AL QAEDA & LASHKAR-E-TOIBA
by B. Raman
The authorities of the US Homeland Security Department
have issued an alert to all airline companies about the dangers of a
terrorist attack on the US Consulate in Karachi mounted from the air. The
staff of airline companies and airports have reportedly been asked to be
on the look-out for any suspicious attempts to hire trainer or other
aircraft.
2. While no explanation has been forthcoming as to what
caused the issue of this alert, it has come in the wake of the arrest of
six persons said to be connected to Al Qaeda at Karachi on April 29,2003.
Three of these have been described as hard-core members of Al Qaeda.
They are Waleed Muhammad bin Attash alias Tawfiq bin Attash alias Khalid
Al-Attash, described as a Yemeni suspect in the attack on the US naval
ship USS Cole at Aden in October,2000, Ali Abd al-Aziz also known as
Ammar al-Baluchi-- said to be a nephew of Khalid Shaikh Muhammad,
supposedly the operations chief of Osama bin Laden, who was arrested at
Rawalpindi on March 2 and handed over to US officials---- and Abu
Ammar.Aziz and Ammar are said to be Yemeni-Balochis. Unconfirmed reports
say that after initial interrogation by the Pakistani authorities, they
have already been handed over to the USA's Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI), which has flown them out of the country.
3. Following these arrests and the reported handing over
of the three Arabs to the FBI, the Pakistani authorities have issued their
own alert, warning the local police and intelligence agencies to
strengthen security measures to prevent any retaliatory attack on US
nationals or establishments by Al Qaeda or its Pakistani associates in bin
Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF)---the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
(HUM), including its new wing called the HUM (Al-Alami, meaning
International), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Lashkar-e-Toiba
(LET), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ).
4. What would appear to have caused alarm is the
recovery of a substantial quantity of explosives during the arrests. The
circumstances, which led to the arrests, are not yet clear. According to
one report, the Pakistan Rangers, during routine checking of suspect
vehicles on the roads, found one carrying arms and ammunition and
explosives. The interrogation of the driver of the vehicle led to an Al
Qaeda hide-out in the Korangi area of Karachi, where more explosives were
found and the other members were arrested.The collection of the explosives
by the terrorists indicated that they were planning a major terrorist
strike in Karachi, which had been prevented by their accidental arrest.
5. The Karachi Police are acting on the presumption that
there must be other Al Qaeda hide-outs in Karachi, which have not so far
come to notice and where more explosives might be stored. During previous
arrests of Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, no explosives were
found.However, explosives are available in plenty all over Pakistan and
particularly in Karachi and had been used last year in the attack on the
French submarine experts and in the car bomb explosion outside the US
Consulate in Karachi.
6.In addition to these three Arabs, the Police also
arrested three or more Pakistanis who were assisting them. The names of
two of them have been given as Muhammad Anwar alias Jabir and
Habibullah alias Abdul Salam alias Imran. It is said that before coming to
Karachi, they had participated in "jihad" in Afghanistan and in
Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) in India.
7. During the initial interrogation by the Pakistani
officials, Waleed is reported to have told them that last year about 75
Arab operatives of Al Qaeda had fled from Afghanistan and the bordering
areas of Pakistan and taken shelter at different places in Karachi.
According to him, of these, about 50 are still in hiding in Karachi.
However, he denied any knowledge of the whereabouts of bin Laden.
8.He is also reported to have stated that he and his
associates were recruiting Pakistani volunteers for undertaking suicide
missions against American targets and that they had already recruited 12
persons from the LET.
9. There were six terrorist strikes directed
against American, French and other Western targets last year in Karachi,
Islamabad and on the Karakoram Highway to Xinjiang in China.Those
involved, who were subsequently arrested and prosecuted, belonged to the
HUM, the HUM (Al-Alami), the HUJI, the JEM and the LEJ. They were acting
at the behest of Al Qaeda. Their arrests led to a decrease in the
activities of these organisations. No major Al Qaeda or IIF related
terrorist strikes have been reported for nearly five months now, either in
Pakistan itself or from other countries.Al Qaeda , while continuing to be
active in Afghanistan in association with the Taliban and Gulbuddin
Heckmatyar's Hizbe Islami, has not been able to mount any major operation
in Pakistani territory or outside after the Mombasa blast of last year.
10. In the past, the LET had kept its activities
confined to its jihad in India and its assistance to the Jemmah Islamiyah
and other pro-bin Laden elements in Indonesia.It did not utter any threats
against the USA or target American nationals or interests. As a result,
American intelligence officials based in Pakistan did not pay the same
attention to monitoring its activities as they did to the activities of Al
Qaeda and the other Pakistani organisations mentioned above, despite the
fact that Abu Zubaidah, then No. 3 in Al Qaeda, was arrested in March last
year from the house of an LET leader at Faislabad in Pakistani Punjab.
11.It has thus managed to retain its infrastructure and
source of funding intact.Though it has changed its name to Jamaat-ud-Dawa
to escape the consequences of the order banning it issued by Gen.Pervez
Musharraf on January 15,2002, it continues to be referred to by many
Afghans, Pakistanis and Arabs as the LET. Since the beginning of
this year, it has been trying to perform the role previously played by Al
Qaeda as the co-ordinator of pro-bin Laden networks all over the world, as
the supplier of funds to the networks in different countries and
particularly in South-East Asia and of suicide volunteers,arms and
ammunition and explosives to the surviving Al Qaeda operatives in
Pakistan etc.
12.It has reportedly re-organised its structure on the
pattern of Al Qaeda and has vastly expanded its activities to the business
field in order to augment its sources of income. The "Friday
Times" (January 17-23), the prestigious weekly of Lahore, reported as
follows: "The Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JD), formerly known as Lashkar-e-Toiba,
is snapping up properties across Pakistan.Sources told the weekly that
recent real estate purchases by the JD amount to about Rs.300
million. It has reportedly bought four plots of land in Hyderabad division
(of Sindh) and six others in various Sindh districts.The total price tag
is about Rs.200 million.Recent purchases in Lahore have cost it Rs.100
million."
13.During the recent Eid festival in Pakistan,it was
reported to have received charity contributions worth Rs. 710 million,
mostly in the form of the hides of the sacrificed animals.It has also been
in receipt of large funds from overseas Pakistanis. The annual report on
the Patterns of Global Terrorism during 2002 released to the media by the
Counter-Terrorism Division of the US State Department on April 30,2003,
states as follows on the LET: "Collects donations from the Pakistani
community in the Persian Gulf and United Kingdom, Islamic NGOs, and
Pakistani and Kashmiri businessmen. The LT also maintains a Web site
(under the name of its parent organization Jamaat ud-Daawa), through which
it solicits funds and provides information on the group’s activities.
The amount of LT funding is unknown. The LT maintains ties to
religious/military groups around the world, ranging from the Philippines
to the Middle East and Chechnya. In anticipation of asset seizures by the
Pakistani Government, the LT withdrew funds from bank accounts and
invested in legal businesses, such as commodity trading, real estate, and
production of consumer goods." The State Department uses the
abbreviation LT for the LET.
14.Al Qaeda has been trying to use the organisational
infrastructure of the LET in Pakistan, its network in the Islamic
world and its large funds for stepping up acts of terrorism against the
USA and Israel. The LET's close access to senior officers of the Pakistani
military and intelligence establishment could be exploited by Al
Qaeda to prevent any action against its surviving cadres in Pakistan.Many
members of Pakistan's scientific community in the nuclear and missile
fields regularly attend the conventions of the LET. By making use of this,
Al Qaeda should be able to seek the assistance of LET sympathisers in the
scientific community for acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Since the
LET is the Pakistani terrorist organisation most active in J&K and
other parts of India, its strengthened nexus with Al Qaeda should be a
matter of concern to India.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet
Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For
Topical Studies, Chennai, and convenor, Advisory Committee, Observer
Research Foundation, Chennai. E-mail: corde@vsnl.com
)
