THE NEW TROJAN HORSE OF AL QAEDA
By B.Raman - 10.Nov.2007
The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), the militant wing of the anti-Shia Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), is emerging as the new Trojan Horse of Al Qaeda to carry out operations on behalf of Al Qaeda in areas where Al Qaeda faces difficulty in operating directly or in those cases where it does not want to operate directly.
2. In the past, this role was being performed by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET). Both the LET and the LEJ are members of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF) for Jihad Against the Crusaders and the Jewish People. Both are strongly Wahabi organisations, but whereas the LEJ is strongly anti-US, anti-Israel, anti-India, anti-Iran and anti-Shia, the LET is only anti-US, anti-Israel and anti-India, but not anti-Iran or anti-Shia.
3. There is no confirmed instance of the LET indulging in planned anti-Shia violence in Pakistan or Afghanistan, but the LEJ has been responsible for most of the targeted attacks on Shias and their places of worship in Pakistan and on the Hazaras---who are Shias---in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
4.The Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), which are also members of the IIF, strongly share the anti-Shia feelings of the LEJ, but they do not indulge in targeted attacks on Shias and their places of worship. Many of the leaders of these organisations, including Maulana Masood Azhar, the Amir of the JEM, started their jihadi career in the SSP, but later drifted away from it since they felt uncomfortable with its targeted attacks on Shias and their places of worship. Despite being separate now, they do co-operate with the LEJ in its operations directed against US interests and the Pakistani armed forces. The LET prefers to operate independently without getting involved with the SSP or the LEJ. The LET avoids attacks on Pakistani security forces.
5. The strong action taken by the international community against known and suspected Arab members of Al Qaeda created difficulties for them in travelling freely and in carrying out operations in non-Muslim countries. Consequently, it startred depending increasingly on the Pakistani members of the LET for its operations. Post-9/11, the LET emerged as the clone of Al Qaeda. It opened its sleeper cells in countries such as Australia, Singapore, the UK, France and the US to help Al Qaeda in its operations by collecting information, motivating the members of the Pakistani diaspora and other means.
6. In 2002-03, Western intelligence agencies did not pay much attention to LET activities in the Pakistani diaspora. They tended to disregard Indian evidence about the new role of the LET as the operational facilitator of Al Qaeda since they suspected that Indian officials and non-governmental analysts tended to over-project the LET's role in the West because of its activities in Indian territory. However, the discovery of LET sleeper cells in the Western countries post-2002 changed this attitude and Indian evidence on the LET was treated with greater seriousness. Next to the Arab members of Al Qaeda, suspected Pakistani members of the LET were placed under close surveillance in many countries. This created difficulties in the movement and activities of the LET. The LET is no longer able to operate outside the Indian sub-continnt as freely as it used to do in the past.
7. Moreover, the LET is feeling uncomfortable over the anti-Shia violence unleashed by Al Qaeda and its surrogates in Iraq. While continuing to be a member of the IIF, it is trying to avoid being associated with Al Qaeda's anti-Shia and anti-Saudi policies. Saudi charity organisations have been one of the main funders of the LET, which has an active branch in Saudi Arabia to recruit members from the Indian Muslim diaspora in the Gulf countries.
8.In view of these developments, Al Qaeda has started increasingly using the the SSP and the LEJ for its operations in Pakistan itself as well as in the non-Muslim countries. The LEJ was actively involved in supporting the students of the two madrasas of the Lal Masjid of Islamabad before they were raided by Pakistani military commandoes in July,2007. Many of the women, who were targeted by the girl students for allegedly running a call girl racket, were reportedly Shias. It has been actively backing the tribals, who have taken to arms against the Pakistani security forces in North and South Waziristan and in the Swat Valley in the Provincially-Administered Tribal Areas (PATA) of the North-West Frontier Province.
Under the influence of the LEJ, the tribals have been beheading or otherwise killing only the Shias among the security forces personnel captured by them. Well-informed Police sources say that all the para-military personnel beheaded so far by the tribals were Shias. According to them, there has not been a single instance of the beheading of a Sunni member of the security forces though many Sunnis have been killed in explosions.
9. The JEM is also actively involved in supporting the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) in its fight against the security forces in the Swat Valley.There have been targeted attacks on members of the local Shia community. The anti-Shia dimension of the current violence in the tribal areas has also been corroborated by the well-informed "Daily Times" of Lahore in an editorial titled "Two Oppressions" carried by it on November 10,2007.
The editorial says: ' The latest news from Waziristan is that a well-known Shia personality has been gunned down. This is a part of the sectarian violence that Al Qaeda commits in the territories it captures. Earlier, Shias among the captured Pakistani troops were casually beheaded while the Sunnis were returned. In the Shia-majority Parachinar in the Kurram Agency, suicide-bombers have been killing indiscriminately."
10. Thus, a new anti-Shia front has emerged inside the IIF consisting of Al Qaeda, the LEJ, the TNSM and the JEM. Al Qaeda's use of the LEJ is not confined to Pakistani territory. The Police sources mentioned above say that in view of the difficulties now faced by suspected LET members in Western countries and in South-east Asia, Al Qaeda is encouraging the SSP and the LEJ to gradually take over the role of the LET as the motivators and mobilisers of members of the overseas Pakistani diaspora for assisting Al Qaeda in its operations. They claim that some sleeper cells of the SSP and the LEJ have already come up in the US, the UK, Spain, Portugal, France, Singapore and Australia. Since the foreign intelligence agencies do not have much information about the SSP and the LEJ, they are able to operate without creating suspicions about them.
11. The SSP and the LEJ have not come to notice till now for any activities in the Indian territory---either in Jammu & Kashmir or outside. In view of the recurring explosions targeting Muslims and Muslim places of worship in Delhi, Malegaon, Hyderabad and Ajmer since last year, one has to look into the possibility of the involvement of the SSP and the LEJ in terrorism in Indian territory. None of the Muslim places of worship targeted in India so far belonged to the Shias, but one must note that in Pakistan, the LEJ targets not only Shias and their places of worship, but also the Barelvi Sunnis and their places of worship.
The Barelvis are a more tolerant Sunni sect and have rejected Wahabism so far.Despite the progress made by Wahabism and Deobandi sects, the Barelvis are still in a majority in the Indian sub-continent. Hence, the LEJ's attacks on the Barelvis, many of whom are descendents of converts from Hinduism. The Wahabis/Deobandis are mainly descendents of Muslim migrants into the sub-continent from West and Central Asia.Indian investigators should not keep their focus exclusively on the LET and the HUJI. They should keep their mind open and look into the possibility of the involvement of other jihadi terrorist organisations too. (.This may please be read in continuation of my earlier article of July 1,2002, titled SIPAH-E-SAHABA PAKISTAN, LASHKAR-E-JHANGVI, BIN LADEN & RAMZI YOUSEF at : http://www.saag.org/papers5/paper484.html
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Showing posts with label Pakistani Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pakistani Economy. Show all posts
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
*** Economic consequences of Talibanisation
Economic consequences of Talibanisation - Daily Times, Pakistan
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
During the 1990s Pakistan’s annual growth rate averaged about 3 percent. The main reason for this was the low level of domestic and international business confidence in the economy coupled with financial mismanagement. Indeed, foreign investment and remittances were dropping and privatisation proceeds, where available, were being squandered.
Meanwhile, the politics of state sponsored jihad and Talibanisation in the region led to conflict-ridden backlashes of sectarianism and bomb explosions. All this changed after 9/11 when a lid was put on jihad, regional peace initiatives were launched and economic management became efficient and merited.
In short, domestic political stability brought economic continuity and renewed confidence and good foreign policies brought debt write offs and aid and investment dividends. The economy picked up together with the rest of the region including the Gulf where the economies boomed despite the Iraq war. Pakistan got out of the IMF oxygen tent and breathed free, able to take measures that were earlier banned under the “conditionalities” of restructuring.The pattern was familiar to Pakistanis.
When politicians rule, the economy goes down; when the generals rule, the economy picks up. Under President General Pervez Musharraf the economy began to hum and he was able to collect record revenues to enable him to spend on development as never before. He managed the State Bank better than past rulers, and accompanied good management with liberalisation of sectors kept closed by politicians in the past. But high growth rates in the third world lead to the dreaded rich-poor gap.
In India this gap is becoming more and more frightening every day, but there is also a low level process of poverty alleviation. In China, the latest Congress of the Communist Party discussed the widening of the rich-poor gap under high growth rates. At the centre of discussion was the progressive impoverishment of 700 million farmers in the countryside now forced to migrate to the cities. In Pakistan, too, the rich-poor gap has materialised and instead poverty alleviation is not fast enough. The famous “trickle-down” effect is just not good enough to satisfy the masses. Now the State Bank warns of food-related inflation and a yawning current account deficit, with debt steadily rising in the background. The world outside has changed too. Food is no longer cheap and UN food reserves are down to their last bags of wheat.
Another major famine anywhere in the world and Pakistan will be compelled to import more inflation into a population that is still poor. As bad luck would have it, oil prices too have shot up in the global market, and if Pakistan lets the burden of this hike fall on the citizens, there will be riots in the streets. It has kept its finger plugged into the dike and not passed on the real price to the consumers at the risk of building a mountain of subsidy that will be destructive when the next government thinks of paring it down in 2008.High growth rates also trigger shortages in the energy sector. The State Bank can hardly compute the effects of the power-crunch in Karachi after the privatisation of its electricity monopoly. The mega-city has seen suffering as never before and the victims have been middle and lower middle class, enabled recently to buy the cheap Chinese split air-conditions only to see outages lasting for long hours daily.
Because the Musharraf government was unable to get anyone in the country to agree to build new water reservoirs, there is shortage of the tradition hydel power in the national grid, leading to load-shedding in the rest of the country too. Since most of the electricity is produced in power stations run with gas, Pakistan fears the coming gas crunch with the Iranian gas pipeline project receding from sight as America gets ready to invade Iran.
The Musharraf government could never get terrorism under control long enough to get foreigners to significantly invest in slightly risky manufacturing sectors, but there was enough reassurance for them to invest long-distance in the stock exchange, apart from direct investment in some limited sectors like communications, telecoms, media and banking. The terrorism factor has never really gone away.
It actually increased in the shape of Talibanisation and General Musharraf’s failure to tackle its blowback from the Tribal Areas. It has now challenged the economy with a choice: will it go on performing or will it panic and retreat? Foreigners are scared, international conferences aimed at attracting customers are being called off, cricket teams are reluctant to play in some cities they consider a target of suicide-bombers.
Travel advisories against Pakistan are becoming the norm.This phenomenon was studied by economists recently when the Lal Masjid Operation went under way and then fizzled out when the people at large and the media sided with the terrorists. The stock exchange nosed up when the Operation began but fell steeply when the assault on the mosque was botched and the media depicted the terrorists as the innocent party. Today in Swat, a relatively well-performing local economy has collapsed following the military operation against the warlord Fazlullah. But because of the uncertainty of the outcome, the people of Swat prefer to live under the tyranny of the warlord rather then lose their businesses. Already in most of the Tribal Areas the economy is in the hands of the Al Qaeda-directed Taliban.
When will Pakistan wake up and squarely face the economic consequences of Talibanisation too? http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\10\31\story_31-10-2007_pg3_1
Foreign Fighters of Harsher Bent @ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/world/asia/30afghan.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
During the 1990s Pakistan’s annual growth rate averaged about 3 percent. The main reason for this was the low level of domestic and international business confidence in the economy coupled with financial mismanagement. Indeed, foreign investment and remittances were dropping and privatisation proceeds, where available, were being squandered.
Meanwhile, the politics of state sponsored jihad and Talibanisation in the region led to conflict-ridden backlashes of sectarianism and bomb explosions. All this changed after 9/11 when a lid was put on jihad, regional peace initiatives were launched and economic management became efficient and merited.
In short, domestic political stability brought economic continuity and renewed confidence and good foreign policies brought debt write offs and aid and investment dividends. The economy picked up together with the rest of the region including the Gulf where the economies boomed despite the Iraq war. Pakistan got out of the IMF oxygen tent and breathed free, able to take measures that were earlier banned under the “conditionalities” of restructuring.The pattern was familiar to Pakistanis.
When politicians rule, the economy goes down; when the generals rule, the economy picks up. Under President General Pervez Musharraf the economy began to hum and he was able to collect record revenues to enable him to spend on development as never before. He managed the State Bank better than past rulers, and accompanied good management with liberalisation of sectors kept closed by politicians in the past. But high growth rates in the third world lead to the dreaded rich-poor gap.
In India this gap is becoming more and more frightening every day, but there is also a low level process of poverty alleviation. In China, the latest Congress of the Communist Party discussed the widening of the rich-poor gap under high growth rates. At the centre of discussion was the progressive impoverishment of 700 million farmers in the countryside now forced to migrate to the cities. In Pakistan, too, the rich-poor gap has materialised and instead poverty alleviation is not fast enough. The famous “trickle-down” effect is just not good enough to satisfy the masses. Now the State Bank warns of food-related inflation and a yawning current account deficit, with debt steadily rising in the background. The world outside has changed too. Food is no longer cheap and UN food reserves are down to their last bags of wheat.
Another major famine anywhere in the world and Pakistan will be compelled to import more inflation into a population that is still poor. As bad luck would have it, oil prices too have shot up in the global market, and if Pakistan lets the burden of this hike fall on the citizens, there will be riots in the streets. It has kept its finger plugged into the dike and not passed on the real price to the consumers at the risk of building a mountain of subsidy that will be destructive when the next government thinks of paring it down in 2008.High growth rates also trigger shortages in the energy sector. The State Bank can hardly compute the effects of the power-crunch in Karachi after the privatisation of its electricity monopoly. The mega-city has seen suffering as never before and the victims have been middle and lower middle class, enabled recently to buy the cheap Chinese split air-conditions only to see outages lasting for long hours daily.
Because the Musharraf government was unable to get anyone in the country to agree to build new water reservoirs, there is shortage of the tradition hydel power in the national grid, leading to load-shedding in the rest of the country too. Since most of the electricity is produced in power stations run with gas, Pakistan fears the coming gas crunch with the Iranian gas pipeline project receding from sight as America gets ready to invade Iran.
The Musharraf government could never get terrorism under control long enough to get foreigners to significantly invest in slightly risky manufacturing sectors, but there was enough reassurance for them to invest long-distance in the stock exchange, apart from direct investment in some limited sectors like communications, telecoms, media and banking. The terrorism factor has never really gone away.
It actually increased in the shape of Talibanisation and General Musharraf’s failure to tackle its blowback from the Tribal Areas. It has now challenged the economy with a choice: will it go on performing or will it panic and retreat? Foreigners are scared, international conferences aimed at attracting customers are being called off, cricket teams are reluctant to play in some cities they consider a target of suicide-bombers.
Travel advisories against Pakistan are becoming the norm.This phenomenon was studied by economists recently when the Lal Masjid Operation went under way and then fizzled out when the people at large and the media sided with the terrorists. The stock exchange nosed up when the Operation began but fell steeply when the assault on the mosque was botched and the media depicted the terrorists as the innocent party. Today in Swat, a relatively well-performing local economy has collapsed following the military operation against the warlord Fazlullah. But because of the uncertainty of the outcome, the people of Swat prefer to live under the tyranny of the warlord rather then lose their businesses. Already in most of the Tribal Areas the economy is in the hands of the Al Qaeda-directed Taliban.
When will Pakistan wake up and squarely face the economic consequences of Talibanisation too? http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\10\31\story_31-10-2007_pg3_1
Foreign Fighters of Harsher Bent @ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/world/asia/30afghan.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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