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NEIGHBOURS:
PAKISTAN
New Face Of Terror
 Bigger
and bolder, the jehadi attacks by
the Lashkar-e-Toiba in India are threatening to
undo the Vajpayee Government's cease-fire game plan
By
Zahid Hussain in Lahore and
Surinder Singh Oberoi in Srinagar
You
can see the fire of Islam glowing in his eyes. His words hit you like
jabs, there is so much directness in them. Hafiz Mohammed Sayeed wants
One World, One Religion. Even if that means blood must flow in the valleys
and mountains of Kashmir, Chechnya, Bosnia, wherever, all the time. Surrounded
by some 50 well-armed men covered in green, he tells you matter-of-factly
that "all of civilisation must clash until Islam is accepted everywhere".
He believes every word he spews. So do the hundreds of others he leads,
men who are based at the Markaz-al-Dawa-ul-Arshad, the headquarters of
the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) at Muridke, near Lahore.
Sayeed is
the Lashkar flame that glows because there is so much firewood all around,
ready to burn for an Azad Kashmir, and now, even beyond. Like Abu Shamaal,
a 25-year-old from Lahore, who was slain in an encounter in Delhi, but
not before he and his fidayeen (suicide squad) colleagues managed to gun
down two armymen inside the Red Fort on December 22. It is this kind of
mission, plotted in Muridke, supported by Muzaffarabad, and executed in
India that has made LeT-urdu
for the holy army-the most daring terrorist outfit out of
Pakistan in current times. "The action indicates that we have extended
the jehad to the rest of India," adds Sayeed, a veteran of the Afghan
wars.
The mission,
in fact, is getting deadlier than ever before. On January 16, six LeT fidayeen in Indian Army uniform stormed the Srinagar airport, engaging
the security forces in a fierce gun battle for close to an hour. The young
men, all in their 20s and all titled Abu (trained LeT warriors), perished.
Not that the fidayeen must die to accomplish their deadly missions. The
stress is on causing maximum damage, and getting out alive. But still
a dead fidayeen sends out clear messages to the Indian securitymen: such
attacks would catch them by surprise every now and then. The attack on
the airport, sure enough, was followed by another on a police control
room at Srinagar. The LeT kept it under siege for over 14 hours.
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HIGH-VALUE
STRIKE
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(1)
Dec 4, 2000: Devar
Target: The 18 Rashtriya Rifles camp Militants killed: 1 Army jawans
killed: 4
(2) Feb 3 & 11, 2001:
KUPWARA
Target: The 24 Rashtriya Rifles camp; Militants killed: 3
(3) Jan 15 & Feb 14,
2001: BARAMULLA
Target: Army bus, CRPF camp Militants killed: 1
(4)
Dec 27, 2000: TANGPORA
Targets: BSF, police posts
Militants killed: 1
(5) Jan 8, 2001: CHERWAR
KOKERNAG
Target: Army camp Militants killed: 1
(6)
Dec 11, 2000 & Jan 15, 2001: SRINAGAR
Targets: Army hq, airport and police control room. Militants killed:
9; Police and army jawans killed: 17
(7)
Dec 4, 2000: ANANTNAG
Target: CRPF camp. Militants killed: 2 Army jawans killed: 6 |
The fidayeen
keep getting killed, but there is fresh blood all the time. At the Lashkar
recruitment camps across Pakistan, they come in hordes from Punjab, NWFP
and Sindh, ready to earn the badges of holy warriors-jehadis-and plunge
themselves daringly into enemy territory. The chunk of young recruits
keeps coming in not from the madarsas so much as from the army of youngsters
studying in universities and colleges in Pakistan. They also get drawn
from among the poor who want to get more out of life than mere drudgery
by strapping a Kalashnikov across their chest. Like the three younger
brothers of Abu Ukrema, 25. He recently fought the Indian Army-Enemy No.1
is the man in the army uniform-at Kupwara and is now nursing a bullet
wound at the LeT headquarters. He says his brothers are temporary hands
at a Lahore factory, but have also undergone guerrilla training at a camp
in PoK. Now they await the "high command's" call. "Our
entire family is willing to die for the cause of jehad," the bearded
Ukrema told India Today at Lahore.
Motivation
is the key to the LeT's success. That is why it has recruited more people
in the past one year than ever before in its seven-year history. The LeT's
500-strong cadre that one sees today is ferociously dedicated to the jehadi
cause. Its members would rather die in encounters than be arrested by
Indian security forces. "We are seeing a new set of youngsters from
the colleges enter our rolls. Their motivation levels are extraordinary,"
says Naveed Qamar, a graduate of the University of Engineering at Lahore
and a LeT recruiting pointman. Adds Abu Mohammed, a volunteer waiting
to sneak into Kashmir: "I have only one dream-to become a martyr."
Why is the
rise of the Lashkar so worrying for India? By calling the cease-fire on
November 19, the Centre had hoped to neutralise crucial cards that Pakistan
held in the bloody proxy battle it has been waging in Kashmir. Among the
most significant was the control of militants and their ability to constantly
create havoc in the Valley. In July last year, Delhi seemed to have partially
succeeded in bringing a division in the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, a key militant
group, over talks with India. It also tried to drive a wedge between the
local Kashmiri jehadis and foreign mercenaries. While declaring a cease-fire,
the Union Government also claimed that it had the militants on the run.
Alarmed
by the surprising success of India's new game plan, Pakistan appears to
have begun using the Lashkar as its spearhead to dent Delhi's initiative
and regain its hold over the militants. It is a carefully crafted strategy.
While the attacks on civilians continue, the militants also mock at the
Indian security forces and agencies by striking at places like Delhi's
Red Fort and the Srinagar airport. Security forces are now concerned that
if the Government persists with the cease-fire without significant gains,
it may degrade their ability to control militancy in the long run.
The dilemma
for India, therefore, will be whether to extend the cease-fire beyond
the February 19 deadline. One concern is to find a way to resume talks
with Pakistan and thereby satisfy mounting world pressure on the "two
most hostile neighbours" to desist from war. But increasingly, the
feeling is that Pakistan Chief Executive General Pervez Musharraf may
not be able to cut a deal with India like Nawaz Sharif did with the Lahore
declaration. Economically, Pakistan continues to be in a shambles. Musharraf
is having difficulty in keeping his promise of bringing good governance.
He is also desperately trying to fill the vacuum he created by exiling
Sharif and keeping the heat on Benazir Bhutto and her family. His main
opposition comes from the fundamentalist Jamaat-i-Islami that is also
trying to grab the same political space. So while Musharraf may present
a moderate Islamic face to the West, domestically India expects him to
continue to play the Islamic card and adopt an even more hardline approach.
Which means his regime will have no option but to tacitly support the LeT.
Back in
the Valley, Indian troops are not just worried by the LeT's stepped up
recruitments and its strikes but also by its excellent organisational
capacity. When one LeT militant is caught, he leads the forces nowhere.
To confuse the enemy, its members have similar names. So for every Abu
Salem that is killed, 10 others by the same name surface. "They baffle
us with their planning, making it difficult for us to assess their strength
inside Kashmir and in the rest of India," says a BSF officer.
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