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India-Pakistan

Renowned KP clerics issue fatwa denouncing terrorism, only head of Islamic country may declare jihad

2023-01-10

[Dawn] Amid an uptick in murderous Moslem attacks in the country, renowned holy mans in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa issued a fatwa (religious decree) denouncing terrorism, it emerged on Monday. The development comes as terrorism is again rearing its head in the country, especially in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... Pakistain has seen a rise in terrorist attacks across the country, believed to have been planned and directed by the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... Pakistain (TTP) leaders based in Afghanistan. The TTP, which has ideological linkages with the Afghan Taliban, executed more than 100 attacks last year, most of which happened after August when the group’s peace talks with the Pakistain government began to falter. The ceasefire was formally ended last year on Nov 28 by the TTP. The 14-page fatwa, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, has been signed by 16 religious scholars from difference schools of thought, including Maulana Qari Ehsanul Haq, Mufti Subhanallah Jan, Dr Maulana Attaur Rehman, Maulana Hussain Ahmed, Maulana Dr Abdul Nasir, Mufti Mukhtarullah Haqqani, Maulana Tayyab Qureshi, Maulana Salmanul Haq Haqqani, Maulana Rehmatullah Qadri, Maulana Umar bin Abdul Aziz, Allama Abid Hussain Shakri, Mufti Mairajul Din Sarkani, Mufti Raza Mohammad Haqqani, Mufti Khalid Usmani, Mufti Sheikh Aijaz and Maulana Abdul Kareem. KP Chief Khateeb Maulana Tayyab Qureshi, one of the signatories, said the Learned Elders of Islam had issued the fatwa to answer some questions related to jihad. Speaking to Dawn.com, he said: "Recently some so-called Learned Elders of Islam tried to create chaos using Islam. After that, it became our responsibility to issue the fatwa." In the decree, the scholars condemned "spreading chaos and riots" in an Islamic state". They also termed those "declaring war and picking up weapons against" authorities to be "perpetrators deserving of punishment". The fatwa also said that "not every person has the right to declare jihad" and that it could only be declared by the head of an Islamic state. It further said that a soldier or police official killed by the enemy during battle was a martyr, adding that there was "no doubt about his martyrdom". Head of an Islamic country alone can declare jihad: edict [Dawn] Only the head of an Islamic country is entitled to declare jihad, and anyone involved in revolt against the state is required to be "crushed" in light of the principles of Islam. Amid a surge in terrorist attacks, the significant announcement came in form of an edict which was issued on Monday with signatures of Khyber Pakhtun­khwa’s 16 religious scholars on it. The holy mans said that the head of the Islamic country will announce jihad since this is one of the basic components of the Islamic country. "According to the teaching[s] of Islam, all the citizens of the Islamic country have to respect the law, and refusing to follow the Constitution [of the Islamic country] is prohibited according to the Shari’ah," read the decree, a copy of which is available with Dawn. Protection of an Islamic country is the responsibility of all its citizens. "Since Pakistain is an Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... , there is no doubt that all, including the military and police deployed to defend the country, when killed in the battle against enemies, are deaders," the decree read. The decree noted that a so-called religious scholar in Islamabad as well as some enemies and some anti-state elements have been issuing provocative and controversial statements. "Obeying [the directions issued by the] head of the State is compulsory under the Islamic principles and those refusing to follow, is [rising in] revolt," the decree read, adding "it is compulsory for all the citizens to follow the head of the state and the Constitution". Anyone who took up arms against the state or the [Pak] armed forces would be considered an bad boy, it said, adding that such an act had been forbidden and anyone involved in revolt is required to be crushed in light of the principles of Islam. According to the scholars, there is no doubt that the Western democracy is against the teachings of Islam. However, man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... they added, ’if someone declares the parliament’s decision submissive to the Holy Koran, he should not be called as misled’. The decree read that shaving the beard was forbidden in Islam but "it does not mean if somebody shaves the beard is a non-Moslem", adding that once there was a time when wearing a tie and pants was considered dress of the Westerners but it had now become common among Moslems. "No religious scholar has termed wearing a tie and pants against Islam and this is the reason why religious scholars have justified wearing pants at offices," the 14-page edict read. The decree has been signed by Sheikhul Hadis Maulana Qari Ehsanul Haq of Darul Uloom Sarhad, Mufti Subhanullah Jan from Madressah Darwesh Imdadul Uloom, Dr Maulana Ataur Rehman from Tafheemul Koran Mardan, Maulana Hussain Ahmad from Wifaqul Madaris Arabia, Maulana Dr Abdul Nasir from Tanzeemul Madaris Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Mufti Mukhtarullah Haqqani and Maulana Salmanul Haq Haqqani from Jamia Daraul Uloom Akora Khattak, Chief Khateeb KP Maulana Tayyab Qureshi, provincial nazim ...small time big shot, the chief elected official of a local government in Pakistan, such as a district, tehsil, union council, or village council... of Tanzeemul Madaris Maulana Rehmatullah Qadri, Maulana Umar Bin Abdul Aziz from Wifaqul Madaris Aslafia, Allama Abid Hussain Shakiri from Jamia Arif-Al-Hussaini Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistain's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire... , Mufti Mairajuddin Sarkani from Jamia Amania Peshawar, Mufti Raza Muhammad Haqqani from Jamia Taleemul Koran Peshawar, Mufti Khalid Usmani from Jamia Islamia Kohat, Mufti Sheikh Aizaj from Jamia Masjid Ahl-e-Hadis Fawara Chowk Peshawar and Maulana Abdul Karim from KP Ulema Council.

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Afghanistan

Mixed Responses to Fazl's Justification of War in Afghanistan

2014-11-19

[Tolo News] A number of Pak analysts on Monday expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... s over recent comments made by the leader of Pakistain's Jamaat-e-Ulema-Islam political party, Maulana Fazulurrahman, in which he said the war in Afghanistan should not end until all foreign troops have withdrawn. Commentators on Monday disputed the claims made by Fazulurrahman, a holy man and spiritual leader of the Taliban, and argued that killing innocent people for any reason is against the teachings of Islam. "I want to say that Pakistain's religious parties, such as Jamaat-e-Ulema Islam and Ahl-e-Hadis, are the supporters of the al-Qaeda network, they also support Tehrik Taliban Pakistain and the Afghan Taliban," Pak political commentator Shamim Shahid said. "We are opposed to al-Qaeda and Taliban and the killing of innocent civilians isn't allowed in Islam." University lecturer Ajaz Khan expressed a similar sentiment. "The killing of innocent people is illogical, we are against bloodshed and war in Afghanistan and support the people of the country." Yet others, especially sympathizers of Jamat-e-Islami, have expressed support for Fazulurrahman. "The U.S. presence spreads terrorism and we support the statement of Maulana Fazulurrahman," said Professor Ibrahim, a Jamat-e-Islami party official. "If we want the suicide kabooms to be stopped, then we must say goodbye to the U.S., otherwise, the attacks will continue, if the U.S. withdraws, then innocent people will not be killed anymore." Pakistain, like Afghanistan, benefits immensely from aid funding from the U.S. and its allies. But unlike the government in Kabul, Pakistain has long embraced financial support from Washington while also helping the Taliban and other terrorist organizations fighting the NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... -coalition. Despite the fact that almost all casualties in Afghanistan on a daily basis are Afghan military and police personnel or civilians, some Pak commentators who agree with Fazulurrahman maintain that the fighting will end once foreign troops leave the country. "Peace isn't applicable in Afghanistan until the drawdown of foreign troops, already 62 percent of the Afghan territory is under control of the gangs," former Pak Ambassador to Afghanistan Rustam Shah Momand said. Fazlurrahman's statement came just an hour before President Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. arrived in Islamabad to meet with officials. The Afghan government has yet to comment on the statement.

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India-Pakistan

Arrested cleric ran Lashkar's Nepal hub

2009-06-07

An alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba operative held on Thursday ran a logistical hub that funnelled dozens of jihadists through Nepal to targets across in India, Delhi Police sources have told The Hindu. Working with fugitive Lashkar commander Mohammad Saifullah, Bihar-born Nepali national Mohammad Omar Madani provided Lashkar operatives with passports, cash and communications facilities that allowed them to travel from Pakistan to India through Kathmandu -- and then secure their escape. Fahim Arshad Ansari, who is now being tried on charges of having generated the videotape that facilitated the training of the perpetrators of November's carnage in Mumbai, is among those alleged to have benefited from the logistical infrastructure Madani helped set up. Sabahuddin Ahmed, Ansari's immediate superior and the first Indian national to have commanded a Lashkar field unit, also used the Lashkar's transit hub. Lured by lucre? Madani's journey into the Lashkar, Delhi police sources said, began after he tapped Nepali Islamists for funds to expand the family-run Shams-ul-Huda seminary at Kalyanpur, in Nepal's Saptari district. Nepal-based Jamaat Ahl-e-Hadis activists Abdul Khaliq and Mohammad Haroun are alleged to have put Madani in contact with the Markaz Dawat wal'Irshad --the name used by the Lashkar-e-Taiba's parent organisation, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, prior to its proscription by Pakistan in 2002. According to the Delhi police, Madani first attended the Markaz's annual rally at Muridke, near Lahore, in 1997. He met with Markaz chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed -- who was controversially released from house arrest in Pakistan earlier this week -- as well as key military commanders Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi and then in-charge of operations targeting India, Mohammad Azam Cheema. Delhi police sources said Madani had visited Pakistan at least twice in recent years and met Saeed on both occasions. He also spent time in Qatar raising funds for Islamist causes in Nepal. Police believe Madani recruited upwards of two dozen residents of the India-Nepal borderlands to the Lashkar. Among them is Kamal Ahmed Ansari, who is now being tried for his alleged role in the 2006 bombing of Mumbai's suburban train system. Born in Balkatuwa village in Bihar's Madhubani district, Saudi Arabia-educated Madani belongs to a locally-renowned clerical family. His father, Shams-ul-Huda Madani, set the Jamia Islamia madrasa at Janakpur, just across the border in Nepal, more than two decades ago. Speaking to journalists in New Delhi, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram described Madani's arrest as "a measure of the good intelligence and good investigative work done by our intelligence agencies and police."

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India-Pakistan

The decline of the ‘encounter death’

2009-03-26

By Praveen Swami Six months ago, the police raided an apartment in New Delhi’s Jamia Nagar. Two alleged terrorists and a police officer died. By the standards a violence-scarred nation has become accustomed to, the event was unremarkable. But the Jamia Nagar deaths had an exceptional impact, precipitating charges that police forces across India were operating a large-scale shoot-to-kill policy directed at Muslims: a communal project, it was claimed, that was being camouflaged as counter-terrorism. Participants at an October 2008 convention in New Delhi, for example, declared that there was “a concerted effort by the Indian police, intelligence agencies and certain political parties to portray all members of the Muslim community as ‘terrorists and extremists’ — to be arbitrarily arrested, tortured and killed in fake encounters.” Members of the Coordination Committee of Muslim Organisations — an alliance made up of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the All-India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat, the Jamiat Ullema-e-Hind, the All-India Milli Council and the Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadis — went further, demanding that during a “search operation in any Muslim locality, at least one-third of the raiding force must consist of officers belonging to the minority community, and minority elders of the affected area should be taken into confidence.” Media accounts since have elevated the charge that India’s police officers are trigger-happy bigots to the level of received truth. Little effort has been made, though, to see if the allegations rest on sound empirical foundations. They don’t. In fact, the police are reducing their reliance on lethal force, and shedding communal partisanship. The reason why they do not rely on force helps to explain just why India’s democracy, often reviled by metropolitan elites, is so important to hundreds of millions of voters. No public-domain documentation exists on the religious identity of individuals killed by the police. Databases maintained by the National Crime Records Bureau set down each incident — but not the religious identity of the victims. The police are obliged to report all lethal force deaths to the National Human Rights Commission. In addition, the Union Home Ministry monitors incidents involving the use of lethal force by the police. For the most part, though, the reporting of incidents by the States is less than comprehensive. Based on the available Central government documentation, The Hindu was able to examine 750 civilian deaths in police firing which took place between January 2004 and December 2008 — about two-thirds of those estimated to have been killed during this period. Spread across Assam, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal, the data exclude deaths in insurgency and counter-terrorism in the northeast and Jammu and Kashmir. One hundred and forty-six victims, or 19.4 per cent of the sample, were identified by the police as Muslims. Given that Muslims make up 13.5 per cent of the Indian population, it would seem clear that they are disproportionately in danger from the police weapons. A close study of the available data, though, suggests that this conclusion would be misleading. For one, the bulk of the killings have not taken place in the States most often accused of communal bias: Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and, more recently, Delhi. Gujarat saw just five police firing deaths in 2005, 16 in 2006 and one in 2007. Delhi registered just eight during the same period. Andhra Pradesh saw high numbers of killings, but mainly of Maoist insurgents of Hindu origin. Instead, an overwhelming majority of killings of Muslims by the police took place in Uttar Pradesh — a State where they make up 18 per cent of the population, not dissimilar to their share of deaths in police firing. The Uttar Pradesh police offensive, targeting violent organised crime, has claimed hundreds of lives in recent years — of Hindus and Muslims. In 2007, the last year for which the NCRB figures are available, the Uttar Pradesh police accounted for 102 of the 250 civilian lethal force fatalities nationwide. By way of contrast, the police fire in Andhra Pradesh led to the loss of 30 lives, while Maharashtra registered 27 deaths. Rajasthan reported 22 fatalities, most of them during caste riots. In 2006, Uttar Pradesh saw 103 fatalities, second only to insurgency-devastated Chhattisgarh. And in 2005, it recorded 42 deaths, placing the State third in police-firing fatalities after Andhra Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Nationwide, half or a lesser number of civilian fatalities in police firing were the outcome of counter-terrorism operations — and the ratio has been declining steadily. In 2005, counter-terrorism operations accounted for 46.76 per cent of civilian fatalities in police firing. In 2006, the figure rose to 52.12 per cent. The NCRB figures show that in 2007, though, just a quarter of civilian fatalities in police firing — 54 of 252 — were linked to counter-terrorism. Put simply, there is no evidence to support the claim that there is an increased incidence of extra-judicial executions of Muslims — or, for that matter, Hindus. Even though police forces across India have intensified intelligence-led operations targeting Islamist groups, the NCRB data for 2007 show a sharp decline in the use of lethal force. A large part of the decline came because of a dramatic decline in killings by the police in Chhattisgarh, where fatalities fell to seven. Andhra Pradesh also saw a sharp decline in police killings, from 72 to 45. Only in Uttar Pradesh did deaths caused by the use of lethal force remain at the 2006 levels. By global standards, the use of lethal force by the police in India is relatively low. Figures published in 1987 show that the police in Dallas, Texas, killed 1.03 people per 1,00,000 population the previous year. San Diego was next, with 0.83 people killed per 100,000, followed by Los Angeles with 0.71 deaths. Far from being trigger-happy, these figures suggest, India’s police forces are extremely cautious in resorting to lethal force. What these figures point to is a slow but sure process of transformation: for which the social transformation brought about by democracy deserves credit. Less than a decade ago, the police forces across India faced credible charges of communal bias. Reports of judicial commissions, which investigated the 1982 riots in Meerut, the 1978 riots in Aligarh and the 1992-1993 carnage in Mumbai, showed systematic anti-Muslim biases in everything from the use of lethal force and patterns of arrest to the treatment of prisoners. New studies, though, have thrown up signs of change. In January 2005, the Senior Superintendent of Police, Saharanpur, Safi Rizvi — now an aide to Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram — conducted a study of the district’s prison population. He sought to test the proposition that the police were disproportionately likely to act against Muslims and backward caste suspects. Mr. Rizvi’s study, however, demonstrated that the prison population of Saharanpur closely matched the district’s demographic profile. Hindus made up 58.5 per cent of the jail population, closely mirroring their overall share in the district population. Muslim prisoners accounted for 39 per cent of the jail population, marginally lower than their demographic representation. While Dalits made up 21 per cent of the district population, they constituted just 19 per cent of the prisoners; Brahmins, in a twist, were somewhat over-represented in jail. Rather than religion or caste, Mr. Rizvi concluded, class constituted an accurate marker of which sections of the population were over-represented in prisons. More than 84 per cent of the prison population, he found, was made up of the poor — more than twice their share of the general population, as determined by the National Council for Applied Economic Research. It wasn’t, Mr. Rizvi noted, that the poor were more likely to steal: “the fact is that the poor criminal is promptly sent to jail for stealing 5 pieces of iron from the rail yard, one bicycle or pick-pocketing Rs. 50. He goes to jail for these crimes and stays there — unable to afford a lawyer, sureties or patronage.” More studies are needed to see if the data from Saharanpur reflect national trends: anecdotal evidence suggests that Muslims are still significantly over-represented in the prison populations of Maharashtra and Gujarat. But if Mr. Rizvi’s findings are borne out by subsequent studies, it would suggest that Muslim and Dalit voters have become adroit at leveraging the political process to avoid victimisation. Police officers, the decline in police-firing deaths also shows, are increasingly sensitive to the costs of the indiscriminate use of force. Large-scale violence, or resort to extra-judicial executions, is no longer possible without inviting protest — and political or judicial censure. By contrast, Uttar Pradesh’s anti-crime killings have continued apace because the police are acting against groups which challenge the influence and authority of mainstream politicians. Police forces everywhere in the world reflect the biases of the societies which give birth to them. It ought to surprise no one that some police officers in India have communal prejudices. The good news for India is that democracy appears to be making it ever more difficult for bigots in uniform to act on their beliefs.

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India-Pakistan

The Sufi with the Kalashnikov

2009-02-19

By Praveen Swami More likely than not, Abdul Jabbar would have encountered the poetry of 13th century mystic poet Ibn al-Arabi in the Sufi order which shaped his life. “I profess the religion of love,” al-Arabi wrote, “and wherever its caravan turns along the way, that is the way the faith I keep.” Jabbar’s own journey led him from a small north Kerala town, through a roadside restaurant, secret circle of Sufis, and an Islamist terror cell to a Lashkar-e-Taiba terror unit in the mountains of Jammu and Kashmir — a Kalashnikov in his hands. For chroniclers of India’s jihadist movement, his bizarre story has particular significance. Most members of the Indian Mujahideen’s networks were drawn from groups like the Students Islamic Movement of India or neoconservative religious orders. But Jabbar and the group of Kerala jihadists he was a part of emerged from the Noorisha tariqah — a prominent Sufi order of the Chishti-Qadri tradition, famous for its emphasis on openness and love. Born in May 1973 into a working class family from northern Kerala’s Puruthur town, Jabbar dropped out of school in the fifth grade. At just 13 years of age, he began work as a parantha cook at a roadside hotel. His father, Kunzhi Bavanu, still runs a small tea stall in Puruthur; one brother, Abdul Samad, is a fitter, while the other, Abdul Hakeem, an autorickshaw driver. Back in the late 1980s, the Malappuram region was in the midst of a small-scale communal war which pitted the cadre of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the charismatic Islamist leader Abdul Nasser Maudhany’s Islamic Sevak Sangh against each other. Jabbar was among hundreds of angry young men who found meaning in Maudhany’s inflammatory polemic, and went on to become a vice-president of his party’s Malappuram unit. In 1998, Maudhany was arrested on charges of providing logistical support to the serial bombings in Coimbatore — of which he was only recently acquitted. Pursued by the police, many of his supporters fled Kerala. During his time underground, Jabbar came into close contact with Maudhany’s followers linked to the Noorisha order: Kannur resident Abdul Sattar and his long-standing associate Tadiyantavide Nasir. Like Jabbar, Sattar and Nasir had cut their political teeth in Malappuram’s street wars. Police investigators believe that the men, who are alleged to have been involved in an abortive plot to assassinate the former Kerala Chief Minister, E.K. Nayanar, executed the July 2008 serial bombings in Bangalore, and supplied components for the improvised explosive devices used by top terror operative Riyaz Bhatkal for the Indian Mujahideen’s murderous attacks in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. Nasir, using the alias Haji Omar, had established himself as an ustad — or instructor — of students at the Noorisha order’s headquarters in Hyderabad. The Jamia Arifiya Nooriya seminary sprawls across a 40-acre campus, housing a free school and the al-Arif Unani General Hospital. Thousands of people attend the order’s 40-day Chilla, a spiritual course intended to help adherents overcome physical and material desire. Made up in the main of Kerala residents, the Noorisha order is among the inheritors of a unique tradition of Islam. Folk tradition in Kerala has it that king Cheraman Perumal Bhaskara Ravi Varma, on witnessing a miraculous split-moon in the skies, travelled to Saudi Arabia where he was converted to Islam by Prophet Mohammad himself. In some tellings of this legend, Varma took on the name Tajuddin and married the sister of the king of Jeddah. After Varma’s death, the story goes, a spice trader named Malik bin-Dinar returned to Kondangaloor, bearing a letter from Verma which led to a local temple being converted into a mosque dedicated to the king’s memory. The Cheraman Jama Masjid, reputed to be over 1,370 years old, still stands — in the Hindu tradition, facing east. Nasir had little time for the Noorisha order’s spiritual legacy — or its syncretic concerns. He argued that the rise of the Hindu right, and worldwide atrocities on Muslims, made armed jihad a religious imperative. Most clerics at the Jamia Arifiya Nooriya found Nasir’s position unacceptable — but he had the support of Abdul Kader, an influential Noorisha ustad known among the order as Abdu Ustad. 1960-born Kader, police sources say, first started visiting the Noorisha seminary in 1996, for treatment of a psychiatric disorder. Later, he gave his daughter in marriage to Sattar. Sattar, in turn, helped draw Jabbar into the jihadist circle among the Noorisha. Married twice — first to Zeenath Ibrahim, by whom he has a 12-year-old son, and then Ramola Mohammad, who gave him two more sons, two-year-old Salahuddin and six-year-old Mukhtar — Jabbar was beset by financial and legal problems. Zeenath had filed a criminal complaint against Jabbar for dowry harassment, and moved the court for maintenance. Sattar arranged for Jabbar to marry again, this time his sister-in-law, Nasia Moinuddin, to help him rebuild his life in Hyderabad. Jabbar was to have two daughters with Moinuddin: Aasiya, who is now three and Zainabi, who was born last year. Sattar also helped Jabbar find work — and arranged for him to take on Kader as his spiritual mentor. Behind the façade of this new life, Jabbar continued to pursue his old jihadist path. He was among five Noorisha-linked men from Kerala who joined a ten-man Lahskar unit in the mountains above Kupwara, along the Line of Control, on the morning of September 16, 2008. In the next few weeks, the men were put through gruelling combat-fitness drills, and taught to use assault weapons and explosives. Long before their training ended, though, the Jammu and Kashmir Police, backed by Indian Army troops, arrived to put their skills to the test. Four of the men Jabbar travelled with were killed. He hid out in the forests all night, before beginning his journey home — where the police were waiting. “Those who distort the meaning of jihad,” the supreme leader of the Noorisha order, Sayyid Muhammad Arifuddin Jeelani, said in a recent interview, “will certainly go to hell.” For the most part, public commentary on Islamist terrorism in India has cast Sufi Islam as inherently opposed to jihadist violence. In part because the aesthetic of ascetic spiritual traditions — Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jewish and even Christian — has become fashionable among metropolitan liberals, Sufi practices have been cast as inherently hostile to the Islamist project. But like other religious systems, Sufi mysticism can — witness the recent fighting in Iraq, Central Asia and Pakistan — provide legitimacy to violence. In the dying decades of the Mughal empire, the influential Sufi mystic, Shah Waliullah, called on the warlord, Ahmad Shah Abdali, to wage war against the Jats and the Marathas, arguing that it was “predestined that unbelievers should be reduced to a state of humiliation.” Sayyid Ahmad — whose failed 1831 jihad against Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s empire inspired the founding of the Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadis from which the Lashkar draws its ideological legitimacy — was also a mystic. Hassan al-Banna, the founder of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood — the seed from which much of the modern jihadist movement was born — was profoundly influenced by the work of 12th century mystic Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali. Although al-Banna rejected al-Ghazali’s theological convictions, scholars have noted that elements of the practices of the Sufi brotherhoods continue to suffuse organisations such as the al-Qaeda — practices like the swearing of a bayat, or oath, to its sheikh, Osama bin-Laden Pakistan has seen Sufi orders adopt jihadist tactics to counter their neoconservative theological rivals. In 1997, Sufi leader Allama Pir Mohammad Saeed Ahmad Mujadidi set up the Sunni Jihad Council to fight in Jammu and Kashmir. Speaking to the Gujranwala-based magazine Dawat-e-Tanzim ul-Islam in March 1999, SJC military commander Saeed Raza Bukhari said that the decision was taken because “certain people have used jihad to propagate their false creeds in Kashmir.” In India, members of the mystic Deendar Anjuman order executed a series of 12 bombings in 2000. Deendar founder Siddiq Husain — who outraged conservatives by claiming to be the incarnation of the Lingayat-caste saint Channabasaveswara — sought to rebuild his legitimacy among Hyderabad’s Muslim elites by setting up a military training centre in 1939. Husain marketed his jihadist organisation, the Tehreek Jamiat-i-Hizbullah, as an instrument with which pre-independence Hyderabad would be able to resist both the Hindu chauvinist Arya Samaj, as well as a growing Communist insurgency. Police investigators found that Zia-ul-Hassan, Siddiq Husain’s Pakistan-based son, used the old Tehreek Jamiat-i-Hizbullah to execute the 2000 bombings, which were marketed as retaliation against Christian and Hindu atrocities. Jabbar’s story demonstrates that the roots of the jihadist movement lie neither in scripture nor particular right-wing renderings of the faith. Like other jihadists, Jabbar turned to the jihad because of the lived experience of communal conflict — not a theoretical understanding of the imperatives of Islam. Even the most plural and tolerant faith-systems, his story makes clear, are unlikely to survive in the crucible of communal hatred. Secular political formations and the Indian state will have to find a language with which to meet the challenge.

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India-Pakistan

Saudi minister meets clerics

2007-02-09

Saudi Arabian culture and religious affairs minister, Dr Abdul Aziz Bin Abdullah, met several leaders of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) on Thursday and stressed unity. Attending a meeting with Markazee Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadis Senator Professor Sajid Mir, the Saudi minister said that Muslims should end sectarianism and unite against the enemies. He said that the clerics should abstain from disunity and help each other to stop the propaganda against Islam. Sajid Mir said that only by following the Quran and the Sunnah could society be changed. MMA president, Qazi Hussain Ahmad and Dr Abdul Aziz exchanged views on different topics.

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India-Pakistan

LeT bad boy said to be in Pakistan

2006-09-22

NEW DELHI: Rahil Sheikh, the alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba militant who managed to escape when a joint team of the Delhi and Mumbai police raided his residence in Mumbai this past May, is suspected to have fled to Pakistan. He is also suspected to be involved in the conspiracy behind the serial blasts on Mumbai trains this July. The Delhi police received inputs about Rahil's activities and whereabouts from Feroz Abdul Latif Ghaswala of Mahim in Mumbai, and his accomplice, Mohammad Ali Chippa of Ahmedabad, after they were arrested at Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station here in May. At their instance, the police also gunned down a Pakistani militant in an encounter. Investigations revealed that Rahil, who is in his mid-twenties, lived with his mother, sister and two brothers in a flat on Grant Road in Mumbai. After his father passed away, Rahil started attending meetings called by extremist leaders, mostly those owing allegiance to Ahl-e-Hadis who encouraged young men to join ``jihad." Living away from home for long durations, he began working for LeT in 1999. He won the confidence of senior LeT militants and was entrusted with the task of recruiting young men for operations against India.

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India-Pakistan

Varanasi bombing reveals new terror network

2006-03-11

Wednesday's bomb blasts in Varanasi are yet another telling link in the growing chain of circumstances indicating the rise of a new terrorist network in India. If viewed together, the blasts in Varanasi and Delhi, the terrorist attacks in Bangalore and Ayodhya, the Mumbai car bombs of August 2003 and the Akshardham attack of September 2002 -- besides numerous arrests of terrorists, their supporters and seizure of weapons and explosives -- point out to a grand merger of various extremist and terrorist groups and organisations within India, and an extensive support base rapidly expanding. To begin with, there is an alarming indication of Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Tayiba working with the predominantly Bangladeshi Harkat-ul Jihad al Islami to carry out terrorist attacks in India. HUJI has a considerable presence in the Korangi township of Karachi, Pakistan. HUJI, like Lashkar, is also linked to Al Qaeda. Both fought not only during the Afghan jihad but their leaders have close proximity to Osama bin Laden. Of the two terrorists shot down within hours of the Varanasi explosions, one is an Lashkar commander in Lucknow while the second a HUJI activist from Bangladesh in Delhi. The HUJI commander Ghulam Yazdani, operating from Dhaka, was one of the main recruits for Lashkar and was involved in the Haren Pandya assassination, the Shramjeevi Express blast and the terrorist attack in Bangalore last year. Yazdani originally belonged to Nalgonda in Andhra Pradesh. Another key link was the suicide attack on the headquarters of the Special Task Force in Hyderabad on October 12 last year. A suicide bomber blew himself up at the headquarters. From the charred remains, the investigators could only find parts of rubber slippers, one of which carried a price tag 'Taka 100' -- a clear indication of the place of the dead terrorist's origin. An important piece of evidence that unravelled after the suicide attack was the chance catch of a Bangladeshi named Kalim from a train in Patna. He said he was a member of the Jamaitul Mujahideen Bangladesh, the group involved in several terrorist incidents in Bangladesh. Kalim's interrogation revealed that he was being run by an anonymous handler who had met him twice to brief him about his mission. Kalim subsequently led the police to Lashkar's South India commander Abdul Rehman, another resident of Nalgonda. This alliance could not have operated across the country without extensive local support. One of the prominent supporters has been the Students Islamic Movement of India. SIMI's involvement in such activities has long been discovered. The most prominent case was the serial train blasts in North India, which also heralded the alliance between Pakistan-based terrorist groups and religious groups like Ahl-e-Hadis in India, and the emergence of Lashkar leaders like Azam Ghauri, Abdul Karim Tunda and Jalees Ansari. Ghauri, instrumental in setting up Lashkar networks in South India especially in Andhra Pradesh, who was killed in a police encounter. Tunda is Lashkar's operational commander based in Pakistan. Ansari remains in prison. Another sign of SIMI's alleged involvement is the use of ammonium nitrate, a fertiliser that has been used in Bali, Madrid, WTC 1993 and Istanbul bombings. Ammonium nitrate has also been used in India, the last incident being the Varanasi bomb blasts. Similar material was used in the explosions aboard the Shramjeevi Express and in Mulund, Mumbai, in March 2003. In 2000, similar explosives killed 11 persons aboard the Sabarmati Express near Barabanki. The use of local recruits and locally available explosive material to create bombs are an indication of a changing strategy of the terror masters in Pakistan and elsewhere. For groups like Jamaat-ud Dawa, the parent body of Lashkar, it is now easier to deny any links with terrorist attacks in India. Another important change is to move out of Kashmir, to lessen the international pressure on Islamabad while expanding the terror network across India. The fast emerging linkages between Lashkar, SIMI and HuJI (and Jam Jamaitul Mujahideen Bangladesh) depict the contours of a pan-Islamist network in Asia, linking groups operating in Iraq and Afghanistan to Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and several south Asian countries like Indonesia. The primary objective of this coalition of terror is to create political upheaval in all these countries, particularly in India, by stoking sectarian and communal violence. For India, the war on terror has only begun.

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International-UN-NGOs

Indians on high alert in Kashmir during Bush visit

2006-02-28

Alerted by a plot to organise a major terror attack in J&K to coincide with and sabotage the visit of US president George Bush, Centre has put all the security forces in the state on high alert, according to top intelligence sources. This follows a tip-off that terror groups, Al-Qaida affiliates Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, might attempt a repeat of the Chattissinghpura massacre of March 2000 on the eve of the visit of the then US president Bill Clinton. Besides their intense loathing of the American president, the terrorist groups conspiring to pull off a headline grabbing incident in the Valley might also be motivated by their determination to embarrass the Indian government and to seek to portray J&K as a danger spot. The possibility of India signing a nuclear energy deal is seen as a another driver. Both Lashkar and Jaish figure on the top of the list of "potential threats" prepared by the US agencies collaborating with their Indian counterparts to secure the visit. Jaish is an offshoot of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, which was one of the signatories of the infamous "jehad against the US and Jews" fatwa Al Qaida issued in 1998. However, it is Lashkar which has emerged as the key strike formation of the Al-Qaida in the region. The close link that the jehadi outfit, a derivative of Ahl-e-Hadis sect, has formed with Qaida was borne out by the arrest of one of its senior figures, once the chief of its operations in J&K, in Iraq last year. In March 2000, 35 Sikhs were gunned down at a time when New Delhi had pulled all stops to ward off any trouble in the Valley during Clinton's presence.

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India-Pakistan

MMA anti-cartoon protests today

2006-02-24

The MMA has called for nationwide protests today against the publication of caricatures of Prophet (peace be upon him). The protestors will also condemn heavy-handed police tactics at previous anti-cartoon rallies, attacks on churches in Pakistan and the destruction of a holy Muslim shrine in Samarra, Iraq. Clerics will in their Friday sermons condemn the caricatures. Later demonstrations will be held outside the main mosques of the city. Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad will address traders at Jamia Mosque Allama Elahi Buksh near Shah Alam Chowk at 4.30pm. The Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadis Pakistan will hold a protest on Lawrence Road, the Jamaatud Dawa near Chauburji Chowk, while Markazi-Ahl-e-Sunnat will organise a conference at Jamia Ghaus-ul-Qamar-ul-Islam, Cantt.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Bangladesh Government Well Informed About Bombers

2005-09-01

From South Asia Analysis Group, an article by Anand Kumar .... The Islamist group, Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) which was involved in the series of blasts [in Bangladesh] circulated its leaflets on most of the blast sites. .... Many of those detained and being interrogated by police and armed forces have also confessed that they are members of the banned group and that they acted under orders of the group's supreme leader Shaikh Abdur Rahman. They have also accepted that they became involved in the act to establish an Islamic rule in the country. Bangladesh police has arrested suspects from across the country in the aftermath of the bomb blasts. Shamsul Alam, a regional leader of the Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) held by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in Chourhas, Kushtia soon after the serial explosions, confessed to his JMB membership and involvement in the bombing. He provided the interrogators with details of his military training by JMB Operations Commander Bangla Bhai in Natore three years ago. He organized JMB in his village after his return. In Satkhira Nasir Uddin and Maniruzzaman Munna were held three hours into the bombings. Later, two more persons, Anisur Rahman and Ujjal were arrested from the same district. They admitted to police that they were trainers of the JMB and trained cadres in use of arms. Anisur told police that the attacks were planned in a meeting at his house on August 16. They also revealed that the attacks were made in a bid to free their leader Asadullah Al Galib. .... In Bagerhat, Detective Branch of police arrested director of Al Markajul Islamic Madrasa and Orphanage Barkatullah Morshed from a madrasa at Kadia village. The madrasa reportedly trained more than 100 students for destructive activities. Morshed has also admitted that his students carried out the bomb attacks on instructions of JMJB operation commander Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai. .... Overall, the police has detained nearly 160 people across the country. .... Police has also arrested six suspected militants from Dhaka airport. Among the arrested persons figure Moulana Fariduddin Mashud, a former director of government-run Islamic Foundation, and Moulana Abdus Sattar, a leader of radical Ahl-e-Hadis group. .... Mashud ... brought a huge amount of money ... from abroad but failed to provide any details of its source. .... During the interrogation, however, Masud, accused Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer and Industries Minister Motiur Rahman Nizami of being involved in the countrywide explosions. .... It took Bangladesh government nine days to officially admit that the banned Islamist militant organisation Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) was responsible for the August 17 serial bomb blasts across the country though its cadres were arrested just three hours after the incident. .... Satkhira police has now named Jama'atul Mujahedin Bangladesh (JMB) chief Shaikh Abdur Rahman as the main accused in five cases lodged on the same number of bomb blasts carried out in the district town on August 17. The charge follows confessions of four arrested JMB activists to their involvement in the terror attacks under the leadership of Abdur Rahman. ....

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ISI re-organising militant organisations

2004-02-27

More on the reorganisation of the Kashmir Jihad posted yesterday In a two-pronged change of strategy, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) has shifted several militant training camps from Pak-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) to Pakistani territory, and is re-organising the command structure of militant organisations it uses for terrorist strikes in India. Under pressure to stop cross-border terrorism into India, ISI has now moved several of the training camps from PoK since these had come to the notice of the international community. But some of the camps have been retained for use by foreign mercenaries as Islamabad uses the excuse that it has no control over them, informed sources said here. Interrogation of a number of Pakistani militants captured by the Indian authorities, reveals that about 2300 militants from five camps in Muzaffarabad areas have just been moved to two camps at Taxila and Haripur in Islamabad-Peshawar area. There was a throwaway remark in the latest edition of Pak’s Friday Times that some of the Jihadis in one of the training camps were killed in an earthquake earlier this month. There's that whole signs and portents thing again ... These tactical changes have been accompanied by moves to restructure the United Jehad Council (UJC), an umberella group of 13 militant outfits, to enable ISI to have a tighter control over its running. Smaller outfits which have been irritants for ISI are being merged which will reduce the number of their representation in UJC from 13 to five. The ISI has asked Al-Barq, Teherek-e-Jehad, Islamic Front, 313 brigade and the Kashmiri component of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen to merge and form Kashmir Liberation Organisation. However, there were differences on the name between Kashmiri militant leaders and ISI and the new name suggested by Kashmiris was Kashmir Freedom Force which would be led by Farooq Qureshi of Al Barq, the report said. Apparently they went with the latter. Well, "Kashmir Freedom Force" is certainly a better name than some of the ones that they were floating around yesterday ... Similarly Muslim Janbaz Force, Al Jehad force, Al Fateh force, Hizbullah and Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen were being merged to form Kashmir Resistance Force and would be led by Ghulam Rasool Shah alias General Abdullah, it said. Interestingly Tehrek-ul-Mujahideen, which did not agree to merge as per the wishes of ISI, has been asked to fend for itself and it is reported that the outfit was getting close to Lashker-e-Taiba for training and Ahl-e-Hadis (Wahabi) organisations in Pakistan for financial support, the report said. The Lashkar likely has enough financial resources to sponsor their own Jihadi groups, but it doesn’t seem wise to let them... Yeah, but I thought that the ISI was laying off the LeT for now. They also seem to be becoming the new "legitimate" face of the International Front with al-Qaeda's leadership underground. The ISI has roped in its trusted lieutenant Sheikh Jamil-ur-Rehman in the UJC so that it could have a complete control over the amalgam. Meanwhile, amidst fears of war looming large over it in mid-2002 and growing international pressure, ISI was quick enough to shift militant camps from PoK to other places in the country with strict restrictions on the movements of Kashmiri militants. According to the report, the militants of various outfits except Hizbul Mujahideen, were shifted to a closed factory on Haripur-Taxila road in Punjab province, the report said. It said that the factory had been taken over by the Pakistan government on rent and handed over to ISI. There were about 500 militants in this camp which included Al-Barq (70 militants), Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen (65), Tehrek-e-Jehad (70), Islamic Front (25), Teherek-ul-Mujahideen (60), Muslim Janbaz Force, Al-Jehad and Al-Fateh (150 combined strength), Hizbullah (15), Al Umar (25), Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islamia (50) and JKLF (55). Assuming the intell is acurate, RAW must have heavily infiltrated these groups to have such specific numbers. There were reports a little while back suggesting that Pakistan was feeding India intel on at least the Hizb ul-Mujahideen. Then again, RAW does have a reputation for being very good in this regard. About of 2300 Hizbul Muajhideen cadres had been kept in Taxila camp and Haripur camps around Islamabad. The loyalists of Abdul Majid Dar were shifted to Boi camp located at a place atop a hill on the confluence of river kaghan and river Jehlum on Muzzafarabad-Mansehra road in Pakistan. Another set of 300 to 400 militants had been lodged in Gari Habibullah camp and Tarbela Gazi Camp in North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. The report said that after May this year, when the militants were shifted to these camps in Pakistan, ISI imposed restrictions on the free movement of militants. "They are not allowed to move out and those visiting them have to reach the camps in the night and leave before sun rise," it said and added that the Kashmiri boys in the camps were so fed up with the restrictions and uncertainity of the life that they were desperate to return to their homes.

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