That Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf's repeated claims of havingtaken concrete measures to clip the wings of the jehadi groups and reformtheir religious seminaries across Pakistan were nothing more than rhetoric wasproved recently when his own administration admitted that three out of the fourLondon suicide bombers had been visiting madrassahs (seminaries) in theprovincial capitals of Sindh and Punjab in November 2004, before returning toEngland in February 2005, only to carry out deadly bombings there.
Musharraf's much-proclaimed policy of 'enlightened moderation' has come undersharp criticism, both from within and outside Pakistan after the July 2005terror attacks. For long, Pakistan has been the nerve-centre of the jehadimafia, providing safe haven to the ideologues of terror, masterminds ofspectacular and horrifying attacks, and innumerable and hapless foot soldiers -the cannon fodder of the jihad. Unsurprisingly, it is also here that mostterror conspiracies are busted; and the London terror attacks might prove nodifferent.
Available information suggests that having visited the Jamia Manzurul Islamia,an extremist Sunni madrassah situated in the Cantonment area of Lahore,the British suicide bombers proceeded to Faisalabad. There, they met Osama Nazir,the now detained chief of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi's (LeJ) suicide cell, ata small religious school in the city - Jamia Fatahul Rahemia, being run by QariAhlullah Raheemi, an extremist cleric considered close to the outlawed Pakistanimilitant outfit, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM, now renamed Khuddamul Islam)led by Maulana Masood Azhar. British-born Islamic militant Ahmed Omar SaeedSheikh, now under sentence of death for the killing of American journalistDaniel Pearl in 2002, was also considered close to Azhar.
In his televised address to the nation on July21, 2005, some hours after the failed London Bombings, Musharraf renewed hisJanuary 2002 commitment to root out the evils of extremism and terrorism fromthe country. There was nothing new in his speech. The administrative measuresfor combating terrorism and extremism that he announced were no different fromhis earlier assurances. Indeed, in his televised interaction with journalists onJuly 25, Musharraf declared that the present crackdown would not be like thelast one, where people were picked up and held for 10-15 days and then released;an open admission that the earlier crackdowns he had ordered were just aneyewash. This raises a basic question - if previous declarations were notfollowed up with effective action, how will the regime do a better job this timearound?
While addressing a Press Conference in Rawalpindi on July 29, meant exclusivelyfor the foreign media, General Musharraf confronted such skepticism, concedingthat he had not taken a firm action against the militants since 2002, because hedid not have "a free hand" at that time as a result of an unstableeconomy, the confrontation with India over Kashmir and insufficientinternational support for his presidency. He claimed further that he was now ina much stronger position to campaign against religious militants. "I am ina totally different environment. Today, I am very strong. We need to act againstthe bigwigs of all the extremist organizations. We are not going as fast as Iwould like to go. Maybe the boat would have capsized if the government hadpursued domestic militants more aggressively in 2002. We took action, but therewere restraining factors", the General said.
In response to specific questions on the difference between the crackdown he hadordered in 2002 and now, Musharraf said the world and media should not judge theperformance of his government 'through the eyes of the past'. Replying to awestern journalist's query why he had not been serious in his earlier attemptsto curb militancy, Musharraf retorted, "You have to be realistic and takecognizance of the ground situation. By taking stringent action againstfundamentalists, I would have risked the prospect of a million Talibans on thestreets of Pakistan."
To judge the General 'through the eyes of the present', it is useful to notethat, as in the past, he has again directed the law enforcement agencies to dealwith extremist organisations and the threat of terrorism with their full might.His firstdeclaration was that none of the sectarian and militant groups bannedon account of terrorism and extremism would be allowed to operate under any nameand those poisoning the young minds would be arrested and tried underAnti-Terrorism Laws. In this, he was repeating his resolve for the third timesince the 9/11 terror attacks; yet, the fact is, many of the banned jehadiand sectarian organisations have simply renamed themselves and are workingfreely under changed identities.
As far as his declaration to arrest those poisoning young minds is concerned,not a single key jehadi leader has been arrested during the so-calledcrackdown. This includes, among others, two who are wanted by Indian authoritiesfor orchestrating major acts of terrorism in India: Hafiz Mohammad Saeed of the Lashkar-e-Toiba(LeT, now Jamaat ud Daawa), and Syed Salahuddin of the HizbulMujahideen (HM). Similarly, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation wants tointerview another two jehadi leaders - the Harkatul Mujahideen (HuM,now Jamiatul Ansaar) leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil and the Jaish-e-Mohammad(now Khudamul Islam) chief Maulana Masood Azhar). As things stand, Hafiz Saeed,Masood Azhar, Fazlur Rehman Khalil and Syed Salahuddin are on the loose.
The huge extremist infrastructure that these leaders and their groups maintainedbefore 9/11 to wage jehad in Afghanistan and Kashmir, remains intact. Twomajor militant groups - LeT and HM, both active in Jammu &Kashmir (J&K),have apparently been allowed to resume training activities at their camps invarious parts of the country. Notwithstanding the fact that the peace processbetween India and Pakistan is on and many confidence building measures have beenadopted by both countries to strengthen bilateral ties, militant circles confirmthat their training camps were reactivated in April 2005 with the onset ofsummer and the melting of snow over the passes along the Line of Control (LoC).
As far as the arrests made during the ongoing crackdown against extremists areconcerned, a majority are low-level workers of the banned groups who have beendetained just to improve the tally. Most of them know full well that thoserounded up in the previous crackdowns were released on the strength of simpleaffidavits saying they were not jehadis. There is, moreover, a hugediscrepancy between official and non-official figures on the number ofextremists arrested in the ongoing crackdown. The Pakistani media, quoting governmentsources, reports 3,000 arrests throughout the country till July 30. However, theSecretary of the Ministry of Interior has been quoted as saying that 540 peoplewere arrested, out of whom 260 had already been released by July 30, while therest had been booked under the Anti-Terrorism Act. Interior Minister Aftab AhmadKhan Sherpao confirmed that 280 extremist militants had been booked all over thecountry.
Musharraf's second announcement said all religious schools will be registered byDecember 2005. The people of Pakistan have, again, heard this twice before -first time on January 5, 2002, and then on November 14, 2003. In fact, thetraditional madrassah system continues to operate as the key breedingground for the radical Islamist ideology and as the recruitment centre forterrorist networks. Musharraf's rhetoric on modernizing the religious schoolsystem has translated into little action, and his administration has failed toenforce the Madrassah Registration and Regulation Ordinance 2002, meantto reform religious schools. The new December 2005 deadline for the registrationof all madrassahs will test and demonstrate the regime's resolve - or thelack of it - to tackle this issue.
As things stand, the registration of madrassahs by December 2005 seems tobe a hard task to fulfill as the concerned authorities would have to register anaverage of 133 schools per day to ensure completion of the process in time. Ofthe estimated 40,000 religious seminaries operating in Pakistan, only about10,000 are so far registered with the government while the remaining 30,000 areunregistered. Madrassahs are registered under two different Acts - TheSocieties Act 1925 and The Trust Act, 1982. However, not a single madrassah hasbeen registered after Musharraf's July 21 speech because of inordinate delays inamending the out-dated Societies Act-1925.
As the Act is being revised by the government, the religious affairs ministryhas barred the auqaf (charity) departments from registering any of theseminaries. At the same time, conflicting statements by Federal EducationMinister Javed Ashraf Qazi and Federal Religious Affairs Minister Ejazul Haqregarding the number of the registered madrassahs are creating confusion.While Qazi says 3,000 religious seminaries have so far been registered with the government,Haq says the number of registered madrassahs is close to 10,000. In anyevent, some circles claim, the registration of madrassahs and theirmonitoring might impose some checks on their funding and links with jehadi outfits,but only a far greater commitment to a democratic polity would help isolateobscurantist institutions and individuals.
Musharraf's third declaration was that jehadi organisations will not be allowedto collect donations. The General has made this announcement at least six timessince the 9/11 terror attacks. In reality, however, enforcement fizzles outafter a brief drive, especially in cases where some of these groups usedonations for social services and win adherents through humanitarian work ratherthan overt indoctrination. Each time this announcement was made in the past, theauthorities removed donation boxes of jehadi organizations and theirfundraising camps from public places. As soon as the dust settled, however,these boxes and campaigns would reappear.
Musharraf's fourth announcement was that the possession and display of armswould be strictly prohibited. Once again, it is general knowledge thatsuccessive 'de-weaponisation' campaigns in Pakistan have never been a successand the ban imposed on the issue of arms licenses had already been lifted in2004. Illegal weapons are numerous and easily available across the country.
His fifth declaration was that strict action would be taken against thoseinvolved in the printing, publishing and distribution of hate literature. On thecontrary, however, most of the major jehadi publications continue to bepublished from all the major cities of Pakistan and are being distributedwithout any check even after the ban. These publications are the most effectiveinstruments to propagate jehad and the more prominent among these, Ghazwa,Majalla, Zarb-e-Taiba, Shamsheer, Zarb-e-Momin,which together boast a circulation of millions, are distributed free of cost.These publications feature jehadi ballads, interviews and profiles ofyoung jehadis with big pictures, verses from the Holy Quran and lettersfrom militants to inspire the readers and mobilize the youth. Though publishinginflammatory material and possessing unlicensed weapons are serious offenceseven under the ordinary laws of the land; the relevant provisions have neverbeen enforced by the present government.
Analysts say the Pakistani militant groups and the clergy that run madrassahsin the country have survived so far primarily because of their ideologicalaffinity with the military and their common belief in Pakistan's rightful claimover Jammu & Kashmir. The root cause of the problem seems to be the jehadiorientation of the Pakistani military leadership and its continued alliancewith fundamentalists. Recall that Jehad fi Sabilillah (Jehad in the nameof God) continues to be the motto of the Pakistan Army, making its officers andsoldiers believe they are the custodians of militant Islam worldwide.
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Amir Mir is Senior Pakistani journalist affiliated with Karachi-basedMonthly, Newsline. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review ofthe South Asia Terrorism Portal.
