Political Islamic and Jihadi Movements

By Chafiq Jaredah – Conflicts Forum

As far as Islamic resistance movements are concerned, the objective framework is social activism, not power.

It is appropriate to adopt caution, and to beware making hasty analysis, when it comes to passing judgment on problematic issues, whose dimensions, meanings and significance are unclear: One such issue that falls into this zone requiring caution and patience is the discourse centred around what is known as Political Islam.

Hence, what do we mean by Political Islam? Is the term exclusively linked to the knowledge derived from Islam as a faith – as distinguished, in its reading and interpretation, from the Islam of worship and Da’wa (Islamic ‘Call’) and another component that is political, and which largely is based on the game of conflicting and common interests? Or, is it a historiography of the era that followed the fall of the Ottoman State, and the outbreak of conflicts in the region between the ruling authorities, and certain ideological and religious trends that led to the broader Islamic rising, represented by the emergence of Islamic movements?

Is Political Islam an expression of severance between the Islamic movements and the traditional religious institutions – be they the scientific universities, or the statutory councils affiliated with the ruling regimes in the region? What is clear is that each explanation and descriptive label has its own distinguishing characteristics; and consequently, carries in its wake, its own special conception that gives definition to its particularity. But in distinguishing between Islam as source of worship and its political orientation is mere superficiality, given that Islam is essentially based on a comprehensive system that incorporates both the personal, as well as the political affairs, of the individual human being and the community of which he is a part. The establishment community and political administration in the Mohammedan Prophetic Message were given a similar status to prayer when The Prophet said: “Those who, if We give them power in the land, establish worship… (Sura Hajj, verse 41).

This is a key concept grasped in the Islamic interpretations of the Holy Qur’an to the extent that the so-called traditional Islamists have dealt with the political dimensions as an Islamic whole, even though they differentiated, at the practical level, between the originality of the theoretical interest in politics in Islam; and on questions of political practice, such as: how should the Muslim deal with the ruler – be he just or unjust? Is the criteria the ruler’s competence at Tashreeh (law making); or the ruler’s quality of justice and his traits? What is the required system? Khilafat? Imamite? Emirate? Sultanate? Or other types?

This debate coincided with a discussion between ‘ends’, which may be described as Islamic, and the ‘means’ that lead to achieving that ‘end’, such as establishing the state, the party or the movement – which constitute temporal issues, rather than religious matters. This distinction, as such, however, does not mean that such temporal issues are unimportant, or do not constitute obligations, for what is meant by the ‘temporal’ here is that which is subject to changes and is adaptable – according to interests, realities and circumstance.

This apart, politics stands as a norm expressing Islamic principles within current historical ‘time’: any flaw in this norm will deeply affect the other doctrinal, ethical, and legal aspects – for it is not possible, according to Islam, for the individual to become ‘perfect’ outside of the framework of the community and the administrative, political and ethical order. More than that, the Sharia cannot be complete; nor can worship be ‘perfect’ unless they march in step with the system of political governance. Aspects of financial giving, such as zakat (almsgiving) and khoms (fifth), should be seen as a political system whose intent is the fulfilling of both society’s civil and humanitarian needs. In addition, the verdicts of the judiciary are legal rulings that cannot be appropriately implemented unless there is an administrative procedure that possesses authority and therefore has a political existence.

Thus, the followers of traditional or official Islam would not deny the role of politics and worldly affairs as being of an interest to Islam; they may, nevertheless, argue that in the manner and timing of political activity, Islamic movements have tended to pursue their interest in politics firstly; and, only later, and secondly, have focussed on actualising the political work, action and commitment within their own movements. This has extended even – in their charting their course – to believing that worshipping Allah cannot be perfect, until and unless, these movements establish a state of divine justice on earth.
This latter notion underlies the theory of divine governance, which was based on several concepts:

A. Authority rests with Allah alone; Allah is the source of law-making, and He, be He exalted, is the only source of legitimacy.
B. Any ruling made – other than which Allah has revealed – has no legitimacy.
C. Acquiescence to any ruling – whether or not it is just – coming from outside of the religious legitimacy amounts to tacit acceptance of despotism.
D. Accordingly, any link to corrupt society or an illegitimate system must be rejected: It demands that we should rebel against such a society and system.
E. The only possible solution is to exert efforts to establish an Islamic state – even if by force. Any political or Da’wa (Proselytising) activity, other than for this objective, is a waste of time. Silence in the face of injustice, is tantamount to acquiescence of a corrupted and corrupting system.

This theory has influenced the Sunni Islamic movements such as Muslim Brotherhood, Hizbu-Tahrir (Liberation Party), Al-Jamaa al-Islamia (Islamic Group), along with their offshoots in Islamic countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkey, or Arab countries like Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. It has, furthermore, influenced Shi’a Islamic movements such as Hizbu Dawa al-Islami (the Islamic Call Party), Monazamat al-Amal al-Islami (Islamic Action Organization) and other groups in Gulf and Arab countries such as Iraq, Lebanon and others.

This theory has come to distinguish between what we can call the Islamic revival era and its reformist thought which was inaugurated by Jamal-Deen al-Afghani, Mohammed Abdo, Rasheed Rida and their disciples, in addition to the era of the Islamic movements or what some like to call the Haraki (Activist) Islam which was initiated in 1929 with martyr Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt, whose though was extended by two key intellectual figures:

The first of which was Sayed Qutb, who was hanged following an order from Jamal Abdel Nasser. It was his book Maalem fi Tariq (‘Milestones’), in which Qutb underlined the need to establish an Islamic society and governance combined with his rejection of all un-Islamic models that was extensively quoted at his trial. As usual, such ideas have deep impact when coupled with sacrifice, blood and martyrdom: They turn from ideas into schools of thinking that become the models for later generations. Later, Qutb’s ideas were extended by Abu al-A’la al-Mawdudi of Pakistan, al-Mustalahat al-Arbaa fil-Quran el-Karim (the Four Terms in the Holy Quran) in which he dealt with the meaning of the Divine governance in a way that intersected with Ma’lem fi Tariq.

This established the idea of Islamic governance stimulating fierce debate, until events intervened:

1. The 1967 war, and the spread of frustration in the Arab street – coupled with the concern over the nationalist and leftist influence in the region. These two elements fuelled scepticism of the nationalist and leftist currents, which increasingly were seen to be either conspiracies; or the ‘games’ of nations.
2. The loss of prestige of nationalism in Arab states after the war and a return to the Za’im (traditional leader) model of despotism directed against one’s own people. This led people to look for genuine choice in their lives: one of the most important of these choices was to turn to Islam.
3. The impact of the Palestinian cause on the Arab and Islamic conscience which led to a greater awareness of the conflict as a cause for the entire Arab World – especially after Israel’s invasion of Lebanese territories and its occupation of the capital Beirut.

The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 prompted some Islamic movements or groups to engage in serious armed resistance, which demanded real sacrifice, and which did not hesitate to spare the Occupation Forces. Later – 1987 – the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, emerged in Palestine. Although the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon was Shi’i; whereas, the Islamic Resistance in Palestine was Sunni, the unity of cause, the closeness of the geography, the common history and a shared enemy, created the catalyst towards a trans-sectarian experience. It launched a new consciousness based on this shared resistance experience, rather than on prior conceptions and prejudices.

It is remarkable to note when considering these two movements that:

A. They have not become involved in conflict with their own communities; but rather have remained focussed on Israel. This suggests that their cause is not one of confronting injustice – as is the case with most movements – but to resist occupation. This has given them the characteristic of national liberation movements.
B. They have sought, through resistance, to couple Islam to a nationalist project. The experience of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon has enjoyed an additional factor – its adaptation to the pluralist reality that distinguishes Lebanon as a country.
C. The two movements have been able to present a unity of cause, whilst maintaining organizational diversity and whilst exercising a national role.
D. The movements have become windows into the Islamic world – including countries such as Iran, Turkey, Malaysia, and Pakistan. In order to do this, they have disregarded the confessional [Sunni-Shi’i] divide; indeed, one can even say that they have managed to step past regimes and establish relationships with the peoples in the region.
E. They represent the rare example of movements that have ignored confessional and sectarian differences,
F. And which have achievements in battles, liberation of land in 2000, and victories over the Israeli invasions of 2006 and 2008, to their credit. These successes have spread a positive culture of achievement, self-confidence and a rehabilitation of the history of resistance such that the Arab and Islamic street has recovered much of its self-confidence and therefore its readiness to place trust in these movements.

4. The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran: It is widely-known that Iran adopts Shi’i Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), a fiqh that has for a long time been absent, due to pressures and crises, from the work of constructing a state and a society – until, that is, Imam Khomeini (may Allah sanctify his soul) came with the Wilayatul-Faqih (the Jurist’s Guardianship) doctrine, which proposed:

First: Although the Sharia is the source of governance – legitimacy of that governance cannot be assured unless the people’s consent also is obtained. This is so, because the will of people is the religious and natural doorway to the establishment of Islamic governance. In this aspect, there is a deliberate coupling of the sacred and the temporal in the principles underpinning an Islamic state.

Second: The notion of the Ummah (Community of Believers) as the frame-work in which the political structures are built, does not invalidate commitment to national borders; rather, effective law-making is seen to be one that respects the national characteristics and aspirations – provided that this nationalist particularity does not begin to mould the religious interest. This is because the apostolic vision in Islam extends to the human being in his or her capacity as a human, rather than as a representative of any one nation.

Third: The criterion by which society, life and states is viewed, is founded on the basis of seeing the ‘good’ in them. It is not to label them as Jahilia (pre-Islamic society) or Takfir (to label as infidel); rather it affirms that true infidelity, at the political level, is injustice and aggression. Therefore, there can be no objection to openness to international relations – provided these relations are based on the interests of nations and peoples. This contrasts with the principles on which many Islamic movements and parties were founded.

5. A few months after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, an incident occurred in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, when Juhaiman al-Utaibi led a revolt against the king and against the regime of Saudi Arabia. This act of defiance opened a window – for general Sunni Islamic movements, as well as some Salafi movements, to act outside of the legal framework of order in consequence to the introduction of the US army into Saudi Arabia, and the regime’s subsequent silence on this event. For certain of these movements, matters came to a head when the US occupied the state of Iraq.

6. Then we have the events of September 11 2001, when al-Qaeda, which is led by Saudi Osama bin Laden and his right-hand man, the Egyptian Ayman A-Zawaheri launched the attack on the US. The Afghanistan-based organization was under the protection of Mulla Omar, the leader of the Taliban movement that observed the Hanafi Fiqh (jurisprudence) while adopting, as al-Qaeda, the Salafi vision that understood politics, as well as Jihad, within a specific and defined meaning, based on:

– The frustration arising from the experience of the Islamic Brotherhood movements: This has paved the way for movements, in Egypt and elsewhere, to adopt armed action – by movements such as al-Jamaa al-Islamiya in Egypt, Pakistan and Algeria; the Egyptian Islamic Jihad movement that executed Anwar a-Sadat; the Takfir and Hijra (immigration) movements and many others. Ayman a-Zawaheri has lived the experiences of these movements. He met bin Laden in Afghanistan. It is known that the latter was a student of the Salafi leader and theorist Abdallah Azzam, who led the Arab groups in the Afghanistan war against the Soviets and who was martyred in mysterious circumstances.

All this has paved the way for a compound vision emerging that has mixed Salafism with the revisionist thought of the movements emerging from the Brotherhood, which was already committed to the notion of Islamic governance.

– Salafism has also been defined by a deviation from the authority of the religious or legitimate establishment and by the emergence of individuals who embarked on fatwa (religious rulings) which issued in a arbitrary, and sometimes even whimsical, fashion – thus making some of these movements form what (it has been agreed amongst them to be called) ‘fatwa councils’. This has made it possible to create new religious marjaiat (religious authorities) outside the framework of the historic ones, thus allowing, some chaos which has been amply demonstrated in Iraq – through the correspondence between Abu Mus’ab a-Zarqawi, Samir al-Maqdisi and Ayman a-Zawaheri. The latter two – as may be recalled – condemned a-Zarqawi’s behavior for failing to submit his actions to a fatwa council. There were even cases in which a group had two authorities: the emir, and the Faqih (jurist). We might observe in a city or a village, or even a neighbourhood in Iraq more than one group having its own emir and faqih.

– Salafism has also been characterised by violent acts emanating from a severe confessional (Sunni-Shia) mentality, and the extreme whimsical attitudes that we observed earlier that recognised neither pact nor honour – so that the norm, as far as they are concerned, has become one that anyone who disagreed with them, is against them, – be he Muslim or non-Muslim; unjust or just; ruler or ruled. The entire social, civil and religious structure was targeted as the intention became manifest: the use force and slaughter against all infidels. And people were labelled as ‘infidels’ merely for disagreeing with the emir or his particular group.

– It has also been identified by its propensity to attract bands of immigrants from the west in order to benefit from their scientific expertise. These immigrants lived in isolation in the western societies from which they came. They have proved unable, due to their upbringing, to adapt to life in the west; or to be in reconciliation with it: therefore they have used their scientific and technical minds and skills to create terror in western countries. This is an outlook which they have brought with them to Arab and Islamic countries, and which was turned against western interests – until finally agreement emerged, amongst Salafists, that the conflict must be focused on:

- either confronting the west and its worldwide interests, for it represented the origin of the problem,
- establishing the khilafat state. If the concept had not succeed in Afghanistan, it was to be established in one of the Arab countries. This was justified on the grounds that the establishment of a khilafat in the Arab world would topple other Arab regimes in favour of the khilafat state. This state would then launch a conflict against the west. This is the reason behind the large-scale security and military shift of Salafi movements into Iraq.
- or; it should be focused on confronting the sectarian [Sunni-Shia] and religious obstacles to the achievement of a khilafat. Hence were the horrible acts carried out by a-Zarqawi and his followers against the Shia, certain Sunnis, and Christians.

Here we are, today, facing three different classifications of Islamic movements:

Type one: the traditional institutions, especially those affiliated with the authority and that regard that submission to the ruler as a necessary issue. These have become institutions with marginal influence their peoples, and on the conscience of Islamic movements.

Type Two: the political Islamist movement, which I believe, applies most to the Islamist Salafi and Dawa (call unto Islam) movements that consider seizing power as their ultimate norm and objective. These are movements that have turned, in a great deal of their activism, into violent movements that adopt the policy of force as their chosen methodology, and,

Type Three: the Islamic resistance: these are movements concerned with rejecting and resisting occupation. As far as they are concerned, the objective framework is social activism, not power. Consequently, they are more of liberation movements than revolutionary, or ones committed to the overthrow of established order.

The importance of recognising the characteristics of the three principal types is essential and necessary. In my opinion these three currents will see a great deal of friction and reconciliation efforts before they can settle on common convictions. Finally, I do believe that tyranny and occupation represent the ultimate justification for using, and resorting to violence, in order to resolve problems.

Taliban Regime Pressed bin Laden on anti-U.S. Terror

By Gareth Porter – Inter Press Service

bin Laden was forbidden to talk to the media without the consent of the Taliban regime or to make plans to attack U.S. targets

Evidence now available from various sources, including recently declassified U.S. State Department documents, shows that the Taliban regime led by Mullah Mohammad Omar imposed strict isolation on Osama bin Laden after 1998 to prevent him from carrying out any plots against the United States.

The evidence contradicts the claims by top officials of the Barack Obama administration that Mullah Omar was complicit in Osama bin Laden’s involvement in the al Qaeda plot to carry out the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sep. 11, 2001. It also bolsters the credibility of Taliban statements in recent months asserting that it has no interest in al Qaeda’s global jihadist aims.

A primary source on the relationship between bin Laden and Mullah Omar before 9/11 is a detailed personal account provided by Egyptian jihadist Abu’l Walid al-Masri published on Arabic-language jihadist websites in 1997.

Al-Masri had a unique knowledge of the subject, because he worked closely with both bin Laden and the Taliban during the period. He was a member of bin Laden’s Arab entourage in Afghanistan, but became much more sympathetic to the Afghan cause than bin Laden and other al Qaeda officials from 1998 through 2001.

The first published English-language report on al-Masri’s account, however, was an article in the January issue of the CTC Sentinal, the journal of the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point, by Vahid Brown, a fellow at the CTC.

Mullah Omar’s willingness to allow bin Laden to remain in Afghanistan was conditioned from the beginning, according to al-Masri’s account, on two prohibitions on his activities: bin Laden was forbidden to talk to the media without the consent of the Taliban regime or to make plans to attack U.S. targets.

Former Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil told IPS in an interview that the regime “put bin Laden in Kandahar to control him better.” Kandahar remained the Taliban political headquarters after the organisation’s seizure of power in 1996.

The August 1998 U.S. cruise missile strikes against training camps in Afghanistan run by bin Laden in retaliation for the bombings of two U.S. Embassies in East Africa on Aug. 7, 1998 appears to have had a dramatic impact on Mullah Omar and the Taliban regime’s policy toward bin Laden.

Two days after the strike, Omar unexpectedly entered a phone conversation between a State Department official and one of his aides, and told the U.S. official he was unaware of any evidence that bin Laden “had engaged in or planned terrorist acts while on Afghan soil”. The Taliban leader said he was “open to dialogue” with the United States and asked for evidence of bin Laden’s involvement, according to the State Department cable reporting the conversation.

Only three weeks after Omar asked for evidence against bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader sought to allay Taliban suspicions by appearing to accept the prohibition by Omar against planning any actions against the United States.

“There is an opinion among the Taliban that we should not move from within Afghanistan against any other state,” bin Laden said in an interview with al Jazeera. “This was the decision of the Commander of the Faithful, as is known.”

Mullah Omar had taken the title “Commander of the Faithful”, the term used by some Muslim Caliphs in the past to claim to be “leader of the Muslims”, in April 1996, five months before Kabul fell to the Taliban forces.

During September and October 1998, the Taliban regime apparently sought to position itself to turn bin Laden over to the Saudi government as part of a deal by getting a ruling by the Afghan Supreme Court that he was guilty of the Embassy bombings.

In a conversation with the U.S. chargé in Islamabad on Nov. 28, 1998, Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, Omar’s spokesman and chief adviser on foreign affairs, referred to a previous Taliban request to the United States for evidence of bin Laden’s guilt to be examined by the Afghan Supreme Court, according to the U.S. diplomat’s report to the State Department.

Muttawakil said the United States had provided “some papers and a videocassette,” but complained that the videocassette had contained nothing new and had therefore not been submitted to the Supreme Court. He told the chargé that the court had ruled that no evidence that had been presented warranted the conviction of bin Laden.

Muttawakil said the court trial approach had “not worked” but suggested that the Taliban regime was now carrying out a strategy to “restrict [bin Laden's] activities in such a way that he would decide to leave of his own volition.”

On Feb. 10, 1999, the Taliban sent a group of 10 officers to replace bin Laden’s own bodyguards, touching off an exchange of gunfire, according to a New York Times story of Mar. 4, 1999. Three days later, bodyguards working for Taliban intelligence and the Foreign Affairs Ministry personnel took control of bin Laden’s compound near Kandahar and took away his satellite telephone, according to the U.S. and Taliban sources cited by the Times.

Taliban official Abdul Hakeem Mujahid, who was then in the Taliban Embassy in Pakistan, confirmed that the 10 Taliban bodyguards had been provided to bin Laden to “supervise him and observe that he will not contact any foreigner or use any communication system in Afghanistan,” according to the Times story.

The pressure on bin Laden in 1999 also extended to threats to eliminate al Qaeda’s training camps in Afghanistan. An e-mail from two leading Arab jihadists in Afghanistan to bin Laden in July 1999, later found on a laptop previously belonging to al Qaeda in and purchased by the Wall Street Journal , referred to “problems between you and the Leader of the Faithful” as a “crisis”.

The e-mail, published in article by Alan Cullison in the September 2004 issue of The Atlantic, said, “Talk about closing down the camps has spread.”

The message even suggested that the jihadists feared the Taliban regime could go so far as to “kick them out” of Afghanistan.

In the face of a new Taliban hostility, bin Laden sought to convince Mullah Omar that he had given his personal allegiance to Omar as a Muslim. In April 2001 bin Laden referred publicly to having sworn allegiance to Mullah Omar as the “Commander of the Faithful”.

But al-Masri recalls that bin Laden had refused to personally swear such an oath of allegiance to Omar in 1998-99, and had instead asked al-Masri himself to give the oath to Omar in his stead. Al-Masri suggests that bin Laden deliberately avoided giving the oath of allegiance to Omar personally, so that he would be able to argue within the Arab jihadi community that he was not bound by Omar’s strictures on his activities.

Even in summer 2001, as the Taliban regime became increasingly dependent on foreign jihadi troop contingents, including Arabs trained in bin Laden’s camps, for its defence against the military advances of the Northern Alliance, Mullah Omar found yet another way to express his unhappiness with bin Laden’s presence.

After a series of clashes between al Qaeda forces and those of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Taliban leader intervened to give overall control of foreign volunteer forces to the Tahir Yuldash of the IMU, according to a blog post last October by Leah Farrall, an Australian specialist on jihadi politics in Afghanistan.

In Late January, Geoff Morrell, the spokesman for Defence Secretary Robert Gates, suggested that the United States could not negotiate with Mullah Omar, because he has “the blood of thousands of Americans on his hands,” implying that he had knowingly allowed bin Laden’s planning of the 9/11 attacks.

US Foreign Policy & Redrawing the Map of the Middle East

Talk by Dr. Azmi Bishara at UC Berkeley after collapse of Baghdad.
Date: 04/11/2003

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

US is pushing Pakistan into the Abyss of Oblivion

By Zafar Bangash – Crescent Online

Pakistan is rapidly hurtling into the abyss of oblivion

We are supposed to hate suicide bombers, those grotesque creatures hell-bent on killing innocent people because of their “demented ideology”. There is no shortage of experts delivering sermons from every pulpit pontificating on the evils of terrorism. Government officials and their media sycophants join in this chorus but few bother to ask whence these hateful creatures came? There were no suicide bombers in Pakistan or Afghanistan a mere five years ago. What happened during this period to give birth to the phenomenon of suicide bombings is a question that must be addressed in earnest.

No problem can be tackled or solved properly without understanding its genesis, the circumstances surrounding its emergence and factors that feed its growth. Equally important is the fact that if a particular approach fails to solve the problem, alternatives must be explored.

Pakistan is rapidly hurtling into the abyss of oblivion. Hardly a day passes by without a bomb explosion or suicide bombing in some part of the country. What possible excuse could there be for the murderous attack on a masjid as happened on December 4 that killed more than 40 people in Rawalpindi, we are asked. The coordinated attack by suicide bombers followed by armed men shooting worshippers during Friday prayers when the masjid was full was particularly gruesome. Among those killed were a major general, a brigadier, a colonel, two lieutenant colonels and two majors. Seventeen children were also killed.

Four days later (December 8), the Moon Market in Iqbal Town, Lahore was bombed when it was full of shoppers; 43 people died in that carnage. On December 9 the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) offices in Multan were attacked. Unable to enter the building, the attackers detonated their lethal wares in the nearby building where families of ISI officials live. The car bombing left 12 dead and scores injured. Many more such attacks will occur in the days to come if past experience is anything to go by. The brief hiatus during Eid al-Adha celebrations has been shattered with far greater bloodletting.

Theories abound about the identity of the perpetrators: Taliban, Indian agents, American agents, Afghan agents, Blackwater mercenaries and Mossad. The list is endless. All of them may be involved but how has this situation evolved? Why were there no suicide bombers a mere five years ago; what circumstances led to their emergence and who else is fishing in the troubled waters of Pakistan? Is the US a friend or foe? The people of Pakistan know the answer but Pakistani elites continue to harbor illusions about America’s friendship and believe it wants to help Pakistan — presumably over a cliff.

Immediately after the Moon Market bombing in Lahore, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the government had evidence that weapons were being smuggled from Afghanistan. Perhaps. Lahore Police chief, Pervez Rathore said India was involved. This may also be true. The Lahore daily, The Nation, reported on December 9 that two vehicles were stopped attempting to enter the restricted area of Lahore Cantonment late at night. The occupants were Americans who refused to show their identity papers or allow the police to search their vehicles. Officials from the US Consulate finally arrived at the scene to get the vehicles and their occupants freed. There is widespread belief that these were Blackwater mercenaries.

Thousands of Blackwater operatives (the organization has now renamed itself Xe Service to hide the criminal past associated with its former name) have descended on Pakistan. They carry prohibited weapons and on numerous occasions have been arrested by the police in suspicious circumstances only to be released on orders of Pakistani government officials. The US embassy in Islamabad has also hired a large number of retired army officers that act like warlords, trying to browbeat the police into submission. Poorly paid and lacking motivation, the police are easily intimidated by ex-army officers who throw their weight about driving in expensive, American-provided vehicles.

Last November, a plane load of Blackwater mercenaries arrived in Pakistan and were immediately whisked through Islamabad International Airport without going through immigration and customs formalities, according to officials at the airport quoted by The Nation newspaper (November 4, 2009). “We had instructions to allow the foreigners entry without custom procedure,” officials on duty at Islamabad airport said. Blackwater mercenaries have operated in Pakistan for many years. On several occasions Pakistani police have arrested them at odd hours near Pakistan’s nuclear sites or other sensitive installations. Every time ex-army officers working for the US embassy have intervened to secure their release. These former military officers and a long list of bureaucrats, journalists and politicians are on the US embassy payroll and are working directly against the interests of Pakistan.

Former Chief of Army Staff Mirza Aslam Baig has gone so far as to accuse the former military dictator Pervez Musharraf of being complicit in Blackwater crimes. General Baig has said it was Musharraf who gave these mercenaries the green light to carry out terrorist operations in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Quetta. The current civilian rulers, led by Asif Ali Zardari, a venal character and a notorious crook, are in no position to say no to the Americans. Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times reported on August 29, 2009 that the CIA hired these mercenaries for targeted assassinations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as early as 2004. Following a particularly gruesome episode in Baghdad in 2007 in which 17 Iraqis were murdered in cold blood, the Iraqi regime refused to grant the company an “operating license.” In a joint piece in the New York Times on December 11, Mazzetti and James Risen shed light on the tight relationship between the CIA and Blackwater. Hired for security duties, Blackwater operatives have indulged in wanton killings in Iraq. In Pakistan, the US hired them for illegal drone attacks as well as targeted killings.

Blackwater mercenaries are only one, even if the major problem facing Pakistan. There are other factors as well behind the escalating mayhem that is rapidly spinning out of control. The root of the problem is the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan that has now spilled over into Pakistan. As a consequence of the US-NATO war and brutality in Afghanistan and the incessant drone attacks, there is great resentment in Pakistan toward the US. With fighting concentrated primarily in the south and southeast of Afghanistan where the Pashtuns reside, mass killings there have aroused much anger among the Pashtuns on the Pakistan side of the border as well.

It was bad enough when the US-NATO forces launched their aerial assault with B-1 bombers in October 2001 killing thousands of people in Afghanistan; the bombing of wedding parties and defenseless villagers in their mud huts in subsequent years has intensified hatred of the US. This has been heightened by the Pakistan military launching operations against its own people in the tribal areas of North and South Waziristan, Swat, Bajaur and now in Orakzai Agency. This ongoing painful chapter has contributed greatly to escalating tensions in Pakistan where none existed before, leading to the phenomenon of suicide bombings.

We need to consider the timeline of several events.

Military attacks in North and South Waziristan

If one can establish a turning point in Pakistan’s tortuous history, the Lal Masjid saga must stand out as the one that pushed the country over the brink

Under pressure from the US, the former Pakistani dictator, General Pervez Musharraf ordered military operations against the people of South Waziristan in early 2004. The excuse advanced was that Pakistan had to “flush out” foreign fighters, mainly Uzbeks and Arabs. After several weeks of fighting that left hundreds of villagers dead and thousands as refugees, an agreement was reached with Naik Muhammad, the young charismatic tribal leader in the region. As a gesture of goodwill during a ceremony on April 24, 2004, the tribesmen surrendered their pistols and handed a copy of the Qur’an to the Pakistani general.

The agreement horrified Washington; it did not want peace in the area. On May 21, 2004, Musharraf presidedover a high-powered meeting in Islamabad and ordered resumption of attacks. While the Corps Commander Peshawar, in charge of military operations in Waziristan, opposed such attacks and warned against breaking the agreement because it would have serious repercussions for the future, Musharraf was adamant. He insisted on attacking the tribesmen because Washington demanded it. The military relaunched its operations in early June. The US also joined with drone attacks and killed Naik Muhammad with whom the Pakistani military had, only a few weeks earlier, signed a widely publicized peace deal. The people of Waziristan were incensed by such betrayal. In order to protect the US, Musharraf claimed the Pakistan army had carried out the attack that killed Naik Muhammad. More than 15,000 people attended his funeral prayer in defiance of threats that the funeral procession would be bombed.

Between 2004 and 2006, Waziristan — both North and South — became a war zone. The US continued drone attacks killing civilians, mostly women and children. Several ceasefires were agreed upon only to be violated as a result of US pressure or drone attacks. As the attacks continued, there emerged a group calling itself Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Suicide bombings increased in Pakistani cities mainly in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The Pakistan army continued attacking its own people while the Americans intensified their demands that Islamabad must “do more”.

Lal Masjid attack: July 2007

As if the war in Waziristan that had already spread to other areas of the NWFP and the adjoining tribal areas was not bad enough, Musharraf perpetrated another outrage by attacking the Lal Masjid-madrassa compound in Islamabad in July 2007. Run by two imams, with long ties to the government and several ministers, they became embroiled in a dispute over growing immorality in the capital, especially prostitution. Girl students from the madrassa took it upon themselves to clean up the filth because the government had refused to do so. The girls’ action was taken as a great affront by the regime as well as the secular elite. How could government-paid imams demand an end to prostitution when the ruling elites regularly patronize their dens? Several weeks of negotiations between the clerics and government emissaries fell apart because Musharraf did not want a peaceful resolution. He insisted on a military showdown to establish the “government’s writ” and to prove he was in charge. The Americans also demanded crushing the militants.

On July 11, 2007, Musharraf ordered his commandos to attack the Lal Masjid. In the weeklong attack, more than 1,400 students, most of them girls, were brutally murdered. Phosphorous bombs were used to burn people to death. The overwhelming majority of girls belonged to Swat; they were from poor families and had found the madrassa-masjid complex a useful place to educate their daughters and to provide them a roof, being too poor even to feed them (madrassas in Pakistan do not charged fees; Muslim philanthropists often contribute toward such expenses as part of their Islamic duty).

The Lal Masjid attack sent a shockwave throughout the country, particularly in Swat. While the secular elites, including Benazir Bhutto, then still “languishing” in her luxury apartment in London or commuting to her palaces in Dubai, applauded the commando raid and the killing of hundreds of innocent girls, ordinary Pakistanis were horrified. The Americans, too, applauded the killings. The result was catastrophic for Pakistan.

Bombings and suicide attacks immediately escalated. If one can establish a turning point in Pakistan’s tortuous history, the Lal Masjid saga must stand out as the one that pushed the country over the brink. Battle lines became so clearly drawn that only the blind could fail to see. The ruling elites have never cared for ordinary people or their children but hitherto it was reflected in lack of services. Now the elites had embarked on a killing spree. The reaction was swift and strong. There has been no turning back since. Soon Musharraf was engulfed in a political crisis that forced him out of office following a British-American brokered deal that facilitated Bhutto’s return to Pakistan. Corruption cases against Bhutto, her even more corrupt husband Asif Zardari, and thousands of other thieves and criminals, totaling 8041 people, were withdrawn under what came to be called the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). Critics dubbed it the National Robbers’ Ordinance.

Before the January 8, 2008 national elections were held, Benazir Bhutto was shot dead in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007. Her death has been engulfed in controversy; few believe the official version that she hit her head on a door handle in the vehicle when she fell down after being hit. There is widespread belief in Pakistan that her husband had a hand in her killing. The street urchin, not fit to be even a doorman, ended up as president of the country and its unfortunate people after Musharraf was forced to resign on August 18, 2008. Musharraf’s departure, however, did little to contain the mayhem that was rapidly engulfing the country. More than 100,000 troops were deployed in the tribal area fighting its own people, merely to appease the US.

Attack on Swat

On April 26, 2009, the military attacked Swat. It immediately resulted in more than three million people becoming refugees. In the sweltering heat, people were forced to live in dusty camps in Peshawar, Mardan and Sawabi. There was little or no government help extended to them. Pakistani bureaucrats that had gained notoriety for past corruption were appointed to look after the new refugees referred to as Internally Displaced Persons (IDP), stole donations earmarked for refugees. The Swat operation lasted several months. Massive damage was inflicted on major towns in Swat and the surrounding areas; hundreds of young people were executed in cold blood but leaders of the Taliban, against whom the operation was ostensibly launched, were neither captured nor killed. Some have been apprehended but it is widely believed that they are being sheltered by the regime.

On October 17, 2009, the military launched a fresh attack on South Waziristan, again under the rubric of extending “government writ”. This strange animal is invoked each time the Americans exert pressure on Pakistan to “do more”. While the military has continued to bomb villages in South Waziristan turning it into wasteland driving 500,000 people from their homes, car and suicide bombings have escalated in cities like Kohat, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Lahore and Multan. October was a particularly bad month with attacks on a number of military targets including the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. A number of brigadiers were also killed in Islamabad.

On December 12, 2009, the Pakistan government announced that it was halting military operations in South Waziristan but attacks against Orakzai Agency had already commenced. Long-range artillery batteries placed in Hangu, the district headquarter bordering Orakzai Agency, are being used to fire at villages like Bagh and other places in the tribal area. An estimated 250,000 people, the overwhelming majority women and children, from Orakzai Agency have been forced to flee and are now living in appalling conditions in refugee camps in Hangu. With the onset of winter that is extremely harsh in that region coupled with lack of proper shelter and heating facilities as well as lack of food, people’s suffering will escalate, as will their resentment to seek revenge for the military’s barbarous attacks. Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gailani said this would be a 10-12 year war. He is beginning to sound like American officials.

As US President Barack Obama announced his surge for Afghanistan, he also called upon Pakistan to launch military operations in Baluchistan. Obama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, wants to turn the whole of Pakistan into a war zone. He has threatened to extend drone attacks into Baluchistan as well. The Los Angeles Times reported on December 12 that the US intends to launch drone attacks o the Afghan Taliban Shura’s alleged home base in Quetta. Now that would be a real gesture of peace!

When the Pakistan army and American drones kill innocent civilians, it is unrealistic to expect that people will not react. Each killing escalates resentment and stokes the urge to exact revenge, a long-established tradition in that part of the world. Victims have long memories; they do not easily forget their dead no matter how many rhetorical phrases are hurled at them. If for 3,000 American deaths on 9/11, the US can attack two countries and murder more than 1.5 million people, why is it so difficult to understand that other people will feel equally hurt and seek revenge?

The ruling elites in Pakistan should understand that they have aligned themselves with the enemy — the US government — against their own people for a fistful of dollars. They are now enemy agents and therefore, legitimate targets for those who have lost loved ones in the ongoing escalating attacks on their villages where they witnessed their children, mothers or wives blown to pieces. It is not and never was Pakistan’s war; it is America’s war imposed on Pakistan. And it does not help to prattle about an “extremist ideology” driving people to do crazy things; this is the reaction of very normal, ordinary people. It would be highly abnormal if they did not react this way.

Hamid Mir, the Pakistani journalist recounts the story of a young boy lying in a run-down hospital in Waziristan. The boy who had lost his limbs in a US Drone attack, told Mir that his mother too had died in a similar strike. In her dying moments, she had instructed him to avenge in Islamabad — where the decisions to maim and kill are made — what was done to her in Bajaur. Years later, his older brother was caught in Islamabad attempting to blow himself up in a high-security area.

The Pakistani elites have embarked on a suicidal policy. Their actions can only invite suicide bombers. They have only themselves to blame. History will render a very harsh verdict because they are actively engaged in destroying Pakistan.