Pakistan takes steps to curb sectarian violence

By Zia Ur Rehman

November 19, 2011

http://centralasiaonline.com/en_GB/articles/caii/features/pakistan/main/2012/11/19/feature-01

KARACHI – City law enforcement agencies have arrested several suspects accused of belonging to banned militant outfits.

Outlawed sectarian outfits, especially Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and Sipah-e-Muhammad Pakistan (SMP), have become active in the walk-up to Muharram in Pakistan’s commercial capital, targeting religious sects they despise, senior police officials and security analysts say.

Sindh Security measures for Muharram : 

Security analysts fear a surge in sectarian violence in Karachi during Muharram, which began November 16, and the Sindh provincial government has taken strict steps to avert any incidents during the holy days.

Karachi Police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers November 13 present hooded suspects accused of belonging to the banned Laskhar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) at CID Gardan headquarters. With sectarian violence escalating throughout Karachi, law enforcement agencies have arrested several suspects they linked to banned militant outfits. [Zia Ur Rehman]

The Sindh government declared Karachi, Hyderabad and Khairpur the province’s most sensitive cities during Muharram and police and Rangers are working to keep the law-and-order situation under control, Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah said November 13.

Sindh Police Chief Fayyaz Leghari directed police officers to step up security at airports, railway stations, consulate offices and residences, important installations, government and semi-government buildings, mosques, imambargahs and public places during Muharram, a November 14 statement from Sindh police headquarters said.

The provincial government has banned 50 religious leaders and orators from entering some of Karachi’s districts during Muharram and has ordered these individuals to skip all religious gatherings and to give no speeches during this period.

Because motorcycle-riding gunmen carried out most of the Karachi killings, the Home Department November 10 also banned pillion-riding (shared motorcycle riding) in Karachi, Hyderabad and Khairpur during the first 10 days of Muharram.

Other provinces follow suits  ; 

Meanwhile, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) police have declared Peshawar, Hangu and Dera Ismail Khan the most sensitive districts in their province. Tank, Bannu, Kohat and Mansehra are also areas of concern during Muharram. KP officials are conducting aerial surveillance during Muharram to ensure timely action in an emergency, Dawn reported November 15, citing a spokesperson of KP Police.

Authorities there have prohibited brandishing and carrying weapons, pillion riding and the use of loudspeakers to broadcast inflammatory pronouncements.

In Peshawar alone, 10,343 security forces personnel will be deployed for Muharram.

Similarly, Punjab police have finalised a security plan for Muharram and law enforcement agencies have started the search and scanning operation in these areas and on the routes of the Muharram procession with the help of modern scanners, sniffer dogs and human intelligence, the Daily Times reported, citing police officials.

More than 20,000 policemen and officers will protect against any untoward incidents in Lahore, the report added.

Sectarian violence in Karachi ; 

At least 54 sectarian murders occurred in the first 10 months of 2012 in Karachi, said Taranum Khan, an officer at the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), which compiles data on killings in Karachi, adding that the victims included members of the Deobandi and Shia sects.

But sectarian violence flared up in November, with at least 40 gun homicides reported in Karachi in the first two weeks of November, media reported Khan as saying.

Students and teachers of religious seminaries, activists and sympathisers of religious sects, and professionals were key targets in a recent wave of tit-for-tat killings on sectarian grounds, said Muhammad Raees, a security analyst who monitors religious militancy extensively.

Banned sectarian outfits have become active: 

Outlawed sectarian outfits including LeJ, Jundullah and SMP have become active in the city, fuelling sectarian violence in Karachi, Aslam told Central Asia Online, explaining that LeJ and Jundullah are collaborating with al-Qaeda and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, while SMP is a banned Shia militant outfit.

These groups are taking advantage of the existing ethnic and political violence to kill each other’s workers and sympathisers, Aslam said.

Officially, LeJ was formed in 1996 when three die-hard Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) supporters – Malik Ishaq, Riaz Basra and Akram Lahori – developed differences with SSP on that group’s mission, Raees said, while SMP has been linked to a number of killings and reportedly maintains close links with a neighbouring Shia regime.

Key LeJ suspects arrested : 

Police in Karachi November 13 arrested four men accused of belonging to LeJ and of planning a wave of sectarian attacks in the city, said Aslam.

“The four arrested – who were identified as Asif Hussain alias Hakla, Yasin alias Yawer, Hafiz Mohammad Mubarak alias Omar and Hazrat Ali alias Murtaza – had targeted about 15 people on a sectarian basis in Qasba Colony, Orangi Town, Manghopir, Old Golimar, Taimuria and other parts of the city,” Aslam said, adding that they were planning to carry out a bombing before Muharram to create sectarian tensions in the metropolis.

LeJ reportedly has two factions operating in the city. The faction’s nationwide commanders are Asif Choto and Naeem Bukhari.

The CID on October 5 arrested Mahmood Babar alias Durki Shah, chief of the Choto faction’s Karachi operation, and on October 17 arrested Hafiz Qasim Rasheed alias Ganja, chief of the Bukhari faction’s Sindh operation, Aslam said.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi behind Hazara killings in Quetta

By Zia Ur Rehman

The Friday Times, August 05-11, 2011

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta2/tft/article.php?issue=20110805&page=8

Sectarian groups continue to target the Persian-speaking Shia community, which is not sure if the state wants to protect it

Eleven people, including a woman, were killed on July 30 when gunmen opened fire on a passenger vehicle near Pishin bus stop in Quetta. All the victims were Hazaras. The incident sparked violent protests and Quetta was completely shut down on July 31.

This is not the first such attack on members of the Shia Persian-speaking Hazara community. On July 10, two Hazara policemen were shot and killed on Qambrani Road. On June 22, two people were killed and 11 others injured in Hazar Ganji area when armed men ambushed a bus carrying pilgrims to Iran.

Syed Abrar Hussain Shah, a former Olympian, deputy director of Pakistan Sports Board, and recipient of the prestigious presidential Pride of Performance and Sitara-e-Imtiaz medals, was gunned down on June 16 near Nawab Nauroz Khan Stadium in Quetta. Shah, who belonged to the Hazara community, has represented Pakistan in the Olympics thrice and won a gold medal at the 1990 Asian Games in Beijing.

In another sectarian attack near Mirgahi Khan Chowk on May 18, unidentified men shot dead seven members of the Hazara community, including a baby, and injured five others. Most of the killed were vegetable vendors.

Seven Hazara men were killed and several injured in a rocket and gun attack in Hazara Town on May 6. There were Frontier Constabulary and Police checkposts nearby, but the attackers fled.

Over 200 Shia Hazaras have been killed in Balochistan in the last three years, according to elders of Hazara tribe and media sources. They include businessmen, political leaders, government employees, clerics, police cadets, vegetable vendors, and daily-wage workers. Hazaras are identifiable because of their Mongoloid features.

A large number of Hazaras have also been killed in attacks on religious processions. Last year, over 80 Shias, most of them Hazaras, were killed in a bombing on a Shia procession on September 3.

“Members of our community have been targeted persistently for the last 10 years by sectarian outfits, especially the banned militant organisations Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP),” said Abdul Khaliq, chairman of Hazara Democratic Party.

LeJ has accepted responsibility of most of these attacks. A spokesman for the LeJ in Balochistan, who ironically identifies himself as Ali Sher Haidri, said his group would avenge the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by targeting not only government officials and security forces, but also Hazara Shias.

Handbills distributed in Quetta recently have warned the Hazaras of a “jihad” similar to the one carried out against the Hazaras of Afghanistan by the Taliban.

The 3.5 million Hazaras in Balochistan are said to have migrated to Quetta from Afghanistan a century ago. In the 1990s, the Taliban massacred the community – the third largest in the country – killing thousands in Bamyan, Ghazni and parts of Uruzgan that later became the Daykundi province. They had accused the Hazaras of collaborating with the Afghan Northern Alliance (ANA) fighting the Taliban regime in Kabul. According to an Amnesty International report, about 12,000 Hazaras were killed in central Afghanistan by the Taliban.

“Hundreds of Pakistani young men from militant organisations including the SSP, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Jundullah and Harkatul Mujahideen fought with the Taliban against the ANA,” said an expert on militancy who teaches at Balochistan University. “The same men are now killing the Hazaras in Balochistan.” He said the Al Qaeda and Taliban-linked groups accuse the community of colluding with the Americans and causing the downfall of the Taliban. Quetta is reportedly the new hub of the defeated Taliban factions, and has become a major site of expression of the hatred towards the Hazaras.

The LeJ network in Quetta is being run by Usman Saifullah Kurd, Dawood Badini and Shafiqur Rind, a senior police official said. Kurd, who heads the LeJ in Balochistan, has trained a new group of killers who are carrying out attacks on the Hazaras, he said. Rind was arrested in 2003 from Mastung area of Balochistan while Kurd was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Unit in Karachi on June 22, 2006. Both fled from the Anti-Terrorist Force jail in Quetta on January 18, 2008. Rind was rearrested, but Kurd is still at large.

A source in the SSP said Kurd had recently met Malik Ishaq, a founding member of the LeJ, in Rahim Yar Khan and invited him to visit Quetta to address the banned SSP’s public meetings.

Ishaq, accused of having masterminded the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in 2009 from behind the bars, was recently released by the Supreme Court after 14 years in prison.

The Hazara community had expressed concerns over his release. “The courts are releasing top leaders of banned organisations, and that shows these groups are getting stronger once again,” said a Hazara religious scholar.

According to the Hazara Democratic Party chairman, Kurd’s escape from jail was proof that these groups have inside support. He said the government claims to have arrested the attackers in all the cases, but they are never brought before the court or the public.

“The government has failed to tackle sectarian violence and protect the Hazara community,” Khailq said, whose predecessor Hussain Ali Yousafi was also killed for being a Hazara in 2009.

Hazara elders believe intelligence agencies know about the activities of banned outfits and the whereabouts of their leaders, who simply operate under new names. They believe the state is either indifferent or supporting them.

The writer is a journalist and a researcher who works on militancy and human rights. He can be contacted at zia_red@hotmail.com 

Targeted killings

 

03 August, 2011

By Zia Ur Rehman

http://www.himalmag.com/component/content/article/4597-targeted-killings.html

The rise in sectarian violence in Balochistan is forcing its Persian-speaking Shia community to flee to safer places in the country. 

After a brief pause, sectarian violence is once again on the rise in Quetta, the capital city of Balochistan province in Pakistan. In the last few months, at least 41 people, all belonging to the Hazara minority which follows the Shia sect of Islam, have been killed in separate targeted attacks.

A few days ago, 14 Hazaras were gunned to death in the city in two separate attacks. In mid-July, two Hazara government officials had been shot dead by unknown assailants, while a month before that Director of Pakistan Sports Board, Syed Abrar Hussain Shah, a three-time Olympics representative from Pakistan, had been similarly murdered. The month of June saw two dead and 11 others injured when a group of armed men ambushed a bus carrying Hazara pilgrims to Iran. In May, 14 Hazaras, including a little baby, were killed in two separate attacks, one of which was a well-coordinated rocket attack. An independent news source states that over 200 Shias have been killed in Balochistan in the last three years.

The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), a banned sectarian organisation, allegedly linked with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), al-Qaeda and other Afghan Taliban groups, has claimed the responsibility for these killings. After the death of the al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, the LeJ vowed to avenge his killing by targeting not only Pakistan’s government officials and security forces but also its Hazara community. Recently, threatening letters have been widely distributed in Quetta, warning the Hazaras to prepare for more fatal attacks, which the LeJ calls a jihad similar to the one carried out against Hazaras in Afghanistan during the Taliban’s rule.

The Hazaras in Afghanistan, the third-largest ethnic group in the country, were heavily oppressed during the Taliban regime. Massacres in large numbers were carried out in the provinces of Bamiyan, Ghazni and Balkh, as the Taliban suspected that the Hazaras collaborated with the Afghan Northern Alliance, an organisation fighting the Taliban regime at the time. Experts on militancy issues believe that the Taliban had help in the killings from the LeJ and its mother organisation, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP).

Hazaras in Balochistan, however, had been left alone at the time, with the onset of targeted killings seen only after the Taliban were ousted from power. When the Taliban rule collapsed, so did the al-Qaeda-linked Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and other jihadi groups, the blame for which was placed on the Pakistani Hazaras for allegedly colluding with the Americans and aiding in their ultimate downfall. As the city became a major hub for the defeated Taliban groups, it also provided a new vent for the expression of the Taliban hatred towards the Hazaras.

‘Apart from being ideological opposites,’ says Abdul Khaliq, head of the Hazara Democratic Party (HDP), ‘the Taliban have historic bitterness against the Hazaras, killing, according to an Amnesty International report, some 12,000 Hazaras in central Afghanistan.’ This bitterness, coupled with mere conjectures on the Hazaras’ collusion with the American and NATO forces, he adds, is now leading the Pakistani militants groups, especially the LeJ, to murder the Hazaras in Quetta.

Poor government response 
The LeJ is regarded as Pakistan’s fiercest Sunni extremist outfit and is accused of killing hundreds of Shias since its emergence in 1996. Usman Saifullah Kurd and Dawood Badini are believed to be heading the LeJ network in Quetta. Both of them had been apprehended by the Karachi police (Kurd in 2002 and Badini in 2004) and subsequently handed over to the Balochistan police. However, in 2008, they managed to escape from the Anti-Terrorist Forces headquarters at the Quetta cantonment. Apart from their involvement in suicide attacks on Shia religious processions, mosques and on Shia imams, the two are accused of killing dozens of professionals, police cadets and political activists, a majority of whom belonged to the Hazara community.

‘The Hazaras have been at the receiving end of violence for almost a decade now,’ says Amjad Hussain, a senior journalist, ‘but, not surprisingly, their plight remains largely unknown. And the culprits remain at large, and are encouraged by either the state’s participation or its indifference.’Abdul Khaliq agrees, saying that the increase in militancy in Balochistan is not solely the result of social unrest but also a clear indication of bad governance. ‘The LeJ claims the killings of Hazaras, and the government claims to have arrested the suspects, but the alleged attackers are never brought before the public or any court of law,’ he says. In 2009, HDP’s then-chairman Hussain Ali Yousafi was assassinated and the killers are yet to be identified.

The government’s failure at tackling the militants involved in sectarian violence has forced the Hazara community members to leave Quetta city for safer places like Karachi and Islamabad. Apart from threatening letters issued by the LeJ, which order them to leave Quetta city by 2012, the Hazaras have been the subject ofvitriolic speeches against Shias by religious clerics belonging to banned militants’ outfits. The intelligence agencies are believed to be aware about the whereabouts of all militant outfits including the LeJ, and yet the banned outfits publicly operate under new names. It is also believed that members of the Afghan Taliban leadership council are based in Quetta and/or in the neighbouring areas, but the Pakistani government continues to deny such reports.

Despite a long history of sectarian killings in Balochistan, especially in Quetta, the government has failed to bring the perpetrators to justice. Whatever the ultimate motive is, and whatever the politics involved, fanning such sectarian violence in Balochistan is destroying the centuries-long ethnic harmony. The recent killings only further widened the gulf between the Sunnis and Shias, pitting the Shia Hazaras against the local Pashtuns and other Baloch ethnic communities. While the government and its law enforcement agencies might not condone such attacks, their inefficacy in prosecuting the guilty displays a sense of lack of urgency in defeating the terrorist outfits. And this only serves these organisations’ objective of converting progressive and liberal Balochistan into a religious and Talibanised province.

~ Zia Ur Rehman is a freelance journalist and researcher based in Karachi.

LeJ blamed for killing Hazaras in Quetta

By Zia Ur Rehman
For CentralAsiaOnline.com
2011-07-19

QUETTA – Targeted killings are driving Hazaras, a Shia ethnic minority, to leave Quetta for safer areas.

About 25 Hazaras have been killed in three different attacks in Quetta over the past two months, Amjad Hussain, a senior journalist, told Central Asia Online. Some 300,000 Hazaras live in Quetta. Most recently, Hazara police officers Aashiq Hussain and Amjad Ali were killed July 10.

“]

Hazara Democratic Party activists outside the Quetta Press Club May 18 protest the slayings of Hazara Shia community members. About 25 Hazaras have been killed in three different attacks in Quetta in the past two months. [Zia Ur Rehman

Hazara athlete Syed Abrar Hussain Shah, a former Olympic boxer and deputy director general of the Pakistan Sports Board, was gunned down in Quetta June 16. Shah represented Pakistan three times at the Olympics and won a gold medal at the 1990 Asian Games in Beijing, Hussain said.

In another sectarian outburst May 18, unidentified men shot and killed seven members of the Hazara community, including a baby, and critically wounded five others in Mirgahi Khan Chowk, Quetta.

Similarly on May 6, a rocket barrage killed seven Hazara men and injured several others in Hazara Town.

LeJ is blamed

Government officials and locals blame al-Qaeda linked Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and other militant groups for trying to fan sectarian violence in the city.

“The nature of the killings of Hazaras in Quetta is sectarian, not ethnic, and it seems the LeJ-linked militants are involved in these killings,” said Quetta police official Ameer Muhammad Dashti said, adding that law enforcement agencies have arrested many suspects. Investigations are under way to unearth the real motive, he said.

The LeJ has taken responsibility for the attacks cited above as well as others.

The LeJ’s spokesman in Balochistan, who identified himself as Ali Sher Haidri, threatened to avenge the May 2 killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by targeting not only government ministers and security personnel but also Hazara Shias, media reported.

Recently, threatening letters have circulated in Hazara areas in Quetta, warning residents to prepare for more violence. Such letters have promised to continue a so-called holy war against the Shia Hazaras, much like that carried out by the Afghan Taliban against that country’s Hazara minority.

Usman Saifullah Kurd and Shafiqur Rehman Rind lead the LeJ network in Quetta, said Iqtidar Ali, a Hazara political analyst. Police arrested Rind in 2003 and Kurd in June 2006. Both escaped from a Quetta jail in January 2008. Rind was recaptured in July 2008, but Kurd remains at large.

Oppression during Taliban rule

In Afghanistan, the Taliban regime oppressed Hazaras in Bamiyan and Ghazni provinces and parts of Uruzgan that later became Daykundi Province, Ali told Central Asia Online.

The LeJ and other banned sectarian outfits – especially Jundullah and Jaish-e-Muhammad – are linked with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban and are involved in killings of Hazara Shias, he added.

Terrorists have targeted the Hazara community for years and have assassinated its leaders, Abdul Khaliq, head of the Hazara Democratic Party (HDP), told Central Asia Online, adding that such incidents were desperate attempts to destroy the peace of Balochistan and instigate sectarian riots. One high-profile assassination was that of Hussain Ali Yousafi, then chairman of the HDP, in Quetta in January 2009.

“Our people happen to be an easier target … because of our distinct Mongolian features,” Khaliq said.

The recent killings are meant to widen the gulf between the Sunni and Shia sects, as well as between the Hazaras on one side and the local Pashtuns and Baloch on the other, said Syed Nasir Ali Shah, a Quetta member of the National Assembly. The terrorists want to convert progressive and liberal Balochistan into a “religious and Talibanised” province, he said.

Some Hazaras said that the LeJ has given them until 2012 to leave the area and have warned of more violence. The threat has caused many of them to leave Quetta for safer places in Pakistan such as Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore and elsewhere.

“We were compelled to leave for Karachi after several family members were attacked by the LeJ terrorists in past few years,” said one man who reached Karachi recently on condition of anonymity to protect his family. “We had only two options: choose our lives or our native town of Quetta.”

End

Karachi militants split into smaller groups

By Zia Ur Rehman
For CentralAsiaOnline.com
2011-06-24

KARACHI – Security officials have made progress against extremists, forcing such groups as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and al-Qaeda to splinter into smaller cells, an indication that their network is shattered, analysts and police say.

“]

Policemen search vehicles along a road in Karachi May 2. Security forces have forced militant groups in Karachi to split into small, more obscure groups, police say. [REUTERS/Athar Hussain

Having the factions split up is an end result that has been partially achieved by such things as the deaths of extremist leaders and the cultivation of informants among the public.

“The killing of Osama bin Laden, Baitullah Mehsud and other key leaders is the main factor shattering the TTP network across the country,” Brig. Shaukat Qadir, a security analyst, told Central Asia Online. Bin Laden’s May 2 death in Abbottabad was, at the time, predicted to be a test for the militant network.

Different militant outfits collaborating with the TTP and al-Qaeda are splitting up because al-Qaeda funding has dried up, Qadir said.

“This is indeed a success of security forces against the TTP, as a large number of TTP hardcore militants as well as some al-Qaeda operatives have been apprehended in Karachi,” he said.

Hundreds of suspects caught

Police have also been working to get information from citizens.

“We have developed a strong network of … informers in militant groups that help us track down the militant outfits,” Chaudry Aslam, senior superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Sindh Police, told Central Asia Online.

That has helped with the fight.

“In 2010, we arrested 163 members of the TTP while more than 200 have been arrested from the beginning of this year,” Aslam said.

Law enforcement has hindered the activities of the Karachi TTP network by arresting three consecutive alleged amirs, or TTP heads, and dozens of members, Ikram Mehsud, a TTP leader in Karachi, admitted.

The suspected Karachi TTP chiefs whom police nabbed were Akhter Zaman Mehsud, Bahadur Khan Momand (aka Sadiq) and Maulvi Saeed Anwar, he said.

Such arrests have been “a blessing for the people” as they will slow terrorist activities in Karachi until newly appointed leaders can rebuild the network, Aslam said.

Many small terror cells discovered

But a new challenge has emerged. Every month, law enforcement agencies are uncovering new and little-known militant organisations, said Ahmed Wali, a Karachi-based senior journalist who covers militancy-related issues.

“We have developed a strong network of … informers in militant groups that help us track down the militant outfits,” Chaudry Aslam, senior superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Sindh Police, told Central Asia Online.

Such groups include Jundullah, the Badar Mansoor group, Kharooj, the Al-Mukhtar group, Punjabi Mujahidin, Al-Furqan, Laskhar-e-Balochistan and Al-Qataal – all discovered within the past year, Wali said. Splinter groups typically arise in one of two ways.

“First, when some leaders form their own outfit, abandoning their jihadi group and forming direct links with the TTP and al-Qaeda,” said Muhammad Amir Rana, director of the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies.

Second, forming a new and little-known operational cell comprising a few members who are responsible for carrying out activities in a specific geographic location,” he said, adding that this method allows the militants to dodge security officials longer.

Karachi police discovered the Badar Mansoor faction of the TTP May 12. It allegedly consists of students from Karachi academic institutions, including the University of Karachi. Four of its alleged members were planning to attack government installations and intelligence agency offices, Karachi Police Chief Saud Mirza said May 13.

The same group, operating under the name of Punjabi Mujahideen in Karachi’s colleges, was also involved in the December 28 bombing at the University of Karachi that injured four students, he added.

Karachi police discovered the Al-Mukhtar group by arresting one of its suspected key leaders in a raid April 26. Police accuse the Omar Baloch-led group of involvement in bombing a gambling den April 21. They have since learned it is a splinter group of Laskhar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) whose militants trained in South Waziristan, Fayyaz Khan, a senior CID official, told Central Asia Online.

Sindh Police’s Special Investigation Unit (SIU) also arrested Abdul Qadir Kalmati (aka Rocket) April 4. They accuse of him belonging to Lashkar-e-Balochistan (LeB), a Baloch separatist group involved in attacking police stations and security installations. Kalmati has admitted under questioning that LeB is working with the TTP, said Raja Omar Khitab, the SIU’s senior superintendent of police.

Kharooj is another new and little-known militant organisation operating in Karachi that has been recruiting the young, especially students of academic institutions, the Daily Express reported May 11. The group’s leaders are hardcore militants who separated from the TTP and the LeJ after feuding with their leadership, the report added.

Dispersion may help militants

Jundullah, the Asian Tigers, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al-Alami, Jundul Hafsa and the Punjabi Taliban are the main groups that split off from the LeJ and are carrying out its subversive activities from Karachi to Waziristan, a report published last November in the Express Tribune stated.

The article stated that the LeJ is the biggest group operating in Karachi and that of 246 suspected terrorists arrested in the city since 2001, 94 belonged to the LeJ, according to a secret CID report.

However, some say breaking up and scattering the militants may improve their chances of survival.

The small cell strategy makes each cell responsible for carrying out activities in a specific geographic location, said Rana.

“And the main purpose is to divert the attention of security officers,” he said. Indeed, because so few people are in the cells and they are so scattered, their existence comes to light only “when law enforcement agencies arrest their members.”

Militancy grows in South Punjab

By Zia Ur Rehman
For CentralAsiaOnline.com
2011-06-10

MULTAN – The militancy is rapidly growing in South Punjab, where banned militant outfits – with the collaboration of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and al-Qaeda – are carrying out subversion and recruiting, local civil society activists and analysts say.

“]

Mourners carry the body of a suicide bombing victim into a graveyard in Dera Ghazi Khan, Punjab, April 4. Two suicide bombers blew themselves up in quick succession at a Sufi shrine in eastern Pakistan April 3, killing 50 people and wounding more then 100, police said. [REUTERS/Sheikh Asif Raza

After tracing calls from a terrorist cell phone recovered during the May 22-23 battle for Pakistan Naval Station (PNS) Mehran, security forces May 27 arrested suspect Qari Qaiser, Dawn reported. He reportedly belongs to a banned jihadist organisation and runs a madrassa in Dera Ghazi Khan.

Four days later, authorities arrested five alleged militants in Dera Ghazi Khan, including Muhammad Akram (alias Usman), whom they suspect of involvement in the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore March 3, 2009, media reported.

The April 3 Sakhi Sarwar shrine twin suicide attacks in Dera Ghazi Khan, which killed 49 worshippers and wounded hundreds, were the latest and most shocking example of the militant groups’ joint campaign.

Five major militant organisations, the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Harkatul Jihadul Islami (HJI) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), are all comfortably established in South Punjab and working with the TTP and al-Qaeda, said Amir Hussaini, an analyst with extensive experience studying militancy issues in South Punjab.

Militants most powerful in Dera Ghazi Khan

South Punjab’s four divisions – Dera Ghazi Khan, Multan, Bahawalpur and Gojranwala – are under the influence of the banned militant organisations, which have gained considerable strength in Dera Ghazi Khan, which is a gateway to Pakistan’s tribal areas and to the heart of Punjab, Hussaini told Central Asia Online.

Militancy has spread through the region, he said, because of the efforts of activists from banned organisations who never gave up fighting in Kashmir and Afghanistan and now have forged links with the TTP and al-Qaeda, while recruiting youth for them.

“There is a great tendency for young men from South Punjab to join jihadi organisations, and thousands of members of these jihadi organisations who have gone through training camps are either active in tribal areas or South Punjab,” he added.

Veteran jihadists in South Punjab help the militants and implement terror plans mainly conceived and funded by al-Qaeda operatives, Hussaini argued, citing two men – Dr. Usman Ghani, the alleged mastermind of the March 8 Faisalabad suicide attack, and Asmatullah Muawia, deputy to TTP central leader Qari Hussain Mehsud in South Waziristan. Both come from Kabirwala, a town in Multan Division. Ghani runs a splinter group of LeJ in South Punjab, while Muawia is a master trainer of suicide bombers, Hussaini said.

Qaiser, an alleged colleague of Ghani’s, was arrested after the March 8 Faisalabad attack but then went free under mysterious circumstances, Hussaini said.

At the time, the police had released him after questioning, while promising to keep him under surveillance, media reported.

The jihadist groups are notorious not only for attacking members of other sects and religions – Sufis, Shias, Ahmadis and Christians – but also for targeting government officials and security installations.

Ominous graffiti

Mysterious graffiti in support of al-Qaeda, the TTP and jihadi militant organisations and attacks on the Sakhi Sarwar shrines, have appeared on various walls in Dera Ghazi Khan, Muhammad Hussain, a local senior journalist, told Central Asia Online.

A government ban on jihadist organisations merely led them to operate under different names. SSP began operating under the names of Millat-e-Islamia and Ahle-e-Sunnat Wal Jammat, JeM as Al-Furqan and Khuddamul Islam, and LeT as Jammatud Dawa and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation.

These jihadi groups forcibly occupied 62 Sufi mosques in 2010 in South Punjab, said Mujahdi Hussain, author of a book entitled “Punjabi Taliban.”

South Punjab-based militant groups are a crucial source of logistical support for Taliban fighters based in the tribal areas who stage terrorist activities within Punjab, Hussain wrote recently for Karachi’s Daily Aaj Kal newspaper.

The government has banned 29 jihadist organisations so far, including 7 to 11 founded in South Punjab, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said.

The government has defeated the terrorists in Swat and the tribal areas, but now the defeated elements have started launching attacks with the help of banned militants, he added.

South Punjab terrorists team up with radical mosques and madrassas that indoctrinate youth to wage so-called jihad in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hussaini said.

According to a Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies report, of the 12,000 registered seminaries in Punjab, more than 7,000 are in three of South Punjab’s divisions: Dera Ghazi Khan, Multan and Bahawalpur. Most of them are linked to banned militant organisations.

The main reason for the emergence of a militant mind-set is the explosive growth of religious seminaries in the region, said Arshad Jatoi, a college teacher in Bahawalpur.

“Lack of awareness and resources coupled with the absence of proper educational infrastructure in the region has compelled parents to send their children to these madrassas, where the children after being brainwashed are used as cannon fodder … in order to establish a new state based on an irrational and distorted view of Islam,” he told Central Asia Online.

Inattention to South Punjab

“Everyone has been so focused on tribal areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) that they failed to notice the increase in madrassas in South Punjab,” he said.

Such banned groups also circulate hate literature in order to shut off students’ thought processes, he said, adding that media have reported more than 10,000 South Punjab youth are fighting as militants in tribal areas and in Afghanistan.

The district administration has taken notice of the graffiti, which is illegal, and has ordered its immediate removal, said Tahir Khurshid, commissioner of Dera Ghazi Khan Division.

Authorities arrested Adnan Khosa, the key suspect in the Sakhi Sarwar attacks, in a Dera Ghazi Khan suburb May 28, Khurshid said, adding the arrest came after the government announced an Rs. 1m (US $11,700) reward for Khosa’s capture.

Authorities will not tolerate militant graffiti and have ordered an investigation, Khurshid said, adding that police have instructions to wash away graffiti and open cases against the culprits.

Al-Qaeda behind PNS attack, News reports

By Zia Ur Rehman and Qasim Yousafzai
For CentralAsiaOnline.com
2011-05-25

KARACHI – Al-Qaeda’s Waziristan-based interim chief, Saif Al Adal, masterminded the May 22-23 Mehran naval base attack in Karachi, while chief al-Qaeda strategist Ilyas Kashmiri – with support from elements of the Pakistani Taliban – put final touches on its operational planning, the News International reported May 25.

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Rescue workers and journalists take cover outside Mehran naval aviation base in Karachi during a firefight early May 23. New al-Qaeda chief Saif Al Adal and Ilyas Kashmiri were behind the attack, The News International reported. [REUTERS/Athar Hussain

Analysts consider the Egyptian-born Al Adal al-Qaeda’s interim leader since the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad May 2.

Al Adal’s reputed second-in-command is Kashmiri, one of the highest-profile al-Qaeda leaders operating from North Waziristan. He has a Pakistani bounty of Rs 50m (US $5.8m) on his head, the News reported. Central Asia Online exclusively reported on his rise in terrorist ranks in November.

Kashmiri was labelled a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” August 6, and the UN added him and his Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) organisation to its blacklist under UNSC Resolution 1267.

However, the preliminary investigation report says that the banned outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) carried out the attack, Pakistan Today reported.

Terrorists armed with automatic weapons, rockets and explosives stormed the Mehran base late May 22, triggering gun battles that killed at least 11 Navy personnel and two Rangers and wounded 14 security officials.

Many militant groups, especially the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) and al-Qaeda, have vowed to avenge bin Laden’s death.

The TTP, through spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan, has claimed responsibility. “We warned after the killing of Osama bin Laden that we will carry out even bigger attacks,” he said.

Taliban militants also have targeted Pakistan navy personnel in Karachi in the recent past. Three bombings of Navy buses killed nine in Karachi April 26 and 27.

A special inquiry committee led by Rear Adm. Tehseenullah Khan will investigate the Mehran attack, navy spokesman Commodore Irfanul Haq said. The committee includes officials from different intelligence agencies of Pakistan, including the Federal Investigation Bureau, Pakistan Air Force, Rangers and police, Haq said.

Navy sacks base commander

Naval leaders have suspended Mehran Base Commander Commodore Raja Tahir and replaced him with Commodore Khalid Pervez, media reported.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani visited hospitals at PNS Shifa and PNS Rahat where injured sailors are receiving treatment. He ordered concerned authorities to revisit and upgrade security at all defence and security installations.

“There is a need to upgrade security, keeping in view the intentions of terrorists,” Gilani said. “Whatever possible action is required should be taken and the government will extend its full support.”

Al-Qaeda has long reach

The Mehran attack “has underscored the extended tentacles of al-Qaeda and its supporters from Waziristan to Karachi,” said Islamabad-based security analyst Imtiaz Gul. “Commando strikes at chosen targets indicate that al-Qaeda or its local allied forces – such as Jaish-e-Mohammad, HuJI, and Jundullah – enjoy a strong support base in Karachi,” he said.

The capture of senior al-Qaeda leader Muhammad Ali Qasim Yakub, alias Abu Shoaib al Makki, May 17, also demonstrates al-Qaeda’s strong presence in Karachi, Gul wrote in the Express Tribune.

Militant Islam on rise in Sindh

By Zia Ur Rehman
For CentralAsiaOnline.com
2011-03-18

KARACHI – Militant groups are gaining ground in the Sindh interior as more madrassas open, Sindh political and social activists say.

“The rise of militant-run madrassas is posing a threat to Sindh’s non violent Sufi landscape,” Salam Dharejo, a political analyst told Central Asia Online. “Due to the deep-rooted influence of Sufism, the militancy has never flourished in Sindh; however, the proliferation of militant elements is posing a threat to what has been a liberal Sindhi society for many years.”

Sindh activists, holding a sign that says "Peace Rally: Sindh people are followers of Sufism and love peace," rally for peace in Shahdad Kot February 10. Extremism is gaining ground in the interior of Sindh as the number of militant-run madrassas increase, political and social activists fear (Zia Ur Rehman)

The October 1 torching of 27 oil tankers near Shikarpur is evidence that militants are moving into Sindh, Dharejo said. The attack was the first of its kind in the region.

The people of Sindh typically reject aggression, militancy and extremism, said Dilshad Bhutto, a Sindhi intellectual who heads the Pakistan Secular Forum.

“Islam spread in the Sindh region through the preaching of great Sufis, not by Arab fighters,” Bhutto told Central Asia Online.“Islam spread in the Sindh region through the preaching of great Sufis, not by Arab fighters,” Bhutto told Central Asia Online. Sufis spread a message of love, peace and interfaith harmony, he said.

Jihadi groups now active in Sindh

Banned jihadi organisations – especially Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi , which are linked with the defunct Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and al-Qaeda – have become active across Sindh and are backing many madrassas, an intelligence officer who oversees anti-extremism in the Interior Sindh told Central Asia Online.

Madrassas “are not imparting religious education but rather are transforming the ideologies of students and preaching hatred and violence,” Siddiqa said.

The banned sectarian groups are organizing public gatherings in which many of the participants are young madrassa students, the intelligence officer said. The banned groups also circulate militant literature among the students in an effort to restrict the independent thought processes of students.

In Khairpur District, hometown of Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, 93 of 117 seminaries are not registered with the government, said Imtiaz Hussain, a Sukker-based senior journalist.

Locals have concerns over the militant-run seminaries, he said, because they stir up fear of Talibanisation, Hussain added.

Despite the growing numbers of madrassas preaching militancy, the intelligence official said the government has no official data about the madrassas linked to banned groups.

However after a recent provincial government directive, intelligence and law enforcement agencies are now collecting such information in order to determine which madrassas should be shut down.

Militancy shows itself in several ways

Militant-run madrassas and influences have begun to appear in a number of ways, civil society activists say.

In February, students from local madrassas interrupted a musical show in the Thatta District and warned the organisers they would not allow what they consider to be anti-religious activities to take place.

In December, Dr. Noshad Valiyani, a physician, was severely beaten and dragged to a local police station by students from an SSP-linked madrassa in Hyderabad. He was falsely accused of committing blasphemy, said Dr. Habib-Ur-Rehman Soomro, a leader of Pakistan Medical Association.

“Islam spread in the Sindh region through the preaching of great Sufis, not by Arab fighters,” Bhutto told Central Asia Online.

Attacks on Hindus and forced conversions to Islam were once rare in Sindh, but in recent years, hundreds of Hindu girls have been forcibly converted, Dharejo said. In October 2009, Hindus in the Umer Kot area, where they comprise half the total population of the area, were attacked by Muslims. Many of the attackers were madrassa students, he said.

Madrassas influence students

Militant-backed madrassas lie at the root of the problem, Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa, a security analyst and author, said during a February 8 presentation on “Militarisation and Terrorism” at the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s Karachi office.

Madrassas “are not imparting religious education but rather are transforming the ideologies of students and preaching hatred and violence,” Siddiqa said. “Today’s madrassas are quietly changing from what they were in the past,” Siddiqa said. “These institutions are not imparting religious education but rather are transforming the ideologies of students and preaching hatred and violence.”

“The country is witnessing today the phenomenon of ‘ideological jihadism,’ and the militants … want to enforce religion by the edge of a sword and overthrow the government by replacing it with a hardcore Wahhabi interpretation of Islam,” she said, adding that splinter groups are killing the innocent for no reason.

Any long-term solution to extremism must include regulation of the madrassas, especially those that preach religious and cultural intolerance, said Jan Mazari, a college instructor in the Jacobabad District.

A check on highly politicised madrassas will limit their capacity to socialise youth into religious orthodoxy and thus will make them less vulnerable to the appeals of militant groups, Mazari said.

In order to curb militancy in the province, Sindh’s civil society and secular political groups are going to launch a campaign against extremism, said Murad Pandarani, a social activist associated with the Pirbhat Women’s Development Society, a Shahdad Kot-based non-governmental organisation.

Calling for a consensus-based strategy aimed at preventing militancy, he said that the government and civil society both should start a joint struggle against the menace of extremism in Sindh.

Sindh is the land of great Sufi saints like Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai and will not allow militancy to dominate the region, Taj Haider, Sindh government spokesman, said.

The government has devised a policy to monitor madrassas in Sindh and will take strict action against madrassas linked with banned militant organisations, he said.

End

Karachi militants linked to doctors’ slayings

By Zia Ur Rehman
For CentralAsiaOnline.com
2011-02-03

KARACHI — Karachi’s doctors are the latest target of assassins.

Imran Wasi, who was slain January 20, was the 10th doctor killed in Karachi since May 2010.

Medics, like many other elements of the population, have suffered as the violence afflicting Karachi grew in 2010. More than 1,200 people, including nine doctors, were killed in the city in 2010, compared to 801 in 2009, according to a report of the Citizen Police Liaison Committee.

Banned terrorist organisations including Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Sipah-e-Muhammad (SMP) and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), as well as extortion mafias, are primarily responsibile for the doctors’ deaths, a senior police official who runs an anti-extremism unit told Central Asia Online.

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Doctors and paramedics protest the killing of Dr. Imran Wasi January 20 outside Jinnah Hospital. Since May 2010, target killers have slain 10 doctors in Karachi. [Zia Ur Rehman

The Sindh government is preparing to pass a health commission bill to protect doctors in the form of an ordinance, a government official hinted. The bill will be tabled in the next assembly session, the date of which is still unconfirmed.

 

“Dr.Wasi, an ENT (ear-nose-throat) specialist, is the 10th doctor who has been targeted in the fresh wave of violence since May 2010, and doctors are scared owing to killings, threats and demands of ransom,” Dr. Samrina Hashmi, a leader of the Karachi chapter of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), told Central Asia Online.

Healthcare workers protested latest slaying

Doctors and paramedics wearing black armbands protested Wasi’s slaying, and out-patient departments (OPDs) closed for a day, but doctors still provided emergency services.

The protesters expressed concern over growing security threats to doctors, especially threats from extortionists and sectarian outfits, and asked the government to protect medical professionals.

Wasi, 55, was heading to his clinic in the Ranchore line area when two armed motorcyclists shot him, an officer at the local police station said. His killers intended to target an Urdu-speaking doctor, his family said.

Two doctors had received threats and were asked to pay ransom to save their own lives two days before Wasi’s murder, Hashmi said.

In an effort to end the OPD boycott, Karachi police chief Fayyaz Leghari formed a special committee including Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Karachi South Iqbal Mehmood and two senior police officers. The committee asked doctors to contact them if they received threats or needed protection.

Doctors have fled Pakistan out of safety concerns

Police classified eight of the 10 slayings since May 2010 as sectarian.

Thousands of doctors have left Pakistan in recent years because of growing danger.Thousands of doctors have left Pakistan in recent years because of growing danger, while 2,800 doctors from Karachi have received “Good Standing Certificates,” which are required for jobs abroad, from the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC), Hashmi added.

Neither the government nor PMA has an official figure for the number of doctors who work in Pakistan or who have left, but about 6,000 doctors have fled abroad in the last 15 years because of security concerns, Hashmi told Central Asia Online.

Another 50 medical professionals have gone into hiding in Karachi after closing their clinics and quitting their jobs at hospitals since the beginning of this year, Central Asia Online has learned.

Police classified eight of the 10 slayings since May 2010 as sectarian.Police classified eight of the 10 slayings since May 2010 as sectarian, and most of the victims have been Shia Muslims, Hashmi told Central Asia Online. The LeJ kills Shia doctors and the Mehdi Force (MF) kills Sunni doctors, she added.

Recently, Sindh Police’s Special Investigation Unit (SIU) broke up a key MF network allegedly involved in at least 12 sectarian targeted killings, including those of three doctors.

“The MF, which operated under the umbrella of the banned SMP, mainly targeted people, especially doctors, who were sympathisers of (the opposing) sect,” an SIU officer told Central Asia Online. The SIU arrested eight alleged MF hardcore militants, including suspected mastermind Tanveer Abbas, January 2.

The Sindh Assembly should emulate the Punjab Assembly and pass a bill making violence against on-duty doctors punishable by one year’s imprisonment or a minimum fine of Rs. 500,000 or both, Dr. Idress Adhi, president of the PMA told Central Asia Online.

Sindh Provincial Health Minister Dr. Sagheer Ahmed called for a concrete strategy to curb violence against doctors.

“Targeted killings of doctors on sectarian grounds are a conspiracy … aimed at creating fear amongst the doctors’ fraternity,” Ahmed said.