Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
<strong>Frontline</strong> <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong><br />
from Shah Wali Ullah, an eighteenth-century <strong>Islam</strong>ic scholar who<br />
endeavoured to bind together different <strong>Islam</strong>ic schools of thought.<br />
<strong>The</strong> movement, which was purely a South Asian phenomenon, sought<br />
to revive puritan <strong>Islam</strong>, but became radicalized with the call for jihad<br />
against the Soviet occupation of Muslim Afghanistan.<br />
<strong>The</strong> first squad of <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>i jihadists came from this institution<br />
in 1980, 36 and in the next two decades thousands of its students<br />
participated in ‘holy wars’ in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Many of the<br />
Taliban leaders were graduates of this institution. <strong>The</strong>y would often<br />
consult Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, a widely respected cleric and dean<br />
of the school, on matters relating to <strong>Islam</strong>ic sharia.<br />
Azhar’s journey into jihad started during his stay in Jamia Binoria. In<br />
the mid 1980s he went to Afghanistan to fight along with the mujahidin<br />
in the eastern Khost province. <strong>The</strong>re was no going back for him from<br />
there. It was in Afghanistan that he decided to dedicate his life to<br />
the cause of jihad. He joined HuM, one of the most powerful jihadist<br />
groups involved in the Afghan war. Because of his weak physical<br />
condition he was assigned propaganda and organizational work. <strong>With</strong><br />
his fiery speeches he soon made his mark on the movement. Audio<br />
cassettes of his speeches were used to motivate Muslims to join the<br />
jihadist cause. He was also a powerful writer and in the 1980s edited a<br />
magazine called Sadai Mujahid (‘Voice of Mujahid’). He soon rose up<br />
the group’s leadership ladder.<br />
One of his tasks was to mobilize support in other countries and,<br />
during the 1990s, he made trips to several European and African<br />
countries. Some reports suggest he followed Osama bin Laden to<br />
Sudan in 1992 and fought in Somalia along with Arab fighters, most of<br />
them former Afghan war veterans, for the local warlord, Aided. He was<br />
also said to have been involved in the training of militants in Yemen<br />
before he was sent to organize the party’s jihadist network in Indiancontrolled<br />
Kashmir. 37 Captured by Indian forces in February 1994 for<br />
travelling on a forged Portuguese passport, he was tried on terrorism<br />
charges. He was acquitted in that case, but remained in jail for more<br />
than six years. He made an attempt to escape by digging a tunnel, but<br />
was caught and put in a high security prison in Srinagar. During his<br />
six-year detention in Indian jails, Azhar, still in his mid thirties, wrote<br />
numerous articles on jihad, often referring in his writings to Africa.<br />
It was in July 1994 that Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, then a student<br />
at the London School of Economics, was sent to Delhi by the HuM<br />
leadership with a mandate to kidnap a group of western tourists and