Vol. 73/No. 1      January 12, 2009

In other parts of the country, the Pakistani government has taken steps to crack down on more Islamist groups following last month’s terrorist attack on civilians in Mumbai, India. The primary target is Lashkar-e-Taiba, the main organization implicated in the attacks in which some 170 people were killed, and one of many such groups that the Pakistani government has nurtured for years.

The United Nations Security Council passed a U.S.-backed resolution December 10 placing Lashkar-e-Taiba and four of its alleged leaders on a list of organizations that support al-Qaeda. Those on the list are subject to asset freezes, travel bans, and arms embargoes.

The resolution listed a charity group with substantial assets in Pakistan, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, as an alias for Lashkar-e-Taiba. Jamaat-ud-Dawa is headed by Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, a founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Saeed, who publicly disassociated himself from Lashkar-e-Taiba after the Pakistani government banned the organization in 2002, was one of those placed on the list.

The resolution was passed after the Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations made clear that Islamabad would take action against Jamaat-ud-Dawa once it was added to the UN list.

Pakistani officials then placed Saeed under a three-month house arrest. They also sealed dozens of Jamaat-ud-Dawa offices, arrested scores of its members, and froze the group’s assets. However, many facilities linked to Jamaat-ud-Dawa—which runs some 150 health-care centers, 8 hospitals, 160 schools, and 50 madrassas, or Islamic schools—remain open.

The Pakistani government officially banned Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2002 following a 2001 attack on the Indian parliament, which brought the two countries to the brink of war. However, the group continued to operate openly in areas of the country.

Following the Mumbai event, Islamabad also took steps against Jaish-e-Mohammad, another officially banned group accused of involvement in the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament. Pakistan defense minister Mukhtar Ahmed announced that Maulana Masood Azhar, founder and leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed, had also been placed under house arrest. However Pakistani ambassador to India Shahid Malik later said Azhar is not in Pakistani custody and no where to be found.

The Pakistani government has refused to hand over suspects arrested in the attack to the Indian government.

Lashkar-e-Taiba was founded at the end of the 1980s and had served Islamabad by providing fighters to the Himalayan territory of Kashmir, a majority Muslim area fought over between the governments of Pakistan and India. Lashkar-e-Taiba’s stated goals are to spread boundaries of an Islamic state under Sharia law, and force non-Muslims to pay tribute. The Islamist’s aim in the mass killing of Indians in Mumbai was likely to fuel sectarian violence between Muslims and Hindus and reignite armed conflict in Kashmir.

The Pakistani government has a long history of using reactionary Islamist movements to further the interests of the country’s ruling class. The Islamizing of the Pakistani state was carried out by the country’s military rulers, in part, as a counterweight to Baluchi and Pashtun nationalist movements on its soil. Later the Pakistani government established, funded, and armed Islamist fighters to extend its political influence in the region from Afghanistan to Kashmir.

Islamabad’s policy of support for Islamist fighters had previously also served the interests of U.S. imperialism—which backed Mujahideen forces against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s—until the U.S. rulers began to consider the establishment of the Taliban government resulting from that course as a problem.

Under heavy pressure following Washington’s invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Pakistani government turned against al-Qaeda, elements of the Taliban, and other groups in the country. It launched a war against them in parts of Pakistan’s northwest, predominantly Pashtun mountainous region. Civilians have been killed in the crossfire, and hundreds of thousands displaced as a result.

While Lashkar-e-Taiba is based in the populous eastern Punjab province in Pakistan bordering India, the Taliban is based in the Pashtun area, which spans the Afghan-Pakistan border. In Pakistan this includes the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and northeast Balushistan. The Pashtuns are the dominant nationality in Afghanistan, comprising 40 percent of the population.  
 
Fight against Taliban
Top officials of the NWFP provincial government held a special cabinet meeting on security December 21 calling on the Pakistani government to conduct a “more effective” fight against the Taliban in Swat.

The Pakistani military made initial progress against the Taliban forces in the northern Swat region of the country’s NWFP, where they launched a major offensive last year.

Beginning the second week in December, Taliban forces have carried out a series of assaults on NATO supply depots near Peshawar, the NWFP capital. The depots are part of the main route through Pakistan to supply U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan. In two weeks, six attacks destroyed more than 300 military vehicles and supply trucks.

Sirajul Haq, the local leader of the Jammat-e-Islami political party, encouraged Taliban attacks at a December 18 demonstration of thousands in Peshawar, reported the Washington Post. Many truck drivers are refusing to carry supplies along the route.

Lt. Cmdr. James Gater, a spokesman for NATO forces in Afghanistan, told AP, “There is no indication to us that there is a disruption to our supply lines at this stage.” At the same time, Gen. David Petreaus, head of U.S. Central Command, said the U.S. military is looking into alternative routes.
 
 
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