On The Side, Quietly

At a time when the rest of the world is intensifying the search for terrorists allied with Osama bin Ladenin the wake of the Bali and Mombasa blasts and the warnings of fresh attacks emanating from him, Pakistan hasbeen letting loose many terrorists belonging to organisations which are members of bin Laden's InternationalIslamic Front (IIF).

Some more instances of how Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military dictator projected by the US as astalwart ally in the war against terrorism, has been on the sly undermining the war while making a pretense ofco-operating with the US have come to notice.

After the attack on the Indian Parliament House in New Delhi on December 13, 2001, by members of thePakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), the US designated both theseorganisations as Foreign Terrorist Organisations under a 1996 law and exercised pressure on Musharraf to actagainst them.Both are members of the IIF.

In his telecast speech of January 11, 2002, Musharraf announced his decision to ban these organisationsalong with three others, whose activities are confined to Pakistan.But the formal ban order issued byPakistan's Ministry of the Interior on January 15,2002, made the ban applicable only in Sindh, Punjab,Balochistan and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

It was not made applicable in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK)and the Northern Areas (NA) of Jammu & Kashmir (Gilgit & Baltistan), which are also under Pakistanioccupation anddirectly administered from Islamabad. The Interior Ministry had stated that another orderwould be forthcoming extending the ban to these areas too, but this has not come so far.

Even before the issue of the ban order, the military regime started rounding up the administrative cadresand leaders of these organisations, including Prof.Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the Amir of the Markaz Dawa Al Irshad(MDI), which is the political wing of the LET. These arrests continued after the issue of the ban order. District-level offices of the MDI and the LET were raided and their papers seized, but their nationalheadquarters at Muridke, near Lahore, were not.

The MDI changed its name as Jamaat Ud Dawa (JD) and ostensibly delinked itself from the LET, which shiftedall its operational cadres, arsenal and training camps to the POK and the NA, from where it has been operatingsince then. After some weeks, the military regime started releasingthe arrested administrative cadreson the ground that there was no evidence of their involvement in acts of terrorism.

Prof. Saeed was also released, but re-arrested reportedly under US pressure.He has again beenreleased last month, ostensibly on the orders of a court.

Before the elections to the National and provincial Assemblies on October 10, 2002, Musharraf ordered thewithdrawal of all pending cases in the anti-terrorism courts against the candidates of the six fundamentalistparties, which contested the elections as a coalition, in order to enable them to contest the elections. 

Similar withdrawal of pending cases under the common law (not for acts of terrorism) against the leaders ofBenazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) and Nawaz Sharif's faction of the PakistanMuslim League (PML) was, however, not ordered.

This enabled the religious fundamentalist parties, which support the Taliban and bin Laden, to win anabsolute majority of seats in the NWFP Assembly and score impressive gains in the Pashtun areas of Balochistan. Consequently, the religious coalition has formed the Government in the NWFP and a coalition of the religiousfundamentalist parties and the pro-Musharraf PML (Qaide Azam) has taken over power in Balochistan.

One of the first acts of this Government in Balochistan(Dec. 3, 2002) was to order the release ofall the remaining cadres of the organisations banned on January 15, 2002, who had not been released by themilitary regime before.

In a report from Islamabad (November 8, 2002), the prestigious Daily Times reported as follows:

"A day before the beginning of the scrutiny of the nomination papers , that is, on August 26, the LawDepartment, Govt. of Balochistan, issued a letter to the Public Prosecutors in the four Anti-Terrorist Courtslocated at Quetta, Khuzdar and Sibi, withdrawing cases against over 100 leaders/activists of religious partiesin Balochistan.The purpose of withdrawing these cases, many of which were of a criminal nature, was toensure the eligibility of these people for contesting the elections so that they might not be disqualified atany stage of the scrutiny of their nomination papers, a highly-placed source in the provincial government ofBalochistan told the daily."

After the elections, the JD, despite the ban on it under its earlier name of MDI, was allowed to hold itsannual congregation at Pattoki, 75 kms from Lahore, from November 1 to 3, 2002.Nearly 100,000 peopleattended it.Hafiz Abdul Salam, who was then acting as the Amir of the JD in the absence of Prof. Saeed,strongly criticised India and the US in his speech.

He accused the US of imposing a war on the Muslims everywhere in the world.The JD also held what wasdescribed as a jihad conference at which many terrorist leaders belonging to different organisations spokeagainstthe USA and India.The congregation and the conference passed resolutions demanding therelease of Prof. Saeed, who has since been released.Though he is stated to be under house arrest now,he has been travelling around criticising India and the USA.

In the wake of this stepped up criticism of India and the US has come the spurt in terrorist violence inJammu & Kashmir anda powerful explosion on December 2, 2002, that blew offa 26-inch gaspipeline of the Oil and Gas Development Corporation Limited near Uch in Balochistan anddisrupted gassupplies to the US-sponsored 580mw Uch Power Plant.

After the initial investigations, the company has termed the incident a sabotage activity."Itis suspected that elements opposed to the stability of Pakistan have carried out yet another act of sabotage,disrupting gas supplies to a foreign power generation plant, and thwarting the efforts for economicrecovery of the Government and the OGDCL at the same time," a company spokesman said.

In a speech attributed to bin Laden broadcast by Al Jazeera TV channel on November 12, 2002, he had warned,inter alia, of attacks on Western economic targets. There is a likelihood of more attacks by Pakistaniterrorists associated with bin Laden on economic targets associated with the US and other Western countries inPakistan. 

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently,Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai)