Once such an operation commences, itis expected to take other sectarian and militant outfits into its ambit as well. US and other westernintelligence agencies are convinced that, of the two Lashkar-e-Jhangvi factions, one - the Asif Ramzi group(whose command is now in the hands of Qari Asad) - is behind many terrorist incidents in which Western targetswere involved, including the May 8, 2002, Sheraton bomb blast in which nine French workers were killed, theDaniel Pearl killing, and attacks on various churches, among others.
Though the LeJ and SSP are now separate organisations, US intelligence believes that there are strongsurviving linkages between the two. At the same time, organizations such as the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the SSP are also linked. Both Maulana Azam Tariqand JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar together received their education at the Binori Town Seminary in Karachi.Several workers of both formations frequently change hats and have, time and again, crossed over from the SSPto the JeM, and back. Consequently, if the Pakistani establishment takes action against the SSP, groups suchas the JeM would automatically attract similar action.
Understanding intelligence agency operations in Pakistan does not require any deep investigations. Suchoperations are conducted on set formulae, and intelligence bosses generally apply the same rules in allcomparable operations. Way back in the mid-1990s, the then Nawaz Sharief Government had decided to break thenetwork of ethnocentric parties in Karachi, which had brought extreme lawlessness and a gun culture to themetropolis. The task was assigned to the Intelligence Bureau's (IB) Deputy Director General, retired WingCommander Tariq Lodhi. The IB arranged special sharp shooters from its Simli Dam Training Center, whoconducted random killings in selected areas. In the following days, the city turned violent, giving the lawenforcers a reason to conduct their search and seizure operations that fixed on workers of ethnocentricparties, eventually breaking their networks. It now remains to be seen for how much time the street violence inresponse to Azam Tariq's murder will last, before it traps the reactionaries in their own net.