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Al-Ahram Weekly Online
3 - 9 January 2002
Issue No.567
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875
Current issue | Previous issue | Site map
Elementary, my dear Musharraf
The second "war on terror" in the space of a few months is gaining
momentum, drawing in nuclear arch-rivals India and Pakistan. Beneath
the rhetoric lies a classic murder-mystery. Who did it? Mukul
Devichand puts on his detective hat
Who staged 13 December's spectacular attack on India's parliament?
The prime suspects, Kashmiri militants Jaish-e- Mohamed and Lashkar-e-
Toiba, may be backed by more sinister paymasters. Pakistan's
intelligence agency is in the dock, as is the Al-Qa'eda "terror
network" and -- in one conspiracy theory -- India's electioneering
government itself.
Our first clue lies in recent history -- in this case, history repeating. The "war on
terror" blueprint, fashioned in Washington and the Afghan hills, is now being played
out in the subcontinent.
Start with a master-crime against a cultural symbol, this time 13 December's gun
attack on India's parliament. Loss of life notwithstanding -- 13 died at the Lok
Sabha, 3,000 at the World Trade Centre -- the offended admi
nistration in both cases invoked images of an Islamist global terror network
flourishing, so India claimed, in dictatorship Pakistan. New Delhi has already made
the familiar demand that Islamabad "close the terror bases d
own." Now the world is hoping that India's bluff -- backed by massive troop
deployments and sanctions, matched by Pakistan -- will not be called.
What's being obscured by these mists of regional politics, however, is the evidence at
the scene of the attack.
The crime itself was positively theatrical, in tune with the era of apparent master-
villains like Osama Bin Laden. The scene opens with a pearly white car rolling up to
parliament. Five men emerge, clad in military green
commando fatigues and armed to the teeth. What follows is worthy of any Bollywood
movie: a pitched gun- battle lasting 45 minutes, in which security forces narrowly
save the day, sacrificing themselves in the fight. The
foiled gunmen commit collective suicide.
Within 48 hours, Indian police announce that the five gunmen were from Pakistan-based
Jaish and Lashkar and New Delhi started verbal conflict with Islamabad. Wedged in by
"war on terror" rhetoric, Pakistani President Mush
arraf offered a joint inquiry and asked for evidence. New Delhi's obstinate refusal to
cough up information matches Washington's rejection of the Taliban's similar request.
But do we really know beyond doubt that Jaish an
d Lashkar did it? Al- Ahram Weekly called India's Cairo embassy and asked precisely
that.
"There has been accumulated evidence of the involvement of these groups not only in
the attack on the Parliament but in previous incidents," was the response from the
embassy spokesman. India is drawing parallels between
this incident and past attacks by the same groups, but detailed evidence linking Jaish
and Lashkar to 13 December is not being shared -- with the public or Pakistan.
Still, we are left with a few pieces of credible evidence. Some of the five were
Pakistani nationals, Delhi police say, and they used cell-phones to call a Delhi
Arabic lecturer who, in turn, called militants in Pakistan.
"The markings on the weapons received from the site of attack point to their links to
organisations across border, " the Indian embassy spokesman told us.
A sixth man was also apparently involved but has now escaped to Kashmir. With their
usual flair, Indian newspapers are describing him as criminal mastermind "Gazi Baba,"
now on the run with his wife Zamrooda, alias "Baby.
" Gazi Baba may, in fact, be a code name used by the head of Jaish's Kashmir
operations. "He seems to have become a sort of a local Osama Bin Laden for India,"
reported Indian news-site Tehelka.com.
Pakistan's swift freeze on Jaish and Lashkar assets may further implicate them --
although US pressure is more likely the cause. Pakistan has placed Jaish chief Maulana
Masood Azhar and 20 followers under arrest. Urdu dai
ly Ausaf was quick to claim that President Musharraf was simply grabbing a golden
opportunity to jail his domestic critics. When we asked, Pakistan's Cairo embassy
spokesman told the Weekly that Azhar's offence was simply
"possession of illegal weapons."
But if the men in commando fatigues were in fact members of Lashkar or Jaish, we still
face a deeper -- and important -- mystery. Were the attackers acting alone or
following orders from above?
The Indian government, eager to fight a "war on terror," are claiming that both
Al-Qa'eda and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had a hand to play in the
attack. Pakistan, for its part, strongly denies that Kas
hmiri militants were trained in the former Afghan "terror" camps. "Between Afghanistan
and Kashmir are some of the world's highest peaks and mountain ranges in addition to
700,000 vigilantes of the occupation forces," the
Pakistani embassy spokesman told the Weekly, referring to the Indian army in Kashmir.
India claims it has 125,000 troops in the valley. "Mujahidin fighting in Kashmir need
no foreign training or backing or else their her
oic struggle would long ago have been crushed by the brute force of Indian military
might," the Pakistani spokesman added.
On the other hand, the Indian press is busily reporting evidence from post- Taliban
Afghanistan that Kashmiri militants are connected to Al-Qa'eda. At the former
Al-Qa'eda base of Rishkor, Northern Alliance Commander Popa
l was quoted by the Indian Express as saying that his troops had "come across many
documents which prove that Laskhar-e- Toiba men were here with the Arabs and
Pakistanis." On 27 December, the Hindustan Times said 30 Paki
stanis captured in Tora Bora admitted they were en route to Kashmir, and that Indian
police had arrested Ghulam Qadir Najar, Al-Qa'eda's pointman in Kashmir.
Another reason to suspect Afghan connections has to do with Jaish leader Maulana
Masood Azhar. No stranger to incarceration, the Maulana was released from an Indian
jail in 1999 after a group of mystery hijackers took an
Indian passenger flight and demanded his release. The plane was allowed to land at the
then Taliban-held city of Kandahar -- suggesting connections between Jaish, Al- Qa'eda
and the Taliban.
So the claim that Jaish and Lashkar are in some sense connected to Al-Qa'eda is a
strong possibility. Still, with his fighters currently running amuck in Tora Bora, it
is unlikely that Bin Laden orchestrated the attack fr
om any secret cave. More tenuous, however, is the controversial Indian idea that
Pakistan's ISI somehow gave the order for 13 December's attack.
Indian police were pursuing this line of inquiry on 22 December when they detained
Mohamed Sharif Khan, a staffer at the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi.
Pakistan's Dawn reported that Khan had been "severely beaten
and tortured" by Indian police for procuring information on the Indian parliament's
security arrangements.
Al-Ahram Weekly put these claims to the Indians. "It is not true that any Pakistan
High Commission staff member was beaten up," the Indian embassy spokesman said. "This
staffer had been engaged in activities inconsistent
with his legitimate sphere of activity," the spokesman said, adding that Khan was
ordered to leave India.
Pakistan itself flatly denied that the ISI was linked to the militants. They told the
Weekly it was "more than evident that Pakistan or ISI has never supported any
terrorist activity." Nevertheless, the ISI's historical c
onnection with 1970s Afghan Mujahidin and the recent pro-Pakistani shift amongst
Kashmiri militants suggest at least some form of communication with the agency. The
Pakistani government has an antagonistic relationship wi
th Islamist groups, who it cannot simply crush because they have popular support. The
ISI offers a way to communicate with and control these movements.
Although the ISI might have dealings with Lashkar and Jaish, Pakistani President
Musharraf's precarious situation after the US "war on terror" makes it unlikely that
he would order 13 December's attack.
The only suspect left is the Indian government itself.
The conspiracy theory -- that India's BJP-led coalition ordered the attack against its
own parliament to stir up a war -- abounded in the Pakistani press after 13 December,
and the war option is certainly firing up Indian
voters ahead of crucial state elections next month. Nevertheless, serious observers
on both sides of the border see the theory as extremely far-fetched.
As "war on terror" fever continues to grip the subcontinent, asking who exactly
started the trouble may be a hypothetical question. War is brewing. The Pakistani
embassy spokesman told the Weekly: "Pakistan believes in pe
aceful relations.. but it would also not take the Indian bullying
lying down." The Indians sent equally mixed signals: India does not
want war but it is being thrust on the country. The world, already
frightened by one "war on terror," will be hoping that both countries
get what they want.
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