The report in The News International (on May 28, 2016) that banned outfits are still recruiting jihadis exposes Pakistan’s duplicity in the war on terrorism. Some of these outfits like JuD and JeM are good militants, and, therefore, are non-state actor assets. But non-assets like HuT and Daesh are not far behind in spreading their net and their recruitment drive has turned Pakistan into “a nursery of terrorism”, says Zahid Gishkori’s dispatch. It adds that “one of the premier institutions set up to fight terrorism has informed the country’s top security intuitions” about the new danger.
“Major banned outfits are still recruiting the students of madrassas to wage Jihad in the Indian-Held Kashmir and Afghanistan. Such non-state actors have become very dangerous for Pakistan,” senior security officials dealing with counter-terrorism warned the government in a confidential document titled “Proscribed/Jihadi Organizations”, the dispatch said.
The 111-page document prepared by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD), Punjab, says 32 proscribed organizations with nine splinters groups have now become “a nursery of terrorism in Pakistan.”
The revelation naturally raises doubts about the impact of the National Action Plan (NAP) launched with a flourish for a crackdown soon after the Army Public School’s massacre in December 2014.
Because, banned organizations like Islamic State (Daesh) and Hizb-ut-Tahreer (HuT) have made Bahawalpur, Muridke, Sialkot and some southern districts of Punjab their breeding ground. Historically Southern Punjab has been a fertile ground for terrorists of all hues. JeM, for instance, based in Bahawalpur while JuD, which is an alias of LeT operates off Muridke. The significance of the new report lays in the fact that HuT, Daesh and the like have opened special wings for recruitment from the fertile Punjab plains.
The HuT is alluring educated Pakistani youth, particularly in colleges and universities, through the social media by convincing them to wage Jihad against the US interests in the country, the News report says; it adds that the HuT is also involved in anti-state activities, urging youth to stand up against Pakistan’s friendly policy towards the United States.
Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) are still feeding militants who after joining the Tehreek-e-Taliban, al-Qaeda and Islamic State (Daesh) are seriously damaging the state institutions.
Almost similar findings were given in the Punjab CTD report about groups like JeD, JeM, Al-Rehmat Trust, Khudamul Islam and Khairunas. Their followers are now waging a war against the state, according to the secret document quoted in the News International.
The LeT and JeM have established 2,200 offices across Pakistan where both have been issuing ‘Jihadi literature’. The document further revealed that despite claims of JeM and JuD, their estranged followers are joining hands with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and al-Qaeda.
Al-Akhtar Trust, operating under the leadership of Maulana Shah Hakim of Khanqa Imdaya Ashrafia, Karachi, is supporting fighters in Afghanistan and Iraq. Al-Akhtar provided logistic support to the followers of the banned organizations in Pakistan.
Some workers of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Pakistan who accepted ‘Jihad’ by heart joined hands with the militant groups after they believed that their party will not let them do jihad, according to CTD findings. The JI leadership has strongly rebutted these observations with senior leader Professor Ibrahim claiming that the party’s workers “strictly believe in peace and patriotism.” But the assertion lacks conviction.
Foreign fund-flow remains unabated to the jihadi groups. It is their oxygen. Most of it comes from Saudi Arabia, and Middle East. Unless funds are chocked, it will be difficult to rein in these groups. And it demands political will, which is in short supply with the Army calling the shots on all matters militancy as a part of its India, Afghanistan- centric strategic thinking.
Nonetheless the CTD report makes the mandatory demand for a check on fund flow to the jihadi groups. “Choke the foreign funding of followers of these proscribed organizations and dismantle their training camps”.
The report also reveals that the LeJ, which had been running training centers for the Taliban in Afghanistan, was also responsible for the attack on a journalist, Raza Rumi, in which he sustained injuries while his guard was killed in Garden Town Lahore in 2014. Yet another proof that ban on LeJ has had no effect.