Cars
burn in Karachi after a terrorist bombing
Friends
Turned Foes: Five Groups Join Hands to Eliminate Gen. Musharraf
By
Amir Mir
IT
WAS A combination of sophisticated technology and sheer good luck
that saved Pakistan from yet another political upheaval last December.
Security
officials entrusted with investigations into the two attempts
on General Pervez Musharraf within a space of 11 days are now
trying to put together the pieces of what looks to be an extremely
complicated jigsaw puzzle.
As
the national interests of Pakistan and those of the Islamist extremists
are no longer fully compatible with each other, the jihadis have
closed their ranks and acting in unison to physically eliminate
General Musharraf, a key American ally in the US-led war against
terror.
Preliminary
investigations into the December 25 twin suicide attacks on General
Musharraf’s life in Rawalpindi have hinted at the involvement
of Jaish-e-Mohammad and Harkat al-Jahad al-Islami. The Jaish led
by Maulana Masood Azhar and the Harkat headed by Qari Saifullah
Akhtar, are components of a five-member “Brigade 333”,
launched in 2001 after the US attack on Afghanistan. Three other
Brigade components included Lashkar-e-Toiba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
and Harkat ul Mujahideen al-Almi.
The
Brigade leadership had pledged to target key Pakistani leaders
who in their opinion were damaging the cause of jihad to further
the American agenda in Pakistan. According to the investigators,
both the suicide bombers have been identified as Muhammad Jamil,
a Jaish-e-Mohammad activist from Azad Kashmir and Hazir Sultan,
a Harkat al-Jahad al-Islami operative from Afghanistan.
Jamil,
23, was a resident of Androot, Police Station, Torarh in Poonch
district, Azad Kashmir. His identity was established after the
detectives rummaging through the debris and human body parts recovered
his torso and national identity card. Jamil went to Jalalabad
via Torkham in eastern Nangrahar province in January 2001 through
an Afghan cloth merchant in Azad Kashmir for the purpose of military
training. Afterwards, he moved to Kabul and lived in Darul Aman
area on the outskirts of the Afghan capital.
However,
Muhammad Jamil was seriously injured and captured by the Northern
Alliance troops when the US-led allied forces attacked Kabul after
the fall of the Taliban. He was shifted to a Kabul hospital and
remained under treatment for 15 days. The transitional government
in Afghanistan led by President Hamid Karzai handed him over to
Pakistani authorities along with 30 other militants who were flown
to Peshawar in a military aircraft.
They
were arrested by the Pakistani authorities on charges of entering
Pakistan without travel documents. After being interrogated by
a Joint Interrogation Team in April 2002, Jamil was set free as
nothing adverse had been found against him.
The
second suicide bomber, Hazir Sultan, 42, was affiliated with the
Harkat al-Jehad al-Islami and belonged to the Panjsher valley
of Afghanistan. Intelligence agencies have arrested five close
aides of Hazir Sultan who have confirmed the identification of
his body. Hazir was camped in South Waziristan Agency and was
there during the Wana operation carried out by the allied forces.
He
had moved to Rawalpindi a few days ago to carry out the December
25 suicide attack against General Musharraf. The investigators
believe that the December 14 and December 25 assassination attempts
against Musharraf were carried out by the component of Brigade
333.
They
informed that, the arrested leader of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Akram
Lahori had revealed during interrogations that more than 100 members
of the Harkat al-Jahad al-Islami had sworn in Karachi on Holy
Quran in May 2002 to physically eliminate General Musharraf at
every cost.
Lahori
was arrested along with his accomplice Attaur Rehman alias Naeem
Bukhari in connection with the US Consulate bombing in Karachi,
Mominpura massacre in Lahore and several other sectarian killings.
Lahori’s revelations later led to the arrests of three hardcore
activists of Harkat ul Mujahideen al-Almi -- Mohammad Imran, Mohammad
Hanif and Sheikh Mohammad Ahmed -- for making an abortive attempt
on General Pervez Musharraf’s life in Karachi on April 26
by blowing up an explosive-laden car.
A
day after the December 25 suicide attack in Rawalpindi, the security
agencies arrested Maulana Masood Azhar’s younger brother
and the deputy chief of the defunct Jaish, Mufti Abdul Rauf, from
Rawalpindi. The intelligence sources have confirmed that Maulana
Abdul Jabbar and Maulana Abdul Rauf are being questioned to ascertain
whether their factions have any link with the al-Qaeda network.
The interrogators further want to know the whereabouts of Maulana
Masood Azhar who had gone into hiding after the government re-banned
his group in November 2003.
Information
is also being sought about the potential suicide bomber belonging
to the two groups who are still at large. The security agencies
have intensified their hunt to arrest at least five members of
Jaish-e-Mohammad and Jamaat ul Furqaan suicide squads. These include
Abbas Haider, a resident of Sibi, Naeem, resident of Bhakkar,
Adil, resident of Mailsi, Safir, resident of Bhakkar and Tahir,
a resident of Mailsi.
Five
of their associates had died in 2000 while carrying out three
suicide missions in Islamabad, Murree and Taxila. Mohammad Sarfaraz,
a resident of Attock lost his life while conducting the March
17, 2002 suicide attack on the Protestant International Church
in Islamabad’s diplomatic enclave which killed half a dozen
people.
Three
other suicide bombers from the Jaish, now renamed as (Khuddam-ul-Islam
Islam) -- Rehan Babar, a resident of Muzaffargarh, Qari Zarrin,
a resident of Mansehra and Nawaz Gujjar, a resident of Gujranwala,
blew themselves up less than 24 hours after killing six people
inside the Christian School at Gharial in Jhika Gali near Murree
on August 5 2002.
Having
fled from the scene, the terrorists were trapped by the security
agencies near the Kohala Bridge, making them to blow themselves
up to escape arrest. And Kamran Butt, a resident of Rawalpindi
lost his life while carrying out the August 9, 2002 grenade attack
on the Christian Hospital in Taxila, which killed four female
nurses.
However,
intelligence agencies failed to identify the bodies of the May
8, 2002 suicide attack in front of the Sheraton Hotel, Karachi
that killed 14 people and the June 14, 2002 attack outside the
US consulate in Karachi that killed 12 people.
In
the first attack, the bomber rammed his explosive-ridden car into
a bus which was carrying French engineers, killing 11 of them
and three others. In the second attack, the bomber exploded his
car outside the US embassy, killing 12 Pakistanis.
Subsequent
raids carried out by the authorities led to the arrests of over
a dozen suspected suicide bombers besides recovery of huge quantity
of explosives. All those arrested belonged to the Jaish-e-Mohammad
who conceded during interrogations that the suicide bombing was
now a part and parcel of their strategy.
The
arrested Jaish members revealed that the suicide bombings were
planned in November 2001 in the wake of the US-led allied forces’
attack on Afghanistan, after the operational commander of the
outfit Maulana Abdul Jabbar returned to Pakistan and called a
meeting at the Balakot training camp.
The
participants of the meeting decided to resist the increasing US
influence in Pakistan through any means possible, including suicide
bombings. The suicide missions were launched in March 2002 and
continued for next six months, successfully hitting six targets
in Islamabad, Karachi, Murree, Taxila and Bahawalpur.
As
the agencies directed Masood Azhar to stop these operations, Maulana
Abdul Jabbar alias Maulana Umar Farooq disagreed, only to be expelled
from the outfit. He subsequently launched his own group, called
Jamaat-ul-Furqaan. But the group’s back was literally broken
by the agencies when they arrested Jabbar in connection with the
2002 suicide bombings.
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed has stated thrice after
the December 25 Rawalpindi attacks that the suicide-bombers who
nearly killed Musharraf were a mix of outsider and insider jihadis“Kashmiri
and Afghan militant groups were behind the latest assassination
attempt on General Musharraf. Both the suicide bombers have been
identified. One of them belonged to Kashmir and the other was
from the North West Frontier Province. It’s a huge network
of terrorists having tentacles from Kashmir to Afghanistan, having
international ties,” the minister had observed.
Information
acquired by intelligence sources apparently substantiate Sheikh
Rashid’s claim. Following the US attack on Afghanistan,
the intelligence sources say, five jihadi outfits decided to group
under the codename of Brigade 313 (the number of companions with
Prophet Muhammad PBUH at the battle of Badr) to target key political
and religious leaders who they believe were damaging the cause
of jihad and advancing the American agenda.
The
five groups included Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Harkat
ul Mujahideen al-Almi, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Harkat-e-Jihad-e-Islami.
While four of these jihadi outfits are based in Pakistan and can
be described as ‘insiders’, the fifth one -- Harkat-e-Jihad-e-Islami
– was based in Kandahar before the US-led forces attacked
Afghanistan and can be dubbed as an ‘outsider’.
Harkat-e-Jihad-e-Islami
owed allegiance to the Afghan leader Nabi Muhammadi who died in
exile in Islamabad. After the rise of the Taliban, however, Harkat
became Kandahar’s favorite outfit. Its Pakistani fighters
were sent out to do battle in Central Asia and Chechnya. When
the US forces bombed Afghanistan in October 2001, the leader of
the Kandahar-based Harkat-e-Jihad-e-Islami, Qari Saifullah Akhtar
fled Afghanistan. Having reached Pakistan, Qari eventually became
a member of Brigade 313. - Courtesy: Herald, January 2004
