Tightening The Tourniquet

Confusion reigned supreme in the subcontinent last week as to whether or not the State Department in Washington had placed the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) on the list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTOS). But Islamabad isn't taking any chances: it has advised prominent leaders of the two organisations to keep a low profile and even go underground.

But such measures don't mean the storm is expected to blow over. The Pakistani embassy in Washington has told the government that the US administration has most probably already decided upon designating the LeT and JeM as FTOS, consequently meeting the long-standing Indian demand. Sources say US intelligence officials have compiled enough evidence to show that Osama bin Laden had been funding these two organisations.

Both organisations deny this charge but the Musharraf government has already barred LeT chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and JeM supremo Maulana Masood Azhar from holding protest rallies against the attacks on Afghanistan. The two have been warned that their anti-US stance could force the State Department to place them on the FTO list, leaving the Pakistani government no option but to ban them from operating in the country.

Post-September 11, Islamabad banned and froze the assets of the Al-Rasheed Trust and Rabita Trust after the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control in Washington placed these two organisations on its Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) list. A mention in the SDGT list enables the US government to freeze their assets and prohibits financial transactions with them.

The JeM, too, was among the 67 organisations on the list post-September 11. But the organisation promptly renamed itself Tehrik-al-Furqan and its chief Azhar even went underground. If the State Department were to declare the JeM an FTO, the Pakistani government could find itself compelled to move against Azhar and his followers.

Neither the warnings from Islamabad nor the US government's recent action have tempered in any way Saeed's rhetoric—he has continued to issue strident statements against Washington (see interview). At recent LeT rallies, Saeed has repeatedly warned the US to stop bombing Afghanistan or else brace for bigger losses than what it suffered in the September 11 attacks.

A harried Pakistani government feels such irresponsible statements could goad Washington into demanding that Islamabad tighten the noose around jehadi outfits active in 'occupied Kashmir'. There seems to be a certain inevitability about Washington raising such demands in the future. Official circles here feel that the Bush administration, though having confined its action against those directly linked to bin Laden, is now under tremendous pressure from the pro-Israel lobby to target groups other than those associated with him. One senior official told Outlook, "This could vindicate the Indian position by default as the Vajpayee administration has been arguing for the same treatment of Kashmiri militant outfits."

The Lashkar, as such, has managed to evade the US ban because of technical reasons. As a foreign official points out, "The US is not bothered about what some outfit is doing somewhere. A ban comes only when an outfit acts against US interests." The official says the Indian government could have been providing ample evidence of LeT's terror activities in Kashmir but New Delhi has till now failed to show to Washington that the militant organisation works against US interests.

But time could well be running out for the Lashkar. Diplomatic sources say that US intelligence have unearthed evidence to show that bin Laden had in 1989 financed Hafiz Saeed and Zafar Iqbal, of the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, and Abdullah Azam of the International Islamic University, Islamabad, to launch the Markaz Dawa Wal Irshad, which is the parent organisation of the LeT. Markaz's objectives were then two-fold: to assist the Afghan mujahideen against Russia and to cleanse Islam in Pakistan of what is called the corrupting influence of Hinduism.

Similarly, some further evidence shows that after being released and guided to Pakistan by Taliban officials, Maulana Masood Azhar returned to Afghanistan and met bin Laden, who allegedly financed him to enable the launching of the JeM on February 4, 2001.

Saeed may continue to rant and rave against the US and Musharraf but the LeT's formidable firepower could be debilitated were the US government to declare it an FTO. The Pakistani government will then have to follow suit and push the LeT out of its protective umbrella.