So many different Islamic terrorist groups that it is difficult to keep track.
The United States already has its fair share of terrorist outfits to uproot and neutralize, and while the Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) may not be an immediate threat, it could in time emerge to be far deadlier than al Qaeda or the Islamic State, warns senior Pakistani journalist Arif Jamal in his latest book, Call for Transnational Jihad: Lashkar-e-Taiba (1985-2014). Jamal has been reporting on the jihadist outfit, which was little known outside of South Asia until the 2008 Mumbai attacks brought it international attention, for over two decades. The basis of his research is numerous interviews with JuD's leader Hafiz Saeed and a plethora of internal doctrinal literature. I was a little skeptical of the magnitude of the organization that Jamal contends is quietly pushing to revive a global Islamic Caliphate. So, I caught up with the writer in Washington, D.C., where he is currently based, to talk to him about JuD's expanding network of trusted allies outside of Pakistan. The following is an excerpt of that conversation, which has been edited and condensed.
Shah: After reading your book, I get the sense that there is very little understanding in the West of JuD, and its workings. Is that an accurate assessment?
Jamal: Yes, that would be correct to say. There is a lot of misreporting. Let me give you a few examples. Many Western experts, interested in JuD, conclude that its founder, Hafiz Saeed, taught engineering at a college in Pakistan and is himself an engineer. That is incorrect. He was only a professor of Islamic studies at the university. To give you a better idea, the U.S. State Department's 2010 press release, which announced a bounty on Saeed and his brother-in-law, was replete with factual mistakes. The State Department even got Saeed's date of birth wrong, and this information is out there. You just need to look for it. While these might sound like insignificant errors, here is a more serious mistake many experts make: to use the names JuD and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) interchangeably. For them, LeT is the main organization, and JuD is only its political wing. Wrong again. It is in fact JuD that is the central organization, and LeT is just one of its branches, which is responsible for waging jihad in India.
S: JuD has evolved and expanded its network in recent years. Would it be safe to say that while the world was busy with al Qaeda, JuD kept growing and has now metastasized into a formidable terrorist outfit, with an international presence?
J: JuD is a radical offshoot of Juhayman al-Otaybi's Ikhwan, which launched a rebellion and seized Mecca in 1979. Consider that the first terrorist act in present times. Militants from several countries took part in that revolt. From the very beginning, JuD has had a global outlook; its ambitions are not restricted to India. Saeed and his affiliated militias have units in over a 100 countries. Dawa members have participated in all major jihads around the world, including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, India, the Philippines, and Tajikistan. This is not something that al Qaeda did. JuD also has sleeper cells in most of the United Kingdom; in fact, their Europe headquarters is in Paris, and run by a Pakistani. Even with such an outstretched and global network, the largest training camp is still in Pakistan.
S: So are you saying JuD could be the next al Qaeda, or an even bigger threat to world peace?
J: No, it will not be the next al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is a far smaller organization. Even in its heydays, it only had a membership of approximately 5,000 people. On the other hand, JuD has at least half a million men under arms. And let's not treat them as two separate entities. In recent years, al Qaeda has moved closer to JuD. Take [al Qaeda leader] Ayman al-Zawahiri's statement a few days back of operational expansion by setting up a new branch in the Indian subcontinent. In his 55-minute video, he promised to rally Muslims in Burma [Myanmar], India, and Bangladesh. Now in these countries, JuD already has extensive networks. Also, there is well-documented evidence that Osama bin Laden was in contact with Saeed before his death. One reason could be that al Qaeda adopted Otaybi's ideology -- Salafism -- in 1996. There are only two heirs to this sect of Islam in the militant world, al Qaeda and JuD. When Pakistani authorities were rounding up al-Qaeda-linked Arabs after 9/11, most of them were found in the homes of JuD members.
S: And what, if any, is the nexus between JuD and other terrorists groups in Pakistan?
J: In the last two years, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan's chief, Mullah Maulana Fazlullah, has started to espouse Saeed, ideologically. Remember that most of the jihadists groups in Pakistan follow the Deobandi sect of Islam, not the Salafist, which is the faith that rules the behavior of JuD. But they can become JuD's natural allies when the latter turns against the Pakistani state. Iraq and Syria are a case in point. Here several divergent groups amalgamated under the banner of the Islamic State. So if JuD decides to set up a caliphate in South Asia, many outfits will support this ominous development.
But let's talk about Fazlullah again. He is not an ardent follower of Deobandi Islam, and has drifted closer to Salafism over the years. His father-in-law actually trained in a JuD camp in Afghanistan. One more thing, to further explain the imprint of JuD in the way modern terrorists wage war. Dawa, in fact, revived the tradition of beheading in the 1980s during the Afghan War. One of their commanders is quoted, in the group's literature, as having severed the heads of over a 100 Soviet soldiers. In 1995, LeT militants beheaded their first Indian solider. That was also the year when I first came into contact with this group. On route from Islamabad to Lahore, our bus stopped outside the headquarters of JuD, where an annual congregation was ongoing. Curiosity got the best of me, so I walked into the gathering. And to my shock, I noticed a human head on a spear in the midst of the crowd. I was told that one of their commanders had beheaded an Indian army officer and brought his head back to display to the congregation. Many JuD publications have noted this event.
Continue reading at:
The Rise of Lashkar-e-Taiba A Q A with Arif Jamal
The United States already has its fair share of terrorist outfits to uproot and neutralize, and while the Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) may not be an immediate threat, it could in time emerge to be far deadlier than al Qaeda or the Islamic State, warns senior Pakistani journalist Arif Jamal in his latest book, Call for Transnational Jihad: Lashkar-e-Taiba (1985-2014). Jamal has been reporting on the jihadist outfit, which was little known outside of South Asia until the 2008 Mumbai attacks brought it international attention, for over two decades. The basis of his research is numerous interviews with JuD's leader Hafiz Saeed and a plethora of internal doctrinal literature. I was a little skeptical of the magnitude of the organization that Jamal contends is quietly pushing to revive a global Islamic Caliphate. So, I caught up with the writer in Washington, D.C., where he is currently based, to talk to him about JuD's expanding network of trusted allies outside of Pakistan. The following is an excerpt of that conversation, which has been edited and condensed.
Shah: After reading your book, I get the sense that there is very little understanding in the West of JuD, and its workings. Is that an accurate assessment?
Jamal: Yes, that would be correct to say. There is a lot of misreporting. Let me give you a few examples. Many Western experts, interested in JuD, conclude that its founder, Hafiz Saeed, taught engineering at a college in Pakistan and is himself an engineer. That is incorrect. He was only a professor of Islamic studies at the university. To give you a better idea, the U.S. State Department's 2010 press release, which announced a bounty on Saeed and his brother-in-law, was replete with factual mistakes. The State Department even got Saeed's date of birth wrong, and this information is out there. You just need to look for it. While these might sound like insignificant errors, here is a more serious mistake many experts make: to use the names JuD and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) interchangeably. For them, LeT is the main organization, and JuD is only its political wing. Wrong again. It is in fact JuD that is the central organization, and LeT is just one of its branches, which is responsible for waging jihad in India.
S: JuD has evolved and expanded its network in recent years. Would it be safe to say that while the world was busy with al Qaeda, JuD kept growing and has now metastasized into a formidable terrorist outfit, with an international presence?
J: JuD is a radical offshoot of Juhayman al-Otaybi's Ikhwan, which launched a rebellion and seized Mecca in 1979. Consider that the first terrorist act in present times. Militants from several countries took part in that revolt. From the very beginning, JuD has had a global outlook; its ambitions are not restricted to India. Saeed and his affiliated militias have units in over a 100 countries. Dawa members have participated in all major jihads around the world, including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, India, the Philippines, and Tajikistan. This is not something that al Qaeda did. JuD also has sleeper cells in most of the United Kingdom; in fact, their Europe headquarters is in Paris, and run by a Pakistani. Even with such an outstretched and global network, the largest training camp is still in Pakistan.
S: So are you saying JuD could be the next al Qaeda, or an even bigger threat to world peace?
J: No, it will not be the next al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is a far smaller organization. Even in its heydays, it only had a membership of approximately 5,000 people. On the other hand, JuD has at least half a million men under arms. And let's not treat them as two separate entities. In recent years, al Qaeda has moved closer to JuD. Take [al Qaeda leader] Ayman al-Zawahiri's statement a few days back of operational expansion by setting up a new branch in the Indian subcontinent. In his 55-minute video, he promised to rally Muslims in Burma [Myanmar], India, and Bangladesh. Now in these countries, JuD already has extensive networks. Also, there is well-documented evidence that Osama bin Laden was in contact with Saeed before his death. One reason could be that al Qaeda adopted Otaybi's ideology -- Salafism -- in 1996. There are only two heirs to this sect of Islam in the militant world, al Qaeda and JuD. When Pakistani authorities were rounding up al-Qaeda-linked Arabs after 9/11, most of them were found in the homes of JuD members.
S: And what, if any, is the nexus between JuD and other terrorists groups in Pakistan?
J: In the last two years, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan's chief, Mullah Maulana Fazlullah, has started to espouse Saeed, ideologically. Remember that most of the jihadists groups in Pakistan follow the Deobandi sect of Islam, not the Salafist, which is the faith that rules the behavior of JuD. But they can become JuD's natural allies when the latter turns against the Pakistani state. Iraq and Syria are a case in point. Here several divergent groups amalgamated under the banner of the Islamic State. So if JuD decides to set up a caliphate in South Asia, many outfits will support this ominous development.
But let's talk about Fazlullah again. He is not an ardent follower of Deobandi Islam, and has drifted closer to Salafism over the years. His father-in-law actually trained in a JuD camp in Afghanistan. One more thing, to further explain the imprint of JuD in the way modern terrorists wage war. Dawa, in fact, revived the tradition of beheading in the 1980s during the Afghan War. One of their commanders is quoted, in the group's literature, as having severed the heads of over a 100 Soviet soldiers. In 1995, LeT militants beheaded their first Indian solider. That was also the year when I first came into contact with this group. On route from Islamabad to Lahore, our bus stopped outside the headquarters of JuD, where an annual congregation was ongoing. Curiosity got the best of me, so I walked into the gathering. And to my shock, I noticed a human head on a spear in the midst of the crowd. I was told that one of their commanders had beheaded an Indian army officer and brought his head back to display to the congregation. Many JuD publications have noted this event.
Continue reading at:
The Rise of Lashkar-e-Taiba A Q A with Arif Jamal
