Pakistan Assessment 2003Even 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:
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:
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.
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.
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.
Further, several new and hitherto unknown Islamist groups have also come into existence during this period
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.
Sectarian Strife The year 2002 saw a marked decrease in the fatality index of sectarian violence.
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.
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. RELATED LINKS |
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