Band Of A Few Bad Brothers
Post-September 11, the Treasury Office of Foreign Asset Control (ofac) in Washington has placed 67 organisations and individuals on its Specially Designated Global Terrorists list, freezing their assets and prohibiting financial transactions with them. Of these, four organisations and three individuals have Pakistani addresses, proof to the manner in which the country's military establishment has fostered militant Islamist ideology and terror as vital strands in its policy on Kashmir and Afghanistan. The four Pakistani organisations and three individuals are profiled below.
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
On October 1, 1997, the Clinton administration notified Congress about a list of 30 international terrorist organisations that had been brought under the purview of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, 1996. Listed among them was the Harkat-ul-Ansar, which then promptly renamed itself as the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM).
The HuM was launched in the '80s, and is headquartered at Raiwind in Punjab, where it still holds its annual conference. An offshoot of the Deobandi school of thought, the HuM's initial objective was to provide humanitarian relief to Afghan refugees in nwfp. It believes Sufism has corrupted Islam, and denounces pluralist, parliamentary form of democracy and equal rights for women.
From providing humanitarian assistance, the Harkat decided to assist Afghan mujahideen fighting the Soviets. It recruited about 5,000 volunteers, mostly from Pakistan and Azad Kashmir, and financed its operation with contributions from Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia (bin Laden was an important contributor). The cia provided it arms and ammunition, and the Pakistani army trained its recruits. Gradually, it widened its catchment area to include other Muslim countries like Algeria, Jordan and Bangladesh. Washington targeted the Harkat bases in the 1998 attacks on Afghanistan, as a retaliation against the bombing of US embassies in Africa.
The Harkat was responsible for the hijacking of IA's flight IC-814 plane in December 1999, which eventually forced the Indian government to release Maulana Masood Azhar, the organisation's general secretary then. Earlier, on July 4, 1995, the Harkat (through its splinter group, Al-Faran) had kidnapped five foreign nationals from Pahalgam, Kashmir, to secure Azhar's release. Negotiations broke down six months later; all hostages are presumed dead. The fact that one of the hostages included an American, Donald Hutchings, was primarily the reason why the US banned the HuM in 1997.
On September 29, 2001, Islamabad ordered closure of Harkat offices. Says the Harkat commander in Pakistan, Sajjad Shahid: "We have closed down seven offices under instructions from the government. The order has come because of American pressure." Adds another HuM commander Attique-ur-Rehman: "Any Pakistani ruler who goes against us won't stay in power for long."
Jaish-E-Mohammad
Once Masood Azhar was released in Kandahar in 1999, the Taliban guided him to Pakistan, where he found himself at odds with Harkat-ul-Ansar ameer Maulana Sadatullah, and his deputy, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil. After a brief hibernation, when he got married, Azhar floated the Jaish-e-Mohammad on January 27, 2000. He flourished in just a year, with nearly 75 per cent of HuM recruits joining the Jaish. Its hardcore activists total 1,000 and it commands a corpus of Rs 17 crore. Working out of Karachi and Bahawalpur, the network has flooded J&K with cassettes of the maulana's fiery speeches. He also organised training camps at Nikial and Kotli in Azad Kashmir and at Rashkor in Afghanistan. Fearing government action, the Jaish has renamed itself as Tehrik-al-Furqan, with Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai as its patron-in-chief. A staunch supporter of the Taliban, Shamzai recently declared jehad against Washington.
Rabita Trust
The Rabita Al-Alam Al-Islami, or the League of Islamic World, was established in Saudi Arabia in 1962. Its Pakistani branch is housed in a two-storey beige building on Wahadat Road, Lahore, and has armed guards posted at the gate. Rabita recently grabbed headlines because of media reports claiming that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf was one of its patrons and that US authorities had advised him to disassociate himself from the organisation.
Rabita worldwide is headed by a Saudi citizen, Wa'el Hamza Jalaidan, whom the Bush administration has identified as among those who helped bin Laden establish the Al Qaeda network. Jalaidan is considered the logistics chief of the Qaeda. In Pakistan, though, Rabita is credited with having repatriated hundreds of Pakistanis stuck in Bangladesh after the liberation, known as Biharis, in 1992, when Nawaz Sharif was the PM. Benazir Bhutto subsequently halted the repatriation process. The repatriation plan was chalked out during Gen Zia-ul-Haq's tenure in 1983. In 1988, the government and Rabita together formed the Rabita Rehabilitation Trust—the government provided Rs 250 million and another Rs 50 million came from Rabita sources. After 50 families were repatriated, the Pakistan government shelved the plan before it was revived in 1992.
Before banning Rabita, even a US State Department official described it as a highly respected Islamic trust with several prominent board members. "Our feeling is that Osama and Al Qaeda deliberately infiltrated the Trust and corrupted a reputable organisation. We don't think the prominent people who have their names on it were aware of the infiltration," the official explained. Rabita officials claim they are involved in charity work in Afghanistan.
Al-Rasheed Trust
Banned by the US for alleged contacts with terrorists, the Karachi-based Al-Rasheed Trust currently operates food centres in Kandahar, Kabul, Herat, Jalalabad and Mazar-e-Sharif. In addition, it provides food to 3,00,000 Afghan refugees on the Pak-Afghan border twice a day. Mohammad Arshad, in charge of the Al-Rasheed Trust office in Islamabad, says they are planning to move the International Court of Justice against Washington's decision to freeze its assets. The Trust's offices in Pakistan and its volunteers, however, continue to function.
In a letter to the federal secretary of Interior Division, the Trust's administrator has complained that though it is registered under Pakistani law, it didn't receive any notice before its accounts were frozen. Claiming that this violated Pakistan's Constitution, the letter adds: "We request the government of Pakistan to immediately restore Al-Rasheed Trust's accounts and nullify the US curbs on the Trust. Otherwise, it would not only discourage other organisations from conducting welfare work, but would also render unaided a large number of sick, orphans and widows." After preliminary inquiries, the Intelligence Bureau has informed the interior ministry that the assessment of the Trust's past three years' accounts has already been conducted by the income tax department. Its report to the ministry states: "The government had issued import permits to the Trust for importing paper for publishing religious books, and has also issued permission letters for receiving donations from philanthropists living abroad." The US, however, suspects the Trust is being funded by Osama's Al Qaeda. On Rasheed, at least, the government seems to be on a weak wicket.
Others
The three individuals named are Karachi's Mufti Rasheed of Al-Rasheed Trust, Haji Abdul Manan, a Karachi-based hawala dealer, and Dr Mohammad Zia. Though not much is known about Dr Mohammad Zia, sources say he is an Afghan doctor based in Pakistan and is reportedly close to bin Laden's close aide, Zawahiri.
On October 1, 1997, the Clinton administration notified Congress about a list of 30 international terrorist organisations that had been brought under the purview of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, 1996. Listed among them was the Harkat-ul-Ansar, which then promptly renamed itself as the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM).
The HuM was launched in the '80s, and is headquartered at Raiwind in Punjab, where it still holds its annual conference. An offshoot of the Deobandi school of thought, the HuM's initial objective was to provide humanitarian relief to Afghan refugees in nwfp. It believes Sufism has corrupted Islam, and denounces pluralist, parliamentary form of democracy and equal rights for women.
From providing humanitarian assistance, the Harkat decided to assist Afghan mujahideen fighting the Soviets. It recruited about 5,000 volunteers, mostly from Pakistan and Azad Kashmir, and financed its operation with contributions from Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia (bin Laden was an important contributor). The cia provided it arms and ammunition, and the Pakistani army trained its recruits. Gradually, it widened its catchment area to include other Muslim countries like Algeria, Jordan and Bangladesh. Washington targeted the Harkat bases in the 1998 attacks on Afghanistan, as a retaliation against the bombing of US embassies in Africa.
The Harkat was responsible for the hijacking of IA's flight IC-814 plane in December 1999, which eventually forced the Indian government to release Maulana Masood Azhar, the organisation's general secretary then. Earlier, on July 4, 1995, the Harkat (through its splinter group, Al-Faran) had kidnapped five foreign nationals from Pahalgam, Kashmir, to secure Azhar's release. Negotiations broke down six months later; all hostages are presumed dead. The fact that one of the hostages included an American, Donald Hutchings, was primarily the reason why the US banned the HuM in 1997.
On September 29, 2001, Islamabad ordered closure of Harkat offices. Says the Harkat commander in Pakistan, Sajjad Shahid: "We have closed down seven offices under instructions from the government. The order has come because of American pressure." Adds another HuM commander Attique-ur-Rehman: "Any Pakistani ruler who goes against us won't stay in power for long."
Jaish-E-Mohammad
Once Masood Azhar was released in Kandahar in 1999, the Taliban guided him to Pakistan, where he found himself at odds with Harkat-ul-Ansar ameer Maulana Sadatullah, and his deputy, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil. After a brief hibernation, when he got married, Azhar floated the Jaish-e-Mohammad on January 27, 2000. He flourished in just a year, with nearly 75 per cent of HuM recruits joining the Jaish. Its hardcore activists total 1,000 and it commands a corpus of Rs 17 crore. Working out of Karachi and Bahawalpur, the network has flooded J&K with cassettes of the maulana's fiery speeches. He also organised training camps at Nikial and Kotli in Azad Kashmir and at Rashkor in Afghanistan. Fearing government action, the Jaish has renamed itself as Tehrik-al-Furqan, with Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai as its patron-in-chief. A staunch supporter of the Taliban, Shamzai recently declared jehad against Washington.
Rabita Trust
The Rabita Al-Alam Al-Islami, or the League of Islamic World, was established in Saudi Arabia in 1962. Its Pakistani branch is housed in a two-storey beige building on Wahadat Road, Lahore, and has armed guards posted at the gate. Rabita recently grabbed headlines because of media reports claiming that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf was one of its patrons and that US authorities had advised him to disassociate himself from the organisation.
Rabita worldwide is headed by a Saudi citizen, Wa'el Hamza Jalaidan, whom the Bush administration has identified as among those who helped bin Laden establish the Al Qaeda network. Jalaidan is considered the logistics chief of the Qaeda. In Pakistan, though, Rabita is credited with having repatriated hundreds of Pakistanis stuck in Bangladesh after the liberation, known as Biharis, in 1992, when Nawaz Sharif was the PM. Benazir Bhutto subsequently halted the repatriation process. The repatriation plan was chalked out during Gen Zia-ul-Haq's tenure in 1983. In 1988, the government and Rabita together formed the Rabita Rehabilitation Trust—the government provided Rs 250 million and another Rs 50 million came from Rabita sources. After 50 families were repatriated, the Pakistan government shelved the plan before it was revived in 1992.
Before banning Rabita, even a US State Department official described it as a highly respected Islamic trust with several prominent board members. "Our feeling is that Osama and Al Qaeda deliberately infiltrated the Trust and corrupted a reputable organisation. We don't think the prominent people who have their names on it were aware of the infiltration," the official explained. Rabita officials claim they are involved in charity work in Afghanistan.
Al-Rasheed Trust
Banned by the US for alleged contacts with terrorists, the Karachi-based Al-Rasheed Trust currently operates food centres in Kandahar, Kabul, Herat, Jalalabad and Mazar-e-Sharif. In addition, it provides food to 3,00,000 Afghan refugees on the Pak-Afghan border twice a day. Mohammad Arshad, in charge of the Al-Rasheed Trust office in Islamabad, says they are planning to move the International Court of Justice against Washington's decision to freeze its assets. The Trust's offices in Pakistan and its volunteers, however, continue to function.
In a letter to the federal secretary of Interior Division, the Trust's administrator has complained that though it is registered under Pakistani law, it didn't receive any notice before its accounts were frozen. Claiming that this violated Pakistan's Constitution, the letter adds: "We request the government of Pakistan to immediately restore Al-Rasheed Trust's accounts and nullify the US curbs on the Trust. Otherwise, it would not only discourage other organisations from conducting welfare work, but would also render unaided a large number of sick, orphans and widows." After preliminary inquiries, the Intelligence Bureau has informed the interior ministry that the assessment of the Trust's past three years' accounts has already been conducted by the income tax department. Its report to the ministry states: "The government had issued import permits to the Trust for importing paper for publishing religious books, and has also issued permission letters for receiving donations from philanthropists living abroad." The US, however, suspects the Trust is being funded by Osama's Al Qaeda. On Rasheed, at least, the government seems to be on a weak wicket.
Others
The three individuals named are Karachi's Mufti Rasheed of Al-Rasheed Trust, Haji Abdul Manan, a Karachi-based hawala dealer, and Dr Mohammad Zia. Though not much is known about Dr Mohammad Zia, sources say he is an Afghan doctor based in Pakistan and is reportedly close to bin Laden's close aide, Zawahiri.
Published At:
Tags