The Pakistan connection

September 15, 2001

THE PAKISTANIS
A Pledge of Support in a U.S. War Against Terrorists

By CHRISTOPHER S. WREN
 
Pakistan has promised to "cooperate fully" with the United States in 
its effort to forge an international coalition against the terrorists 
behind the attacks this week on New York and Washington.

The pledge of cooperation, first made by the country's military 
ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf earlier this week, was reportedly 
reiterated today following an extraordinary high-level meeting of the 
Pakistani cabinet and National Security Council in the the capital, 
Islamabad.

===

The Guardian (London), November 23, 1995

PAKISTAN IS SECRET OF TALIBAN'S SUCCESS; 

By John-Thor Dahlburg 

IT HAS been one of the most breathtaking advances in the annals of 
modern warfare: master of little more than a single city in 
Afghanistan a year ago, the Taliban now controls more than half the 
country. 

And standing at the gates of Kabul, the Muslim fundamentalists 
announced at the weekend that they had launched their final assault 
to overrun the capital and chase President Burhanuddin Rabbani from 
office. 

Many observers believe it is only a matter of time before the 
political map of a country mauled by more than 15 years of warfare 
will be changed decisively. 

The Taliban, a motley band of fighters chiefly composed of 
inexperienced but courageous Islamic students, credits its lightning 
success to its creed and to Allah. "The only real superpower is 
Allah," said a commander, Mulvi Abdul Samad. But in the rugged 
countryside of Baluchistan, the sparsely populated Pakistani province 
of mountain and desert that runs parallel to Afghanistan for 670 
miles, more worldly reasons come to light. 

Attracted by the sacred Islamic ideal of jihad, or holy war, young 
Pakistanis have flooded across the border to embrace Kalashnikov 
rifles and the Taliban's cause. 

And, despite repeated official denials, the Islamic republic of 
Pakistan has given enormous support to the Muslim Afghan fighters in 
the past year, the Los Angeles Times has learnt. 

"Pakistan has decided not to give financial or military support to 
any faction of the Afghans," the prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, told 
an Iranian audience earlier this month. 

But from Pakistan have come petrol for the Taliban's tanks, aircraft 
and armoured vehicles, lorry convoys filled with munitions and other 
supplies, and telecommunications equipment, experts and advice. 

"This is the work of the Lawrence of Arabias of the ISI 
(Inter-Services Intelligence)," said an opposition senator, Abdur 
Rahim Khan Mandokhel of Baluchistan, who accuses the government of 
trying to play puppet-master in Afghanistan.

===

The Guardian (London) 

April 8, 1995 

MUFTI IQBAL'S SCHOOL FOR MARTYRS; 
'Rent-a-jihad' groups are sending out Muslims, including foreigners, 
to fight abroad. Benazir Bhutto must crack down on fundamentalism to 
prove her pro-Western credentials, but dare not go too far. Kathy 
Evans in Peshawar reports on her dilemma 

By Kathy Evans 

THE bearded mullah sat cross-legged on the floor, fingering his beard 
thoughtfully. "No, money is not a problem. We have many supporters 
and they help us keep the jihad going," Mufti Iqbal smiled. 

Mufti Iqbal is the Karachi front man for Harakat al Ansar, one of 
Pakistan's numerous "rent-a-jihad" services. It is his job to recruit 
local volunteers, receive foreign Muslims, and send them on to jihads 
of their choosing. It is one of Pakistan's growing businesses. 

The focus of Harakat's attention is Kashmir, the slither of territory 
claimed by both India and Pakistan. Liberating the Kashmiri Muslims 
from the Indian yoke is a national cause in Pakistan shared by 
government and the man in the street. Mufti Iqbal, himself an Afghan 
jihad veteran, offers contacts to other causes and conflicts, 
however. 

"Our main objective is to help Muslims all over the world secure 
their freedom. We have received thousands of volunteers to fight in 
Kashmir, Bosnia, Tajikistan and Chechenia. Jihad is, after all, an 
obligation on all Muslims." 

It was through Harakat al Ansar's conduit for would-be martyrs that 
the young east London Pakistani, Ahmed Sheikh, was reported to have 
passed. The former London School of Economics student now faces 
charges of kidnapping two British tourists in India. Mufti Iqbal, the 
Karachi recruiter, denies any knowledge of him. 

Harakat al Ansar says it has several hundred foreign Muslims who have 
come to "learn". Among the volunteers are Pakistanis, black American 
Muslims, Arabs, Indians, Afghans, and even one Canadian. 

The movement's officials deny they offer military training, saying 
such skills are acquired at the front line. But Western diplomats in 
Karachi say they have a well-established camp in Miranshahr, a remote 
area bordering neighbouring Afghanistan. 

The rent-a-jihad service is just one of the avenues available in 
Pakistan to young Muslims from all over the world who seek to grow in 
their religion and get an insight into the growing list of conflicts 
in which Muslims find themselves in, against oppressive 
Western-backed governments and the Christian world. 

For such Muslims, Pakistan offers a number of attractions. It is a 
cheap, police are bribeable, arms all too easily available, and in 
whole chunks of the country government officials rarely venture. 

The tribal areas function as playgrounds for the heroin and weapons 
mafia. Here you can buy vital necessities for a terrorist movement. 

Moreover, some of the causes espoused by religious groups enjoy 
government support. 

Throughout the interview with Mufti Iqbal, a man sat beside him on 
the floor, prompting his answers. He claimed he was from a Pakistani 
news agency. 

"It's the ISI man" laughed my local newspaper colleague as we left. 
"He is his minder". 

ISI is the acronym for the Inter-Services Intelligence, one of 
Pakistan's main intelligence agencies. It has many rivals, but none 
enjoys the covert power of the ISI. That power is the product of the 
multi-billion-dollar war effort launched by the West at the beginning 
of the eighties to fight communism in Afghanistan. Today, its main 
focus is Kashmir. 

Afghanistan was the West's last war against the Soviet Union. More 
than $ 10 billion was ploughed into this "heroic" cause by the US, 
Britain and Saudi Arabia. 

An early agreement in the conflict between America's CIA and the ISI 
made the Pakistani agency the sole channel for the billions of 
dollars worth of arms to the jihad. This gave the agency an 
unprecedented influence in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, which 
lingers to this day. Headed by General Hamid Gul, working under 
General Zia ul-Haq, ISI established the seven guerrilla groups known 
as the mojahedin. 

Today, the mojahedin groups have become little more than heroin 
warlords. 

In Pakistani internal politics, ISI functions as an instrument of the 
government in power, drumming up evidence against opponents and 
making and un-making political parties. 

Embarrassingly, some of its creations are thought to be behind the 
recent killing sprees in Karachi, including possibly the shooting 
last month of two US embassy officials. 

ISI's Afghan jihad operation was also a siren call to militant 
Muslims in the Middle and Far East. The agency turned a blind eye to 
the thousands who flocked to Afghanistan for military training. 
Afghanistan became a playground for any disgruntled Muslim who felt 
oppressed. 

Today, veterans of the Afghan war dominate terrorist groups in 
Algeria and Egypt, and they remain a latent and feared force in the 
Gulf states. 

A number of Arab veterans of the Afghan war are facing trial in New 
York for suspected involvement in the bombing of the World Trade 
Centre in 1993. The latest suspect to join them in the New York 
courtroom is Ramzi Youssef, said to be the master bomber. 

If Western intelligence sources are to be believed, Ramzi Youssef was 
one of the world's most dangerous terrorists. However, it is still 
unclear whether he is a Pakistani Baluch, a Kuwaiti or an Iraqi. 

Since his arrest, many stories have grown up around him. He was known 
to have travelled to Manila, allegedly to kill the Pope on his tour 
there. 

It is not just abroad that Youssef was allegedly active. Benazir 
Bhutto, Pakistan's prime minister, told journalists last month that 
he was also behind an attempt to assassinate her in 1993. Pakistani 
press reports have linked him with the Sunni extremist group Sepah 
Sehaba, believed to be behind dozens of killings of Shias in Karachi, 
and also a bombing in Iran. 

Today the Arab route to training grounds in Afghanistan has virtually 
ceased to exist. Dozens of Arab mojahedin have been arrested and 
hundreds more have fled. 

It has become virtual grounds for arrest to be an Arab and an Afghan 
veteran and still live in Pakistan. 

It is not just Arabs who have been subjected to the police's tactic 
of rounding up the usual suspects. Last week, offices of the region's 
oldest and largest Islamic group, the Jamaat Islami, were raided in 
the police effort to root out militants. 

The crackdown on militants preceded the vital trip to the United 
States this week by Ms Bhutto. For her, it is the most important trip 
of her administration, one in which she will attempt to portray 
herself as the only reliable partner Washington and the West has to 
fight fundamentalism in the region. 

Only last year, Pakistan narrowly avoided being put on the American 
list of states sponsoring terrorism. But in the effort to clean 
militants out of Pakistan and brush up the country's image, Ms Bhutto 
risks all. 

Gen Hamid Gul, the former head of ISI, warns that if these arrests 
continue, a typhoon will hit Pakistan. 

"What is a fundamentalist anyway? A man with a beard? If the state 
machinery goes after what it calls extremists, then the reaction 
could be very very nasty. Inflation, the effects of IMF policies - if 
mixed with a danger to the faith - could be very dangerous for the 
country," he says. 

Naturally, the first beneficiary of such a backlash would be groups 
Gen Gul is associated with. The former intelligence chief is said to 
be a key figure behind the increasingly political campaign by the 
former playboy-cricketer Imran Khan. 

Another beneficiary of any reaction from Muslim groups is Ms Bhutto's 
long-standing rival, the Lahore businessman Nawaz Sharif. Mr Sharif 
has already been able to accuse her of attacking Islam to appease the 
Americans. Unwittingly or not, Ms Bhutto has provided her opponents 
with potent slogans. 

It is not just on the parliamentary front that dangers lurk for Ms 
Bhutto. Kashmir is a cause supported by both the ISI and the army, 
two institutions which Ms Bhutto has to live with. India accuses both 
of training and arming the Kashmiri militants. Western diplomats 
believe that help is being organised by renegade elements in the ISI 
and the army. 

Figures such as Gen Gul continue to be admired in military circles 
for their devotion to Islamic causes. In the past year, Ms Bhutto has 
been trying to clean out Jamaat Islami sympathisers in the 
intelligence service through her new ISI chief and loyalist, Javed 
Ashraf. 

Jamaat officials shrug off such changes, saying that in the end Ms 
Bhutto has to do "her duty" towards Kashmir. 

Publicly, Pakistani officials have consistently denied that they are 
arming and training the militants. However, few Pakistanis would 
bother to deny that the militants are able to buy weapons freely or 
that they are helped to cross over to the Indian-controlled part of 
Kashmir. 

Any attack on these delicate covert mechanisms by Ms Bhutto would 
lead to charges that the prime minister is not only against Islam but 
against Pakistan's national cause, Kashmir. During the last 15 months 
she has made her support for the cause a central platform from which 
to reaffirm all her Islamic credentials. Rarely does she make a 
speech without mentioning Kashmir and Islam in the same breath. 

In private, her diplomats wonder why Pakistan cannot consider the 
unthinkable third option - supporting total independence for 
Kashmiris from both India and Pakistan. That way, they argue, the 
fundamentalist groups and the role of the intelligence agencies, can 
be wiped away in one go. 

Gen Gul argues that if the West is really interested in curbing the 
terrorism carried out in the name of Kashmir, it should try to 
resolve the conflict, rather than fighting its symptoms. 

Meanwhile, the prime minister's crackdown on militants is getting 
closer to the groups and rent-a-jihad services that the Kashmir cause 
has created. Ms Bhutto may find she can go only so far. It is a 
dilemma which even her friends in Washington cannot help her with.

-- 
Louis Proyect, lnp3@panix.com on 09/15/2001

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