The terror campus that churns out jihadis

While Muridke, near Lahore, was the hub of Lashkar's terrorist activities till 2002, (and has since been widely documented), the terrorist group moved its operations to several other camps, located in PoK, NWFP and Sindh. Of these, least known but a highly structured extensive training facility is the one called Markaz Mohammad bin Qasim, set up near Shehdadopur, not far from Hyderabad city in Sindh.
The Qasim complex is one of the four training centres which Lashkar has been busy setting up in Sindh.
Four plots have already been bought in Hyderabad division and six in other parts of Sindh for about Rs 200 million. A 20,000 square feet plot of land has been bought on Khoasi Road, Badin, for Rs 50 lakh.
Another 43,000 sq ft has been acquired in Mitali for Rs 1crore and a new madrasa is under construction on Hala Road, Hyderabad city. Similarly, another plot has been bought in Tando Allan Yar to set up another complex.
But it is the Markaz Mohammad bin Qasim at Maldasi in Shahdadpur, near Hyderabad, which merits a closer scrutiny. Built like a fortress, it was here that jihadi recruits underwent a 21-day training camp which used to be held every month (between the fifth and 26th of each month) before the crackdown in late 2002.
The training course began with indoctrinating the new recruits with the importance and virtues of jihad. In the last week of their training, the recruits were sent out to nearby cities and towns to spread the message of Islam, promote civic sense, preach social responsibility and equality among people.
Throughout this period, their performance, ability to gather and influence people and public-speaking skills were monitored and evaluated by their mentors. It was part of the Lashkar strategy-before a recruit qualified to be a Mujahideen, he had to prove his worth as a citizen. Those who qualified were then declared fit to apply for guerrilla training at the Lashkar's camps in PoK where they were taught all about weapons, from their use and firepower to their origin and manufacturing.

How the terror groups get their money

How the terror groups get their money
December 13, 2008
Herald also revealed how official channels funded these groups. Smaller outfits like Tehrik-e-Mujahideen, Jamiat-e-Mujahideen, Al Fatah, Al Jihad, Tehrik-e-Jihad and Islamic Front, received between Rs 400,000 and 700,000 a month.
Bigger ones such as HM, Lashkar, JeM and others received between Rs 2 million and 3 million a month. This 'official funding' was in addition to funds that were paid for logistics, communications, equipment, weapons, and explosives.
The complicity of the State became clear when some terrorist groups were allowed to resurface in April 2008. An American policy research group, Stratfor, quoting the Dawn newspaper, said members of Kashmiri terrorist groups like HuM, al Badr and JeM were 'setting up new offices, changing their names, putting up flags and posters, holding large rallies, and delivering sermons in mosques to publicise the groups' activities'. HuM relocated itself from Islamabad to the outskirts of Rawalpindi and called itself Ansar-ul Ummah. These developments, Stratfor said, could mean 'ISI return to commissioning attacks in Kashmir', part of a new phase in its militant proxy saga.
ISI's linkages with these groups, and the training camps, were reported in detail in the Pakistan media as far back as 2003. Herald (July 2003) documented how, after their training, the new jihadi recruits were 'sent to the ISI which provides trekking kits, communication equipment and weapons for shipment across the LoC. Finally the team goes through the Pakistan army posts which offer them rest and food on their way in as well as out'.
A serious indictment of Pakistan's complicity came in the UN report on Suicide Attacks in Afghanistan, an analysis of suicide bombings between 2001 and 2007. The report pointed at the 'training camps sprouting in and around the heavily forested Shawat region in North Waziristan and the Pakistani Taliban recruiting, training, raising money'.
The report also took issue with Pakistan's 'willingness to tolerate attitudes that encourage and justify the use of suicide attacks' and cited several instances.
Lashkar, which renamed itself as Jamaat-ud Dawa on the advice of the ISI, has been actively recruiting its cadres and training them in several schools and camps even after the global crackdown on such groups repeatedly after the September 11 attacks.

Inside Pakistan's terror schools

Terror training schools, teaching hundreds of new and young recruits in suicide missions and the use of sophisticated weapons, have been active in many parts of Pakistan, including Punjab, the North West Frontier Province, Waziristan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir.
Different terrorist groups, including the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, often with the help of former Pakistan army soldiers, run these schools or camps. The syllabus, the training and indoctrination are far more sophisticated than the pre-9/11 training camps.
The terrorists who attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008, and killed over 160 people were trained in one or two of these schools where several hundred others have been undergoing training for more than two years.
Wilson John, a Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, reveals how Pakistan's duplicitous policy on terrorism threatens, and will continue to threaten, not only India but also the western world in the years to come.
Reports of the presence of new terrorist training camps in Waziristan and the North West Frontier Province began to appear in the Pakistan media as far back as late 2006, after President Pervez Musharraf signed a peace deal with the Taliban sheltered in these areas.
Herald, a widely read English monthly published by the Dawn group of publications, reported in June 2006 about the fresh recruitment drive launched by the terrorist groups and the sprouting of training camps.
According to the report, at least three major jihadi groups maintain their liaison and recruitment offices in the Timergara area of Lower Dir district. These include the Hizb-ul Mujahideen, Al Badr Mujahideen, now re-named as Al Suffa Foundation, and the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, renamed as Jamaat-ud-Dawa.
Other jihadi organisations that have either offices or training camps in the Timergara and Warai areas of Dir include the Jaish-e-Mohammad, which now calls itself Al Rahman Trust, the Harkat-ul-Ansar, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and a Kashmiri group called the Pasban Millat.
Herald reported the presence of more than a thousand trained militants in three camps in the Hazara region of NWFP alone.
At about the same time, Afghan national television reported (October 5, 2006) that the Lashkar was forming suicide-bombing squads to help the Taliban fight the NATO forces and was recruiting Afghan refugees to take up arms against the Afghan government and the NATO forces.
Citing a known case of recruitment, the report said the Lashkar recruits went to the Ahl-e-hadith mosque in the Jalozai refugee camp in Peshawar where the youth were promised training and money if they agreed to join jihad.
The first terrorist leader to acknowledge this development was Jaish-e-Mohammad's Masood Azhar who wrote in his weekly column in an obscure but popular pro-Al Qaeda Urdu weekly, al Qalam, (December 2006) that 'the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad are working actively in Kashmir and they are giving the Hindus a tough time'.
He said the 'mujahideen in Kashmir were coming from Dir, North West Frontier Province and it was not possible for Musharraf to stop them'. Upper Dir is one of the northern most districts in the NWFP and borders Chitral, Swat and Malakand districts of the NWFP, in addition to Bajaur Agency in FATA.

Pak media does some 'soul-searching'

As the Pakistani government cracks down on terrorists linked to the Mumbai carnage, the media in the country has embarked on a 'soul-searching' exercise, with questions being raised as to why the Islamic nation has become the 'hub of militancy and terrorism'. 'Soul-searching is in order, and an acceptance of the fact that Pakistan is indeed a hub of militancy and terrorism,' the influential Dawn newspaper said on Saturday.
Images: Inside Pakistan's terror schools
The Pakistani government has crackdown on the banned militant group Lashker-e-Tayiba and its affiliate group Jamat-ud-Dawah, which has been declared a terrorist organisation by the UN.
The newspaper lamented that even though an overwhelming majority of Pakistanis do not support militancy 'a small fanatical fringe has come to dictate the agenda' of the country.
In an editorial headlined 'The common enemy', it said 'we have a collective responsibility to look inwards'.
Pakistani daily The News said the JuD and the LeT were known to have scouted Punjab for suitable people to join their ranks.
'It is only when its roots are pulled out that an organisation like the JuD can be stopped. Otherwise, like a weed, it will continue to spread rapidly,' it said in an editorial on Saturday.
The media has highlighted the pull of money and identity for the self-styled 'jihadis'. 'The resentment the powerless feel may be cloaked in anti-Americanism or religiosity but in actual fact it boils down to a class conflict,' Dawn argued.
It warned that as long as nothing is done to address the growing underemployment in this country, 'the militants will find no shortage of fresh recruits'. 'At least that is the case in Pakistan,' it added.
The Dawn said becoming part of a militant or terrorist organisation 'empowers poor, impressionable young men'. It cited the case of Ajmal Amir Kasab [Images], the sole terrorist caught alive in the Mumbai carnage. Kasab, who hails from Faridkot, apparently first sought refuge from poverty in crime and then gravitated towards jihadi outfits.
The paper demanded the country's leadership to inform the nation in unequivocal terms' that extremism will enjoy no sanction and will not be tolerated.
The News daily highlighted the fact that many of the leaders of the militant organisations were backed by the country's top spy agency to fulfil its diplomatic agenda set by its leaders. It said that in the mid-1980s, the LeT and Hafiz Muhammad Saeed enjoyed the backing of the CIA and the ISI to battle Soviet troops in Afghanistan.
'This patronage helped it to evolve into an organization believed to be one of South Asia's largest militant forces. The links with elements within the ISI are thought to have been retained as the guns turned away from Afghanistan and towards Kashmir,' The News underlined.
'This background means that the current action against the JuD may not be enough,' it stressed, for 'its tentacles run deep and enwrap many minds'.
In effect, the media argued that Pakistan as a nation 'faces isolation, and internal ruin' if the militants are not 'brought to book'.
India has blamed Pakistan-based LeT and its front organisation JuD for planning and carrying out the Mumbai attacks on November 26 that killed nearly 200 people.