leadership of Musharraf, seized
power again, an aircraft of the Indian Airlines flying from
Kathmandu to New Delhi was hijacked by terrorists belonging to the
HUM and forcibly taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan, which was then
controlled by the Taliban. On the way to Kandahar, they killed one
of the Hindu passengers. Because of the non-helpful attitude of the
Taliban in terminating the hijacking, the Government of India had to
concede the demands of the hijackers for the release of three
Pakistani terrorists, who returned to Pakistan via Kandahar. One of
them subsequently played a role in the kidnapping and murder of
Daniel Pearl.
In the 1980s,the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment
refused to extend mutual legal assistance to India for bringing the
Sikh hijackers to trial and gave them sanctuary in Pakistan.
Similarly, the Musharraf Government too has refused to extend legal
assistance to India for bringing the December,1999, hijackers to
trial and given them shelter in Pakistan.
CONTINUED SUPPORT TO TERRORISM AFTER 9/11
During his visit to India in 2001 for the summit talks at
Agra with the Indian Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Musharraf
refuted Indian charges of jihadi terrorism in J&K and described
the terrorists as "freedom-fighters similar to the Palestinian
freedom-fighters". While he did not deny that innocent
civilians had died, he contended that such deaths could not be
helped during a "freedom struggle."
However, after 9/11, apparently under US pressure, he started
condemning attacks on innocent civilians as terrorism, but denied
that these attacks were carried out by Pakistan-based
organisations.In his telecast of January 11,2002, he said that
resort to terrorism could not be justified whatever be the cause.
Subsequently, on January 15,2002, he banned the LET and the JEM and
ordered the arrest of their leaders and many of their cadres. All of
them have since been released on the ground that there was no
evidence of their involvement in acts of terrorism in Pakistani
territory. Pakistan does not accept evidence of their involvement in
acts of terrorism in Indian territory.
During 2002, following a visit by Mr.Richard Armitage, US Deputy
Secretary of State, to Islamabad for talks with Musharraf, the
latter gave an assurance that no more infiltration of trained
terrorists into J&K would be allowed. Despite this,
infiltrations continue to take place as would be evident from the
following figures of detected infiltrations of armed terrorists into
J&K from Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK):
2000 ----- 2284
2001 ----- 2417
2002 ----- 1400
2003 ----- 1410 (up to September 30)
The ISI continues to use the HUM, the LET, the JEM, the HUJI
and Al Badr, all Pakistani organisations, for sponsoring acts of
terrorism in Indian territory. Of these, the HUM is a founding
member of bin Laden's IIF.The HUJI, the LET and the JEM joined it
subsequently. The US State Department designated the HUM as a
Foreign Terrorist Organisation in 1997 under its then name of HUA.
It designated the LET and the JEM as Foreign Terrorist Organisations
after 9/11. The HUM has not so far been banned in Pakistan despite
its involvement in acts of terrorism not only against Indian
nationals, but also against American and other Western nationals.
There has been no ban on the HUJI either. Musharraf banned the LET
and the JEM on January 15,2002, but the ban order applied to only
their activities in Pakistani Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and the
North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). It did not apply to their
activities in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), the Northern Areas (Gilgit
and Baltistan) and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas
(FATA).......
No action has been taken by Pakistan against the training
camps in Pakistani territory run by the Pakistani and Kashmiri
terrorist organisations. These training camps are located not only
in the POK and the Northern Areas, but also at Muridke, near Lahore,
in Pakistani Punjab and at different places and madrasas in Sindh
and the NWFP.
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE US COUNTER-TERRORISM POLICY
The USA's continued reluctance to act against Pakistan and make it
pay a prohibitive price for helping the jihadi terrorists is coming
in the way of an effective counter-terrorism strategy.Encouraged by
this US reluctance, the Pervez Musharraf regime continues to keep
the jihadi terrorists alive and active in the hope of using them to
retrieve the lost Pakistani influence in Afghanistan and achieve its
strategic objective of forcing a change in the status quo in India's
Jammu & Kashmir.
One
is already seeing the result of this not only in the continuing acts
of terrorism in Indian territory by terrorists sponsored, trained
,armed and infiltrated by Pakistan, but also in the similar
cross-border infiltration of re-grouped,re-trained and re-armed
cadres of the Taliban from the sanctuaries in Pakistan into
Afghanistan.According to Ahmed Rashid,the internationally renowned
Pakistani expert on the Taliban, about 2,500 well-trained and
well-equipped Taliban cadres are presently in the Pakistani
territory waiting to be infiltrated into Afghanistan.About 1,400
plus trained and armed terrorists are infiltrated into India every
year by the ISI.
The continued availability of the terrorist infrastructure in
Pakistani territory poses a serious threat not only to peace and
stability in India and Afghanistan, but also to the US and other
allied troops and the personnel of international organisations in
Iraq, which are trying to restore normalcy in Iraq and lay the
foundation for its emergence as a modern, liberal democracy. Osama
bin Laden and his Al Qaeda and the Pakistani jihadi organisations
subscribing to his ideology look upon India, the US and Israel as
the main obstacles in their efforts to spread jihadi terrorism
across the world and achieve their pan-Islamic objectives.
Any counter-terrorism policy followed by the US, in its capacity as
the head of the international coalition in the war against
terrorism, cannot be effective unless it acts firmly not only
against terrorist organisations and their leaders, but also against
States using terrorism as a weapon to achieve their strategic
objectives.
Even if the US has difficulties in taking punitive action against
Pakistan, it should at least ensure that Pakistan sincerely
implements the provisions of the UNSCR 1373 against all terrorist
organisations whether their terrorist activities are directed
against the USA, India, Israel or any other country.Any further US
economic and military assistance should be linked to this condition
. As a first step, the US should insist on Pakistan arresting and
handing over to India the 20 terrorists wanted for trial in India,
effectively enforcing a ban on the HUM, the LET, the HUJI and the
JEM and removing all training and other terrorist infrastructure in
its territory, whether of Pakistani or Kashmiri
organisations.Pakistan's claims of freezing terrorist accounts need
to be closely scrutinised. If they are found to be false, Pakistan
should be held accountable before the UN Security Council.
(22-10-03)
Abridged
version of the text of the testimony at the joint hearing of
the Sub-Committees on Asia and the Pacific and international
terrorism, non-proliferation and human rights of the House Committee
on International Relations on October 29, 2003. |
