Lest We Forget

Pakistan's President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is scheduled to visit the US from February 13, 2002, in response to an invitation from President Bush.Applauded by the US and the rest of the Western world, Musharraf, who had in thepast created or contributed to the creation of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda,Mullah Mohammad Omer and his Taliban, Azam Tariq and his anti-ShiaSipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, Maulana Masood Azhar and his Jaish-e-Mohammad and MuftiSoofi Mohammad and his Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi and thwarted everyeffort of the US before September 11, 2001, to bring bin Laden to justice and ofthe UN to implement the sanctions against the Taliban, would now be projectinghimself to the American public as the greatest and the most courageous fighteragainst terrorism the world has known. He and his perception managers would alsotry hard to whitewash the involvement of Pakistan's military-intelligenceestablishment in promoting cross-border terrorism against India. It is hopedthat the updated analysis annexed herewith would enable US public opinion to seethe matter in its real perspective without being taken in by his perceptionmanagement techniques.

India has been the target of cross-border terrrorism emanating from Pakistansince the late 1950s. Between 1956 and 1971, disgruntled Naga, Mizo and otherelements from the border areas in India's North-Eastern region were givensanctuaries, training and arms and ammunition by Pakistan'smilitary-intelligence establishment in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of thethen East Pakistan. The birth of Bangladesh in 1971 gave a respite from thisproblem till 1981.

From 1981, Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment started providingassistance to terrorists belonging to the so-called Khalistan movement inPakistani territory.  At its instigation, a number of extremistorganisations came into being in the Sikh diaspora abroad and these took to actsof terrorism such as hijacking of Indian aircraft, blowing up of Indianaircraft, attacks on civilians in the Punjab through the use of hand-heldweapons, sophisticated explosive devices etc.

Terrorists belonging to the so-called Khalistani organisations were givensanctuaries, training and arms and ammunition in Pakistani territory. Pakistanrefused to hand over to India the hijackers of an Indian Airlines plane in 1981and terrorists wanted in connection with the blowing-up of the Kanishka aircraftof Air-India off the Irish coast in 1985 and other terrorist incidents. As aresult of the effective counter-terrorism operations undertaken by the Indian securityforces, terrorism has been almost completely wiped out in the Punjab since 1995,but Pakistan's  military-intelligence establishment has not given up itsefforts to re-kindle terrorism in the Punjab with the help of the dregs of theterrorist movement still given sanctuary in Pakistan, whom it has been refusingto hand over to India for trial.

In 1993, Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment, through a mafiagroup of narcotics and other smugglers headed by Dawood Ibrahim, who is wantedfor many offences in India, organised a series of explosions in importanteconomic targets in Mumbai (Bombay) such as India's premier stock exchange, ahotel run by Air-India etc. The terrorists, who participated in these explosionshad been taken to Pakistan via Dubai, trained in the use of explosive devicesand sent back to Mumbai. The explosives and other arms and ammunition for theiruse were sent across in boats and clandestinely landed in the remote coastalareas. The explosions killed over 300 innocent civilians.

After the explosions, Dawood Ibrahim and others involved, all Indiannationals, were given sanctuary in Karachi and issued with Pakistani passportsunder different names. Red corner alerts issued by the Interpol for theirarrests as well as repeated requests from Indian investigative agencies forhanding them over to India have not been honoured. Though Pakistani newspapershave been reporting in detail about their presence and activities in Karachi,the Pakistani Government has been repeatedly taking up the stand that they arenot in Pakistan. These elements based in Pakistan continue to indulge in acts ofterrorism and other serious crime in Indian territory.

Before 1989, there were two major acts of terrorism relating to Jammu &Kashmir (J&K) instigated by the Pakistani military-intelligenceestablishment. The first was the hijacking of an Indian Airlines aircraft toLahore in 1971 by two members of the J&K Liberation Front (JKLF), bothIndian nationals. Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, the then Foreign Minister of Pakistan,welcomed the hijackers in Lahore, lionised them and helped them to meet theinternational press for projecting their cause.  Thereafter, the hijackersblew up the aircraft with explosives provided by the Inter-Services Intelligence(ISI), after having evacuated the passsengers. Pakistan refused to hand over thehijackers to India.This led to India banning all Pakistani overflights overIndian territory, which lasted till 1973.

The second incident was the kidnapping and murder in 1983 of Mhatre, adiplomat of the Indian Assistant High Commission in Birmingham, UK, by aPakistan-based faction of the JKLF, headed by Amanullah Khan, a Pakistaninational. He continues to operate from Rawalpindi without any action being takenagainst him by the Pakistani authorities.

Pakistan's proxy war against India in J&K through cross-border terrorismstarted in 1989 after the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Forthis purpose, Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment diverted to J&Kfrom Afghanistan the remnants of the arms and ammunition and explosives receivedby it from the USA and other Western countries for use against the Soviet troopsand battle-hardened mercenaries of Pakistani and other nationalities withexperience of having fought against the Soviet troops. Since the beginning ofthis proxy war till November 15, 2001, 12,581 innocent civilians, many of themMuslims, and 3,246 members of the security forces have been killed. During thecounter-terrorism operations since 1989, the security forces have killed 14,078Pakistani-trained terrorists, many of them Pakistani nationals.

The new phase of Pakistan's cross-border terrorism against India since 1989has so far passed through the following four stages:

1989-93: Pakistan largely used indigenous Kashmiri elements. They were recruited in J&K, taken across the border/Line of Control  to Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), trained and armed and infiltrated back into J&K. Their leaders were given sanctuaries in Pakistan. In 1989-90, Pakistan assisted any indigenous Kashmiri group irrespective of its objective. Subsequently, it stopped assisting groups, which called for an independent Kashmir state, and assisted only those who advocated J&K's merger with Pakistan. After 1990, the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), the armed wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) of J&K, which advocates merger with Pakistan, emerged as the privileged recipient of assistance from Pakistan. By 1993, the indigenous groups trained and armed by Pakistan were unable to make headway against the Indian security forces. Moreover, they were increasingly unwilling to carry out the instructions of the ISI to massacre members of the Hindu, Sikh and other religious minority groups and intimidate the surviving members into leaving the state in order to change the demographic composition of the state.

1993-99: Disappointed by the results achieved by the indigenous Kashmiri groups, Pakistan started relying on Pakistani and Afghan nationals and other foreign mercenaries for achieving its strategic objectives. For this purpose, it infiltrated into J&K trained Pakistani and other foreign cadres of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the Al Badr. Subsequently, since the beginning of 2000, the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) has also been infiltrated. The Al Badr, an armed wing of Pakistan's JeI, was originally created by the ISI in the then East Pakistan in 1971 and used by it for the massacre of Bengali intellectuals in Dacca and other places. It consisted largely of Pashtun tribesmen and some Punjabis of Pakistan. It was withdrawn from Dacca into Pakistan after the defeat of the Pakistani Army in the war of December,1971, and became practically dormant till the early 1980s, when it was re-activated, trained, armed and infiltrated into Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet troops. After the overthrow of the Najibullah Government in Kabul in April,1992, the Al Badr was withdrawn by the ISI from Afghanistan and infiltrated into J&K. The Al Badr is presently not active anywhere else in the world except in India. It does not advocate a pan-Islamic ideology. The HuM and the LeT, both of Wahabi orientation, came into existence in Pakistan  during the Afghan war of the 1980s. They are Pakistani organisations, with largely Pakistani office-bearers and have their entire administrative, logistics and training infrastructure in Pakistan and, before September 11, 2001, they had their training infrastructure in Afghanistan too. Both advocate a pan-Islamic ideology and defend their right to go to the assistance of Muslims anywhere in the world, who, in their perception, are suppressed. Thus, they have not only been indulging in acts of terrorism  in India, but also assisting terrorist groups in the Southern Philippines, Myanmar, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Chechnya and Dagestan. They also provide moral and material support to fundamentalist elements in Islamic countries such as Algeria, Tunisia and even Saudi Arabia. By the end of this period, these three Pakistani organisations, two of them of Pan-Islamic orientation, practically took over the control of the terrorist movement in J&K, almost totally marginalising the indigenous Kashmiri organisations, except the HM. Indigenous organisations such as the JKLF gave up violence during this period and started focussing on propaganda and other political means for projecting their demands.Since this period, there is no longer any Kashmiri terrorism to any significant extent. It is almost exclusively Pakistani terrorism in the name of Kashmiris. After the Taliban captured power in large parts of Afghanistan in 1994-96, these organisations shifted many, if not most, of their training camps to Taliban-controlled territory. Most of the ground infrastructure in Afghanistan destroyed and people killed in the US Cruise missile strikes of August,1998, belonged to the HuM and the LeT and not to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda.  In October,1997, the USA designated the HuM as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation under a law of 1996.


1999-September 11, 2001: In 1998, the HuM and the  LeT became members of bin Laden's International Islamic Front for Jehad Against the US and Israel.  The leader of the HuM signed bin Laden's first fatwa against the US.  In 1999, the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment used the trained cadres of the HuM, the LeT, the Al Badr and the Al Qaeda of bin Laden to facilitate its occupation of the Kargil heights which led to fighting between the Indian and Pakistani military and the ultimate ejection of the Pakistani military and terrorist groups from the Indian territory occupied by them clandestinely by taking advantage of the 1998-99 winter. The influence of bin Laden's teaching and tactics on the HuM and the LeT became increasingly evident since July, 1999. Before that, there was hardly any suicide terrorism in J&K. Since July,1999, the Pakistani terrorists, influenced by the modus operandi (MO) of the Al Qaeda, have increasingly shifted to suicide attacks on the security forces and military and civilian installations. Since July,1999, there have been 43 acts of suicide terrorism, of which only two were committed by indigenous Kashmiri organisations. The remaining 41 were committed by the LeT and the JeM. The influence of the MO of the Al Qaeda has also been evident in the increasingly ferocious attacks on religious minorities reminiscent of the massacre of the Shias (Hazaras) of Afghanistan by the Taliban, the Al Qaeda and the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP).  The JeM came into existence in the beginning of 2000 by a split in the HuM engineered by Maulana Masood Azhar, a Pakistani national of Bhawalpur in Pakistani Punjab, who was released by the Government of India in December 1999, to secure the release of the passengers of an Indian Airlines plane hijacked to Kandahar. Till now, Pakistan has not honoured repeated Indian requests for the arrest and handing over of the hijackers, all Pakistani nationals.  It has been saying that they will be tried in Pakistan according to Pakistani law, but none of them has so far been arrested or even questioned even more than two years after the hijacking. Pakistan has also not honoured the red corner notices of the Interpol. Azhar, who has been identified by the December 2001, issue of the "Herald", the prestigious monthly journal of the "Dawn" group of Karachi, as an ISI-trained terrorist, started his career in terrorism in the SSP, an extremist Sunni organisation, which has been fighting for the proclamation of Pakistan as a Sunni state and for the declaration of the Shias as non-Muslims, gravitated to the HuM and, as an HuM office-bearer, assisted the Al Qaeda in Somalia and Yemen before entering India in 1994 with a Portugese passport, when he was arrested.  Since the middle 1990s, the HuM and the LeT have been proclaiming their objective as not only the merger of J&K with Pakistan, but also as the "liberation" of Muslims in the rest of India from Hindu rule and re-establishment of the Mughal rule over the Indian sub-continent. With this objective, the LeT and, subsequently, the JeM have been trying to spread their terrorist infrastructure to New Delhi and other parts of India. The LeT carried out an act of terrorism in the Red Fort of New Delhi in January 2001.

Since September 11, 2001:  The JeM joined bin Laden's International Islamic Front. A large number of trained cadres of the HuM, the LeT, the JeM, the SSP and the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), an extremist organisation of the tribal areas of Pakistan adjoining the Durand Line, infiltrated into Afghanistan with the complicity of Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment and fought along with the Taliban and the Al Qaeda against the Northern Alliance and the allied forces led by the USA, suffering large casualties. The "Herald" of December 2001, has estimated the number of Pakistanis belonging to these organisations, who are missing in action, at 6,000 plus, but other independent reports indicate that at least 8,000 Pakistani members of these organisations were killed by the US air strikes or in the fighting against the Northern Alliance. The surviving members of these organisations have since returned to Pakistan with redoubled anger against the US and India for the casualties suffered by them and for the humiliation heaped upon them by the Afghan people after the collapse of the Taliban. The recent ban on the LeT and the JeM by Gen.Pervez Musharraf was intended more to prevent an anti-US and anti-military backlash by them in Pakistani territory  than to prevent their acts of   terrorism against India.

• The large-scale Pakistani, official and non-official, involvement in the building-up of not only the Taliban, but also of other terrorist infrastructure based in Afghanistan.
  
  
• The role of the HuM in the hijacking of a plane of the Indian Airlines in December 1999, some of the papers relating to which were found in an abandoned safe house of the HuM in Kabul.
  
  
• The presence of rogue elements in Pakistan's scientific community in the fields relating to weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which had been hobnobbing with religious extremists. The contacts of some of these scientists with bin Laden and his terrorist network in Afghanistan might have come as an unpleasant surprise to the rest of the world, but not to knowledgeable analysts in India. Serving and retired scientists of a sensitive set-up like the nuclear one are constantly under surveillance by the ISI to prevent undesirable contacts with foreigners and, as pointed out by the "Herald" of December 2001, they could not have established contact with the Taliban and the Al Qaeda without the knowledge or complicity of the ISI.  The arrest and court-martial in 1995 of a group of religious fanatics in the Pakistan Army led by Maj.Gen. Zaheer-ul-Islam Abbasi brought to light the extent of penetration of religious extremist elements into the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment at the lower and middle levels since the days of Zia-ul-Haq, but alerts of a similar penetration of Pakistan's WMD scientific community did not receive from the rest of the world the attention they deserved.