Syed Saleem Shahzad (3 November 1970 – 30 May 2011) was a promising Pakistani investigative journalist who served as the Pakistan Bureau Chief of Asia Times Online. He was allegedly killed by Pakistan's ISI though ISI had denied the accusations.
'Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban' is a masterly written book on the history and strategies of Al-Qaeda, Taliban and other groups by Syed Shahzad. Unfortunately this is the last book of the writer.
Genesis of modern fundamentalism
Imam Ibn Tamiyyah (1263 – 1328)
He was the ideologue and the commander of the Muslim
resistance against the Mongols and their attempted imposition of Mongol law on
Muslim society. He aggressively practiced the principle of Takfeer to declare
those Muslims as non-Muslims who placed obstacles in the way of Islamic
resistance. He denounced Mongol rulers as heretic because they subscribed to
human made laws (Yassa code) rather than Islamic law or Sharia. He did not
accept the Mongol rulers as Muslims even after their conversion to Sunni Islam.
He denounced Sufism and Shiites as heretics. He denounced Mamluk rulers of
Egypt when they refused to fight against the Mongols.
His thoughts were later developed by MB ideologue Syed
Qutb and founder of Jamaat –e – Islami Syed Abdul Ala Maududi. These 20th
century ideologues extended the domain of Jahaliya to socialism, democracy and
secularism.
Maududi did not call for violence, he advocated
democracy as a vehicle for imposition of Islamic laws. Syed Qutb went one step further and called for
abandoning western ideas and ideals. Muslim Brotherhood after its purge in 1960s by Nasser
taken to electoral politics for its goals.
Mecca siege of 1979
The Grand Mosque seizure occurred during November and
December 1979 when extremist insurgents calling for the overthrow of the House
of Saud took over Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The rebels were about
400 to 500 in numbers. The rebels called themselves al-Ikhwan. The siege was led by Juhayman al-Otaybi. The insurgents
declared that the Mahdi (the "redeemer of Islam") had arrived in the
form of one of their leaders – Mohammed Abdullah al-Qahtani – and called on
Muslims to obey him. The seizure of Islam's holiest site, the taking of
hostages from among the worshipers, and the deaths of hundreds of militants,
security forces and hostages caught in crossfire in the ensuing battles for
control of the site, all shocked the Islamic world. The siege ended two weeks
after the takeover began and the mosque was cleared. This fueled the imagination
of the Muslim world. Juhayman al-Otaybi was executed in 1980. His seven letters
published in booklet format in 1978 became very popular in Arabic world. He
believed that corrupt Muslim leadership should be overthrown and Islam should
be practiced according to Quran and Sunnah. He believed in the advent of a
Mahdi. The seven letters were widely distributed in the Mujahideen camps.
1979 was a crucial year. Three events transformed and
radicalized Islamic world –
·
The siege of
Mecca (20th Nov to 4th Dec )
·
Iranian
revolution (Feb 1979)
·
Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan (Dec 1979)
Pakistan Dictator Zia ul Haq set up an International
Islamic University in Pakistan and invited radical preachers like Abdullah
Azzam. Youth from all over the Muslim world came to Pakistan to fight the
infidel Soviets. Afghanistan later became the training ground for extremists
groups like Chechens, Abu Sayyaf (Philippines), Uzbeks etc. Pakistan strategy
was to make Afghanistan as its strategic depth zone.
The Arab Jihadis in Afghanistan Mujahideen movement
against the Soviets in 1980s fell in two camps – Yemeni and Egyptian. The
Yemeni group was inspired by clerics in their home while Egyptian group was
politically and ideologically highly motivated. After the war many Yemeni
jihadis returned to their countries and many settled in Pakistan and
Afghanistan and married locally. In Al Qaeda literature the Yemeni group is
called ‘Dravesh’ (easy going). The Egyptians stayed on. The Egyptian group was related to Egyptian Islamic Jihad movement. The Egyptian Islamic Jihad movement was
led by Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri who took his inspiration from Islamic ideologue
Syed Qutb (executed in 1966) . This group was responsible for the assassination
of Anwar al-Sadat in 1981. This group was inspired from by the Muslim
Brotherhood. Their main focus was to ideologically motivate the people in
Islamic countries towards a Jihad.
Organizations
Al Qaeda
Al-Qaeda emerged from an organization named Maktab al-Khidmat which was founded in
1984 by Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama Bin Laden. MAK was
founded to raise funds and facilitate the movement of foreign Jihadis to fight
against Soviets in Afghanistan. Abdullah
Azzam was a Palestinian Islamic preacher who was a mentor of OBL and who
inspired OBL to join Afghan Jihad. He was assassinated in 1989 by a car bomb in
Peshawar. Azzam was succeeded by OBL who transformed the organization into
Al-Qaeda. The ideology of Al-Qaeda was decided by Egyptian camp’s ideology led
by Ayman al-Zawahiri. This ideology believes in Islam as the sole authority and
any deviation from it is considered heretic. This automatically casts any
Muslim majority state that has adopted a secular form of government as heretic,
and gives rise to the concept of Takfeer (the act of declaring a
non-practicing Muslim an apostate). Strategic alliances between Muslim
majority states and non-Muslim states which might operate against Muslims are
also denounced under Takfeer.
According to ‘End of Times battles’ mentioned in
Hadith, Prophet Mohammad had prophesied that the initial theatre of such battle
would be Khurasan. So Al-Qaeda chose Afghanistan to fulfill the prediction. It
also includes Ghazwa-e-Hind that
means battle for India. Once the Muslim armies have won the battle of Khurasan
and India they will march to Middle East to join forces with promised Mahdi and do battle against anti-Christ
and its western allies for the liberation of Palestine.
LeT (Lashkar e Taiba) – is one
of the largest and most active terrorist organizations in South Asia operating
mainly from Pakistan. It was founded in 1987 by Hafez Saeed, Abdullah Azzam and
Zafar Iqbal in Afghanistan, with funding from Osama Bin Laden. With its
headquarters based in Muridke, near Lahore in Punjab province of Pakistan, the
group operates several training camps in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Lashkar-e-Taiba has been accused by India of attacking
military and civilian targets in India, most notably the 2001 Indian Parliament
attack and the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Its stated objective is to introduce an
Islamic state in South Asia and to "liberate" Muslims residing in
Indian Kashmir.
Lashkar – e – Jhangvi (LJ) an underground banned anti-shiite militant
organization in Pakistan. It has killed many Shiite professors and clerics.
Harkat-ul Jihad-i-Islami
It came into existence with the help of Pakistani
military. It was the first Pakistani Jihadi organization and was formed in 1984.
It hailed from the Deobandi school of thought. Its aim was to fight Jihad in
Afghanistan and in India.
Raw Materials
The tribes that are dominant in Waziristan the Mehsuds and the Waziris and the trade oriented Dawar
tribe. The Mehsuds and Dawar were close to Pakistan military establishment but
they changed their allegiance to Taliban after Pakistan military offensive of
2003 and 2004. The Pakistani Taliban had destroyed the age old tribal
structures in this region and imposed Taliban style governance. Islamic states
of North and South Waziristan were declared in 2005. Pakistan Army struggled
hard to flush out terrorists from the Waziristan region.
Mullah Dadullah highlighted suicide as a legitimate
form of attack and taught Afghanis that how Iraqi resistance had used suicides
as its most effective weapon. It was difficult to persuade Afghan society to
use suicide as a strategy as suicide is considered sin in Islam.
Taliban appointed the veteran Jalaluddin Haqqani as
its commander at large for the spring offensive. Taliban occupied Helmand by
2006 and insurgency spread to entire Afghanistan. Pakistan made a deal with the
Waziristan tribal leaders and terrorists that Pakistan would not interfere in
this region so now the Taliban got a free hand in Afghanistan. US berated
Pakistan for this in 2007 alleging that Haqqani was close to Pakistan. Now US
realized in 2007 that Afghanistan and Pakistan are single theatre of war and
without fixing Pakistan the problem can not be fixed and it designated its
policy as Af-Pak policy in 2008. US decided to push for democracy in Pakistan
2007 onwards. US and UK brokered a deal between Bhutto and Musharraf and as a
result National Reconciliation Ordinance was promulgated in Oct 2007. It gave
immunity to senior political leaders and civil servants who were involved in
the corruption, terrorism, murder cases etc between 1986 and 1999.
Al Qaeda bombed various cities in Pakistan to prevent
joint US-Pak operations against it. The clerics of Lal Masjid in Islamabad
issues a decree in 2004 in which they called Pakistan operation of South
Waziristan as un-Islamic and about 500 clerics signed it. They also prohibited
prayers for the slain Pakistani soldiers in that operation. This demoralized
the rank and file of the Pakistan Army. By 2007 Lal Masjid had become an
Al-Qaeda powerhouse in Islamabad. Pakistan army conducted Lal Masjid operation in July 2007 and many militants were killed.
Musharraf government promulgated NRO in oct 2007.
Benajir Bhutto returned to Pakistan and conducted rallies across Pakistan. Al
Qaeda bombed one of her rallies in Karachi on 18th Oct 2007 in which
136 people were killed and about 500 injured. She escaped unhurt. Wherever she
went she spoke against the militants. She even spoke in support of Army
operation against Lal Masjid militants. Militants struck in Rawalpindi where
she was assassinated on 27th Dec 2007.
Al Qaeda formed the Tehreek –e – Taliban Pakistan
(TTP) in 2008 with Baitullah Mehsud as its chief and Mullah Omar as its chief
patron. Afghan Taliban did not want to fight the Pakistan and their aims were
limited to Afghanistan while Al Qaeda’s aims were broader, this caused a kind
of rift between the two thus Al Qaeda created TTP to fight the Pakistan.
TTP and Al Qaeda started attacking on NATO supply
lines through Khyber Pass staring January 2008. This was a master stroke. By
Dec 2008 the NATO supplied had come to grinding halt. AL Qaeda deployed TTP in
Swat valley and it unleashed a reign of terror there. By January TTP had
occupied 90% of the Swat and crippled the administration there. It enforced
Shariat law in Swat valley.
People and Strategy
Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri born in Mirpur in 1964. He was linked with Harkat –ul – Jihad – e – Islami (HUJI)
and its 313 Brigade. In 2000 he raided Indian Army position in Kashmir and
kidnapped an Indian Army officer, beheaded him and paraded his head in the
bazaars of Pakistan. In 2003 his 313 Brigade attacked Akhnoor cantonment and
killed senior officers (including Brigadiers and Colonels) of Indian Army.
Kashmiri suggested Al Qaeda leaders to broaden the conflict by bringing India
into the war, this will further destabilize the region. Al Qaeda approved the
plan to attack India. Kashmiri handed over the plan to a former Army Major Haroon Ashik, who was a former
LeT commander and close to Let chiefs Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Abu Hamza. This
was the genesis of 26/11 attack on Mumbai. The Indian response would prevent
Pakistan from taking actions against Taliban and Al Qaeda as it had to divert
resources to Indian border. Lakhvi spent two months in preparation of 26/11
attacks. The attacks stunned the world. Baitullah Mehsud pledged his allegiance
to Pakistan Army in war against India. Major Abdul Rahman also played a role,
he visited India multiple times for the Reconissance. The next plan was to kill senior Indian
military officers at National Defense College but the plan was leaked to FBI
and the team including Rahman was arrested. David Headley also played a key
role. In March 2009, a bus carrying SRL cricket team was attacked in Lahore.
Major Haroon Ashik imparted modern guerilla tactics to
the cadres of Al Qaeda and Taliban. This drastically improved the success rate
of Taliban attacks. He also improved attacks on NATO supplies. This crippled
NATO supplies as about 70% of its supplies moved through Khyber.
Osama Bin Laden was born in a highly influential Saudi
business family. He fought against the soviets in Afghanistan and turned
against the Saudi royals when they allowed US to use holy land of Arabia in
gulf war. Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri indoctrinated OBL with the idea of armed
opposition to US in 1997. US embassies in Tanzania (Dar-es-Salaam) and Kenya
(Nairobi) were attacked in 1998. US launched cruise missile attacks on Kandhar
and Khost in Afghanistan.
Sirajuddin Haqqani is the son of legendary Jalaluddin
Haqqani (born in Paktia province in Afghanistan) and is the most fearsome
Afghan Taliban commander fighting the NATO troops in Afghanistan. Haqqani
network derives its strength from Punjabi fighters. Sirjauddin Haqqani is very
close to Al Qaeda, Jalaluddin being bed ridden, Sirjauddin has become defacto
head. Jalaluddin maintained distance with Al Qaeda but his son is different.
Jalaluddin Haqqani was the first Mujahideen leader to accept Taliban when
Taliban rose in 1995.
Sheikh Essa was an Egyptian ideologue who played a key role in
using the concept of Takfeer in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was involved in
conspiracy to kill Anwar Al Sadat and was related to Al Qaeda. He radicalized Waziristan.
He denounced democratic form of government and called Pakistan as darul harb.
He influenced the cleric (Maulana Abdul Aziz) of Lal Masjid to issue a fatwa in
2004 prohibiting a Muslim burial to Pakistani soldiers killed in Waziristan
operations. Under pressure many soldiers resigned from Pakistani army. This
situation forced the Army to strike a deal with militants. There are about 13,500 Islamic seminaries adhering to
the Deobandi school of thought in Pakistan. These seminaries house about 1.8
million regular students.
The US government changed its policies starting 2008
and coined the term Af-Pak denoting it as a single theatre of war. It started
drone strikes killing scores of militants and their top leadership. The war against terrorism is still in stalemate with both sides claiming victories.
Highly Recommended (8/10)
