AleFive years ago on a summer evening, an air-conditioned SUV pulled up outside an unmarked house on the dusty outskirts of Bahawalpur, Pakistan. The elderly cleric, alighting from the car, had arrived to deliver a eulogy for the slain son of a labourer—teenager Muhammad Yakub—buried weeks earlier in southern Kashmir. brightly colored pamphlets plastered on across town announced that he had been “martyred fighting the Indian Army while performing Ghazwa-e-Hind,” the apocalyptic war predicted before the Day of Judgment.
from accounts of similar funerals recorded by Scholar Maryam Abu Zahab, we know that Lashkar-e-Taiba’s second-in-command, Abdul Rehman Makki, urged Yakub’s family to celebrate. The day after their son was killed, a family gathered their friends “for walima [reception] to celebrate it wedding [wedding] with him hours [paradisical maidens],
Makki was put on the market earlier this week, after months of delay due to China’s objections nominated A global terrorist by the United Nations Security Council. four more important terror commanders26/11 operational commander Sajid Mir, Lashkar charity chief Shahid Mehmood, outfit’s successor Talha Saeed, and Jaish-e-Mohammed military chief Abdul Rauf Alvi—excluded from global sanctions list due to China’s Security Council veto .
The message pertains to geopolitics: Islamabad can count on its Iron Brother to protect it from confrontation with its jihadist clients. A less obvious story is also unfolding.
Faced with the resurgence of anti-state jihadists like Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP), Pakistan is again grooming Lashkar and Jaish as loyal proxies. For months now, there has been evidence that the LeT infrastructure is active, the organization able to raise funds and cadres. last year’s flood saw significant mobilization by Lashkar. Jaish-e-Mohammed for its part Expansion Called for Jihad in Kashmir in its madrasa premises and rallies.
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model son
Founded in 1986 by three religious studies professors at the Lahore University of Engineering, LeT was originated by Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, a Palestinian-Jordanian ideologue who served as mentor to generations of Arab jihadists, including Osama bin Laden. At that time known as ‘Markaz ud Dawat Wali Irshad’ – or center of conversion – Lashkar had a Huge The campus, complete with schools, colleges, medical facilities and factories, was built on land gifted by the military regime of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq.
The campus was the center of General Zia’s hope to rebuild Pakistan as a Sharia-governed Islamic state, whose two guiding principles were the law of God and jihad.
at the end of 2018, as it is fought to rise From the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) terrorist-financing watch list, Islamabad began promising to dismantle the jihadist empire. The hammer finally fell – but with extraordinary gentleness.
Even though Lashkar chief was Hafiz Muhammad Saeed Sentenced At 15 years in prison in 2020, he was moved to house arrest. Makki was sentenced within weeks of being convicted that year. Suspended by the Lahore High Court. Moreover, the trials of important criminals of 26/11 like Sajid Mir were also closed. secrecy,
United States publicly noted that Pakistan’s judicial system had often released convicted terrorists, a fact that raised concerns about what Islamabad would do once the threat of sanctions was lifted.
Last summer, New Delhi added five major jihadists to a global list maintained by the United Nations. The listing, it was argued, would make it more difficult for Pakistan to release convicted jihadists under threat of sanctions. However, attempts to nominate five went into one diplomatic wall imposed by China.
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family man
Even though Kashmir Police records show that Makki did not have important military role In Lashkar, Saeed’s family ties qualified him as a trusted protector of the empire while he was in jail. Saeed’s cousin and his brother-in-law Makki by marriage of two sisters were given charge of LeT’s international relations, experts C. Christine Fair has been written. This linked Makki to financiers from across West Asia and the global diaspora in Pakistan.
Furthermore, fighters in the organization respected Makki as an ideologue. political scientist Stephen Tenkel has noted that Makki was instrumental in formulating the religious justification for Lashkar’s suicide squad operations. The testimony of 26/11 convict David Headley to the National Investigation Agency suggests that he regularly lectured at jihadi gatherings in Lahore along with Saeed.
Mecca, United Nations noteswas a key figure in “funding, recruiting, and radicalizing youths to violence and planning attacks”.
After 26/11, with Saeed under increasing international pressure, Makki continued to speak for the organization, playing a key role in Lashkar’s efforts to emerge as the head of an Islamic political alliance called the Difa-e-Pakistan Council.
Lashkar’s second in command opposed former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s efforts to normalize relations with India. Makki wrote in 2017, “If India is not our enemy, why do we need the atomic bomb?” India is our enemy and this enmity is because of the Kashmir issue.
Saeed’s son Talha was groomed to replace his aging father, but with few jihadi credentials, he was less reliable than the LeT’s rank-and-file. With his father in prison, Makki needed to remain free in order to secure the inheritance. Abdul Rauf Alvi, brother of critically ill Jaish chief Masood Azhar Alvi, was also assigned a similar role.
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jihadi dynasty
Like all dynasties, the successors of Lashkar and Jaish will control empires built over decades. LeT’s al-Dawa school network, in particular, continues to operate, although under Imaginary Government administration. Tunkel noted that the education section of the organization was its “most profitable and powerful department”. First established in 1994, the organization’s al-Dawa system claimed to be operating 127 schools with 15,000 students and 800 teachers with subsidized tuition for the poor.
In the textbooks published by the organisation, expert Muhammad Amir Rana has recorded, the revised standard information – ‘C is for cat and G is for goat’ to ‘C is for cannon and G is for gun’. The teachers of its institutions were required to receive jihadist military instruction. Jaish-e-Mohammed still continues publish jihadi literature For children, which is taught to students in its network of madrassas.
Similarly, organizations such as the Al-Dawa Medical Mission – initially set up to care for wounded jihadists in Kashmir – have built up wide networks that give the organization reach and influence among Pakistan’s poor.
Following the ban on jihadist charity networks in 2018, journalists Asif Shahzad and Mubasher Bukhari reported, “Some government representatives were at the site and new signs were hung renaming the facilities, but little appeared to have changed”.
jihad factory
For the generations of generals who have controlled Pakistan’s national security, state-sanctioned jihadism has appeared to be a useful tool for ensuring internal order. Lashkar membership, Abu Zahab pointedly noted, “acts as a safety valve for surplus manpower: joining a jihadist movement provides young boys who cannot migrate to the West or the Gulf and are socially frustrated, find an alternative identity and compensate for their frustration”.
The scholar noted that the financial incentives for joining the group are not insignificant. “Being a martyr is also an opportunity for low-class boys to become famous.”
Since 2001, when General Pervez Musharraf’s break with the jihadist movement pushed thousands towards anti-regime organizations like TTP and al-Qaeda, the argument for loyal, subordinate proxies like Jaish and Lashkar has looked even more compelling. Was.
Four times, however, terrorism has almost pushed Pakistan to war its generals know the country cannot afford economically and militarily. The crises of 2001-2002, 26/11, 2016, and 2019 were all the result of terrorist attacks with far greater consequences than the generals expected. A fifth crisis may be on the way, as Pakistan vows not to switch off the lights at the public sector jihad factory set up by General Zia.
Praveen Swamy is ThePrint’s National Security Editor. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Hamra Like)