Just Who Are Bhutto’s Jihadi Enemies?
Benazir Bhutto had long been an outspoken critic of Pakistani militants and this made her the mortal enemy of a galaxy of extremist forces inside Pakistan. “Bhutto was the only Pakistani politician willing to stand up and say, ‘I don’t like violent terrorists,’” says Stephen Cohen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Many of these groups have intertwining histories and common loyalties — as well as shadowy links with Pakistani intelligence. As the probe into her assassination begins, investigators will have to sort through a morass of violent groups that were gunning for Bhutto. And while all have some historic link to al-Qaeda, they have just as much ideological impetus to act on their own — or at the behest of rogue elements of the Pakistani government sympathetic to Islamic radicals.
In a briefing Friday, the Pakistani government emphasized that al-Qaeda had Bhutto in its sights. “As you all know, Benazir Bhutto had been on the hit list of terrorists ever since she had come to Pakistan,” said Javed Iqbal Cheema, the Interior Ministry spokesman. “She was on the hit list of al-Qaeda.”
According to reports from the Pakistani Interior Ministry, the suicide bomber who killed Benazir Bhutto belonged to a domestic terrorist organization with links to al-Qaeda called Lashkar-i-Jhangvi. The group is responsible for dozens of attacks inside Pakistan over the past decade including sectarian killings of Shi’ites and Christians, a failed 1999 assassination attempt against then-Prime minister Nawaz Sharif, and involvement in the kidnapping and beheading of the Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl. An FBI and Department of Homeland Security bulletin sent out Thursday cited unsubstantiated reports that Lashkar-i-Jhangvi had claimed responsibility for Bhutto’s assassination. An FBI official said that the bulletin was based on press reports and would not comment on whether the claim had been independently confirmed.
On Friday, a Pakistani Ministry of Interior spokesman identified another suspect: Baitullah Mehsud, a Taliban leader and an influential tribal chief in Waziristan, a restive Pakistani province on the Afghan border. Pakistani intelligence services intercepted a supposed conversation in which Mehsud congratulated those who carried out the assassination. “Fantastic job,” reads the transcript released by the Pakistan Ministry of Interior, “[They were] very brave boys who killed her.” But a spokesman for Mehsud told the Associated Press on Saturday that the militant was not involved in the attack, calling called the allegation “government propaganda.”
In 2005, Mehsud had been party to an agreement with the Pakistani government to cease his protection of al-Qaeda in his region. The Pakistani government has since then considered the agreement to have been broken. Says Frederic Grare, a former French diplomat in Pakistan and a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Mehsud is a very convenient [person to blame]. He’s the bad guy in the trouble areas.” He asks, “Why would Mehsud be willing to kill Benazir? Beyond the stated fact that she’s against extremism. How do [Mehsud’s people] benefit from Benazir’s assassination?”
It is not absolutely clear if or how Mehsud and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi link up. But both the Taliban and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi emerged from the two decades of fighting in Afghanistan, where eventually a Taliban regime would give refuge to al-Qaeda. Pakistani intelligence services were also active in Afghanistan, encouraging Muslim fighters in their war against the Soviet occupation of that country. One of the groups that emerged from this group was Lashkar-i-Tayyba or the “Army of the Pure,” which Pakistani intelligence agents, after the end of the Afghan war, would redirect toward Kashmir and the Indian troops stationed in that disputed region. In January 2002, giving in to international pressure, the government of Pervez Musharraf finally kicked Lashkar-i-Tayyba out of Kashmir.
The group accused in Bhutto’s killing, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, was also among the alphabet soup of militant groups that were spawned by the Afghan war.One of the most vicious of these groups called itself Sipah-e-Sahaba and used religious justifications for jihad from an austere sect of Islam called Deobandi, similar to the ideology of the Taliban. Sipah-e-Sahaba and similar groups believe that one obligation of “true Muslims” is to kill so-called apostates like Shi’ites. In the early 1990s, these veterans from the Afghan wars, with no more war to fight, launched a bloody sectarian campaign against Pakistani Shi’ites. In 1996, amid these attacks, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi was formed by a disgruntled member of Sipah-e-Sahaba who named his group after the martyred founder of Sipah-e-Sahaba, Haq Nawaz Jhangvi. (Lashkar is an Urdu word meaning Army, hence “The Army of Jhangvi.”) In January 1998, four Lashkar-i-Jhangvi gunmen fired AK-47 machine guns on a Shi’ite wake in Mominpura cemetery near Lahore, killing 24 mourners.
The group has close ties to al-Qaeda. The leadership of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi fought alongside many high-ranking al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives against the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan before Sept. 11, 2001. U.S. intelligence agencies believe many in its ranks trained in al-Qaeda-run camps in Afghanistan during the late 1990s. When al-Qaeda retreated from Afghanistan in 2002, many of its fighters are believed to have joined forces with Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Lashkar-i-Tayyba, according to the State Department, which lists both groups as foreign terrorist organizations. Since then, the groups have targeted pro-Western entities of Pakistani society. In March 2002, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi retaliated against the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the resulting fall of the Taliban by launching a grenade attack on the International Protestant Church in Islamabad that killed 5 and injured dozens. In May, a car bombing outside a Karachi hotel killed 14, including 11 French defense technicians. Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is believed to have been behind it.
“It is probable there are links between Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and al-Qaeda,” says Grare, “but it is certain they do have links to the government.” He adds, “If the government itself says Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is involved, it is suicidal because it opens the door to speculation about their own role.” Indeed, while Pakistani authorities have had a hand in encouraging groups like Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Lashkar-i-Tayyba, Islamabad has done little to systematically dismantle these jihadist “armies” now that their original purposes — fighting the Soviets and supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan or fighting the Indians in Kashmir — are over. “They have nothing else to do,” says Cohen, “and they are causing mischief.” He adds: “It’s like a cancer you’ve started elsewhere that comes back to eat you up.”
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So, if you cannot beat them, then it MUST be that you have joined them? Not simply used them to your advantage for a time, then ignored them?
Why does everyone insist on these linear relationships and proofs? Are these people so simple-minded that they cannot imagine something much more complex? Then again, I see the same thinking here on these threads all the time… for example:
Al Qaeda is Sunni, Wahhabi/Salafist Sunnis make up much of al Qaeda, Saudi Arabia supports and funds Madrassas which create these radical Wahhabi/Salafist Sunnis, therefor Saudi Arabia basically created al Qaeda, these Sunni radicals, and this whole problem. Nuke Saudi Arabia!
Do you guys not realize this is almost the same thinking that causes Middle-Easterners to view America as the evil in the world? And how the most Leftist of Liberals mistake our complex Middle-Eastern history, pretending that hindsight really is 20/20? This linear thinking, and disconnect from the harsher realities, is how Leftists can suggest, most flippantly, that America is INDEED the the INSTIGATOR of fanatical Muslim extremism here AND there!?
Do we need to address Saudi Arabia in more stern and plain spoken language and terms, oh HELL YES! Do we need to go back over this history again and again until people really understand the complex undercurrents in unique intricacies of it all? YES, YES, YES!!!
Will we eventually have to Nuke Saudi Arabia? No… well, I hope not. LoL.
THE TEXT OF INTEREST (from the above article):
““It is probable there are links between Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and al-Qaeda,” says Grare, “but it is certain they do have links to the government.” He adds, “If the government itself says Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is involved, it is suicidal because it opens the door to speculation about their own role.””
“Indeed, while Pakistani authorities have had a hand in encouraging groups like Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Lashkar-i-Tayyba, Islamabad has done little to systematically dismantle these jihadist “armies” now that their original purposes — fighting the Soviets and supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan or fighting the Indians in Kashmir — are over.”
““They have nothing else to do,” says Cohen, “and they are causing mischief.” He adds: “It’s like a cancer you’ve started elsewhere that comes back to eat you up.””
“Pakistani intelligence services were also active in Afghanistan, encouraging Muslim fighters in their war against the Soviet occupation of that country. One of the groups that emerged from this group was Lashkar-i-Tayyba or the “Army of the Pure,” which Pakistani intelligence agents, after the end of the Afghan war, would redirect toward Kashmir and the Indian troops stationed in that disputed region. In January 2002, giving in to international pressure, the government of Pervez Musharraf finally kicked Lashkar-i-Tayyba out of Kashmir.”
December 29th, 2007 at 11:27 am“Just Who Are Bhutto’s Jihadi Enemies?”
I dunno. To be honest, I’ve never heard of this Bhutto chick until after she croaked.
I wish there was this kind of an outcry whenever a kid is crucified or whenever a so-called parent choked his daughter to death just because she refused to wear a rag/piece of toilet paper on her head.
You would think that the above mentioned alone would be enough to get the message across.
Guess it’s only big news when it’s a politician or talking head that gets whacked.
All this cloak-n-dagger shit has gone over the top for me.
And this whole “I Am What The Terrorists Most Fear” rhetoric is just that….rhetoric. We don’t need another Socrates thank you very much. Most if not all of the people living in Pakistan are a bunch of dumb-asses anyways. From the hundreds of articles & video clips that I’ve seen so far, it looks like they can’t be helped.
December 29th, 2007 at 11:34 am“Do you guys not realize this is almost the same thinking that causes Middle-Easterners to view America as the evil in the world?”
Never realized that.
Stupid ol’ me just thought it might have at least something to do with our guilt-ridden media, politically opportunististic dems blaming every evil in the world on some illusive VRWC and every other deranged form of human life that feels they would benefit from a decadent, morally crippled America.
Of course, after reading your comments, now I see the errors of my ways.
I should have never watched endless reports on Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, the supposed massacre at Haditha, supposed Koran flushing, supposed domestic spying on citizens, supposedly wide-scale use of waterboarding and other forms of….gasp…torture by America. I should have never requested that our brave patriots in Hollywood stop producing all of the anti-American/military flicks. I should have been more polite in my correspondence to our Islamofascism nurturing dem senators and consgress folks when asking them to please not call our President a monkey, nazi, idiot, etc, etc in a time of war and if they could find it in their hearts to just wait and hear what our military leaders have to say before calling them a liar while the whole world watches.
I thought that our leftist friends in the judiciary legalizing the killing of millions of our children while still in the womb, all in the name of convenience, might have had just a little something to do with Muslims hating us.
I even considered that maybe the Muslims might not ‘get it’ with us taking our loving, sacrificial God out of our govenrment buildings, shools and national shrines.
The list goes on and on but I think the above is enough to show you just how wrong I obviously am.
But now I see the error of my ways. It all has to do with me being pissed about Islamofascists spreading their ideology of killing innocent people all over the globe and saying…enough of this craziness, it’s time to put a stop to this barbaric behavior. My bad…
December 29th, 2007 at 12:04 pmNow that’s a dumb question. All good Islamics are Jihadi. Any other kind of Muslim is too western and takfir. Ms Bhutto was takir to all of them.
It was Ms Bhutto who let the Jihadis into Afghanistan in the first place. And what did she do about their training camps called Madrassas? How about nothing.
She bought into the western lie that Islam is the religion of peace. You don’t penetrate the walls of 7th Century people by being a nice guy or gal. You penetrate those walls with bombs and bullets.
In order to achieve a form of democracy in Pakistan, Bhutto would have had to lead a revolt against the Islamofacists and their useful idiots in the present Paki government.
It was rather naive of her to try and bring peace to Pakistan by speech-ifying and criticising Musharaff.
The tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots. It does not grow by any other means. Short of revolution, Bhutto was destined to fail in her quest to bring Pakistan back to modernity.
The jihadis are not weakened by Bhutto’s good intentions. They get stronger by the day. Musharaff’s days are numbered too.
Both Bhutto and Musharaff have sown to the wind. Now they are reaping what they have sown… i.e. the whirlwind.
December 29th, 2007 at 12:41 pmPhil N Blanx,
Don’t be so fucking daft, my response wasn’t worded very well, but I was not making a moral equivalency between America’s GWOT and Muslim fanaticism. Did you miss the rest of the paragraph which followed the ONE sentence you quoted? I’m suggesting we NOT be so fucking reactionary, like the Middle-East in general, like the radical Left, and actually take the time to seriously consider what’s really going on and what should be done about it. I happen to generally support America’s interventions in the Middle-East and think that most of the events the media has chosen were blown way out of proportion and lacked CONTEXT, which was what my entire argument was based on. I’m getting tired of people making rash gutt decisions based on very little evidence.
~REN
December 29th, 2007 at 4:55 pmYour point is taken, Ren, but here’s a question: is there any advantage to parsing the alphabet soup? The nuances and distinctions may have short-term tactical value, but long-term strategically, not so much. Meaning virtually zero.
December 29th, 2007 at 7:30 pmBrain H,
“The nuances and distinctions may have short-term tactical value, but long-term strategically, not so much. Meaning virtually zero.”
I think just the opposite is true, but you’d need to give me an example of what you mean to make sure we’re not talking about different things.
Example of what I mean: You make a rash decision at a critical time and you shoot your perceived “enemy” right away, or jail him, whatever, and people “respect” you, things are under your “control” but… as time goes on, and the truth comes out about your poor decision making, or your simply politically expedient way of thinking, (the guy you shot or jailed was bad, but not for the reasons you stated) and public opinion against you grows, things get progressively harder and harder to “control” and…? Things get nastier and nastier.
Tactically expedient, but strategically STUPID! The nuances and distinctions are usually what make the difference Brian, at both levels, both short and long term.
If Musharraf was somehow behind the Bhutto killing, would it really have served his purpose? I say “no”, but some people here think “yes”. Either way, if he was behind it, his job just got 10 times harder. If he wasn’t, he made several other errors in judgment and is now going to pay the price for it anyway.
Consider one of Phil N Blanx’s examples, like Abu Ghraib. We know here that the events referred to when we say Abu Ghraib was a very limited and relatively harmless. Who died? Who was really involved? How long did it really even last? Well, nobody died, only a couple of fucking twits did it, and it was an incredibly limited event that covered a very short period of time.
But what were the consequences of those relatively tame and stupid series of acts? What subtle “nuances” and “distinctions” were missed, glazed over by those who were related to the prison facility, directly or indirectly (the Command, support staff, other MPs, the MI folk, etc), which ultimately allowed such a thing to happen?
Was that a tactical or strategic error by the MPs? By the Command? Was it short or long term? How could things have been handled differently by the entire armed forces to avoid and limit such egregious, although relatively simple, errors?
Ah, who cares? FUCK THOSE HAJIS! (the comments and mentality I often see here that is annoying the hell out of me)
Defend Abu Ghraib at your own perile, it was a completely stupid and thoughtless set of acts. Long and short term, tactically AND strategically. But was it Al-Jazeera’s fault things got nasty and out of control? The US media’s? The radical liberal left’s? I would say all of the above, and none, as those stupid fucking MPs NEVER should have done that, and their “those fucking Hajis don’t deserve better than this” and “nuke ‘em all” mentality was one of the enabling thoughts behind it.
I’m asking people to grow the fuck up and stop saying and doing such stupid things! It’s this arrogant “shoot first and ask questions later” thinking that often causes the very problems we talk about here. It’s amazing that we can read the same stories here at Pat’s site, and so many of the comments are completely unreasonable and written by individuals who don’t seem to possess any kind of a moral compass.
December 30th, 2007 at 9:22 am