Fighting to the End

by C Christine Fair

  US analysts tend to believe that the Pakistani security services maintain reasonably tight control over LeT through providing resources, monitoring group activity, and most importantly continuing to provide LeT the most important asset it enjoys: virtually unfettered access to operate (e.g., recruit, raise funds, train, plan missions) in and from Pakistan. That said, LeT has established proxies in India, principally among them, the Indian mujahideen and its predecessor, the Students Islamic Movement of India (Fair 2010a). It has also developed logistical bases in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and Nepal, among other countries. Some LeT cells within India are at least partly independent of its headquarters in Muridke (Fair 2010a; Roul 2010). One highly suggestive piece of evidence is the significant signals traffic between the ISI and JeM recorded after JeM’s 2001 attack on the Indian parliament, indicating the ISI’s anger with JeM for that attack. In contrast, significantly less traffic was detected after the November 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai. This spike in traffic could have been an attempt by Pakistan to defuse the former crisis, but if so it is puzzling that such a strategy was not used in 2008.5 After the 2008 Mumbai attacks the United States granted Indian officials access to David Headley, an American citizen, after he had been arrested and charged with involvement in the attacks. According to Indian officials, Headley conceded ISI involvement (Burke 2010; Perlez et al. 2010). Bob Woodward (2010) reported that the previous director general of the ISI, Shuja Pasha, acknowledged that persons connected to the ISI were involved in the attacks but insisted that the operation was rogue. US officials have declined to endorse this claim.

  At the other end of the spectrum is the aforementioned array of Deobandi groups. Pakistan’s ability to control these groups appears variable, perhaps even tentative at best. Masood Azhar’s Bahawalpur-based JeM network is perhaps the most tightly controlled of all the Deobandi groups; as Pakistani analysts explained to me in July 2010, the army is keen to continue supporting Azhar because he has remained adamantly pro-Pakistan and has refrained from attacking the state. Azhar demonstrated his pro-state bona fides as early as 2001, when he opposed calls from within his organization to attack western targets in Pakistan as well as the Pakistani government. Azhar informed the ISI of these conspiracies (Howenstein 2008). Pakistani analysts argue that as long as Azhar can maintain the coherence of his following in the Punjab, members of his group are less likely to join the TTP. But it is well-known that elements of JeM have split from Azhar and launched attacks against foreign and domestic targets in Pakistan in association with its sectarian counterpart, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. JeM for example, was responsible for the 2002 suicide attack on the US consulate in Karachi, and the organization has been implicated in the 2006 plot to blow up planes leaving from Great Britain (Carsen 2006; Dawn 2006).

  Other, albeit intimately interrelated, Deobandi groups, such as the network of commanders under the umbrella of the TTP, are beyond the grasp of the state, as evidenced by their persistent attacks within Pakistan. The military and the ISI have tried to manage this complex web of allied foes by provoking or exacerbating disagreements among commanders. For example, Pakistan cultivated Mullah Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir in an attempt to counter the antistate elements of the TTP generally and Baitullah and Hakimullah Mehsud in particular (Wadhams and Cookman 2009; Yusufzai 2007, 2008). Pakistan has at times tried to placate the militants by making peace deals; at other times it has sought to defeat them militarily, with varying degrees of success (Jones and Fair 2010).

  Unfortunately, it is unlikely that Islamabad will have the ability—much less political will—to degrade these groups in any significant way. Despite its seeming dedication to combating those elements of the TTP that target the state, Pakistan will likely remain unable or unwilling to eliminate even those groups, owing to the overlapping membership between the vehemently antistate components of the TTP and Deobandi groups that Pakistan still views as assets as well as to Islamabad’s fear that its militant proxies will be crucial allies in any future war against India.

  The Internal Jihad: A Case Study of Lashkar-e-Taiba

  Until now I have primarily discussed Pakistan’s militant groups in the context of Pakistan’s external goals.6 But Pakistan itself is a critical theater of state-supported militancy. I use a case study of LeT to explore this phenomenon. As discussed already, LeT has not joined the Pakistani Taliban, and it has never attacked any target within the state of Pakistan (Fair 2011a). But the organization is actually very active within Pakistan. First, although LeT trains many recruits, only a small percentage actually see combat (ibid.). Of all the recruits that LeT sends to its basic training course (Daura-e-Aam), fewer than 1 in 10 will be selected for its advanced training course, Daura-e-Khas. Fewer still progress beyond Daura-e-Khas to higher-level courses such as intelligence, driving, and swimming. And even fewer are ultimately sent out on missions in India or elsewhere.7

  Working with West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, my research team assembled a database of 708 slain LeT activists using published biographies of the fighters. From this body of evidence, it is clear that individuals are accepted for a mission only after significant lobbying of the organization’s leadership, particularly Hafez Saeed, its top commander, and Zia-Ur-Rehman Lakhvi, its supreme commander for Kashmir and chief of operations in India. (Lakhvi was the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. While he is technically currently being held in a Pakistani prison, he continues to guide the organization.) The biographies also suggest that Lakhvi and Saeed are intimately involved in assessing the candidates’ reliability, dedication, and intellectual and physical fitness for the mission (Rassler et al. 2013).

  The available evidence suggests that the vast majority of persons who receive some degree of LeT training are ultimately sent back to their home districts, where they are expected to engage in proselytization and propagation of the group’s theological message and to recruit other candidates for the same cycle of training (again with low odds of ever being deployed for combat operations). At first glance, this is a strange use of organizational resources given the costs of training and the operational risks involved in returning so many potential operatives to their home villages with little to no supervision. The riskiness of this venture has increased since 9/11, as the international community has grown ever more concerned about LeT. Any weakness in operational security could compromise parts of the organization, critical facilities, planned operations, or important personnel. Moreover, although LeT has sought to lower its profile by operating under the thin cover of ostensible philanthropic organizations, first as the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and more recently as the Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation, the highly public appearances of LeT members in public demonstrations remain a perpetual irritant to Pakistan’s neighbors and international partners. (The organization routinely uses English-language banners during these protests, likely to ensure that international observers are aware of its involvement.)

  Assuming LeT rationally employs its organizational resources, the organization (and in turn the state) must derive some benefit from this heavy investment in persons who will never carry out operations in India or Afghanistan. The value of these domestic investments made by LeT lies in its domestic politics. The utility of the group’s domestic focus becomes apparent only when one appreciates the ways it differs from the other groups operating in Pakistan, in particular as regards its theological basis. Unfortunately, this aspect of the group has been neglected by previous analyses, with the exception of Fair (2011a).

  All of the groups that have turned on the state are Deobandi, whereas LeT is affiliated with the Ahl-e-Hadis interpretative tradition. This theological distinction is exceedingly important and equally underappreciated. First, the Deobandi groups are deeply sectarian and have long targeted Pakistan’s Shia and Ahmediyya populations. (In 1974 Z. A. Bhutto declared the Ahmediyyas non-Muslim as a sop to Islamist opposition groups.) The groups also began attacking Sufi shrines in Pakistan, as discussed already. Worshippers at the shrines fol
low the Barelvi school of Islam, whose adherents believe in mysticism, revere saints, and frequent shrines where their spiritual guide, the saint’s descendent, may intercede on their behalf. Many, if not most, Pakistanis are believed to be Barelvi, although there are no reliable data on this point. Pakistanis generally hold these shrines in high esteem, as these Sufi saints brought Islam to South Asia (Kamran 2008; Metcalf 2002; Talbot 2007). Deobandis, however, denounce these mystical practices and beliefs as un-Islamic accretions derived from Hinduism (Waraich 2011). Deobandi militant groups also attack Pakistan’s non-Muslim minorities, such as Christians (Minority Rights Group International 2010).

  In short, Barelvis, Shia, and Ahmediyyas all espouse religious practices that Deobandis find anathema because these practices are what Deobandis deem munafiqit, or actions that spread disunity within the global body of Muslim believers (umma). The term munafaqit is sometimes translated as the state of hypocrisy or the state of doing things that are hypocritical. One who perpetrates munafiqit is called munafiq (plural munafiqin). Thus, munafiq is sometimes translated as a “hypocrite,” implying that members of these religious groups are not truthful to themselves or others. Deobandi militant groups, which include the Pakistani Taliban and its constituent subgroupings, such as JeM, SSP, and LeJ, have concluded that anyone who does not espouse their beliefs is munafiq. This includes Pakistani security personnel as well as political leaders and any citizens who oppose these groups and their violent agenda. Under this pretext, Deobandi groups have launched a sustained campaign of violence, first in the FATA and then expanding into the settled parts of the frontier in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and well into the Punjab.

  This campaign has had lethal effects. Using data available from the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database, between January 1, 2000, and December 31, 2011 (the last date for which information is available for Pakistan), Pakistan has experienced 3,209 terror attacks in which some 7,334 persons died and another 14,652 were injured. (Yearly breakdowns of incidents and victims are given in Figure 9.2.) The Global Terrorism Database is almost certainly biased downward in that it accounts for fewer terror attacks than actually occur. Recall that these figures are a full order of magnitude lower than Pakistani reported fatalities, which indicate that tens of thousands of Pakistanis have been killed.

  Figure 9.2 Islamist terrorist attacks and victims: January 1, 2000–December 31, 2011. Source: University of Maryland, Global Terrorism Database, online. Available http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/. Note that we included all incidents between January 1, 2001 and December 31, 2011, that met Criteria #1 (crit1 = 1) and for which there was no doubt that the incident was terrorism (doubtterr = 0). Per the GTP Codebook, this criterion is defined thusly: “The violent act must be aimed at attaining a political, economic, religious, or social goal. This criterion is not satisfied in those cases where the perpetrator(s) acted out of a pure profit motive or from an idiosyncratic personal motive unconnected with broader societal change.”

  The value of these data is not in any given number of events in any given year but rather in the trends over time. One important observation is that the frequency of attacks increased markedly after 2005, when the Pakistani state began engaging in vigorous antiterrorism efforts against these groups, and these attacks became more lethal whether lethality is measured in fatalities or injuries.

  Understanding the violence perpetrated by these Deobandi groups is critical to understanding LeT’s domestic utility (Fair 2011a). LeT does not fight in Pakistan and does not target Pakistanis. In the LeT manifesto Hum Kyon Jihad Kar Rahen Hain? (Why Are We Waging Jihad) the anonymous author explains why LeT “does not wage jihad in Pakistan instead of Kashmir” and other parts of the Muslim world where Muslims are oppressed (Jamaat-ud-Dawa 2004, 42–45).8 This section makes clear the domestic importance of the organization: in contrast to the Deobandi groups that attack the state and its citizens, the manifesto reveals LeT’s fundamentally nonsectarian nature and its commitment to the integrity of the Pakistani state and its diverse polity.

  The manifesto is structured around a series of questions posed by an imaginary reader. These are cleverly framed to address an array of important messages, including the virtues of jihad outside of Pakistan and the reasons LeT does not fight within Pakistan. For instance, one question asks, “People ask why are you not waging jihad in Pakistan? … The government of Pakistan is cooperating with you [e.g., LeT]. Yet the government of Pakistan is an oppressive, imperial power. It supports the kafirs and has spread disbelief and disunity [munafiqit] throughout the country” (Jamaat-ud-Dawa 2004, 42). Thus, the manifesto forthrightly addresses the primary Deobandi critique of the government. This critique has particular salience in the post-9/11 era, during which the government of Pakistan has been collaborating with the United States and has seen the subsequent emergence of a domestic insurgency.

  The manifesto’s author argues that, while the state is indeed guilty of these things, Pakistani Muslims, whatever their creed, have read the Kalma, a series of statements attesting to the speaker’s belief that there is no one worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad is the prophet or messenger of Allah. Because he has read the Kalma, such a Muslim is a brother, the author explains, and LeT will not fight him as long as “he doesn’t raise a hand against us. We will see him as being confused or wrong. We will also tell him that he is guilty of disbelief and not accepting the unity of God. But we will not fight him. If we fight those who have read the Kalma, then we cannot fight those who refuse to do so” (Jamaat-ud-Dawa 2004, 42). The author continues to elaborate that even “grave worshippers” (Barelvis or Sufis) or “those who are hostile to the companions of the prophet” (Shia) still accept the Koran and must not be attacked (43).

  This section of the manifesto performs two important tasks. It concedes, but defends, LeT’s contacts with the Pakistan government, and it undermines the Deobandi arguments for attacking Pakistanis on the basis that they are munafiqin. What’s more, the author proceeds to dismantle the claim these persons are munafiqin in the first place. This is a bold effort to undermine the theological underpinnings of the Deobandis’ violent sectarian position. The manifesto contends that those who follow interpretative traditions of Islam other than Deobandism are not munafiqin because they are not hypocrites. Instead, the author argues that these people are in fact kufar (unbelievers, singular kafir). While disbelief may seem even worse than hypocrisy, Pakistani kufar are in fact less problematic in the Deobandi worldview than are munafiqin because, as the author contends, they are not at war with the Muslims in Pakistan. If kufar are not at war with Muslims, they cannot be attacked.

  In contrast, the author argues that kufar outside Pakistan (e.g., Hindus, Jews, Christians, atheists) are at war with Muslims and are thus legitimate targets. The author writes, “As long as kufar have power anywhere in the world, then one can be tormented [by them] for no other reason than being a Muslim. Should anyone want to convert [to Islam], he/she will hesitate out of fear of doing so. … You are required to fight until the time when there are no obstacles to becoming a Muslim. … God has commanded this” (Jamaat-ud-Dawa 2004, 6). The author adds, “As long as Islam is not supreme throughout the world and as long as the laws of Allah are not enforced, fighting kufar is a duty. … I have been commanded to keep fighting them until the kufar have given proof that there is no other worthy of worship but Allah and that Mohammad is the prophet [e.g., read the Kalma and become brothers], that they do namaz [pray as a Muslim], and they give zakat [Islamic tithe]” (6–7). The balance of the volume is made up of a series of arguments, derived from the Quran, Sunnah, and Hadith,9 that jihad against the external kufar is a compulsory obligation (farz-e-ein).10

  The author disparages those who accept the Deobandi claim that Pakistan is as suitable for jihad as India. He laments, “When I hear some Muslim brother who considers India and Pakistan equal for jihad, I feel pity [for him]. I clearly see the Hindus’ preferred thinking in his mind and the Hindus’ favorit
e language in his mouth” (Jamaat-ud-Dawa 2004, 35). This crucial passage suggests that those who want to conduct violence in Pakistan are doing the Hindus’ bidding and furthering India’s ostensible goal of destroying independent Pakistan. The author extends this argument in response to another imagined question: “if we protect the building of Islam from the outside through jihad [e.g., protect the ummah outside of Pakistan] and it remains weak from inside [e.g., in Pakistan], then what is the point? Please explain.” In response, he argues that “the internal strength of this building will also come through jihad against enemies” (ibid.). He makes clear that external jihad also serves the state’s supreme interest: its integrity. The author argues that there is only one way to end the domestic violence that has riven Pakistan: fight the external kufar. He predicts that when Pakistanis stop fighting this foe Pakistan will devolve into violence and chaos.

  These passages explain both LeT’s domestic policies and the state’s lasting support for the group. Lashkar-e-Taiba is the only militant organization to actively challenge the Deobandi orthodoxy that has imperiled Pakistan’s internal security. It is also the only such group to present an easily understood argument about the legitimate targets of jihad and the utility of external jihad. Thus, LeT’s doctrine helps to maintain the integrity of the Pakistani state, even as it complicates Pakistan’s external relations. Knowing this, Pakistan’s support for this organization seems less puzzling. Given the enormous domestic importance of LeT and also Pakistan’s continued belief that it can use its nuclear deterrent to control fallout from the organization’s external operations, Pakistan is making a sophisticated cost–benefit assessment of the utility of the organization.