Why is the mastermind behind the 2008 Mumbai terror attack denouncing acts of extremism from Pakistan’s soil?
By Vishwas Kumar
In a bizarre and seemingly sudden change of heart, the 2008 Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Muhammad Saeed has denounced “acts of terrorism” in an interview to a Pakistani newspaper. He was quoted in the interview as saying: “We were the first organisation, which declared long ago that suicide bombings and all acts of terrorism within Pakistan remain against the tenets of Islam. Shariat forbids such acts. Those who are destroying peace in Pakistan are directly or indirectly working on foreign agenda.”
Saeed was speaking as the head of the Jamaat-ud Dawa (JuD), which is the charitable arm of the banned terror group Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). He made this statement in the context of Pakistan Taliban (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, TTP) stepping up suicide attacks on Pakistan’s armed forces and civilian targets inside Pakistan.
Saeed’s sermon has security analysts wondering what his new gameplan is. Is he feeling shaky that the new organisation, TTP, is emerging as the more popular and powerful voice for Islamic causes among Pakistani jehadists? And to think that all this is happening beyond the Pakistan’s army pat-ronage and control could be disconcerting for Saeed, the founder of LeT.
That Saeed’s mentor, protector and financer remains Pakistan’s ISI (Inter-Services Intelli-gence) is the worst-kept secret. But this could change quickly, as Saeed is cornered through the rise in terrorist attacks within Pakistan.
His position of authority among jehadists is being challenged by the TTP, which doesn’t believe in the concept of Pakistan as a nation. For the TTP, the Islamic cause is bigger than the unity and integrity of Pakistan. And that has brought the TTP in direct confrontation with the Pakistan army.
Saeed’s only option now is to become the Pakistan army’s “unofficial spokesperson”, giving lectures and sermons to “educate” the jehadists against “suicide bombings” and “terrorism” against Pakistan.
That is his opinion on attacks within Pakistan. He remains quiet on whether his lectures apply to non-Islamic nations as well.
Basically, Saeed seems to be a man riding a tiger—doomed any which way. That’s what his recent tweets indicate. He cannot criticize terrorism, because he would then become a legitimate target of terror organizations like the TTP. And if he doesn’t talk against terrorism, his current benefactors would go against him.
Saeed is, thus, using the reach of social media to deliver his new approach strategies, to re-orient and to remain relevant.
His actions were well calibrated to project this new image. In July, he gave his first interview to the BBC, and later he talked to India’s freelance journalist Ved Pratap Vaidik.
The timing of the BBC interview showed his urgency to get back on track—it was a week after the US declared JuD a “foreign terrorist organization”. This move freezes any assets it has under US jurisdiction. The US had earlier put the LeT in a similar category.
In the interview, Saeed lamented that US was targeting his organization simply to please India. “America always takes decisions based on Indian dictation. Now it’s imposing this new ban because it needs India’s help in Afghanistan,” he said.
And the choice of BBC was because the news channel has a huge reach within the Indian sub-continent. Then he met Vaidik, just to prove his credentials as a “moderate” jehadi leader. The BBC journalist Andrew North, who interviewed Saeed, later said that he had tried earlier to speak to him but was never granted permission. Vaidik also made a similar comment.
Saeed’s residence is heavily guarded by the ISI and his actions are closely monitored. So it can be assumed that the meeting with foreign journalists was facilitated by the ISI. But why would the ISI allow this?
Therein lies the bigger picture. Most analysts agree that the Pakistan’s army has started fine-tuning and implementing its strategy in preparation for the US forces’ full withdrawal from Afghanistan at the end of this year. Since Saeed and his terror outfits are fully embedded within the Pakistan army’s strategic vision, all his moves needs to be read and understood in this context.
One indication was the recent launch of Operation Zarb-e-Azb by the Pakistan army to flush out terrorists from their hideouts in North Waziristan. This has been a long-standing demand of the Americans.
The idea, it seems, is to push all the militants, including the most dreaded ones, such as TTP, Haqqani network, Al Qaeda and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan into Afghan territory. With the US army already in drawdown mode and the Afghan military mainly focused on protecting big cities, the Waziristan terrorists are easily slipping into unmanned areas of Afghanistan.
Sameer Saran, a noted defence analyst in his recent column in the think-tank, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) said: “…many of the jihadists who are being ‘expelled’ or ‘pushed out’ of Pakistan are not going to face any real problem in Afghanistan. In the process, the Pakis-tanis are hoping to win brownie points for having launched this much awaited operation and at the same time keep their larger gameplan of keeping their ‘strategic assets’ intact.”
The analyst further observed that “the jihad factory will continue to operate, but without the jihadists enjoying any of the autonomy of action that they had started taking for granted.”
No wonder, Saeed is the most enthusiastic supporter of Operation Zarb-e-Azb (literally, ‘Sword of Prophet Muhammad’). In a series of tweets lasting several days, he complimented the army for the operations and also took great pains in explaining why they were forced to act against their own “brothers”.
Using the hashtag #ZarbeAzb, he said in his tweet: “US direly wanted an army operation in NW upon its dictation. However, Pak Army has launched #ZarbeAzb keeping own security interests in focus.”
It remains to be seen if the ‘new-improved’ Saeed can survive this critical phase.