The JUD, which played an active role in the humanitarian relief and rehabilitation operations in the PoK after the earthquake of October, 2005, is playing a similar role now in organizing relief for the internally-displaced Pashtuns from the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) who have been forced to leave their villages in the Valley due to the counter-insurgency operations mounted by the Pakistan Army against the Pakistani Taliban. For this purpose, it has assumed a new identity as the Insaniyat (Humanity) Foundation. The Pakistani media has reported that this Foundation is nothing but the JUD and the LeT, but the Government has not taken any action against it.
Naivete has been the defining characteristic of the US policy towards Pakistan. One need not be surprised by this. Despite their close relations with Pakistan — particularly with its military-intelligence establishment — for over 50 years, Americans — whether in the Government or in private think tanks — do not understand Pakistan even though they think they do. We are the next door neighbours of Pakistan. We have had four military conflicts with Pakistan since 1947. We have been the victims of Pakistan-sponsored and Pakistan-aided terrorism since 1981. Despite this, we tend to be as naive as the Americans.
The Pakistani media has reported that this Foundation is nothing but the JUD and the LeT, but the Government has not taken any action against it.
This became evident from the unwarranted euphoric reaction in policy-making and think-tank circles in New Delhi to remarks made by Zardari to a group of civil servants in Islamabad on July 7, 2009. According to the correspondent of the Times of India (July 9, 2009), Zardari reportedly said: “Militants and extremists were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve short-term tactical objectives. Let us be truthful and make a candid admission of the reality — the terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryear until 9/11 and they began to haunt us as well”.
His remarks were hailed in New Delhi as indicating a refreshing realization and admission by Zardari. But was he referring to the anti-India terrorist groups like the LeT? Not at all. From a careful reading of his remarks, it is evident he was referring to the Taliban, which has been spreading death and destruction in Pakistan. This was also evident from an editorial written by the Daily Times of Lahore on July 9, 2009. It said: “President Asif Ali Zardari, addressing the bureaucrats in Islamabad on Tuesday, made some ‘candid admissions’ that the Taliban policy of Pakistan in the past was wrong: ‘the terrorists of today are the heroes of yesteryear’.”
Naivete has been the defining characteristic of the US policy towards Pakistan.
Thus, when Zardari talked of the heroes of yesterday becoming the terrorists of today, he was talking of the Taliban and not the LeT. At least, Musharraf spoke of the LeT as a suspected terrorist organization for some months in 2002. Zardari has never referred to the JUD or the LeT as a terrorist organization. He has not formally banned the JUD. He has not prevented the JUD from operating in the camps for internally-displaced Pashtuns under the name of the Insaniyat Foundation.
While refraining from criticizing the inaction of the Pakistani authorities in the cases relating to the LeT operatives and office-bearers involved in the Mumbai attack, the US kept its focus on the LeT in an attempt to reassure India that its non-criticism of Pakistan did not mean letting the LeT get away with its acts of terrorism against India. In a press note issued on July 1, 2009, the US Department of Treasury gave the personal particulars of four persons — a Pashtun born in Afghanistan, two Punjabis and a fourth person of unclear ethnicity originating from Karachi — associated with the LeT, who were designated by the Department under Executive Order 13224 as “providing direct support to Al Qaeda and the LeT and as facilitating terrorist attacks, including the July 2006 train bombing in Mumbai.”
The four persons so designated by the Treasury Department were:
A. FAZEEL-A-TUL SHAYKH ABU MOHAMMED AMEEN AL-PESHAWARI, born in the Konar Province of Afghanistan and living in Peshawar.
B. ARIF QASMANI, a Pakistani national from Karachi.
C. MOHAMMED YAHYA MUJAHID, a Pakistani national from Lahore.
D. NASIR JAVAID, a Pakistani national from Gujranwala, Punjab, living in Manshera, NWFP.
“President Asif Ali Zardari, addressing the bureaucrats in Islamabad on Tuesday, made some “˜candid admissions that the Taliban policy of Pakistan in the past was wrong: “˜the terrorists of today are the heroes of yesteryear.”
The Treasury Department’s notification did not specifically refer to Fazeel-A-Tul Shaykh Abu Mohammed Ameen Al-Peshawari (Ameen al-Peshawari) as an associate or an office-bearer of the LeT. However, it said of him as follows: “He was providing assistance, including funding and recruits, to Al Qaeda network. He has also provided funding and other resources to the Taliban, including explosive vests and other resources and actively facilitated the activities of anti-Coalition militants operating in Afghanistan by raising money in support of terrorist activities. In addition, he had begun a campaign to support militants in Pakistan. As of 2007, Ameen al-Peshawari was responsible for recruiting fighters and suicide bombers and for the acquisition of funds and equipment for militants in Afghanistan. Ameen al-Peshawari has also provided monetary compensation to families of fighters killed in Afghanistan and has been involved in anti-Coalition militia recruiting activities.” All the activities of Abu Mohammed al-Peshawari referred to in the notification related to Afghanistan.
However, Arif Qasmani of Karachi was specifically named by the notification as involved in the Mumbai suburban train blasts of July, 2006, and in the Samjotha Express blast of February, 2007. It said of him as follows: “Arif Qasmani is the chief coordinator for Lashkar-e Tayyiba’s (LeT) dealings with outside organizations and has provided significant support for LeT terrorist operations. Qasmani has worked with the LeT to facilitate terrorist attacks, including the July 2006 train bombing in Mumbai, India, and the February 2007 Samjotha Express bombing in Panipat, India.
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Qasmani conducted fundraising activities on behalf of the LeT in 2005 and utilized money that he received from Dawood Ibrahim, an Indian crime figure and terrorist supporter, to facilitate the July 2006 train bombing in Mumbai, India. Since 2001, Arif Qasmani has also provided financial and other support and services to Al Qaeda, including facilitating the movement of al Qaida leaders and personnel in and out of Afghanistan, the return of foreign fighters to their respective countries, and the provision of supplies and weapons. In return for Qasmani’s support, Al Qaeda provided Qasmani with operatives to support the July 2006 train bombing in Mumbai, India, and the February 2007 Samjotha Express bombing in Panipat, India. In 2005, Qasmani provided Taliban leaders with a safe haven and a means to smuggle personnel, equipment, and weapons into Afghanistan.”
From the notification, three significant points about Qasmani emerged: First, he received money from Dawood Ibrahim for the July 2006 bombings in Mumbai; second, he provided financial and logistics support to Al Qaeda and its leaders; and third, he provided safe haven to the leaders of the Afghan Taliban.
According to the notification, “Mohammed Yahya Mujahid is the head of the LeT media department and has served as an LeT media spokesman since at least mid-2001. In that capacity, Mujahid has issued statements to the press on behalf of the LeT on numerous occasions, including after the December 2001 LeT attacks on the Indian Parliament, and following the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India. Mujahid’s statements on behalf of the LeT have been reported by international news sources such as BBC News, the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, and Asia Times Online. As of late 2007, Mujahid was influential among the LeT central leadership.”
Arif Qasmani of Karachi was specifically named by the notification as involved in the Mumbai suburban train blasts of July, 2006, and in the Samjotha Express blast of February, 2007.
The notification said that “Nasir Javaid is an LeT official involved in LeT operations and has served as an LeT commander in Pakistan. From 2001 to at least 2008, Nasir Javaid was also involved in LeT military training. In mid-2001, Javaid assumed command of an LeT training center in Pakistan.”
The notification did not specify whether the evidence against the four designated individuals cited in it was collected by the US intelligence or whether some of it came from India too. Earlier on June 29, 2009, the Department of Public Information of the UN Security Council had announced as follows: “The Al Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee approved the addition of three entries to its Consolidated List of individuals and entities subject to the assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo set out in paragraph 1 of Security Council resolution 1822 (2008) adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations.”
The three names added by the UN Committee to its list were those of Abu Mohammad Ameen al-Peshawari, Arif Qasmani and Mohammad Yahya Mujahid. The name of Nasir Javaid did not figure in the list issued by the UN Committee possibly because there was no evidence of his involvement with Al Qaeda and/or the Afghan Taliban. The evidence against the three persons cited in the notification of the UN Committee was the same as subsequently cited by the US Treasury Department.
“¦he received money from Dawood Ibrahim for the July 2006 bombings in Mumbai; second, he provided financial and logistics support to Al Qaeda and its leaders; and third, he provided safe haven to the leaders of the Afghan Taliban.
The UN Committee notification had one additional detail which was not there in the Treasury Department notification — namely, all the three persons were in custody as of June, 2009. While it did not mention where they were in custody, it must have been in Pakistan. It also did not say when they were arrested.
However, in a report on the Mumbai terrorist attack of November, 2008, carried by Asia Times Online on December 2, 2008, Syed Saleem Shahzad, its Special Correspondent in Pakistan, had indicated that Arif Qasmani, whom he described as a millionaire businessman of Karachi, was already in detention in Pakistan because of the ISI’s anger over the double role allegedly played by him — namely, assisting the ISI in its operations in India through the LeT and at the same time assisting the Pakistani Taliban in its operations against the Pakistan Army.
Shahzad reported as follows: “The most important asset of the ISI, the Laskhar-e-Taiba (LeT), was split after 9/11. Several of its top-ranking commanders and office bearers joined hands with al-Qaeda militants. A millionaire Karachi-based businessman, Arif Qasmani, who was a major donor for ISI-sponsored LeT operations in India, was arrested for playing a double game — he was accused of working with the ISI while also sending money to Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal area for the purchase of arms and ammunition for Al Qaeda militants.”
Shahzad did not mention when Qasmani was arrested, but from the wording of his article it appeared that he must have been arrested before the 26/11 Mumbai strike. Earlier, the Dawn of Karachi had reported on December 29, 2005, as follows: “The Sindh High Court asked the federal interior secretary on Wednesday to file, within 10 days, a rejoinder to a petition alleging that a man was being detained by a federal law enforcement agency unlawfully. Petitioner Javeria Arif submitted through Advocate Nihal Hashmi that her husband, Arif Qasmani, was picked up by law enforcement personnel from his KDA Scheme residence on November 29 for his suspected links with Al Qaeda and the Taliban. No case was registered against him, nor was he produced before a magistrate for remand.
The police were informed but was of no help to her. An additional advocate-general informed a division bench, comprising Justices Mushir Alam and Athar Saeed, that the provincial government had nothing to do with the matter but he required more time to make a formal statement on behalf of the police. Adjourning further hearing to January 19, the bench expressed its concern that, judging by the number of petitions being filed in this behalf, the incidence of ‘disappearance’ of people was on the increase. It observed that the government agencies were legally obliged to protect the life and liberty of citizens and they should act in accordance with the law.”
On December 1, 2005, Shahzad reported to the Italian news agency AKI (Adnkronos International) as follows: “Arif Qasmani is a veteran jihadi, having fought against the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, and been associated with the armed struggle in Indian-held Kashmir. He was picked up by Pakistani security forces last October but released a few days later. Now Qasmani is once again missing. According to his family, he was in Karachi and departed for Lahore two days ago but since he left home his whereabouts are unknown.” Around the same time, he reported to Asia Times Online as follows: “Arif Qasmani was a part of a high-level November 14 meeting in Islamabad held to initiate a process for peace between the Afghan resistance and coalition forces led by the US.”
The same day, Amir Mir, the well-known Pakistani journalist, who writes for sections of the Pakistani media and some of whose articles are also carried by sections of the Indian media, reported as follows: “One of the four Pakistanis who reportedly held a clandestine meeting with the visiting American Undersecretary of State for Public Affairs, Karen Hughes and other senior US State Department officials at Serena Hotel in Islamabad on November 14, 2005, to broker a deal between the Taliban and the United States is believed to have been kidnapped by the Pakistani intelligence agencies.”
”Arif Qasmani was a part of a high-level November 14 meeting in Islamabad held to initiate a process for peace between the Afghan resistance and coalition forces led by the US.”
He added: “Previously linked with the now defunct Lashkar-e-Toiba, a militant outfit active in the Indian-administered Kashmir, Arif Qasmani is considered close to Javed Ibrahim Paracha, a former member of the National Assembly from Kohat district of the NWFP. Paracha, who is also the chairman of the World Prisoners’ Relief Forum, claimed on November 17, 2005, that he was requested by the Americans during their Islamabad meeting to serve as a bridge between Washington, the Taliban and their Arab comrades for the purpose of ‘reconciliation’. According to Paracha, Arif Qasmani has been picked up by the Pakistani intelligence agencies without any justification. ‘Qasmani went missing on Tuesday after he had left Karachi for Lahore by plane which was supposed to take off at 8 in the morning. His wife has informed me that Qasmani has not yet reached Lahore where he was supposed to hold a business meeting. I understand that he has been arrested by the sensitive agencies. He was earlier detained in August 2005. His family members now fear for his life’, Paracha said.
He further reported: “Paracha, who is also Chairman, International Rabita Jehad Council, said those who met the Americans on November 14 and discussed the possibility of negotiating with the Afghan resistance leaders included (besides him) Arif Qasmani, Khalid Khawaja and Shah Abdul Aziz of MMA (Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, a religious coalition then in power in the NWFP) from Karak district in NWFP. ‘There is every possibility that Qasmani has been detained for investigations in connection with the November 14 meeting’, Paracha added. Khalid Khawaja, a former officer with the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) said, ‘I have just met Arif Qasmani’s wife in Karachi. She is much disturbed. She is shocked and believes that Qasmani has been kidnapped by the agencies who had previously detained him in August this year’. Khawaja said the family of the kidnapped businessman is seriously considering approaching the court of law for his recovery. ‘I appeal to the government to inform his family members about his exact whereabouts. The government should ensure that Qasmani is recovered as early as possible’, he added.”
He was also acting as the cut-out of Dawood Ibrahim for funding terrorist attacks in India and of Al Qaeda for using Pakistani jihadi cells in India for its operations.
Thus, during his career, Arif Qasmani had helped the LeT, the ISI, the TTP and the US State Department. He had helped the LeT in its operations in India. He had helped the ISI by acting as its cut-out with the LeT in order to maintain the deniability of the ISI’s use of the LeT against India. He had helped the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) in its operations against the Pakistan Army and the ISI. He had helped the US State Department by acting as an intermediary between it and the so-called good Taliban. He was also acting as the cut-out of Dawood Ibrahim for funding terrorist attacks in India and of Al Qaeda for using Pakistani jihadi cells in India for its operations. He was also associated with Khalid Khawaja, a retired officer of the Pakistan Air Force who had served in the ISI. Khawaja’s name first cropped up during the investigation into the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the journalist of the Wall Street Journal, at Karachi in January–February, 2002. Information regarding his role in the Pearl’s case had alleged that it was he who had told the kidnappers that Pearl was Jewish.
It is surprising that a man with such a controversial background should be moving in and out of informal custody in Pakistan since August 2005 and at the same time assisting the LeT, Al Qaeda and the Taliban in their terrorist strikes, including the Mumbai attack of July, 2006, and the blast of February, 2007, in the Samjotha Express without ever being prosecuted under Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Act. The State Department had known about him at least since 2005, if not earlier. Why has it acted against him only in June, 2009?
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Why such lack of promptness in acting against the LeT? Even though the US and the European nations are increasingly concerned over the links of the LeT with Al Qaeda, its capability for acts of terrorism, which is second only to that of Al Qaeda and the presence of its sleeper cells among the Pakistani-origin Diaspora in many countries, they still look upon it as a looming and not an imminent threat to their nationals and interests. For them, the imminent threat is from Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Their present efforts are focused on making Pakistan act against the imminent threats while exercising only proforma pressure — to reassure India of their solidarity — on Pakistan to act against the LeT. As a result, Pakistan’s inaction against the LeT tends to be overlooked by the West so long as it is acting against the Taliban and helping the US in its actions against Al Qaeda.
One of the lessons of the post-World War history of State-Sponsored terrorism is that it never ends unless the guilty state is made to pay a prohibitive price.
Thus, India finds itself in an unenviable position. It is not in a position to make the US and the rest of the Western world act against Pakistan for its inaction against the LeT. At the same time, it is not in a position to act by itself because it has denied to itself a deniable retaliatory capability ever since the fatal decision taken by Inder Gujral, the then Prime Minister, in 1997 to wind up any retaliatory capability as a mark of unilateral gesture to Pakistan — despite remonstrations by senior officers of our security bureaucracy that Pakistan has never been known to appreciate and reciprocate such unilateral gestures. The Pakistani leaders — political or military — know the constraints on India and are taking full advantage of them to persist with their present policy of seeming to act against the LeT without actually acting against it.
The original mistake was committed by Gujral, AB Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh, who followed him, could have reversed it, but they chose not to lest they have problems in our relationship with the US.
One of the major problems faced by us in dealing with the LeT’s acts of terrorism in different parts of the country has been due to the failure of our political leadership and the Ministry of External Affairs to make it clear to the world through facts and figures — and not through rhetoric — that the LeT’s acts have a much larger agenda and have no longer much to do with the Kashmir issue. Unfortunately, Pakistan has once again almost succeeded in making the US and the UK look at the LeT activities and at 26/11 through the Kashmir prism.
The Mumbai terrorist strike — the attacks on Israelis and other Jewish people, the targeted killings of nationals of countries having troops in Afghanistan, attacks on Western businessmen, etc — clearly illustrated the global agenda of the LeT, but our political leadership and diplomacy failed to clearly draw attention to its much larger agenda. As a result, we are once again seeing references to the so-called linkages between the Kashmir issue and the LeT’s acts of terrorism. Pakistan has profited from our inaction or inept action.
Unfortunately, there has been no political will in India to make Pakistan and Bangladesh pay a heavy price for their sponsorship of terrorism against India.
We still do not have a coherent policy to deal with Pakistan, which has been a State-sponsor of terrorism in Indian territory and with Bangladesh which acts as a facilitator. Our approach to Pakistan’s sponsorship continues to be marked by the “kabhi garam, kabhi naram” (sometimes hard, sometimes soft) syndrome. One of the reasons why Indira Gandhi decided to support the independence movement in the then East Pakistan was because the ISI was giving sanctuaries to the terrorists and insurgents in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT).The creation of Bangladesh ended this sponsorship in 1971, but it was revived by the intelligence agencies of Pakistan and Bangladesh after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman in 1975. We are still struggling to cope with it.
One of the lessons of the post-World War history of State-Sponsored terrorism is that it never ends unless the guilty state is made to pay a prohibitive price. STASI, the East German intelligence service, was behind much of the ideological terrorism in West Europe. The collapse of communism in East Germany and the end of STASI brought an end to this terrorism. The intelligence services of Libya and Syria were behind much of the West Asian terrorism and the Carlos group, then living in Damascus, played a role in helping ideological groups in West Europe. The US bombing of Libya in 1986, the strong US action against Syria, which was declared a State-sponsor of terrorism and against Sudan, where Carlos shifted from Damascus, and the prosecution and jailing, under US pressure, of two Libyan intelligence officers for their complicity in the bombing of a Pan Am plane off Lockerbie on the Irish coast in 1988 brought an end to state-sponsorship of terrorism by Libya and Sudan. Syria has stopped sponsoring terrorism against the US, but continues to do so against Israel.
There are any number of UN resolutions and international declarations declaring state-sponsored terrorism as amounting to indirect aggression against the victim state. Unfortunately, there has been no political will in India to make Pakistan and Bangladesh pay a heavy price for their sponsorship of terrorism against India. Once a firm decision based on a national consensus is taken that the time has come to make Pakistan and Bangladesh pay a price, the question as to which organization should do it and how will be sorted out. The problem is not that we don’t have an appropriate organization, but we don’t have the will to act against Pakistan and Bangladesh.
We must take action instead of depending on the US or other members of the international community to do so. Every country is interested in protecting the lives and property of only its own citizens. This is natural. It is the responsibility of the Government of India and the States to protect the lives and property of our nationals.
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