The Hindu : Front Page : Jaipur attacks could herald a new terror offensive

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Thursday, May 15, 2008
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Jaipur attacks could herald a new terror offensive

Praveen Swami

Experts fear jihadi groups in Pakistan army are reasserting their influence

Photo: PTI

The sketch of a suspect of the Jaipur serial bomb blast which was released on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON D.C.: As investigators begin the difficult and most likely protracted task of determining who carried out Tuesday’s serial bombings in Jaipur, intelligence services across the world are attempting to assess if the attacks are a precursor to more violence.

More likely than not, the perpetrators of the Jaipur serial bombings had the same objectives as the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Harkat ul-Jihad-e-Islami cells which have carried out dozens of similar attacks since 1993. Islamist terror groups have long sought to precipitate a pan-India communal war, legitimising strikes on temples as reprisal for communal violence against Muslims.

But the timing of the Jaipur bombings has borne out warnings from some intelligence analysts who have been arguing in recent weeks that Pakistan-based jihadists were preparing for a renewed terror offensive. Pakistan-based jihadists, they believe, intended to escalate strikes against India to pressure Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani’s new government and exploit fissures within Pakistan’s armed forces.

Warning Signs

Ever since the new People’s Party of Pakistan-led government took power in March, jihadist groups such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad have become increasingly assertive. They have official backing: Islamists within Pakistan’s armed forces believe the time has come to reverse President Pervez Musharraf’s policy of distancing the institution from its neoconservative clerical allies.

General (retd.) Musharraf’s reluctant rupture with his one-time jihadist allies was driven by fear of precipitating a crisis with India at a time when much of Pakistan’s northern army reserve was committed to fighting in its north-west. His critics have been telling Chief of Army Staff Pervez Ashfaq Kiani — a former Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate chief — that the policy has failed.

Signs are that they have been winning the argument. On April 21, for example, the United Jihad Council held a rally in Muzaffarabad demanding renewed state support for its war against India — the first such public display since 2001. Two years ago, 18 major groups had jointly protested against General (retd.) Musharraf’s policies, but did not make public their ire.

At the rally, United Jihad Council chief Mohammad Yusuf Shah, who also heads the Hizb ul-Mujahideen, declared that “jihad is a religious obligation, and is the only solution to the Kashmir dispute.” He attacked what he described as General (retd.) Musharraf’s “one-sided leniency” on Jammu and Kashmir, and said the President’s “cowardly policies” had “led to the increase of Indian aggression.” Representatives of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Harkat ul-Mujahideen, both proscribed organisations, were present at the rally. Although the ban on Islamist groups was at best fitfully enforced, organisations such as the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Lashkar’s parent political organisation, had been careful to avoid publicising their jihadist links.

Bahawalpur rally

Now, jihadists have become increasingly vocal on their wider ideological agenda. Speaking at a rally in Bahawalpur on April 11, at his first public rally in years, Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar lashed out at President Musharraf and his western allies. If they wished to “save Pakistan from obliteration,” he said, “then we will have to wage jihad.”

Released from an Indian prison in the Kandahar hostages-for-prisoners swap, Azhar was later jailed by General (retd.) Musharraf but quietly released after the new government in Pakistan took power. “If our rulers followed the injunctions of Allah,” Azhar said at the Bahawalpur rally, in an evident reference to General (retd.) Musharraf, “then all the problems of Pakistan will be addressed.”

To malign Islam

Speaking at a gathering of teachers from the estimated 150 Lashkar-linked Dawa Model Schools in May, Lashkar leader Saeed demanded that the government “reformulate and base our national educational curriculum in accordance with the Islamic teachings in order to eradicate the effects of secularism from our society.”

Lashkar leaders had condemned General (retd.) Musharraf’s efforts at education reforms.

At an earlier rally in Rawalakote, Saeed argued that the September 11, 2000, attacks on the U.S. were “orchestrated to wage war on the Muslims and malign Islam.”

In his view, this plot was part of the crusades which “started in 1095 and still continue.” Such “conspiracies against Islam,” Saeed continued, “can only be fought through jihad.”

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