The Fraudulent Theory of 'Non-State Actors' - Part III

By 1970, Pakistan Army had developed close working relationship with the clergy, especially with the Abu Ala Al Mawdudi led Jama’at-e-Islami (JI). One of the reasons was the precarious condition in which the President of Pakistan, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, found himself after having announced the Presidential elections in 1965. His opponent in the form of the formidable Ms. Fatima Jinnah, the sister of the Founder of Pakistan, supported by the combined opposition, the high inflation and resultant economic woes, required him to seek the support of the clergy. The aftermath of the campaign by Ms. Jinnah and the 1965 war followed by the Tashkent agreement which was perceived as a surrender by Pakistanis, weakened the Presidency. FM Ayub Khan had already met JI’s chief Maulana Mawdudi twice and allowed him to preach his concept of jihad over Radio Pakistan. This led to concessions being given to the ulema who began to exercise their influence over an Army that was relatively secular till then. It was to be visible in the genocide of several million in East Pakistan in circa 1971 when these Islamist parties sent in their cadres to assist the Army implement its pogrom. Two of the most important ‘non-state actor’ outfits were Isla’ami Jamia’at-e-Tulba (IJT) and Al-Badr, both of which later played a significant role in stoking terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir in 1989. The Al-Badr consisted of the Pashtuns from the same tribal areas in NWFP from where lashkars were formed as ‘non-state actors’ to attack J&K in 1947. The IJT is the militant student wing of the JI. The IJT later sent its cadres to Kashmir for Hizb-ul-Mujahideen to fight India. Both the Al-Badr and the IJT have been close to the ISI. The nexus between the Islamist ‘non-state actors’ and the Pakistani Army grew considerably from then onwards. The Afghan jihad and the growing sectarianism within Pakistan spawned more Islamist jihadist tanzeems in the 80s.

The veteran Pakistani journalist, the late Khalid Hasan, has recalled how Gen. Musharraf in his very first official visit to the US in February, 2002 openly accepted that the LeT and Jama’at-ud-Dawa (JuD) were only doing jihad outside Pakistan. So, when Gen Musharraf thundered in Muzzafarabad on Feb. 5, 2000 that jihad had shifted from Afghanistan to Kashmir, one could understand in hindsight who was doing jihad and why Pakistan was doing nothing to take action against them. No wonder then that when Dar-ul-Uloom-Haqqania madrassah in Peshawar organized on January 9, 2001 a massive conference to support Osama bin Laden, the former Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Aslam Beg and former ISI Chief Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul openly attended it and pledged their support. Even when Gen. Musharraf had to ban these terrorist organizations under intense pressure after the Indian Parliament Attack on December 13, 2001, he took care that these organizations were not banned in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) or in Federally Administered Tribal Agencies (FATA), both places where they had setup training centres and which they used as launch pads across India and Afghanistan. Promptly, LeT morphed into JuD a few days before the ban was officially announced on January 15, 2002, cleaned its bank accounts, and moved its headquarters to PoK. The support from the highest office in Pakistan to ‘non-state actors’ was quite discernible.

It is not that Pakistan had always meticulously hidden its nexus with ‘non-state actors’. It has sometimes not attempted to overly hide its linkages with them, possibly to send a crude message or to incite a sense of euphoria among Pakistani masses. For example, in 1971, when an Indian Airlines aircraft was hijacked to Lahore, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto went on board the hijacked aircraft and congratulated the hijackers, later describing them as heroes before they set ablaze the aircraft. On February 5, 1990, the then Chief Minister of the Punjab, Nawaz Sharif, inserted an advertisement in newspapers asking people to ‘pray for success of jihad in Kashmir”. The ruling PPP, led by Benazir Bhutto, not to be outdone in competitive politics, declared that day as a National Holiday. Since that time, Pakistan Army has been providing fire cover for the terrorists to infiltrate into India along the India-Pakistan border. Another recent incident when the ISI did not cover its tracks was in the Haqqani-led and ISI-ordered July, 2008 attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul. It was meant as a message that growing Indian influence in Afghanistan was unacceptable. The Indian intelligence agencies and the CIA had enough evidence to nail down the ISI, which was promptly passed on to that country which as usual refused to take any action. Even in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, there have been tell-tale signs of State involvement. We shall later see in another post, how Pakistani Army officers have had deep involvement in terrorism for a long time now.

A further proof of Pakistan's complicity in terrorism of the so called ‘non-state actors’ was the hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight, IC 814, from Kathmandu to the south-eastern Afghan city of Kandahar on Dec 24,1999, with the help of ISI, Pakistani terrorists and Pakistani diplomats in Kathmandu who supplied the would-be hijackers with weapons. The hijackers were helped in Kandahar by their comrades-in-arm, the Taleban as well as ISI-officers who were in constant touch with them during the entire duration of six days that the hijack drama lasted. They and the terrorists released by India in exchange for the passengers, later resurfaced in Pakistan to a hero's welcome and two of them have continued to operate freely till today, including collecting funds for jihad in Kashmir, an activity supposedly banned in Pakistan after the 9/11 events. All three of the terrorists released from Indian jails, Maulana Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Zargar, and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, indulged in terrorism against India and the US from Pakistani soil. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh arranged funds for the 9/11 terrorists and also was instrumental in the killing of Wall Street Journal’s reporter Daniel Pearl. The FBI traced USD 100,000 wire-transferred to the WTC terrorist Mohammed Atta and 9/11 leader by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh at the instance of Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed, chief of ISI.

The General lost his job on Oct. 8, 2001 after clinching evidence from India. It was the same General, who as Corps Commander, Rawalpindi was one of the “Gang of Four” who planned the Kargil intrusion in 1999 and also the coup on behalf of Gen. Musharraf. He was neither the first nor the last of the ISI Chiefs to lose his job for associating with terrorists. Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj, who succeeded Lt. Gen. Ahfaq Pervez Kayani as the ISI Chief in September, 2007 also was forced to leave the position by the US as President George Bush complained that it was “impossible to share intelligence on the al-Qaeda and the Taliban with Pakistan because it goes straight back to the militants.” Earlier too, another Director General of the ISID, Gen. Javid Nasir, was removed from service along with a few dozen officers, for his extreme association with jihadi organizations. As for Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, he surrendered to Brig. Ejaz Shah (Retd.), the then Home Secretary of the Punjab on February 12, 2002. We are now aware that Brig. Ejaz Shah was Omar Saeed Sheikh’s handler when he was in the ISI. Several serving Army officers have been arrested in connection with the case of David Coleman Headly, and two of them were implicated in funding terrorism through him.

Pakistan’s support for terrorism in India is well documented and many terrorists who were captured in India have given detailed accounts of their activities and their sponsors back in Pakistan. Among all those Pakistanis caught in India on terrorism related charges, the most dramatic and prized-catch was that of Ajmal Amir Iman Kasab. Several pointers emerged later as Ajmal Kasab was interrogated. The ten fidayeen terrorists were all Lashkar-e-Tayba (LeT) operatives, they had been combat trained for several months by members of Pakistan’s serving and/or retired Army and Navy personnel, the Pakistani maritime authorities had supplied them with charts for the sea-borne operation, they were in constant telephonic contact with their cold-blooded handlers back in Pakistan who appeared to be hardened combat veterans and well versed in psychological operations pointing therefore to the involvement of the armed forces, communication facilities between the terrorists and their handlers had been arranged by a division of the Army, and they had been visited frequently at the training centre by a top-ranking General along with the chief LeT, Prof. Hafeez Saeed. The captured GPS confirmed four waypoints-route maps that point to Karachi, Porbander, Diu and the Mumbai coast. It soon turned out that Prof. Hafeez Saeed, ex-Amir of LeT and now JuD, was the mastermind behind the attack. However, even when Prof. Hafeez Saeed had been declared a terrorist by the UN Security Council as a result of this attack, even as he was being implicated by India as the mastermind and the Interpol had issued a Red Corner Notice to arrest him, top notch Pakistani politicians like ex-President Rafiq Tarar, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain (Chief of PML-Q), Mushahid Hussain (PML-Q Secretary)and Sheikh Rashid (ex-federal minister and a self-proclaimed jihadi) condoled with him for a bereavement in his family by visiting his house. All cases brought against him in the Lahore High Court, the Supreme Court and the Anti Terrorism Court (ATC)were dismissed one after the other either for lack of evidence or for being bad in law. The Interior Minister of Pakistan, Rehman Malik, has repeatedly talked of a ‘lack of evidence’ against Prof. Hafeez Saeed as though only other nations have to give that.

In the immediate aftermath of the 26/11 attack, as a nervous Pakistan whipped up war-paranoia, the Taliban jihadis who were mercilessly attacking Pakistan itself from within, ‘offered’ their support to ‘fight India’ and top Pakistani Army and intelligence officials immediately welcomed the offer and termed the Taliban as ‘truly patriotic’. Another Pakistani Army official claimed that “the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) will fight shoulder-to-shoulder with the Pakistani Army to save Pakistan, if India attacked that country”. This brings out clearly how the Army forged close links with the jihadi ‘non-state actors’ and were not averse to using them even when a few months earlier the same jihadis had called the Pakistani Army as ‘unIslamic’ ! It was no wonder therefore that several service personnel of the Army, Air Force, ISI and police were found to be involved in the assassination attempts against President General Musharraf in c. 2002 and 2003, in collusion with the very same ‘non-state actors’ that the Pakistani state had assiduously developed.

Several purportedly Islamic charity trusts in Pakistan have been known to fund terror activities internationally. Many of them, Rabita, al-Rashid, al-Akhtar, Wafa Humanitarian Organization, Ummah Tamer-i-Nau, Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, Afghan Support Committee, Aid Organization of the Ulema, al-Aqsa Foundation, and al-Harmain Foundation trusts were identified by the US State department on Oct. 12, 2001 as funding terror outfits. It was incidentally noticed that Gen. Musharraf, the then military-President of Pakistan, was one of the trustees of Rabita trust. The Secretary General of Rabita Trust, Wael Hamza Jalalidin, was one of the founder members of al-Qaeda. The link between al-Akhtar trust and al-Qaeda was established later. However, Pakistan decided to close down the Al-Rasheed and Al-Akhtar trusts only in Feb, 2007 even though the UN Security Council declared them to have links with terrorist organizations as early as 2001. The Pakistani interior minister later explained to the Pakistani population rather apologetically that even though the Pakistani government fought the case of the two trusts in the UN, they had to close them now due to the UN resolution as otherwise the nation will attract economic sanction. This shows the reluctance on the part of the Pakistani government to take action against the front-ends of the terrorist organizations. While Al-Akhtar and Al-Rasheed trusts were collecting funds for Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), the Al-Hilal and Al-Asar Trusts were doing so for Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) and Al-Ershad trust was collecting funds for Harkat-ul-Jihadi-Islami (HuJI). By June 2008, the US State Department determined that Al Rasheed trust was operating under the new names of Al Ameen Trust while Al Akhtar had morphed into Pakistan Relief Foundation and Azmat Pakistan Trust. Thus, the channels of funding to various terrorist organizations were protected by the State of Pakistan and when action was taken reluctantly, they acquired new names and the Government ignored the new Trusts.

The Punjabis dominate the Pakistani Army (roughly 70%) and the Punjab is also the most fertile ground for recruitment of jihadi terrorists. Organizations like JeM, LeJ, HuJI as well as LeT are centred around Southern and Central Punjab. Since the Army recruits come from the same region where jihadism is widespread, it is natural to expect such sentiments to be carried forward into the Army. By his own admission, the then DG, ISI, Lt. Gen Mahmoud Ahmed admitted as far back as circa 2000, that 15% of the army officer corps were religious extremists. Afghanistan, which has been one of the worst sufferers from the ‘non-state actors’ of Pakistan, has leveled serious accusations against the state of Pakistan for its support. In several interviews, the Afghan intelligence chief, Amarullah Saleh, has accused the Pakistani Army leadership and the Pakistani establishment for their support to ‘non-state actors’.

Since its Independence, Pakistan has also been in conflict with its western neighbour, Afghanistan, over the settlement of its border row with that country. The Durand Line which, by the mere stroke of a British pen divided the Pashtuns, has been the root cause of this problem. Within Afghanistan itself, a society steeped in feudalism and fractured by different identities, any reform had been met with stiff resistance by the feudal landlords, tribal chieftains and the clergy who feared loss of their traditional power. So, when new reforms were initiated by the new Leftist regime after the ‘Great Saur Revolution’ in April, 1978, the traditional stakeholders rose in revolt. The regime, unable to suppress the harassment by Ismail Khan of Herat and the Panjsheri Mujahideen supported by Pakistan, invited the USSR for help by invoking the provisions of the ‘Mutual Defence Treaty’. It was thus the USSR Army entered Afghanistan on Dec. 24, 1979. Pakistan, which had already been hosting Islamists like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Rabbani, and Abdulrub Rasool Sayyaf used them in destabilizing the Afghan regime. Unfortunately, a deeply Islamist military General, Zia-ul-Haq was in power at that time in Pakistan and he had already established a close relationship with the wahhabi regime in Saudi Arabia in order to stem the rising influence of Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran among the Shi’a of both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. As part of this, he had initiated a large-scale Islamization of the Pakistani society, an initiative already started by the Islamic Socialist Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to retain his power. This led to violent changes within the Pakistani society and the clergy. Not content with the society, Gen. Zia-ul-Haq also started Islamizing the Army. Like his predecessor Field Marshal Ayub Khan, Gen. Zia-ul-Haq also turned to JI for support and this allowed JI’s student wing, IJT, unhindered access to all educational campuses across the country where all the other student organizations had been banned. The clerics of JI were affiliated to Army units. Thus a deep entwining with the Islamist ideology took roots within the Army. The Army and the ‘non-state actors’ became inseparable.

Thus Gen. Zia-ul-Haq transformed the charter of the Army from defending ‘frontiers of Pakistan’ to defending the ‘frontiers of Islam’. The motto of the Army was appropriately changed to ‘Iman-Taqwa-Jihad fi Sabilillah’ (Faith, Unity and Jihad in the Way of Allah). Successive Prime Ministers and Presidents have mouthed the same inanity of the Army being defenders of the Frontiers of Islam. Thus, Pakistani state and its armed forces cannot but support those ‘non-state actors’ who claim to be fighting to ‘defend frontiers of Islam’. The need for jihad thus unites the professional Army of Pakistan and the ‘non-state actors’ at the hip. Gen. Zia-ul-Haq appointed the Islamist jihadi and an Afghan veteran Prof. Hafeez Saeed, who founded the LeT later on, to the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), an organization created by the State to ensure all laws of the land complied with Islam. So, when the Soviet Army marched across the Oxus river on the eve of Christmas in 1979, the Bear Trap set by the United States was triggered and the resources of the state of Pakistan along with its ‘non state-actors’ were thrown into the jihad. The Pakistani society was militarized with the help of the United States and Saudi Arabia to provide a constant supply of ideologically pumped up mujahideen to fight the evil Red Army. Pakistan’s calculi were two fold in its Afghan venture; one, to install a compliant regime in Kabul that will blunt Pashtun nationalism and allow it to build its ‘strategic depth’ against India and second, to gainfully use the huge army of ‘non-state actors’ including foreign jihadis deployed in the Afghan theatre, in its dispute with India. These overlapping linkages are steadily being revealed in terrorist incidents such as 26/11 where Pakistani naval personnel have helped the terrorists with their maritime requirements, and Army communication experts have been involved in setting up communication links. The still unraveling case of David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Rana reveal their connections with serving and retired Army personnel.

Even as the Afghan jihad was going on, Pakistan simultaneously developed its nuclear weapons in collusion with China and under the benign neglect of the USA, in order to blunt the asymmetry in power between India and herself and also force India not to escalate the tension into a full-blown war whenever the jihadis were later unleashed on India after the conclusion of the Afghan jihad. Thus, Pakistan made a complete and comprehensive investment in its policy and practice of ‘non-state actors’ since the early 80s. After the withdrawal of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) from Afghanistan in circa 1989, the Taliban were created by the Pakistani Army to take control of Afghanistan. So much so, that in the aftermath of the fall of Kunduz to the Northern Alliance in late 2001, the Pakistanis forced the Americans to airlift thousands of Pakistani military officers, soldiers and ‘non-state actors’ who were fighting along with the Taliban.

Pakistan’s ‘non-state actors’ have also wrought havoc within Iran. The Jundullah, a Sunni sectarian terrorist organization, which has recently been implicated in the suicide attack on the Iran Revolutionary Guards in the Sistan-Baluchistan area, has always been accused by Iran as being supported by the Pakistani intelligence agencies. After the recent attack, the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad charged that the attack was planned from Pakistani soil and that the Pakistani intelligence agencies were cooperating with the terrorists. In late May, 2009, Jundullah bombed a mosque in Zahedan in the Sistan-Baluchistan province which angered Iran enough to warn Pakistan that it had “the power and military means to trace and hunt down terrorist groups in Pakistan if such activity is not stopped by Pakistan.” Pakistan routinely denies the presence of Jundullah in Pakistan.

So, how have these ‘non-state actors’ come into being and how are they sustained ? The powerful ISID, the indoctrinated Army & ISI officers both serving and retired leading to a close linkage between the regular Army and the terrorist organizations, the mullahs, the presence under the benign neglect or even support of the Pakistani state of militias of Uzbeks, Chechens, Turkmens, Tajiks, Uighurs, Indonesians and Arabs who have all cut deals with the tribes of NWFP for protection, hospitality and support, the lawlessness of the FATA where the Federal laws of Pakistan do not operate, the huge cache of funds and leftover arms from the Afghan campaign, increasing poverty, an opium industry patronized by the Taleban, Al-Qaeda and the ISI as an easy source of funding for procuring arms and promoting terrorist activities, the spiralling madrassahs generously supported by fundamentalist charity organizations from the Middle East especially the Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, spewing out the strict Wahhabi or Deobandi interpretation of Islam, the capitulation of the Government to the increasing Talibanized approach of these madrassahs, the indoctrination of young minds even in mainstream non-madrassah schools as a state policy, the collective hatred against the Americans, Jews and the Hindus (the Yahud-Hunud-Nasara conspiracy theory meaning Jews-Hindus-Christians were conspiring to deprive the Muslims of their rightful place which is popular in Pakistan ), and above all the State policy to use terror as a weapon against India and Afghanistan all acted as a potent mix, and continue to do so with increasing vigour, in the terrorism brew. Pakistan has also learnt to blame the ‘international community’ for the scourge of ‘militancy and extremism’ in today’s Pakistan forgetting conveniently that it was an equal and willing partner in the Afghan jihad for its own geopolitical and geostrategic reasons and even after the cessation of the jihad there, it nurtured and created more terrorist outfits for its India theatre of operations.

Therefore, all sections of the society such as common folk citizens, mullahs et al and all sections of the State such as the Army, intelligence agencies, bureaucracy, political leaders et al have contributed to preserving, nurturing and helping the ‘non-state actors’. Thus, Pakistan and its ‘non-state actors’ are indistinguishable.

(Concluded)

The Fraudulent Theory of 'Non-State Actors' - Part II

Added to all these are the extremist sectarian outfits that appeared in late 70s and were consolidated during the 1980s using funds from sources abroad. The State identified itself with the Sunni-Hanafi Wahhabi and Deobandi strains of Islam leading to violent clashes with the predominant Berelvis, Sufis and Shi’as. The ‘mother of all terrorist outfits’, Sipah-e-Sahaba-Pakistan (SSP), came into being from which were to emerge later other dreaded Punjab-based terrorist outfits usually referred to as ‘Punjabi Taliban’. The ‘Bear Trap’ that the US devised to disintegrate the USSR led to the immoral use of religion and drugs in the region to launch and sustain the covert war, the effects of which later became devastating for Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Thus, there has been an easy availability of men, material and causes that sustain extremism and jihadi terrorism in Pakistan. The geo-strategic interests originally enunciated by Sir Olaf Kirkpatrick Caroe of the British Empire (the last Foreign Secretary of the British Raj 1939-1945 and later Governor of NWFP March 1946 to June 1947) and later adopted in toto by the United States, placed Pakistan at the centre as far as the Western interests went in the Indian Subcontinent and the Middle East. This has given an undue advantage to Pakistan. Pakistan’s continued reception of largesse from the Western countries and their allies (especially the US, the UK, China, Saudi Arabia and Japan), usually referred to as the ‘3½ Friends of Pakistan’, and a lack of punishment for its crimes have emboldened that country to continue along the same trajectory it set for itself sixty-three years back.

Within Pakistan, the enterprise of ‘non-state actors’ is managed by the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISID), which was set up in c. 1948 by Maj. General W.J. Cawthorn of the British Army who was serving as the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Pakistani Army then, and then developed and nurtured by the CIA during the days of Afghan jihad. As ISID became the sole conduit for the distribution of arms and funds pouring in from the US, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and other Arab states during the Afghan jihad days, it developed an enormous clout with the various mujahideen groups which it used to its advantage later in the Punjab and Kashmir fronts with India. The ISID has become far too powerful and sinister that its activities are all encompassing today and go way outside its original charter, earning it the sobriquet ‘state within the state’. The opportunistic support for the Pakistani Army by the United States and its allies never allowed civilian institutions to develop thus turning the country into a security state, many call it as a praetorian state, whose sole purpose has been to defeat India. It thus became easy for the ‘non-state actors’ to thrive under the patronage of the security apparatus of the state. Today, Pakistan boasts of at least three dozen major terrorist outfits and in the eight years since 9/11, Pakistan and Pakistanis have been implicated in over 150 terrorist incidents all over the world for reasons such as providing training, funding, sheltering or supplying manpower.

Pakistan’s single minded obsession to subjugate India has made it use against India whatever means that are available to it. Thus it was that the tribesmen from Federally Administered Tribal Agencies (FATA) were mobilized against the Princely State of Jammu & Kashmir in Oct. 1947. They, along with de-commissioned Indian National Army (INA) soldiers were sent in as a mercenary force by Pakistan under the command of Major Akbar Khan (later Major General) who operated under the pseudonym, ‘Gen. Tariq’, a reference to the Islamist General who invaded Andalusia in the 8th Century A.D. In his memoirs, “Raiders in Kashmir” published in 1970, and in the interview he gave, Maj. Gen. Akbar Khan has clearly spelt out how everyone in the political and military set up of Pakistan, from Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan down to a lowly Muslim League functionary, was involved in planning and helping the invasion by the tribesmen. These facts have been corroborated by Gen. Mohammed Musa who retired as Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan Army, in his book, “Jawan to General: The Recollections of a Pakistani Soldier” (published 1985).

Another and more important source is the British themselves, especially the then Governor of NWFP, Sir George Cunningham. He had earlier served as a British Political Agent in North Waziristan in 1923-24 and was later also Private Secretary to the Viceroy of India. He was thus well connected with the affairs of the NWFP. By no stretch of imagination was Cunningham a friend of the Congress Party or India and on the other hand, he was close to Mohammed Ali Jinnah. His papers and diary are available in the India Office Records (now part of the British Library in the UK). From his diary jottings ( MSS Eur D670/6 Cunningham Diary File), we can see clear references to how Pakistan employed the tribesmen. On Page 13 dated October 6, 1947, Cunningham states the following: There is quite a lot of talk now of the danger of actual war between Pakistan & India. The Pakistan Government however, will, I am certain, do all they can to avoid it as they feel conscious of their present weakness both in men and particularly in material. Yet them seem to me to wink at the very dangerous activities on the Kashmir Border, allowing small parties of Muslims to infiltrate into Kashmir from this side. This might easily become a casus belli. Page 17 of the above diary is a clincher in more ways. In that page, Cunningham writes: I sent for ABDUL QAYUM, my Chief Minister, last evening and told him what I knew, or pretty well all that had been going on, and who had been instigating our tribesmen to go to Kashmir. He grinned. (Khan Abdul Qayum Khan was the Chief Minister of NWFP between 1947 and 1953) The diary goes on to state in an entry dated October 26, when the invasion had reached outskirts of Srinagar: ISKANDER MIRZA arrived last night from LAHORE. He told me all the underground history of the present campaign against Kashmir and brought apologies from Liaqat Ali for not letting me know anything about it sooner. Iskander Mirza was the Defence Secretary of Pakistan at that time. Of course, the terminology, ‘non-state actors’ had not been coined at that time, but, from the foregoing, the strategy had nevertheless been framed in the very nascent days of Pakistan.

There is considerable evidence that Quaid-e-Azam, Mohammed Ali Jinnah himself blessed the plans of invasion by the ‘non-state actors’ as he was promised celebration of Eid in Srinagar on October 28. In his meeting with Governor General Mountbatten in Lahore on November 1, 1947, Jinnah promised to pull back the tribesmen if Indian troops were also withdrawn, thus inadvertently admitting to who was behind the invasion of the ‘non-state actors’. Again, the Governor of NWFP, Sir George Cunningham states categorically (Page 17 of the same reference cited in the previous paragraph) that when informed of the tribal invasion of J&K as early as two weeks before the actual D-Day, Jinnah replied, “Don't tell me anything about it. My conscience must be clear”.  There is more clinching evidence of Jinnah's direct involvement. Tariq Ali writes how Jinnah decided to use force and chose Capt. Sikander Hyat Khan,  who was the uncle of Tariq Ali and the grandson of the former Chief Minister of the undivided Punjab Sir Sikander Hyat Khan and the son of close Jinnah confidante Shaukat Hyat Khan, to lead the operation.

When the need arose for the Pakistani Army to intervene, following the debacle of the tribesmen who were more interested in plunder and rape at Baramulla as maal-i-ghanimat (war booty), Jinnah even requested the British officers who were then managing the affairs of the Pakistani Army to help them.. Thus, Pakistan used ‘non-state actors’ as the first-line of offence and for reasons of ‘plausible deniability’ from the day that country was born. Later when Pakistan-inspired terrorism was ignited in J&K in c. 1989, the former Director General of the ISI, Lt. Gen. Hameed Gul, admitted to noted Pakistani journalist Zahid Hussain that “It is the years of our work that has resulted in the armed uprising against the Indian forces in Kashmir” thus belying the propaganda that the latest onset of trouble in Kashmir was also an indigenous one.

Pakistan employed a variation of the tactic of ‘non-state actors’ in c. 1965 when it felt that the Indian Army’s morale was low enough for it to take advantage of, especially after a skirmish in the Rann of Kutch where the Indian Army tactically withdrew. It sent this time regulars disguised as local tribesmen until they were discovered by the local shepherds who promptly informed the Indian Army. Though, Pakistan did not use ‘non-state actors’ this time, it claimed the regular Pakistani soldiers as ‘non-state actors’ hoping that India will therefore not be able to escalate the limited attack in J&K across the international borders either in the Punjab or across the Rajasthan-Sind Border. The large scale capture of these Pakistani soldiers along with their identification papers put paid to their lies, but Pakistan was not deterred. History was repeated once again in 1999 in Kargil when the same tactic was employed. This time around, Pakistan sent in its Northern Light Infantry (NLI) disguised as mujahideen 'non-state actors' and even claimed so. India released the wiretapped telephonic conversation between Lt.General Mohammed Aziz, Pakistan's Chief of General Staff and the Army Chief General Parvez Musharraf that nailed the lie. In order to lend credence to its lies, Pakistan even refused to accept the bodies of its slain soldiers, the only country in the world to disrespect dead Army soldiers, all for the sake of  sustaining the lie of the theory of ‘non-state actors’. The large number of casualties in the NLI led to protests in Gligit that had to be handled by the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visiting there personally and rewarding the affected families generously. Pakistan, indeed, placed a lot of reliance and stake not only on ‘non-state actors’, but also fake ‘non-state actors’.

(To be continued . . .)

The Fraudulent Theory of 'Non-State Actors' - Part I

For over sixty years now, India has faced an enduring conflict from Pakistan. What started as irredentism has acquired different dimensions since that fateful day on Oct. 26, 1947 when Indian troops had to be airlifted to save the Princely State of J&K (Jammu & Kashmir ) from marauding tribesmen directed by regular Pakistani Army. Pakistan denied that it was at all involved in the operation and claimed fraudulently that the attack was spontaneous, and arising due to the draconian rule of Maharajah Hari Singh and his ‘scorched earth policy’. The lie of Pakistan’s denials was nailed later on as we shall see subsequently. Anyway, that incident set the precedent for Pakistan to adopt the same strategy of relying on ‘non-state actors’ (or proxy fighters) for the next six decades, in its quest against India.

We all know that Pakistan has always maintained ‘plausible deniability’ in its terrorist operations, some times even in its military operations till the façade gets blown apart in almost every instance. In spite of the bluff being repeatedly called, Pakistan has continued to conduct its terrorist operations against India under the cloak of ‘non-state actors’. Though the term of 'non-state actors' might have been of more recent origin, after the 26/11 terrorist attack in circa 2008, the technique and the intent have been the same since Pakistan gained Independence. It is as if Pakistan had no responsibility at all to capture these ‘non-state actors’ before they crossed over into India or after they returned alive to Pakistan from their ‘missions’; or punish their sponsors and dismantle their infrastructure and support base. In fact, the leaders of Pakistan such as Jinnah, Liaquat Ali, Suhrawardy et al carried their same pre-Independence tactics of violence and terror to manage the new State’s policies vis-a-vis India. A further addition, in later years, to this policy of ‘terror as a tool’ was the creation of ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan that helped Pakistan spawn even more virulent jihadi  ‘non-state actors’ to implement the policy of ‘a thousand cuts to bleed India’. In this process, even the rest of the world has suffered as Afghanistan became a sanctuary for Al Qaeda, under the patronage of Pakistan and its creation, ‘the Taliban’. This game had gone way too far in Pakistan that the Daily Times opined editorially on August 8, 2009 thus: “What India wants from us we can’t do because the power of the clergy and the non-state actors is still too overwhelming.” That powerlessness against the non-state actors has only progressively worsened since the time that editorial was written.

Who are these ‘non-state actors’ and why is Pakistan so ‘powerless’ to control them even as it is invariably proved of their involvement in cross border terrorism directed against India and other countries ? These seemingly simple questions have a long history of facts behind them. Lying at the root of this question is the fierce motivation that drives Pakistan to be one-up on India which it perceives as an implacable and mortal enemy. The different factions of the Pakistani society, though united on that single objective of enmity with India, display different shades of and reasons for that thought. The clergy want India to be conquered religiously, while the military wants India to be defeated and avenged for the series of debacles it has suffered in its wars with that country especially the humiliating defeat in 1971 and the historic surrender of 93000 soldiers. On the other hand, the common folk Pakistani citizens and elites who having been yanked off their identity right from the beginning, and thus raging with castrated impotence, have a consequential hatred for India, while the politicians want to be seen going with all these various groups.

The role of the clergy and the clergy-producing Islamists (who run the madrasseh where the clergy are produced in their thousands in an assembly-line like fashion) is the most crucial in the state of affairs that obtains in Pakistan today. The irony was that in the then undivided India, most of the Islamic clergy, notably of the  JUH (Jama’at-Ulema-e-Hind), were opposed to a partition of India though in the final stages of the act, some of them decided to go with the wind. Some of the Muslim clergy, who later migrated to Pakistan, offered a strange argument that the Prophet founded his Islamic nation on bloodshed and not ahimsa (non-violence) as the Hindu Mahatma Gandhi was doing at that time and so they could not be part of that struggle or of a nation born out of that unIslamic process. Such thoughts permeate Pakistan even today when they think that only violence gets benefits and only Muslims are good at it while non-Muslims are passive. The Deobandi school supported the Hanafi madhdhab. (The Hanafi school of Deobandis, led by Husain Ahmed Madani, supported a united India and the freedom movement of the Congress. Maulana Madani even issued a fatwa in October, 1945 against muslims joining the Muslim League.) However, a small but vociferous section of Deobandi Hanafis led by Maulana Zafar Ahmed Usmani, forbade a united India unless jurisprudence in free India was based on Islam, which meant that Islamists ruled the country. One of the students of Maulana Shabbir Usmani (who was the brother of Maulana Zafar Ahmed Usmani) was Maulana Yusuf Banuri who founded the famous Banuri seminary in Karachi that has been in the forefront of jihad ever since.

Anyway, this dissembling led to the discovery of other such dis-similarities which Jinnah used to advance as reasons enough for a separate Muslim nation. Again, these were based on violence and terror such as ‘Our heroes are your villains’ etc. referring to savage Muslim invaders such as Mahmud Ghaznavi, Shahabuddin Ghori, Ahmed Shah Abdali etc. This passion for violence resulted in the gory 'Direct Action Day'. Little did they realize that in the process they were glorifying the savage Turks (Ghaznavi and Ghori) and Pashtun (Abdali), who looted, plundered and massacred their own ancestors living in the parts which are currently Pakistan. Missiles are named after these 'heroes' in today's Pakistan. Prominent Pakistani public speakers frequently refer to these names to whip-up public sentiment and passion against India. Thus, there has been a convergence of views among the clergy, political class, the Army and the masses as far as India went. The complete support for violence and terrorism among all sections of the Pakistani society and the State is therefore a continuum and can be directly traced to the players like Quaid-e-Azam, Quaid-e-Millat and the clergy.

Pakistani Islamists spread the myth that India is a land where Muslims are persecuted and hence in need of a jihad to liberate their ummah from the kafir and mushraqeen (religiously deviant polytheists, pagans, idolators) Hindus. They wanted to start with J&K (Jammu & Kashmir) which being a Muslim majority State straddling the two countries, rightfully belonged to them, in their scheme of things. An underlying and common thread between the above two views is that Pakistan has been cheated of J&K  and other Muslim princely states (riyaasat) like Hyderabad, Junagadh etc. by the conniving and cunning Hindu Indians and the British at the time of the Partition and so it is their duty to retrieve them from the land of jahliyyah (the dark period of ignorance before Islam was born) in a Ghazwa-e-Hind (Conquest of Hindustan by the Believers). The Ghazwa-e-Hind is itself based on a hadith of doubtful authenticity. This is a reference to a hadith that purportedly says that “A Muslim Army (probably Pakistan army) would Conquer India, after that Hazrat Isa will return and this army would join him in the Middle East to fight the Jews.” For this purpose, various actors of Pakistan whip up ‘war-like passion’ among the Pakistani masses. Stories are told, some of which could be true but most are either apocryphal or utter lies.

(To be continued . . .)

Prof. Hafeez Saeed, LeT, and the Support from the State of Pakistan

26/11 was a defining moment, even for an India that has borne stoically and patiently for long, wave after wave of terror attacks from Pakistan. There have been other such 'defining moments' as well like the Dec. 13, 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament. But, this was the first time an urban warfare was unleashed on the financial nerve centre of India. The megapolis of Mumbai, ever subject to serious terrorist attacks from Pakistan for close to two decades now, was to experience one of the worst massacres by terrorists from that country. As many foreign nationals were butchered on religious grounds, the world took notice of LeT (Lashkar-e-Tayba) and its leader Prof. Hafeez (or Hafiz) Saeed. Pakistan was quick to call them innovatively as ‘non-state actors’. The word ‘non-state actors’ was meant to convey two messages; one, the State was not connected with these terrorists and two, Pakistan was not responsible for their actions. Neither was true as we shall see. However, the UN was forced, based on incontrovertible proof, to declare Prof. Hafeez Saeed as a terrorist linked with Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

For the first time, Pakistan was compelled to act under the glare of the world, against terrorism directed towards India. Since that time, Pakistan has taken refuge under the term 'non-state actors' to deny its own complicity in terror. If we look at the saga of Prof. Hafeez Saeed, we can dismantle the fraudulent theory of ‘non-state actors’ quite easily. In the case of LeT and Prof. Hafeez Saeed, it is a mind-boggling web of fraud that Pakistan, as a nation state, has played not only against India but also the entire world.

Immediately after the UN ban, Prof. Hafeez Saeed was house-arrested, for a period of one month, along with Col (r) Nazir Ahmed on 11th Dec. 2008. The December, 2008 UN ban also included JuD (Jama’at-ud Dawah) and recognized it simply as nothing but another name by which LeT was known. The LeT had already been placed under the UNSC list in circa 2005. On January, 10, 2009, the government announced that the house arrest of Prof. Hafeez Saeed was extended by another sixty days. Later, the Review Board of the LHC (Lahore High Court) extended the house arrest on March 9, 2009 by another two months. Prof. Hafeez Saeed appealed against this and a full Bench of the LHC was constituted to hear the case. In the meanwhile, a review board of the Lahore High Court on May 5, 2009 extended for a further period of 60 days the detention of Prof. Hafeez Saeed and even ordered his family to be paid a subsistence allowance of Rs. 25000 !

The Government contended, before the full Bench of the LHC, that Prof. Hafeez Saeed was 'kept in confinement in pursuance of the United Nations resolution 1822 of 2008', a contention that was rejected by the LHC (Lahore High Court) later on because there was no such requirement in the UNSC notification. Instead of independently investigating the UN charges and indicting Prof. Hafeez Saeed, the Pakistani government blamed the UN for his arrest. The Punjab government had presented ‘in-camera’ to the judges the 'classified information', but apparently the court was not convinced. Prof. Hafeez Saeed was released by the LHC on 2nd June 2009 on a habeas corpus petition. The court held that there was no material to detain him under 'preventive measure' and the UN resolution did not specifically require an arrest. One of the judges pointedly asked the state prosecutor as to why Pakistan should be so concerned by a UN Resolution when India had not cared to implement several UN Resolutions on Kashmir, a totally irrelevant reference which betrays the Pakistani mindset. Anyway, this was one more instance when the Pakistani State was unable to detain, leave alone prosecute and punish, Prof. Hafeez Saeed. Even before the official judgement could be released and the police-picket outside his house could be withdrawn, he met the press and hailed the judgement as the ‘first success’.

Prof. Hafeez Saeed was not new to this drama of arrest and release for lack of evidence. On August 10, 2006, he was house-arrested for raising funds for 'war victims' (an euphemism for 'jihad') in Palestine and Lebanon as well as for putting Pakistan's relations with its 'neighbours' in danger. In fact, it was due to Indian pressure on Pakistan after the seven simultaneous bomb blasts on the Mumbai commuter trains on July 11, 2006 which killed 207 people and injured over 700 others. The judge of the Lahore High Court struck down these charges and pointedly said that Pakistani judiciary cannot be influenced by 'neighbouring countries'. He was re-arrested within a few hours of his release on August 28, 2006 under 'Maintenance of Public Order' but he was again released on October,18 2006. This time the judge asked the Government with which of the neighboring countries, India or China or Iran or Afghanistan, was the relationship jeopardized. The intention of the judge was obvious because, among the names of the countries mentioned, only India was the ‘mortal enemy’ and how could standing up to such an enemy ‘jeopardize relations’ ? The court released him on the technical ground that when he was detained, the Punjab Police “failed to show Mr. Saeed his detention order or inform him of the grounds.” It is inconceivable that the Punjab police, one of the top most police units in Pakistan which handles dozens of terrorism-related cases at any point of time, failed in such a basic matter of law especially when arresting a top terrorist like Prof. Hafeez Saeed. Either it was a deliberate oversight to allow Prof. Hafeez Saeed an escape route or the police was hand-in-glove with the LeT.

As expected, India reacted very negatively to the June 2, 2009 release of Prof. Hafeez Saeed. India accused the Western nations of being soft on Pakistan for India-related terrorism as the Pakistani Army was beginning to take some action against the Pakistani Taliban in FATA. Predictably, Pakistan reacted by saying that it was “best not to comment on a court decision”. In an editorial on this issue, the Daily Times questioned the sincerity with which the Pakistani State pursued the Hafeez Saeed case by saying "It is moot whether the state even intended to go through with the process without endangering the government . ." The editorial in DAWN was more explicit as it said, "It may have been a full bench of the Lahore High Court that ordered Saeed’s release, but the fact is the court was left with little option given the prosecution’s reliance on weak grounds. . . " implying that a weak case was deliberately presented by the State.

Pakistan was under pressure, as was India, to somehow re-start the stalled peace dialogue. The US Home Secretary, Ms. Hillary Clinton, embarking on a trip to India on the eve of the Sharm-el-Sheikh meeting stated that she expected some ‘movement’ from Pakistan on the Mumbai issue. A face saving development was desperately needed by both the countries. So, the federal and the Punjab governments went to the SC (Supreme Court) in appeal against the release of Prof. Hafeez Saeed and Col (r) Nazir Ahmed. The Punjab Government, through its PAG (Punjab Advocate General), contended that it had substantial evidence against them, “but it could not be made part of the case record because it was confidential.” However, the newly restored CJ (Chief Justice) Iftikhar Chaudhry wanted the State to present a more compelling reason than merely the UNSC resolution, thus betraying what was in store. It was no coincidence that simultaneously a judge was also appointed to the Anti Terrorism Court at the Adiala prison, Rawalpindi, after a gap of more than a month, to conduct the trial against the seven arrested suspects and thirteen other ‘proclaimed offenders’. Thus, Pakistan presented an appearance of simultaneous proceedings against Prof. Hafeez Saeed and the other LeT terrorists.

However, a day before the two Prime Ministers were to meet and after the two Foreign Secretaries had already met, and exactly a day after its own PAG assured the SC of confidential information, the Punjab Government withdrew from the proceedings in the court citing ‘lack of evidence’. Later, the Punjab Law Minister, Rana Sanaullah of PML-N, dropped a bombshell when he said that ‘confidential information’ was never shared by the federal government with the Punjab Government and so they could not proceed against Prof. Hafeez Saeed. The SC also noted a technical flaw as Prof. Hafeez Saeed was arrested under Section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance 1961 which was not mentioned in the detention order. Later, the AGP (Attorney General of Pakistan), representing the federal government, which had not dropped out of the case, contended that since the Punjab AG held all the files and since he had resigned from his position, they were unable to continue the case. The SC then adjourned the case indefinitely. Anyway, the Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh met at Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, as part of the NAM Summit Conference on the next day. And, Pakistan achieved what it wanted, make India talk and concede grounds.

Later, two FIRs (First Information Reports) were filed on September 16, 2009 by the police under 'Anti terrorism Act 1997' for Prof. Hafeez Saeed’s reported incitement to jihad against the infidels US, Israel and India in two speeches he gave on August 27 and 28, 2009 at Faisalabad. Obviously, these hastily filed cases were once again in view of the upcoming UNSC General Assembly meeting where Pakistan wanted the foreign secretaries of both countries to meet. Significantly, this was the first time that ‘Anti terrorism Law’ was invoked against Prof. Hafeez Saeed as earlier arrests were under the simpler ‘Maintenance of Public Order Act’. The cases were registered under Section 11 F (4) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, which clearly states that it applies to organisations that are proscribed under the Act. However, the Lahore High Court quashed them on October 12, 2009 as the court observed "Anti-terror law does not apply to Saeed and in the name of terrorism we cannot brutalize Law". The Punjab Assistant Advocate General admitted that JuD  was not declared as a terrorist organization either by the Federal or by the provincial Punjab Government and that its activities were merely 'restricted' based on the UNSC Resolution of December 2008 as JuD was only on the 'watch list' and not on the 'ban list' of the Government. In his judgement, therefore, the LHC Judge allowed JuD to organize congregations, carry on membership and collect funds without any let or hindrance.

But, the perfidy was that just two months earlier, on August 5, 2009 to be precise, interior minister Rehman Malik had categorically announced in the Pakistani National Assembly that JuD “was ‘banned’ following its designation under Security Council Resolution 1267.” Rehman Malik also announced that similarly Al-Akhtar and Al-Rashid trusts were ‘banned’. Later, it came to light that no ban notification was issued and Pakistan had simply ‘removed JuD’s name from the list of registered charities’ and had informed the UN that all necessary action had been taken. Again, such perfidy is understandable when Rehman Malik himself says that Pakistan could not do much as JuD was only running schools and hospitals. Within days of the UNSC ban, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in Paris that the JuD-run madrasseh and regular schools would not be shut down as “there was no evidence to suggest that the outfit was promoting extremism or violence there.” Reacting to this, the US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said, “ . . . these are too intertwined with organizations that have terrorist ties and that have just been designated here. And so we will be pressing all member-states to adhere completely and to the letter of the designations that the United Nations has taken.” Pakistan simply ignored such criticisms.

The Pakistani State itself has gone to extraordinary lengths to protect LeT. The efforts to place LeT on the UNSC declared list of terrorist groups was vetoed thrice by the Peoples' Republic of China. This could not have come about without a request from Pakistan to intervene on its behalf. When the State admitted before the Learned Judge of the LHC that JuD was not declared by Pakistan as a terrorist organization, it exposed the deep perfidy the state has played against the United Nations. This admission went directly against the promise Pakistan made on December 10, 2008, just a day prior to the UN Resolution on JuD, when it said it “will ban Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) the political arm of Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has been recruiting fidayeen killers like the captured terrorist Ajmal if the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) declared JuD a terrorist outfit.” Abdullah Hussain Haroon, Pakistan's permanent representative in the UN said further “After the designation of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD) under resolution 1267, the government on receiving communication from the Security Council shall proscribe the JuD and take other consequential actions, as required, including the freezing of assets,”. He gave an undertaking to the same effect to the world body the same day. Prime Minister Gilani assured Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte that Pakistan “would fulfill its international obligations” even as the Interior Minister revealed the wily Pakistani plan. He said that “Jamaat-ud-Dawa would be put under monitoring and its offices sealed if necessary”. That was exactly what happened. Pakistan never banned the organization and never proscribed it as the Additional Attorney general was forced to admit before the LHC.

Earlier too, Hafeez Saeed was handled ‘lightly’ by the State of Pakistan. On Dec. 13, 2001, a few weeks after the 9/11 incidents, the Indian Parliament was attacked in a fidayeen cum suicide attack jointly organized by LeT and JeM (Jaish-e-Mohammed). In response to that, India demanded the arrest of Prof. Hafeez Saeed and threatened to launch a war against Pakistan. Under US pressure and to avoid a war, Pakistan detained him on December 21, 2001 again under a simple house-arrest. Three months later, he was released on March 31, 2002. He was arrested again on May 15, and was placed under house arrest on October 31 of the same year, only to be released a short while later. The arrest was made as India launched Operation Parakram. This time sedition charges were slapped on him but the court once again found no evidence.

Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who preferred to call himself the CEO of Pakistan, proscribed the LeT on Jan 12, 2002 in a televised speech to the nation, but by a sleight of hand allowed an escape route for Prof. Hafeez Saeed by carefully omitting PoK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) and FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Agencies) from the list of territories where it was banned. In fact, a few days before this ban was to be announced, Prof. Hafeez Saeed had already declared that he was stepping down from the Emirship of the LeT and was moving the JuD to PoK. It later came to light that money had also been withdrawn from all LeT-owned bank accounts that were eventually 'frozen'. How did he know about the impending ban and more importantly how did he know that PoK was to be excluded ?

After the UNSC ban was announced in December 2008 and even as Prof. Hafeez Saeed was kept under house-arrest in his mansion in central Lahore area of Chaudburji, named Jamia Al Qudsia, named after the historic victory of the Ummayad Caliph against the Persians in circa 636, he was allowed to give a press conference. In this press conference, he lambasted the UNSC for taking a hasty decision against himself and his ‘charity’ organization of JuD without giving him a chance to present his side of the case. He likened the UNSC decision to an attack on Islam and Pakistan. The New York Times, in its issue dated Dec. 13, 2008 exposed how the house-arrest was a farce and Prof. Hafeez Saeed was almost free, meeting people and visiting the mosque.

JuD’s international jihadi ambitions have come to light on various occasions. The top Al Qaeda operative, Abu Zubaydah, was arrested from an LeT safehouse in Pakistan. JuD offered 'fateha' (prayers) for the terrorist, Abu Musa'b al Zarqawi, when he was killed in Iraq. UN documents, based on which the December 2008 ban of JuD was announced, provided other details about Prof. Hafeez Saeed directly overseeing the infiltration of LeT terrorists into Iraq and Saudi Arabia. He also arranged for sending an LeT operative to Europe for purposes of fund raising. Earlier the LeT had taken part in Bosnia in the 90s. LeT’s Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was the head of the Pakistani unit of ‘El Mujahid’, a unit that gained notoriety amongst the Serbs for its brutality. The US counter-terrorism experts have always expressed concern about LeT’s global footprint

On Jan 4, 2009, a few weeks after the UNSC ban of JuD, the Pakistani Information Minister, Ms. Sherry Rehman said it was the responsibility of the Punjab government to enforce the ban and thus washed the federal Government’s hands off it. It comes as no surprise either because the current Pakistani Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, in his article, ‘Ideologies of South Asian Jihadi Groups’ written in circa 2005, has the following to say, “The most significant jihadi group of Wahhabi persuasion is Lashkar-e-Taiba (The Army of the Pure) founded in 1989 by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed. Backed by Saudi money and protected by Pakistani intelligence services, Lashkar-e-Taiba became the military wing of Markaz al-Dawa wal-Irshad. . . .Pakistani authorities have been reluctant to move against either Lashkar, which continues to operate in Kashmir, or Jamaat-ul-Dawa, which operates freely in Pakistan. Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ul-Dawa scaled down their military operations against India to help Pakistan honor its commitments to the U.S. and India. But Saeed remains free and continues to expand membership of his organization despite divisions in its leadership.”

The proof of the close proximity between the Pakistani Army and Prof. Hafeez Saeed was openly and brazenly flaunted when the Rawalpindi Corps Commander of the X Corps, the Corps that is responsible for Kashmir, invited the UNSC-designated terrorist Prof. Hafeez Saeed for an iftaar dinner on September 12, 2009. When the Interpol issued a RCN (Red Corner Notice) against Prof. Hafeez Saeed in August 2009, the reaction of the Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, was revealing. He said, “even if a red corner notice had been issued against him, the government was not obliged to immediately arrest him. The country makes its own investigations against the person, and only then decides”. Apparently, Pakistan has never been able to make independent investigations and pin Prof. Hafeez Saeed down.

Prof. Hafeez Saeed enjoys close confidence of the politicians as well. When there was a bereavement in his family in August 2009, top notch politicians like ex-President Rafiq Tarar, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain (Chief of PML-Q), Mushahid Hussain (PML-Q Secretary)and Sheikh Rashid Ahmed condoled with him. They did this even after Prof. Hafeez Saeed had been declared a terrorist by UN Security Council and he was being implicated by India in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack as the mastermind and the Interpol had issued a Red Corner Notice.

Ambassador Hussain Haqqani’s description of Prof. Hafeez Saeed as being close to the State was not surprising either because he had been appointed to the CII (Council of Islamic Ideology), a Constitutional body of Pakistan that ensures that the laws framed in the country conform to the Islamic Shariat, by none other than the then President of Pakistan, Gen. Zia-ul-Haq himself. This enabled Prof. Hafeez Saeed to get closer to the Pakistani Army as well. He was later appointed as a Professor of Islamic studies in the University of Engineering and Technology (Lahore). Willie Brigitte, the Frenchman who was trained by LeT and sent for terrorism to Australia, has elaborately described the LeT camp where he underwent training. He has stated that LeT was “filled with soldiers from the Pakistani Army. There was complete complicity between LeT and the Pakistani Army. Furthermore, the weapons were provided by the army. There were American M16s, French FAMS, Kalashnikovs and Makarovs. All the identification numbers had been removed. The links between the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Pakistani Army are more than close. When the camp was resupplied, all the materiel was dropped off by Pakistani army helicopters.”.

In his very first trip to the US in February 2002, President Musharraf was asked, in a press meet, by the Pakistani journalist, Tahir Mirza of the DAWN, as to why he was not taking any action against the LeT and the JeM, at which an angry Gen. Musharraf shot back, “They are not doing anything in Pakistan. They are doing jihad outside.” In an interview to Newsweek magazine’s Lally Weymouth about a month after the Mumbai 26/11 attack, President Zardari admitted candidly the following when questioned about the links between the LeT and the ISI, “We are talking about an age-old situation. This is something [that happened] in the old days when dictators used to run the country. Maybe before 9/11, that may have been a position. [But] since then, things have changed to a great extent. The problem is that long before you came to office, Lashkar-e-Taiba was used in Kashmir by the Pakistani Army to fight India. That may have been the situation then, but things have changed.”

The kid-glove with which the Pakistani State has handled Prof. Hafeez Saeed is therefore very obvious from the foregoing. His repeated house-arrests, never to be taken to a jail, the farce with which such house-arrests were carried out, release every time within a few months, no serious intention of the Pakistani Government to pursue the case, the kind of questions raised by the Judges, the technical flaws and loopholes allowed by the State which appear to be clearly deliberate attempts to let him escape, the intervention through China to prevent the ban of LeT/JuD thrice, the decision not to ban JuD even after the UNSC resolution and even as Pakistan promised to do so, the obfuscation indulged in by the federal and provincial governments of Pakistan and its ministers, the proximity of Prof. Hafeez Saeed to the Pakistani Army etc. all point to a deep nexus between the State, the LeT and its front-end JuD as well as the Emir, Prof. Hafeez Saeed.

The latest perfidy comes from Thimpu where the Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani has the gall to tell Mr. Manmohan Singh that there are some ‘judicial difficulties’ in prosecuting Prof. Hafeez Saeed. The Pakistani mendacity, duplicity and perfidy about LeT and Prof. Hafeez Saeed thus continue.