Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak

52 Frontline Pakistan
For Musharraf, the 12 January declaration was more important than
his decision to support the US war on Afghanistan. ‘This sets a direction
for the country, that was a response to a terrorist attack,’ the General
told me a week after his decision that brought him into direct conflict
with the militant groups once sponsored by his intelligence agencies. 2
But he found it hard to root out a deeply entrenched jihadist culture
nurtured by the state for more than two decades.
The first Pakistani jihadist group emerged in 1980 when thousands
of volunteers, mainly students from religious seminaries, joined
the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan. By 2002, Pakistan had
become home to 24 militant groups. 3 Highly disciplined paramilitary
organizations operated in every neighbourhood, pursuing their own
internal and external agenda. The largest among them were LeT, JeM,
Harakat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) and Harkat-al-Jihad-al-Islami (HJI). All
these paramilitary groups, originally from the same source, had similar
motivations and goals, and recruited from the same kind of people
(often unemployed youth from Punjab and the North West Frontier
Province). The only difference was in patronage: HuM and HJI were
both strongly linked with the Taliban, whilst LeT had strong links with
Wahabi groups in Saudi Arabia.
These militant organizations were not clandestine nor had they
sprouted surreptitiously. Their growth, if not actually sponsored, had
certainly been looked upon with favour by the state. 4 Their activities
were not secret, and found expression in graffiti, wall posters and
pamphlets all over the country, inviting Muslims to join forces with
them. They also carried addresses and telephone numbers to contact
for training. ‘Jihad is the shortest route to paradise,’ declared one of the
many exhortations. ‘A martyr ensures salvation for the entire family.’
Every jihadist organization had funds to help families of ‘martyrs’.
Although money was not the primary motivation of jihadists, it was
essential to sustain the culture of jihad. 5 The state’s patronage helped
the jihadists to raise funds at public places. The militant groups had
developed a powerful propaganda machinery. Their publications had
gained a large readership and their messages were also available on
video and audiotapes.
During the 1980s and 1990s, the objective of jihadist movements in
Pakistan was not, like that of Arab Salafists such as bin Laden, the establishment
of a global Islamic caliphate. Their objectives were more
in line with the regional strategy of the Pakistani military establishment:
the liberation of Kashmir from India and the installation of a