This Man Could Tell Tales

In its issue of March 30,2006, the Daily Times of Lahore reported asfollows: 

"Six people on Tuesday evening picked up Maulana Fazalur Rehman Khalil,the former chief of banned militant group Harkatul Mujahideen, from Tarnol,thrashed him and dumped him on Fateh Jang road. They also severely beat up AbdurRehman, Khalil’s driver, said Sultan Zia, the information secretary of thebanned organisation. Golra police have registered an FIR against unidentifiedmen. "Six unidentified people badly thrashed Maulana Khalil and his driverwith rifle butts inflicting serious head injuries to them, Zia said. MaulanaKahlil left his residence along with his driver on Tuesday evening to attend acongregation at Tarnol, sources said. He made a stopover to offer Maghribprayers near Tarnol railway crossing, where unidentified men put cloth over theheads of Khalil and his driver, tied them up with rope and took them to FatehJang road in a vehicle. Later, the men started beating them. Khalil was severelyinjured and received wounds on his head and other parts of his body, the sourcesadded. They said at midnight on Tuesday, when Khalil returned to his senses, hemade a phone call to his home."

Maulana Fazlur Rahman Khalil is a founding member of the Harkat-ul-Ansar (HUA),subsequently renamed in 1997 as the Harkat-uk-Mujahideen (HUM) after the USdesignated the HUA as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation in October,1997, and thenre-named again as the Jamiat-ul-Ansar (JUA) after President General PervezMusharraf banned the HUM on January 15, 2002, under US pressure.

He was also a founding member of Osama bin Laden's International IslamicFront (IIF) for Jihad Against the Crusaders and the Jewish People formed in 1998and a co-signatory of bin Laden's first fatwa issued in 1998 calling for attacksagainst the US. Apart from its activities in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) andother parts of India, the HUM has been active in training and arming the AbuSayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front of Southern Philippines, theRohingya Jihadi organisations of Myanmar, the Chechens and the Islamic Movementof Uzbekistan (IMU). Since 1995, it has also been recruiting and training blackMuslims from the US in its camps in Pakistani territory. In 1995, it establishedcontact with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka and usedone of its ships for sending a consignment of arms and ammunition to the AbuSayyaf in the Southern Philippines. In return, it gifted to the LTTE someanti-aircraft guns and missiles.

A wing of the HUM called HUM--Al Alami, meaning HUM-International,participated in the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, inKarachi in January-February, 2002. The incident was master-minded by OmarSheikh, who was one of those released by the Indian authorities inDecember,1999, following the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane to Kandaharby the HUM.

In January-February,2003, a month before the US-led invasion of Iraq, the HUMsent some of its cadres to Saudi Arabia under the cover of Haj pilgrims. Theywere asked to take up position in Iraq and motivate the Iraqi people to emulatethe Afghan Mujahideen and start a jihad against the US troops if they invadedand occupied Iraq.

Since 2004, the Afghan authorities have been complaining to Pakistan that theterrorists of the Taliban and Gulbuddin Heckmatyar's Hizbe Islami, who havestepped up their attacks on Afghan and US troops in Afghan territory, were beingtrained in clandestine training camps run by the JUA in Balochistan and theFederally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan under the supervision ofFazlur Rahman Khalil. The Pakistani authorities initially denied theallegations, but subsequently took Maulana Fazlur Rahman Khalil into custodywhen the Karzai government shared with them a copy of the interrogation reportof one Sohail of the Taliban who had given details of the training camps run byKhalil, in one of which he (Sohail) was trained.

They released him after eight months in custody on the ground that there wasno evidence against him warranting his further detention. His name again croppedduring the investigation of a case in California in May-June last year. The USFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was reported to have uncovered an Al Qaedasleeper cell in Lodi , near Sacramento in California . All of those arrested inthis connection -- one Hamid and his father Umer Hayat, Muhammed Adil Khan,Shabbir Ahmed Mohammed and Khan's son Hassan Adil -- are Pakistanis or Americannationals of Pakistani origin. Hamid admitted to have attended an Al Qaedatraining camp at a place called Tamal near Rawalpindi in 2003-04.He gave thename of the in-charge of the training camp as Fazlur Rahman, which was thenassessed as probably identical with Fazlur Rahman Khalil. It was reported thatfollowing the admission of Hamid, the FBI reportedly requested the Pakistaniauthorities to arrest Khalil once again and hand him over to the FBI forinterrogation. The Pakistani authorities claimed that Khalil had goneunderground and was not traceable.

The Daily Times reported as follows on June 13, 2005: 

"Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, former chief of Jamiatul Ansar (JA), hasgone into hiding after the arrest of Hamid Hayat and Umer Hayat who told theFederal Bureau of Investigation that they received training from a Pakistani AlQaeda camp allegedly run by Khalil. Security agencies have begun efforts toarrest Khalil after Hamid Hayat and Umer Hayat were arrested in Lodi,California. Sources said he was earlier released by security agencies aftereight months’ detention. "Khalil was released on the condition that heseparate himself from his militant activities but after this new developmentsecurity agencies have resumed efforts for his arrest," sources said. Khalilwas arrested from his house by security agencies on May 20, 2004, but sourcessaid security agencies found no evidence of his involvement in militantactivities in Afghanistan."

The same paper reported further on September 22, 2005, as follows: 

"Law enforcing agencies have pressed the leadership of the HerkatulMujahideen cover-named Jamiatul Ansar to disclose the whereabouts of its formercommander Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, Daily Times has learnt. Sources said thelaw enforcers were in touch with Farooq Kashmiri, a prominent figure at theJamiatul Ansar, seeking the information about Khalil who went underground threemonths back. They said the agencies might re-arrest Khalil to investigate abouthis alleged links with the Taliban leadership. Farooq Kashmiri, who had beenworking with Khalil since the organisation set forth, had told the law enforcersthat he was not aware of where Khalil was. The sources said Khalil had alsocontacted Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the opposition leader in the National Assembly,seeking his help to make a deal with the agencies. "Khalil approached theopposition leader following his name was echoed during the investigation ofHamid Hayat and Umer Hayat who were arrested in the US. Both of them wereallegedly trained as militants at a camp run by Khalil in Rawalpindi," the sources said. The US was pressurising Pakistan to enhance the scope ofinvestigation into the terror acts, they said, and that Khalil wanted theopposition leader to broker a deal with the government. They said Khalil hadsent a message to Maulana Fazlur Rehman that he was in crisis and needed hishelp, urging him to mediate with the government. They said that Maulana had alsotalked with the agencies on the matter and defended Khalil, saying that he wasnot involved in any terrorist activities in or outside the country."

Before the recent visit of President George Bush to Afghanistan, India andPakistan from March 1 to 3, 2006, the Karzai government had told the Pakistaniauthorities that fresh information received by them indicated that Khalil andhis JUA continued to train the jihadi terrorists of the Taliban, the HizbeIslami and the IMU. They requested for his arrest and handing over to them forinterrogation. They also brought this information to the notice of PresidentBush, who subsequently brought it to the notice of Musharraf.

It is suspected that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had itselfinstigated the attack on Khalil in order to have him killed to avoid handing himover to the FBI for interrogation. He seems to have survived the seriousinjuries sustained by him. The FBI should insist on his being immediately handedover to it so that it could have him flown out for medical treatment andinterrogation. He may be able to give them information not only about thetraining camps and the HUM's sleeper cells in the US, but also about bin Laden.

This may please be read in continuation of my earlier articles titled Jaish-e-Mohammed,Rebatised? (October, 2001) and FromPakistan With Love (June, 2005).

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India,New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai.