Bloodied FM

To be read in continuation of my earlier article ofMarch 30, 2007, titled If Musharraf Is Frankenstein...

The Swat district in the Provincially-AdministeredTribal Areas (PATA) of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) has beenin a state of jihadi anarchy since October 24, 2007, when President GeneralPervez Musharraf despatched 2,500 para-military personnel--mainly from theFrontier Constabulary (FC)-- into the area to re-take the area from the controlof the Tehreek-e-Nifaz-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) headed by Mulla Fazlullah,popularly known as Maulana FM Radio. TNSM means the Movement for the Enforcementof Islamic Laws. He runs an illegal FM radio station from his mosque located inthe village of Imam Dhari in the District. He has been using the radio stationto make incendiary broadcasts and deliver sermons to the residents of his areaagainst Gen.Musharraf and the US.

He claims to have established an Islamic rule accordingto the Sharia and has been imposing Islamic punishments on the local peopleindulging in what he looks upon as vices.

On November 8,2006, 45 Pakistani army recruitsundergoing training at a Punjab Regimental Centre training school at Dargai, 100kms north of Peshawar in the NWFP, were killed and many others injured early inthe morning when a suspected suicide bomber ran towards them and blew himselfup. Pakistani investigators believed that the suicide attack was in reprisal foran air attack on a madrasa at Chenagai in the Bajaur Agency of the FederallyAdministered Tribal Areas (FATA) on October 30, 2006, in which 80 studentsstudying in the madrasa were killed. The tribals alleged that the air attack wascarried out by the American troops based in Afghan territory. The Pakistaniauthorities denied this and claimed that it was they, who carried out the attackbecause they had received reliable intelligence that the madrasa was trainingsuicide bombers for operations in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani officials were not able to establishdefinitively who carried out the Dargai atack, but the needle of suspicionpointed to the TNSM. The Malakand Division, which is part of the PATA, is itsstronghold. It has its jihadi training infrastructure there, where it trains themembers of the Neo Taliban for their operations in Afghanistan against the NATOtroops. It does not allow any other Pakistani jihadi organisation to set uptraining camps in the Malakand area. It has a large number of tribalex-servicemen in its ranks.

Dargai is in the Malakand Division. Maulana SufiMohammad, a local leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) in the Malakand area, leftthe JEI in 1992 due to differences with its leadership and formed the TNSM. Whenthe Americans began their air strikes in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, SufiMohammad called for a jihad against the US and entered Afghanistan along withthousands of his followers. Many of them were mowed down by US air strikes. Thesurvivors, including Sufi Mohammad, fled back into Malakand.

Gen. Pervez Musharraf banned the TNSM as a terroristorganisation on January 15, 2002, and had Sufi Mohammad arrested. He is believedto be still in jail in Dera Ismail Khan. The organisation became dormant. Whenan earthquake struck Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir and parts of the NWFP in October,2005, volunteers of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and members of the TNSM were inthe forefront of the humanitarian relief work. Since the Army's own relief workwas found wanting, their popularity shot up and Musharraf refrained from actingagainst them though both had been banned as terrorist organisations on January15, 2002.

There has since then been a significant resurgence inthe activities of the TNSM in the Malakand Division of the NWFP and in theBajaur Agency of the FATA. It has been organising pro-Taliban activities and isgenerally referred to by the local tribals as the Pakistani Taliban todistinguish it from the Afghan Taliban led by Mulla Mohammad Omar. The TNSM ispresently headed by Maulana Fazlullah, the son-in-law of Sufi Mohammad. MaulanaLiaqat, who was in charge of the madrasa destroyed by the air strike and who waskilled, belonged to the TNSM. The madrasa was funded by the JEI faction led byMaulana Sami-ul-Haq, who is considered one of the mentors of Mulla MohammadOmar. Sami-ul-Haq started a fund collection drive to re-build the destroyedmadrasa.

The Daily Times of Lahore reported on December18, 2006, as follows: "Militants belonging to banned jihadi outfits areplanning suicide attacks on army installations in Pakistan and foreign troops inAfghanistan in revenge for the air strike on a Bajaur madrassa on October 30,2006. According to reports submitted by intelligence agencies to the InteriorMinistry, Maulvi Inayatur Rehman and Maulana Faqir Mohammad of the TehreekNifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) have pledged before their supporters totarget VIPs in Pakistan and US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The bombed Bajaurmadrasa was run by the TNSM and is thought to have been used as a training campfor militants. British and US diplomats and nationals are also possible targetsof the militants. Leaders of the Harkatul Mujahideen (HUM), Lashker-e-Jhangvi (LEJ)and Khudamul Islam have also pledged to cooperate with the TNSM and called for ajoint strategy. These banned militant organisations have procured explosives andrecruited and trained a number of suicide bombers."

The Pashtuns of Malakand are divided into threesub-tribes--the Uthmankhels, the Sam Ranizais and the Swat Ranizais. Manybelieve that if Osama bin Laden is alive, he would most probably be in theChitral area of the Malakand region. Of all the Pashtuns of thePakistan-Afghanistan border region, bin Laden reportedly trusts those ofMalakand the most. He considers them to be as loyal to him as hisfellow-tribesmen from Yemen/Saudi Arabia are.

The tribals of the Swat valley were more prosperousthan those of FATA because of flourishing tourism, but tourism has been badlyaffected since the TNSM stepped up its activities there. Despite the loss intheir livelihood because of the activities of the TNSM, the locals are strongsupporters of the organisation and Fazlullah. His sermons on the radio are verypopular with women, who have been forcing their husbands and sons to suppoprthim and volunteer for suicide missions.

Initially, Fazlullah's anger was only against the USand other NATO forces in Afghanistan. He was not against the Army or Musharraf,but his attitude changed after the bombing of the madrasa in November,2006,andthe raid by Pakistan Army commandoes into the Lal Masjid of Islamabad betweenJuly 10 and 13,2007. Many of the 300 young girls of the Masjid's girls' madrasakilled in the raid were children of tribals of the Swat Valley. This enraged thelocal tribals, who have been indulging in acts of terrorism since then in theValley as well as outside.

The violence escalated when Musharraf sent the para-militaryunits into the Valley to arrest Fazlullah and his associates, neutralise hiswell-armed militant force and restore the writ of the state in the area. OnOctober 25, 2007, 20 members of the para-military forces were killed by animprovised explosive device (IED), which struck their truck at Mingora, 15 kmsfrom Imam Dheri. The security forces have since laid siege to the village ofImam Dheri. But before they could reach there, Fazlullah and his closeassociates managed to escape. There has been intense fighting for the last twodays between the security forces and the followers of Fazlullah, who have beenbeheading captured security forces personnel and civilians suspected to beco-operating with them. Fifteen beheadings in a brutal manner have been reportedso far. However, the TNSM has been denying any responsibility for the explosionand the beheadings and has been projecting these incidents as due to thespontaneous anger of the tribals over the Lal Masjid massacre and Musharraf'sco-operation with the US.

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), CabinetSecretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute ForTopical Studies, Chennai.