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Pakistan Assessment 2003

Even as Pakistan’s terrorist agenda underwent constant mutation during the year 2002, it still evinces remarkable continuities with regard to its status as an ‘epicentre’ of Islamist fundamentalism and terrorism. Its emergence as a ‘frontline state’ in the war against terrorism is yet to produce the anticipated changes in terms of internal reform, the containment of terrorist organizations, and various promises made by the Pervez Musharraf regime in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in USA. Increasing international pressure, as also cumulative disclosures of Pakistani involvement in a succession of dramatic incidents of terrorist violence across the world, had forced the military regime to announce a turnaround on January 12, 2002, when President Pervez Musharraf declared that terrorism in all its forms would not be permitted from Pakistani soil. Evidence throughout 2002 and indeed, continuing into the first half of the year 2003, demonstrates that Pakistan has failed to initiate effective measures to dismantle the ‘infrastructure of terrorism’ on its soil, nor has it abandoned its policy of confrontation, violence and deception towards India.

According to the Small Arms Survey, 2002, there were approximately 18 million illegally held weapons in Pakistan compared to some two million legally licensed weapons – nine illegal arms for every licensed weapon currently held by individuals in the country. The report stated that, despite the official ban on sale and purchase of non-licensed weapons, unauthorized arms and ammunition remain in open circulation and the illegal arms trade and gunrunning continue to flourish. The tribal town of Darra Adamkhel near Peshawar, bordering Afghanistan, is reported to be the largest manufacturer and supplier of low-cost arms in the region.

While current trends may suggest tactical shifts in Pakistan’s policies, there is ample evidence – including public statements by Musharraf and other senior members of his regime – that the country’s strategic objectives and ideological moorings have not undergone any fundamental transformation. A series of high-intensity terrorist attacks during 2002 and in the first half of year 2003 in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and other States, all bore a clear Pakistani imprint. The most notable among recent terrorist attacks by Pakistan-based groups were:

  • June 28, 2003: Two fidayeen (suicide squad) terrorists attack an army installation at the Dogra Regiment camp in Sunjwan on the outskirts of Jammu city killing 12 soldiers and injuring seven others before being killed by the troops.

  • March 23, 2003: Terrorists massacre 24 Kashmiri Pandits (descendants of Brahmin priests), including 11 women and two children, at Nadimarg village near Shopian in the Pulwama district of J&K.

  • November 24, 2002: At least 13 persons were killed and 45 others injured, when two suspected Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) fidayeen (suicide terrorists) simultaneously attacked two shrines – Raghunath and Panjbakhtar temples – in the heart of Jammu City.

  • September 24, 2002: 32 persons, including 16 women and four children, were killed and 74 others injured when two terrorists attacked the Akshardham Temple of the Swaminarayan sect of Hindus, one of the most hallowed temples in the western Indian State of Gujarat.

  • May 14, 2002: 36 persons are killed and 48 others injured in a fidayeen attack on an army cantonment at Kaluchak in Jammu.

  • March 30, 2002: In an attack on the Raghunath temple in Jammu by two fidayeen, at least seven persons are killed and more than 20 injured.

  • January 22, 2002: Four security force (SF) personnel are killed and 17 other persons injured in an attack by the Harkat-ul-Jehadi-e-Islami (HuJI) on the American Center in Kolkata.

Further, 839 civilians and 469 SF personnel in J&K succumbed to violence perpetrated by Pakistan-based terrorist formations during the year 2002. The first half of year 2003 has seen another 338 civilian and 156 security forces fatalities.

Year 2002 saw an increasing use of tactics where Pakistan could maintain ‘minimal deniability’ on its involvement in terrorism. This pattern was particularly manifested in attacks outside J&K, in the widening of the sphere of terrorism and an escalation in its intensity. The potential for the use of organized criminal gangs in acts of political terrorism was also significantly exploited.

There was also an increase in terrorist activity on Pakistani soil over the past year, as also a greater radicalisation of extremist groups, essentially in a complex reaction to Pakistan's ambivalent support to the US in the latter’s war against terrorism. Sources indicate that recruitment to terrorists' training camps in Muridke had risen to record levels, with one report in the Sunday Times, London, putting the number of Jehadis in Pakistan at more than 200,000 – their ranks apparently bolstered by the ongoing war in Iraq.

The killing of Christians across the country, various suicide bombings, attacks against churches, mosques, schools and hospitals, targeted killings motivated by sectarian considerations, and the activities and arrests of various Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives virtually across the country, indicated declining levels of law and order in ever-widening areas, as well as the increasing intolerance in society. Sectarian and terrorist groups appeared increasingly to consider innocent Christians and any institution associated with the West as their legitimate target in the wake of the Afghan and the Iraqi campaigns

Terrorist activity had a far-reaching impact on the security and political situation within Pakistan:

  • Following various terrorist incidents, western countries recalled their non-essential diplomatic staff and advised their citizens not to visit Pakistan.

  • Singapore Airlines suspended its flights to Karachi. French Naval shipyard recalled its staff immediately following the May 8, 2002, suicide bombing in which eleven French engineers and two others were killed.

  • The Australian cricket team withdrew from their planned tour of Pakistan in October following a series of attacks against western interests.

  • There was also the yet uncalculated loss of education and business opportunities primarily due to the drastically reduced operations at most western embassies, of adverse travel advisories on Pakistan, and of increasing regulation and aggressive monitoring of people of Pakistani origin in various countries, including, particularly, USA.

A wave of terrorist attacks tied to Al Qaeda and its affiliates commenced on January 23, 2002, with the abduction of US journalist Daniel Pearl. He was ultimately beheaded in February and four terrorists were convicted in July 2002 in connection with the incident. Pearl was targeted for being a foreigner and a Jew, though there are suggestions that he was killed because he was on the verge of exposing complex linkages between the Pakistani establishment and the Al Qaeda and its affiliates. He disappeared on January 23 during his attempts to establish contact with Islamist groups in order to investigate links between Richard Reid, the British man accused of trying to use explosives in his shoes to blow up a Paris-to-Miami jetliner on December 22, 2001, and the Al Qaeda network. On January 27, 2002, Pakistani and US media organisations received an e-mail, which said that Pearl was abducted by a hitherto unknown group calling itself "The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty". On February 21, the US and Pakistan announced that they received a videotape showing scenes of Pearl's murder by his abductors. Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was arrested in Lahore on February 12. An Anti-Terrorism Court in Hyderabad, on July 15, awarded death sentence to Omar Sheikh and life term to co-accused –– Syed Salman Saqib, Fahad Naseem and Sheikh Adil (a constable with the police department's special branch and a JeM activist) –– in the Daniel Pearl abduction-cum-murder case. Omar Sheikh also accepted responsibility –– during interrogation –– for his role in the terrorist attack on the J&K State Legislative Assembly building on October 1, 2001, the December 13, 2001, attack on India’s Parliament and the January 22, 2002, attack on the American Centre in Kolkata. Omar also provided specific details of his travel to Afghanistan "a few days after September 11" to have a personal meeting with Osama bin Laden near Jalalabad.

On March 17, 2002, there was a grenade attack on a church in Islamabad, in which five persons, including the wife of an American diplomat and her daughter, were killed, and more than 40 persons, including the High Commissioner of Sri Lanka to Pakistan, were injured.

On May 8, 2002, 11 French nationals and two others were killed and 34 persons injured in a bomb explosion inside a bus opposite the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi.

The following month, the American Consulate in Karachi was attacked by the proscribed Sunni group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). At least 10 persons, including five women, were killed and 51 others injured, when a car containing explosives was blown up outside the boundary wall of the US Consulate on June 14, 2002. Both the May 8 and June 14 incidents targeted foreigners and were allegedly carried out by suicide bombers. The then Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider said on July 3 that the Al Qaeda had financed the June 14 bombing through local sectarian terrorists.

Thirteen persons, nine of them foreign tourists, were injured in a terrorist act at the Ashoka Rocks on the Karakoram Highway in Mansehra on July 13, 2002. During August, Christians were targeted again in Murree and Taxila. Six persons were killed and four others injured on August 5, 2002, when a group of six unidentified terrorists attacked a Christian missionary school in Jhika Gali, Murree. Russell Morton, Australian director of Murree Christian School, said the terrorists while escaping had also left a letter, which states that the attack was in retaliation to brutalities against Muslims all over the world. Later, three women and a terrorist were killed and 24 persons injured as terrorists attacked the John C. Heinrich Memorial chapel in the Mission Hospital at Taxila on August 9, 2002. Police reports indicated that the Taxila attack was linked to the August 5 attack at Murree.

Seven persons were killed and three others injured on September 25 when terrorists attacked a Christian non-government organization, Idara Amn-o-Insaaf (Institute for Peace and Justice) in Karachi.

Three persons were killed in a bomb blast on December 4, 2002, at the office of the Honorary Consul General to Macedonia in the Defence area near Nisar Shaheed Park in Karachi. A Foreign Ministry statement the following day said that a Pakistani faction of bin Laden's Al Qaeda network could be responsible for this attack.

Three women were killed and at least 15 others injured on December 25, when two unidentified terrorists hurled grenades into a United Presbyterian church near Sialkot, Punjab province.

Seven persons, including LeJ chief Asif Ramzi, were killed when a three-storied chemical warehouse in the Korangi Industrial area of Karachi caved in after an explosion there on December 19. One of the four victims was identified by police as Nadeem Abbas, a constable in the Anti-corruption Establishment and an activist of the proscribed Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). Unnamed senior police officials indicated that there were 'substantial clues' to establish that Asif Ramzi was present at the incident site when the explosion occurred.

These attacks occurred despite a crackdown on sectarian and terrorist groups and the banning of several groups, following President Musharraf's January 12 speech. For all the efforts to proscribe the Jehadis nothing has really changed and remarkable continuities exist, indicating that Pakistani soil remains the favored location for terrorist activity in the region.

A series of arrests and incidents involving Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives during the year 2002 and the first months of 2003 indicates that the fulcrum of Al Qaeda’s terrorist operations has shifted from Afghanistan to Pakistan.

  • On March 1, 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the prime planners of the 9/11 attacks on the US, was arrested in Rawalpindi. The US authorities had been pursuing him at least since his 1995 involvement in the abortive 'Operation Bojinka' conspiracy to simultaneously blow up 12 American civilian airliners over the Pacific, in which he collaborated with his relative, Ramzi Yousef, who is currently serving a life sentence in America for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Centre. With a US $ 25 million reward on his head, Khalid Mohammed, the self-proclaimed 'head of Al Qaeda's Military Committee' was a close associate of Osama bin Laden. Since the US air strikes commenced in Afghanistan in October 2001, Khalid Mohammad and Ramzi Binalshibh (arrested earlier in September 2002) had been moving and dwelling together in Karachi. Al Qaeda terrorists currently in US custody have reportedly confessed that Khalid had operational cells in place in the United States after 9/11 and that he was the principal proponent within the Al Qaeda of developing radioactive "dirty bombs".
  • Despite Pakistan’s consistent denials on Al Qaeda’s operations inside its territory, the network’s second-in-command and close aide of bin Laden, Abu Zubaida, was among the 65 terrorists arrested during surprise raids at many places in Faisalabad, Multan and Lahore in Pakistani Punjab on March 28 and 29, 2002, by a joint team of the Pakistani Police and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents. Abu Zubaida was a key terrorist recruiter and regional planner and member of bin Laden's inner circle within the Al Qaeda. Zubaida was earlier in-charge of two training camps of the Al Qaeda called Durunta and Khalden in the erstwhile Taliban-controlled territory. In Faisalabad, Zubaida had been given shelter by the local Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) office-bearers.
  • Abdullah al Mujahir alias Jose Padilla, a US citizen of Puerto Rican origin, was arrested on May 8, 2002, from the Chicago’s O'Hare airport after arriving from Pakistan following a tip-off originating from the latter in April. He was alleged to have been planning to build and explode a radioactive ‘dirty’ bomb. He was closely associated with the Al Qaeda and as an operative he was involved in planning future terrorist attacks on US targets. After leaving USA in 1998 and later converting to Islam, Mujahir visited Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001. During questioning, he is said to have given a detailed account of Pakistan-based terrorist groups, and admitted that, with the close coordination of these groups, several font ranking Al Qaeda leaders had managed to slip into Pakistan from Afghanistan. He is reported to have pointed to the presence of a number of prominent Arab fighters holed up in the slums of Karachi. Al Qaeda, the US authorities allege, asked him to go to Lahore, where he reportedly learnt how to make a ‘dirty bomb’. In Karachi, he is also alleged to have met several other Al Qaeda members.
  • The Pakistani government, on September 16, handed over 9/11 suspect and key Al Qaeda terrorist Ramzi Binalshibh and four others to US custody and they were later flown out of the country. Binalshibh, a Yemeni, was arrested in Karachi around the first anniversary of 9/11 by Pakistani authorities with assistance from the FBI and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Binalshibh, wanted in Germany for his alleged role in planning and carrying out the 9/11 attacks, is one of the front-ranking Al Qaeda terrorists to be taken into custody. In an interview to an Arab satellite television network, he had reportedly claimed he was an active planner in the 9/11 attacks. US officials have indicated that Binalshibh, also known as Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, was refused a visa to enter the US at least four times before 9/11. He reportedly wanted to join the 19 hijackers involved in the multiple terrorist attacks. He was also reportedly one of the roommates of Mohamed Atta –– the suspected leader of the 9/11 hijackers –– in Hamburg, Germany.

Credible Pakistani reportage has indicated that Karachi has emerged as a hub of Al Qaeda activities after the collapse of the Taliban militia in Afghanistan. Different parts of Karachi have become a safe haven for the Al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives. Fleeing Al Qaeda operatives began settling in Karachi in early May with the active assistance of local terrorist groups, sympathisers in the city government and a large network of local financers performing ‘welfare work’ in Afghanistan. An elaborate terrorist financing system reportedly exists in the metropolis. Apart from the various fake accounts that facilitate transactions, huge sums of money from the Arab countries flow in, mostly through hawala as well as normal banking channels despite a crackdown on illegal transactions. Official sources indicate that the Al Qaeda has transferred financial assistance and other expertise to the JeM to carry out acts of terror in Pakistan. Disguised as Afghans and speaking Pushto and Persian Al Qaeda’s primarily Arab fugitives reportedly reside in middle class localities of Deobandi-dominated areas, avoiding hostile Sindhi as well as sectarian sensitive Shia areas, as well as hostile strongholds of the Muttahida Quami Movement. Sindh Home Department officials have been quoted as stating that there are an estimated 1.2 million illegal immigrants, many of them Afghan refugees, living in Karachi. Authorities claim that it is this community that breeds and shelters many Islamist terrorists.

Karachi offers many strategic advantages as a safe haven for Islamist groups.

  • According to a Pakistani report, it has a large number of madrassas (seminaries) – numbering 869 –, which enroll approximately 240,000 non-local students, and an equally large number of mosques and Imambargahs where subversives can hide and carry on their work without exposure.
  • Karachi’s dense concrete jungle, in particular, also lends itself ideally to those who want to escape detection. Some sympathies for these elements also exist among sections of Karachi law enforcement officials.
  • In order to escape detection, many of proscribed groups have formed ‘sleeper cells’, which operate independently from their parent organisations.
  • Such a strategy – bearing an Al Qaeda imprint – allows for greater covert activity, since no one except members of a particular cell would be aware of the chosen target as also their past actions and affiliations.

Dan McNeill, the American General heading the US-led campaign in Afghanistan, said in August 2002 that "hundreds, maybe even a thousand" Al Qaeda operatives were in Pakistan. Taliban and Al Qaeda fugitives have assiduously taken advantage of the porous Pakistan-Afghan border in their quest for a sanctuary within Pakistan. Of the 443 Al Qaeda suspects arrested by Pakistani authorities till December 2002, 380 were detained in the northwest border region, while the rest were apprehended from various parts of the country. The arrested suspects belonged to 18 countries, including Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya, Morocco, Chechnya and France.

American commanders operating out of the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan were quoted as saying in July 2002 that 400 to 1,000 Al Qaeda operatives may be on the loose in the tribal areas in western Pakistan. Uzbek and Chechen operatives have taken shelter in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA); Arabs of Al Qaeda and some Pashtuns of the Taliban have taken refuge in Karachi; Pakistanis of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), Jaish-e-Mohammed, the Harkat-ul-Jehadi-e-Islami (HuJI) and Lashkar-e-Toiba have taken shelter in Karachi, Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) and the Northern Areas (NA). Two particularly sensitive areas are the Chitral Valley bordering the mountainous Afghan province of Kunar and the region of Swat, not far from the Karakoram highway. There is also a strong presence of Arab Al Qaeda terrorists all along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border near the Khost, Paktia and Paktika provinces in eastern Afghanistan.

President Pervez Musharraf, during a televised address to the nation on January 12, 2002, announced the proscription of five terrorist groups, taking the number of banned groups to seven. He banned two groups active in J&K, the Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Toiba. Sectarian terrorist groups, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Tehreek-e-Jaferia Pakistan (TJP) and Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) were also proscribed. He also announced that the Sunni Tehrik has been placed under observation. Two sectarian outfits, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Mohammed Pakistan (SMP), had earlier been proscribed on August 14, 2001. Security agencies detained over 1,975 persons linked to such groups, but most of them were released after a brief incarceration for ‘lack of evidence’, or on personal bonds. Current reports indicate that the various proscribed groups renewed their activities – some with superficial changes of identity – after brief periods of self-imposed hibernation.

  • The Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkat-ul-Ansar have renamed themselves as Khaddamul Islam and Jamiaat-ul-Ansaar respectively, and both groups have resumed organisational work to restore all their former provincial and district units.
  • More than 40 Jehadi publications have reportedly mushroomed in Pakistan, including a magazine called Allah's Army and a daily called Islam, currently the second largest selling paper in the country.
  • The mobilization of funds by various ‘banned’ groups through public contributions has once again commenced openly.

Further, several new and hitherto unknown Islamist groups have also come into existence during this period

  • Al Saiqa, which is headed by one Inayat Shah alias Shajee, reportedly emerged as a front outfit for the Al Qaeda. They have distributed pamphlets warning local police not to disturb the Jehadi groups, and are also suspected of being behind the July 13, 2002, attack on German tourists in Mansehra. They are reportedly based in Kohistan, Sindh province. Al Saiqa is also suspected of playing a key role in sheltering Al Qaeda operatives and other groups in Kohistan.
  • Another group that emerged during the year 2002 was the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen Al-alami. HuMA is reportedly an offshoot of the proscribed Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) and was formed after parting ways with the latter on a dispute over organisational affairs. Muhammad Imran and Muhammad Hanif, chief and deputy chief of HuMA respectively, were arrested in Karachi on July 7, 2002 for an aborted attempt to blow up President Musharraf's motorcade near the Karachi airport on April 26. They are also accused in the June 14, 2002, US Consulate and May 8, 2002, Sheraton Hotel blasts.

  • Lashkar-e-Omar (LeO – The Army of Omar) was reportedly founded in January 2002 as a conglomerate of HuJI, LeJ and JeM cadres. It was formed after the brief arrest of several front-ranking Islamist leaders in Pakistan as a new cover for terrorist actions of these groups, as well as several like-minded ‘freelancers’. JeM terrorist Omar Sheikh and Amjad Hussain Faruqui of the HuJI, a fugitive accused in the Daniel Pearl case, were both linked to the LeO.

Many of the terrorist groups – including large numbers of survivors of the Taliban-al Qaeda combine, have moved their infrastructure into PoK and the Pakistan occupied Northern Areas (NAs), with the active connivance of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). The military regime’s domestic 'war on terrorism’ has remained a non-event in the NAs.

  • During July 2002, while there were many raids by Pakistani security agencies under pressure from the US to hunt for suspected terrorists in Sindh, Punjab, Baluchistan, the NWFP and the FATA, there was not a single raid reported from the NAs.
  • In order to avoid detection of their presence in Pakistani territory by the US intelligence agencies, the military regime shifted important Al Qaeda leaders from the Punjab province into Gilgit, Baltistan and other places.
  • During the months of June and July 2002, two groups of Taliban and one of Al Qaeda cadres arrived in the NAs, after entering the Dahrkoot Valley from Broghol in the Chitral district of the NWFP, which links with the Wakhan corridor, Badakhshan province, Afghanistan. Their movement was facilitated by the Wahabi fundamentalist administration of Yasen Tehsil in Ghezar district of Balawaristan, despite protestations from the local Ismailia Muslims.
  • The first group of Taliban cadres reportedly stayed at Giyekooshi in the Dahrkoot valley for a month and were later transported towards Gilgit to head to the Darel and Tangir valleys of the Diamar district.
  • Ttraining to Afghan mercenaries and various terrorists groups active in the Indian State of J&K was provided in the remote hilly areas of Hazara, Darel Yashote, Tangir, Astore, Skardu city and Gilgit city. These state supported terrorist camps remained active despite the apparent crackdown against terrorism. Besides, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen camp in Tangir, Diamar district, camps were located in Ghowadi village in Skardu, Juglote near Gilgit and Konodas, Gilgit.

  • A large camp was established near Mansehra in the NWFP on the Karakorum Highway, from where the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, Kashmiri, Pakistani and other terrorists are deputed to different parts of NA, PoK and across the borders to Afghanistan and the Indian State of J&K.
  • As a result of Operation Anaconda (March 2-18, 2002) in Afghanistan, approximately 1,000 Al Qaeda cadres are reported to have escaped into Pakistan and of these, some 600 are believed to have been re-located around Gilgit-Baltistan (mostly in Darel and Tangir), with another 200 pushed into the upper reaches of the Pir Panjal region.

Sectarian Strife

The year 2002 saw a marked decrease in the fatality index of sectarian violence.

  • 121 persons were killed and 257 others injured in 63 incidents of sectarian violence in 2002 as compared to 261 persons killed in 154 incidents during the year 2001.
  • Among the major incidents of sectarian violence in 2002 was the February 26 attack at the Shah Najaf Mosque in Rawalpindi in which 11 persons were killed and over 19 others injured when three suspected LeJ terrorists opened fire on a group of approximately 40 persons offering prayers.
  • In another major attack, seven women and five children were killed while 25 others were injured in a bomb explosion in the women's section of a Shia religious ceremony at Bhakkar in Lahore on April 25.

Sectarian Violence in Pakistan

Sectarian Violence in Pakistan

Source: Constructed from media reports

A relative reduction in the sectarian casualties is primarily traced to the fact that Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the main Sunni group, was vigorously targeted by state agencies following its January-12, 2002, proscription. A significant number of its cadres, including the top leadership, were either arrested or killed during various encounters. Approximately 26 LeJ cadres, including many top leaders, were killed and 32 of them arrested during year 2002.

  • Riaz Basra and Asif Ramzi, two top LeJ leaders, were killed during the year. Riaz Basra, Pakistan’s most wanted sectarian terrorist, was killed along with three of his accomplices during an encounter in Mailsi on May 14. He is reported to have established a terrorist training camp at Sarobi near Kabul where recruits from Pakistan were trained in the use of fire arms and explosives for carrying out sectarian attacks in Pakistan and against the Taliban's Afghan opposition forces.
  • Shakeel Anwar alias Zahid, an associate of Basra, was killed in an encounter on March 11 in Bahawalpur. A senior police official, Malik Asif Hayat, was quoted as saying that with Anwar’s killing, the LeJ network was broken in southern Punjab and other parts of the country.
  • Lal Din alias Arif Lalu, LeJ’s Karachi unit chief, was killed in an encounter with the Sindh Police on April 4.
  • Asif Ramzi, a most-wanted terrorist of the LeJ and a proclaimed offender since 12 years, was a key link between local Islamist terrorists, Taliban and the Al Qaeda network. He was wanted for involvement in more than 87 cases of murder, attacks on embassies and other terrorist acts, and had a price of Rupees three million on his head. FBI officials suspected that Ramzi manufactured the bombs used in the May 8, 2002, blast outside the Sheraton Hotel. He was among the seven persons killed in the December 19-explosion at a chemical warehouse in the Korangi area of Karachi.

  • Akram Lahori, a front ranking LeJ terrorist involved in 38 cases of sectarian killings in Sindh, was arrested in Karachi on June 17, 2002. After the death of Riaz Basra, Lahori was acting as the LeJ chief and he had himself monitored and taken part in sectarian killings in Karachi, where he was residing for the preceding one and a half years. Lahori, arrested along with five accomplices from Orangi Town in Karachi, reportedly confessed that dozens of the group's activists had been prepared for suicide missions under the guidance of top Al Qaeda leaders holed up in different parts of the country.

Many LeJ cadres joined the various front outfits of the Al Qaeda that emerged in the aftermath of the January 12 proscription. Despite these various reversals, however, the group’s capacity to strike appeared to have remained substantially intact, and it emerged as a key provider of logistical support and personnel to the Al Qaeda. The LeJ was also said to be involved in a majority of the attacks on Christians and Western targets in Pakistan during 2002.

The sectarian groups, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and the Tehreek-e-Jaferia Pakistan (TJP) lay low temporarily in the aftermath of their proscription. They did not, however, alter their organisational structure and, though their cadres went underground for some time, openly resumed their political activities after a brief hibernation. The SSP even re-commenced publishing its official organ, the monthly Khilafat-i-Rashida, which it had discontinued immediately after its proscription. It also ran a highly effective electoral campaign for its candidate, Maulana Azam Tariq, who won a parliamentary seat from the Jhang constituency in Punjab province in the October general elections.

Similarly, while retaining its existing organisational infrastructure, the TJP joined the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) under a different name – the Tehrik Millat-i-Islami Pakistan. The central command of this group also formed new groups to function as front outfits. TJP office-bearers were reportedly accommodated in the new Azadari Council and Haideri Foundation. Some of them were also adjusted in peace committees and other private bodies.

At the other end, the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), a militant Wahabi tribal group which operates primarily in the tribal belt, such as in Swat and the adjoining districts of the NWFP, has, according to recent reports, suffered the most in the countrywide crackdown on Islamist organisations. A large number of its cadres were arrested in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban militia, while who could manage to come back were arrested on their return to Pakistan. Under US pressure, Pakistan’s military regime could not show any leniency towards the TNSM, as its cadres had more directly challenged the American forces in Afghanistan.

The Sipah-e-Mohammad Pakistan (SMP), the main Shia group responsible for sectarian violence in the past, remained dormant through 2002 and the first half of year 2003.

Political Consolidation of Islamist Extremism

The increasing relaxation of the ‘crackdown’ on terrorist and extremist groups in the country after the General Elections in October 2002 has created more space for maneuver for the various proscribed Islamist groups. The victory of the pro-military faction of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML), the PML – Qaid-e-Azam (PML-Q), and the relatively emphatic achievements of the MMA at the hustings have given such groups an expanded role in the country’s politics. Maulana Azam Tariq, chief of the SSP, the outlawed Sunni group, is not only a Member of the National Assembly (MNA) but also a coalition partner in the Federal government. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an electoral alliance of six Islamist fundamentalist parties, which won 53 seats in the National Assembly, and formed the provincial government in the NWFP with an absolute majority of 48 out of 99 seats, indicated on November 26, 2002, that it would block the manhunt for Al Qaeda cadres in the tribal-dominated region. The MMA has also progressively unfolded an fundamentalist political agenda, including the passage of a ‘Sharia Bill’ in the NWFP Assembly which creates the specter of a Taliban-style ‘department of vice and virtue’ to impose social and religious norms and practices, including highly discriminatory standards against women.

The General Elections in October had been engineered by President Musharraf to circumvent rising international pressure on his regime for the restoration of democracy. What emerged was a transition from direct military rule to a new system of a military-controlled democracy. The military regime achieved this through manipulation and extensive amendments of laws and the Constitution, through 'pre-rigging' and rejection of the nomination forms of numerous candidates, a substantially rigged election, and finally, through the continuous postponement of the convening of the National Assembly and orchestration of defections in support of the PML-Q – the 'King's party'. By mid-year, General Musharraf had set the stage for the October 2002 elections by increasing the seats in the Assemblies under joint electorates and making nominations conditional to a Bachelor of Arts degree in fulfillment of his pledge to ‘cleanse’ the political system. As was the case with his earlier ‘referendum’ exercise, he proceeded to rig the polls through the intelligence agencies and military ‘inspection teams’. The military regime managed to split Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and form the ‘King’s Party’ of Musharraf supporters, the PML-Q, then kept the constitutional provision against ‘floor-crossing’ in abeyance to organise defections from the two other main parties, Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), and the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz Sharief (PML-N). Musharraf’s regime at the same time also allowed the mullahs to participate in the elections on the basis of their madrassa degrees. As the election results were announced, EU Observers called the process "deeply flawed," and there was widespread confirmation of irregularities from various other independent agencies and in the Pakistani media. However, the US State department spokesman, Richard Boucher, called it "a credible representation of the full range of opinion in the country".

Behind-the-scenes moves and manoeuvres for a government formation dragged on and finally, on November 23, 2002, – 40 days after the polling – the PML (Q)'s Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali became the Prime Minister, the first Baloch to do so. On December 30, Jamali won a vote of confidence, securing 188 out of 342 votes – up from 172 at the time of his election as leader of the house.

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