south-asian-militant-groups-and-global-jihad-in-2015

QUILL IAM
Pakistan
1. Originally a sectarian militant organization in Pakistan, Sipah-e-Sahaba
Pakistan (SSP), has become largely a political pressure group.
However, this group is eclipsed by its more radical offshoot,
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). SSP uses religious politics to tie its history
with the history of Sunni-Shia, Deobandi-Barelvi tensions, in
Pakistan in general and in Punjab in particular. SSP wishes to
establish a Sunni Islamic state in Pakistan, of its own Deobandi
kind, raising fears that its purist view of Sunni Islam will see it
ideologically aligned to IS and trigger mutual cooperation (it may
already, at least in name, be supporting them. 26,27 )
The SSP has been linked to Ramzi Ahmed Yousuf, the mastermind
of the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre in New
York.
2. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) is explicitly militant. Ideologically, its hard-line
Deobandism is similar to the Taliban’s ideology:
LeJ worked closely with both Afghan and Pakistani factions of AQ.
LeJ remains a core of the Punjabi Taliban (a faction that offers
logistical support to the TTP).
Both SSP and LeJ militants fought alongside the Taliban against the
Northern Alliance.
Their takfiri ideology has seen a number of their cadres form close
alliances with IS elements in Pakistan 28 . Indeed, some analysts say
they have been operating in Iraq since 2013. They are now the
prime suspects in the May 2015 attack on a bus in Karachi, in which
gunmen killed 45 members of the Ismaili Shia community, an
attack that was initially claimed by a TTP splinter, and new IS
loyalists Jundullah; (LeJ have previously avoided claiming credit
for their own attacks). It is feared that the attack amounts to a plea
for IS attention and funding 29 .
In 1999, LeJ attempted to assassinate Pakistani Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif twice, and they were responsible for the 2009 attack
on the Sri Lankan cricket team.
The LeJ are also reportedly close to Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM),
and they have attended their training camps in Jammu and
Kashmir. 30 The group has roughly 1,000 fighters. 31
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