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

0 Frontline Pakistan
sentence in a secret trial in November 2004, but mysteriously escaped
from the detention centre inside the top-security Chaklala air base.
Some other Islamic militant groups that had earlier been aligned with
the ISI also turned to jihad after being proscribed by the government.
These included HuM and HJI, both of which had a long history of
involvement in Afghanistan and were closely associated with al-
Qaeda. They felt betrayed by Musharraf’s U-turn.
I met Khalil in January 2000, a few months after the USA had put HuM
on the State Department’s list of terrorist groups for its involvement
in the Indian Airlines hijacking. Sitting cross-legged in a stuffy room
with peeling walls, HuM warrior Fazalur Rehman Khalil epitomized
this sense of disappointment as he nostalgically remembered the days
when the mujahidin were armed and trained by the CIA and the ISI
to fight against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. ‘We received all kinds of
support. We defeated the Russian forces with Stinger missiles supplied
by the United States,’ the veteran warrior recalled.
A small ramshackle building in a crowded neighbourhood in
Rawalpindi served as HuM’s headquarters. Toting automatic rifles,
a number of young bearded militants kept a close vigil on visitors.
Inside, the walls were adorned with large propaganda posters carrying
pictures of Islam’s holy places, the Qur’an and Kalashnikovs. Sporting
a white skull cap and a long beard, Khalil wondered why his group
was pronounced terrorist. ‘We have asked the Americans a number of
times to tell us our crimes before announcing the punishment. There
is no evidence against us.’ He accused the Americans of pursuing a
policy of intimidation. ‘We don’t understand the definition of terrorism.
Those who are fighting with small rifles are terrorists and those who
are dropping bombs are not.’
Khalil spoke fondly about his association with bin Laden. ‘He is
a brother Muslim. I have known him since the days of the Afghan
jihad when he was considered a friend, a mujahid and a hero by the
Americans,’ he smiled. ‘Now the Americans have changed their glasses
and call him a terrorist.’
Like hundreds and thousands of his peers, Khalil had fought against
the Soviet forces in Afghanistan until he saw what he called the myth
of Soviet power shatter before his eyes. Though the days of the
Afghan struggle were over in 1989 for Khalil and hundreds like him,
the jihad was not. The holy warriors, hardened on the battlefields of
Afghanistan, found another cause to fight for – the cause of Kashmir’s
liberation from India. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union