Is there a link between the jihad in London and Southern Thailand? Yes, there is. Some of the terrorists involved in the London blasts as well as in the recent upsurge of terrorism in Southern Thailand were trained in the madrasas of Pakistan.
Not only that. The plans for the jihad in Southern Thailand were drawn up at a clandestine meeting held at Lahore.
I had mentioned in my past writings that till 2002 Muslims from Thailand were regularly coming to Pakistan for training in its madrasas. I had given statistics of their number. I had also mentioned that no statistics were available for 2003 and 2004 since the Pervez Musharraf regime had stopped releasing statistics of foreigners studying in Pakistani madrasas.
I had also reported in my past articles that following the arrest of the brother of Hambali, the former operational chief of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), and some other Indonesians and Malaysians in a Karachi madrasa run by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) in 2003, the International Islamic Front (IIF) had directed the jihadis from southern Thailand to go to Bangladesh for being trained there by the Bangladesh branch of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI).
It would now appear that Muslims from Thailand, referred to in Pakistan as "the Pattanis", continue to come to Pakistan for training in the madrasas. In an editorial on July 18,2005, the "Daily Times", the prestigious newspaper of Lahore, has written as follows on the jihad in southern Thailand, while describing how Pakistan continues to be a launch-pad for jihadi terrorism all over the world: " During this internal war, Karachi's reputation as a training camp of international terrorists has been revealed: not only have the Indonesian bombers been facilitated here, but also hundreds of Pattanis of Thailand. The future map of Thailand was said to have been decided at Multan Road in Lahore by the jihadi leaders that President Musharraf presumably referred to while talking to the policemen."
The reference to President Pervez Musharraf in the editorial is relating to an address delivered by him to senior Pakistani police officers after the London blasts of July 7, in which he reportedly directed them to put an end to all jihadi terrorist activities from Pakistani territory before the end of this year. In his address, he was reported to have claimed that he was not aware that the pro-Al Qaeda Pakistani jihadi terrorist organisations banned by him in January,2002, continue to function from Pakistani territory under changed names.
The text of the editorial is given below:
Is Pakistan still a launch-pad for terrorism? "While no seminary in Pakistan is willing to admit that the three London bombers ever contacted them, intelligence personnel in Pakistan accept that all three came to Pakistan between November last year and February this year. Muhammad Siddiq Khan (30) and Shehzad Tanweer (22) are said to have stayed in Lahore or other cities of the Punjab. Haseeb Hussain (18), the youngest of the bombers, is believed to have visited Karachi. Six months after their return from Pakistan they committed the acts of terrorism that may change Europe more than the tragedy of 9/11. In these six months they are presumed to have learnt from an expert how to make explosives in accordance with the instructions in captured Al Qaeda manuals.
"The police in Pakistan have gone looking in the cities where the spoor of the terrorists has led them: Lahore, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Toba Tek Singh and Kamalia. Four men have been reportedly arrested on suspicion from the last three cities while at least one person has been detained in Lahore. The international press has moved in and is looking for stories to file. In the coming week, a lot of negative light will shine on Pakistan and its private-sector religious institutions. With India claiming to have proof of terrorist training camps in Pakistan, and Kabul complaining of infiltration by "Pakistani" Taliban warriors, Islamabad will be on the defensive. Worse, the 24 Taliban (three of them Uzbeks and one Sudanese) killed inside Pakistani territory last week by US forces have been given an emotional burial in North Waziristan attended by thousands of local tribesmen. Meanwhile, the army has once again gone into the Tribal Areas looking for new infiltrators, said to belong to Al Qaeda, after failing to catch Abdullah Mehsud, who began his killing spree in Pakistan after being released by the Americans from the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison last year.
"The police have gone to the cities in Punjab known for their links with Al Qaeda and its ancillary militias, now banned but functioning under new names. That all was not well with our security measures was made clear by President Pervez Musharraf when, addressing senior police officers last week, he asked them to go after the banned but still functioning "renamed" militias. He came across as admitting that this was something he did not know and had had just been briefed about. (One can't imagine how an IG will approach the supreme leader of the Lashkar with handcuffs even if President Musharraf specifically orders him to do so, which is unlikely.) The truth is that at least three terrorist-jihadi organisation (whose members tried to kill him earlier) have functioned quite openly, and a usually sympathetic Urdu press has been referring to them freely after realising that the government did not mind such reporting too much. At least one leader in Lahore steadily appears on the pages of the Urdu press with statements condemning President Musharraf's "pro-US and pro-India" policies. So powerful is his "renamed" organisation that he invites opposition politicians to his impressive gatherings at a new venue in the city, which the Punjab government has allowed him. Another "leader", personally close to Osama bin Laden, has never left the comfort of his luxurious house in Islamabad. Although he has been "picked up" periodically, he has never been de-commissioned.
"In the meta-history of jihad in Pakistan the big seminaries have been used by Islamists organising terror in the name of Islam. Although Al Qaeda is supposed to have stayed away from sectarianism, its allies in Pakistan have indulged in it, opening other jihadi "contacts" to public view. A number of those leading Karachi's Darul Ulum have been killed in the sectarian tit for tat. During this internal war, Karachi's reputation as a training camp of international terrorists has been revealed: not only have the Indonesian bombers been facilitated here, but also hundreds of Pattanis of Thailand. The future map of Thailand was said to have been decided at Multan Road in Lahore by the jihadi leaders that President Musharraf presumably referred to while talking to the policemen.
"In Europe, the centre of Islamist extremism has been the mosque, not so much the seminary. The Hamburg Cell "19", which attacked the United States in 2001, fell under the spell of a Moroccan cleric at the city's Al Quds mosque. From there they were directed to Pakistan. All of them were 'facilitated' by Al Qaeda's ancillary Islamists while on their way to Afghanistan under the tutelage of Al Qaeda's Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the main planner of 9/11, who lived for many years in Karachi directing funding from Kuwait. DW (German) TV on Sunday showed a documentary by Mohamed Sifaoui, a French Muslim journalist, who penetrated Al Qaeda in Paris and London, revealing the dangerous extent to which the UK had allowed itself to become vulnerable to terrorism. In Paris, there were three mosques (including one dedicated to Pakistanis) in 2003 that spawned GIA-type terrorists. He talks of Karim Bourti, an Algerian who took his training in Pakistan so much to heart that he dressed in Pakistani clothes.
"Unfortunately, in this account, Pakistan steadily featured in the background as some kind of global launching pad for Al Qaeda's projects. The three bombers who visited Pakistan seem to have followed a set route. One thought that the terror highway of Pakistan had been closed effectively after President Musharraf revamped the ISI and closed down the camps where jihad and terrorism had exploded in terrible chemistry during the 1990s. That is why there is bound to be public resentment at the way the world will pry into the Islamist interstices of an "enlightened and moderate" Pakistan. But that is also why it is in Pakistan's own national interest to clean up the "facilitating" organisations that pretend that their project is spiritual when in fact it is mercenary."
The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Distinguished Fellow and Convenor, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Chennai Chapter. E-mail:
[email protected].
Source: South Asia Analysis Group, New Delhi, Paper no. 1461, July 18, 2005.
* Views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Observer Research Foundation.
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