Targeting The French

(To be read in continuation of the earlier report titled WhyThe French?, on the right.)

Karachi Police sources continue to insist that the explosion outside the local Sheraton Hotel on May 8,2002, was specifically targeted  at the French and that the terrorist, who carried out the attack, wouldhave been aware of the nationality of the white-skinned persons sitting inside the bus. They rule out thepossibility, as speculated in sections of the local media, of the terrorist mistaking the French for the NewZealand cricketers or for American citizens.

The theory of a targeted suicide attack on the French defies logic because France, while taking vigorousaction against the Al Qaeda sympathisers in France and freezing their bank accounts, has been playing a verylow-profile role in the anti-Osama bin Laden operations in Afghanistan. Moreover, it has been stronglysupportive of Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and critical of Ariel Sharon, theIsraeli Prime Minister. It has also opposed any US move to extend the anti-terrorism war to Iraq againstPresident Saddam Hussain. The pro-Osama groups in Pakistan or his Al Qaeda should not, therefore, have anycause for anger against the French.

Those in the Karachi Police, who strongly back the theory that it was a targeted attack on the French,advance the following possible explanations as to why the French were targeted: 

• While the terrorists knew they were French, they did not know they were working in the Agosta classsubmarine project, which had nothing to do with the war against terrorism. They must have thought that theFrench attacked must be providing logistic support to a French naval ship which, according to them, is part ofthe international coalition's fleet in this region.
  
  
• The co-operation of the French with the USA in the investigation regarding the Pakistani links of RichardReid, the so-called shoe bomber. It is pointed out that for some reasons, not yet clear, this seems to be asensitive topic with the terrorists.  According to Karachi Police sources, Daniel Pearl was kidnapped andkilled for making a similar investigation.

In addition to the Al Qaeda, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), theJaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), the Laskar-e-Toiba (LET), and the Al Saiqua, the Karachi Police have also beeninvestigating about the possible role of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ) and the Lashkar-e-Omar (LEO) in theattack on the French. The LEJ is the militant wing of the Sipah Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), headed by Azam Tariq,considered the most dreaded terrorist in Pakistan. The leader of the LEJ is Riaz Basra, who has beenabsconding for many years.

The SSP is a Sunni extremist organisation, which has been demanding the proclamation of Pakistan as a Sunnistate and the declaration of the Shias as non-Muslim. It came into existence after the success of the IslamicRevolution in Iran in 1979 and had been used and funded in the past by the Inter-Services Intelligence ofPakistan for controlling the Shias and by the intelligence agencies of Saudi Arabi and Iraq for creatingtrouble for Iran.

The ISI cut off its links with it when the SSP and the LEJ started killing a large number of Shias,including many Shia intellectuals, and Iranian diplomats and other Iranian nationals living in Pakistaniterritory. They then started operating from the Taliban-controlled territory in Afghanistan and the SSP becamea member of bin Laden's International Islamic Front For Jehad Against the US and Israel. The Taliban and theAl Qaeda used it for carrying out the massacre of the Shias in the Hazara belt.

The HUM, the HUJI and the JEM are all the off-spring of the SSP. Like the SSP, all the three of them alongwith the LET are members of bin Laden's International Islamic Front. Maulana Masood Azhar of the JEM startedhis career as a terrorist in the SSP. Of late, the HUM and the HUJI have distanced themselves from thestrongly anti-Shia line of the SSP and the LEJ.

President Pervez Musharraf banned the LEJ on August 14,2001, and the SSP on January 15,2002. Despite this,they continue to be very active in the Punjab, in the Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan) and in Karachi andhave killed a large number of Shias in recent weeks. Their favourite modus operandi are to kill their victimsby firing from a hand-held weapon while travelling on a motor-bike in teams of two and use of timed orremote-controlled explosive devices. Till now, they have not used suicide bombing.

The News, the prestigious daily newspaper of Pakistan, reported on May 9, 2002, as follows:"According to the police, a few months ago allegedly the activists of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi attempted tofire rockets at the same hotel where Wednesday's gruesome incident took place. During interrogations, theactivists of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi told the police that they tried to target the hotel which was home to a largenumber of foreign nationals.

"The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi activists had tried to fire a rocket from an improvised launcher installedbehind the Commerce College near Rangers Headquarters.  However, one of the activists could not properlyfire the rocket, causing their forehead and hair to burn.

"Similarly, another cell of the same party tried to attack a landing aircraft of ISAF (InternationalSecurity Assistance Force) which luckily missed the target as it formed a trajectory far above the aircraftdescending to land at the Quaid-e-Azam International Airport. The rocket missed the aircraft and instead hit anearby house, damaging it and injuring the residents.

"Simultaneously, the members of the cell also tried to fire two rockets targeting the nearby residenceof the ISAF at the Hotel Midway.  Due to weak batteries of the improvised launcher, the rockets could notbe fired and the activists had to flee abandoning the rockets and the launcher.

"The rockets used in both the incidents had the same lot number, indicating usage by the same group.In the past two months, the Sindh police in its different raids at the hideouts of local terrorist groups haveyielded laboratory chemicals and equipment used to manufacture improvised explosive devices like pipe bombsand cardboard bombs.  Though it needs to be chemically examined, it is strongly believed that the car wascarrying improvised devices made up of similar high explosive chemicals found during the raids at the hideoutsof a major militant of a terrorist group involved in sectarian and other high-profile killings.  Similarchemicals were used in Raiwind explosion, which blew up the bridge from where minutes later the then PrimeMinister Nawaz Sharif had to pass.  Almost similar chemical was used in Oklahoma bomb blast, sourcesadded. "

The Lashkar-e-Omar (LEO) is stated to be a new united front of the HUJI, the LEJ and the JEM, patternedafter bin Laden's International Islamic Front. It came to notice for the first time in November,2001, when itclaimed responsibility for an attack on a group of Pakistani Christians praying in a church in Bhawalpur inPunjab, where Maulana Masood Azhar lives.  Subsequently, it was suspected in connection with the grenadeattack on a group of Pakistani and foreign Christians praying in a church in Islamabad on March 17,2002,killing five persons, including the wife and daughter of an official of the US Embassy in Islamabad. He escaped with injuries.  This attack was seen by many as targeted at him.

Omar Sheikh, presently undergoing trial in Hyderabad, Sindh, for his involvement in the kidnapping andmurder of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist, and Amjad Hussain Faruqui of the HUJI, an absconding accusedin the case, were both closely linked with the LEO, whose cadres were trained in training camps in Taliban-controlledterritory.

The origin of the name of LEO ( the Army of Omar) is not clear.  Some reports say it is named afterMulla Mohammad Omar, the Amir of the Taliban, and consists of the dregs of the Taliban, the Al Qaeda, and the Pakistani jehadi organisations allied with bin Laden in the International Islamic Front, who managed tosurvive the US air strikes and crossed over into Pakistan.  According to other reports, it is named afterOmar Sheikh and consists of hand-picked cadres of the HUJI, the JEM and the LEJ only for organising punishmentacts of terrorism against the Americans in Pakistani territory.  It has a capability for suicideterrorism, but is not known to have targeted non-Americans in the past. 

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently,Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai)