Andrew McGregor

January 7, 2010

The terrorist bombing that struck an Ashura Shiite religious procession in downtown Karachi on December 28 was followed by a wave of arson attacks that destroyed most of the commercial market district of that city. The apparent organization of the arsonists and the failure of security forces and the local fire department to restrain the arsonists or suppress the conflagration until most of the market area had been destroyed has raised serious questions about the government’s declaration that the arson attacks were a spontaneous reaction by Shiites to the bombing that killed 43 people.

Arsonists Strike Karachi’s Commercial Market District

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has claimed responsibility for the bombing, which it says was carried out by a suicide bomber, though a police investigation says the bomb was an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated by remote control (AFP, December 30; Onlinenews.com.pk, January 5). Shortly before the attacks, reports emerged of CDs being distributed in Karachi that demonstrated the use of weapons and bomb-making methods (Daily Times [Lahore], December 22, 2009).

A respected Islamabad daily reported “the Rangers [a paramilitary under the Ministry of the Interior] and the police were simple bystanders watching the looters with folded hands” as apparently well-trained young men “methodically burnt one building after another, turning goods and property worth billions into ashes” (The News [Islamabad], January 2). Following the mass arson attacks, both the Sindh-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) accused each other of failing to provide security and failing to check the fires. There were reports that local authorities sought permission to open fire on the arsonists, but authorization was denied (The News [Islamabad], January 2). There are accusations that the objective of the unknown arsonists was “not only to destabilize the city, but to pave the way for the mighty land mafia that is adamant to demolish all old, historical buildings and replace them with skyscrapers” (The News, December 31, 2009).

Interior Minister Rehman Malik provided a rather shocking explanation of the security collapse that allowed the markets of Karachi to be destroyed when he explained to Karachi business leaders, “The police and the Rangers do not know how to fire their guns. They have no training and the business community must contribute to a fund to provide training to these forces” (The News, January 2). A government suggestion that temporary markets could be built elsewhere was rejected by the business community on the grounds that acceptance might evolve into a final settlement as developers and influential politicians demolish the damaged markets and construct new commercial plazas with exorbitant rents.

The leader of the Sunni Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami political party, Syed Munawwar Hasan, suggested that India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW- Indian external intelligence) and U.S. private security firm Blackwater (now Xe Services LLC) may have played a role in the bombing. Blackwater (Xe) is commonly blamed for terrorist attacks in Pakistan. Noting that security forces did not act to prevent the arson and fire brigades did not respond for four hours, Syed Munawwar asked President Asif Ali Zardari whether the state “actually existed anywhere and why it did not act in time” (The News, December 31). Most notably in a city known for Sunni-Shi’a sectarian tensions, Syed Munawwar clearly stated that the arson attacks had been carried out by “conspirators” rather than the Shi’a community.

The Grand Mufti of Pakistan, Muhammad Rafi Usmani, stated at a press conference days after the destruction that Blackwater was responsible for the bombing of the procession of Shiite mourners celebrating Ashura (The News, December 30). The Interior Minister blamed “certain powers” (India is most likely to be understood here) for the destruction of Karachi’s markets, but denied the presence of Blackwater (Xe) private security forces in Pakistan (Daily Times [Lahore], January 2; The News, January 2).

The National Assembly leader of the Sindh-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Dr. Farooq Sattar, appeared at a press conference alongside Interior Minister Malik to state that “land and drug mafias” were behind the Ashura violence (The News, January 1). Malik said the bombing was not a suicide attack and the markets had been set aflame in an organized rather than spontaneous manner (Daily Times, January 2; The News, January 1). An investigation is expected in order to inquire why several hours passed before any effort was made to extinguish the blazes.

The blast was followed by the alarming news that the alleged mastermind of the December 28 Ashura bombing, Sirajullah (a.k.a. Zeeshan, a.k.a. Shani), had been in police custody since December 23 and had revealed details of the bombing (including planning and the type of explosives) before the attack was carried out (Daily Times [Lahore], January 1, January 3; The Nation [Islamabad], December 31, 2009).

This article first appeared in the January 7, 2010 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

Andrew McGregor

November 19, 2009

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have filled the post of Taliban chief in the strategically important Khyber Agency following a meeting in Orakzai Agency (The News [Islamabad], November 10). The new leader is Tariq Afridi, the notorious Taliban commander based in Darra Adam Khel.

(BBC)

Afridi will replace former Khyber Agency Taliban commander Kamran Mustafa Hijrat (a.k.a. Muhammad Yahya Hijrat; a.ka.a Mustafa Kamal Kamran Hijrat), who was arrested by Pakistani security forces in December 2008. Hijrat was responsible for planning numerous attacks on NATO supply convoys in Peshawar and along the dangerous highway through the Khyber Pass. It can be expected that Afridi will now take over these operations, which are intended to pressure U.S. and Coalition forces in Afghanistan by cutting off their supply lines.

From his base at Darra Adam Khel, Afridi has been responsible for attacks on security forces in Orakzai Agency as well as suicide bombings in Peshawar, Kohat and the Punjab. He is best known outside of Pakistan for his kidnapping and murder of Polish engineer Petr Stanczak in 2008. Stanczak was beheaded by his captors in February 2009 when Islamabad refused to release certain Taliban prisoners in exchange for the hostage. A cash offer was made but refused by Afridi (Dawn [Karachi], April 26).

Despite his rise through the Taliban ranks, Tariq Afridi nonetheless faces opposition from within his own tribe. Last April a lashkar [ad hoc militia] of over 300 mostly Afridi tribesmen was raised to drive the Taliban commander out of Darra Adam Khel. Most members of the lashkar had previously been under Tariq Afridi, but left his group over killings of security personnel. Despite some clashes, the lashkar did not succeed in their mission (Dawn [Karachi], April 23).

This article first appeared in the November 19, 2009 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

Andrew McGregor

October 30, 2009

Pakistani security forces have announced the arrest of Akhtar Zaman Mahsud, the alleged Amir of the Karachi branch of the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) as part of a major sweep of terrorist suspects in the strategically important port city.

Pakistani Security Forces during Operations against TTP Militants in Karachi

Security forces claimed Akhtar Zaman was arrested in Karachi’s eastern suburb of Sohrab Goth following an October 18 shootout with police. However, some police sources and members of the largely Pashtun Sohrab Goth community insisted Akhtar Zaman was actually arrested in a raid on a supermarket on September 14 (The News [Islamabad], October 21; PakTribune, October 20). The alleged TTP commander and three others arrested with him (including Samiullah, a.k.a. Shamim, Fazal Kareem and Munawar Khan) were charged with involvement in an unsuccessful attack on the Kemari Oil Terminal on the night of September 14. One Islamabad daily quoted an anonymous senior police source as saying, “If we produce an accused before the court after 24 hours of his arrest, it becomes a case of habeas corpus, so normally police show the arrests of accused a day prior to their production in the court” (The News, October 21).

A police official said the suspects also wanted to plant explosives in police installations and other sensitive points in Karachi. According to police, the men were armed with 75kg of cyclotrimethylene-trinitramine (RDX) explosives, three Kalashnikov assault rifles and a TT-model pistol, commonly used as a police sidearm in Pakistan but also made by the gunsmiths of the Khyber region. The seizure followed a larger one last week, which netted two suicide jackets, four Kalashnikovs, 17 hand grenades, nine detonators and a variety of ammunition for mortars, RPGs and rifles. Police claim these weapons belonged to the same Karachi cell of the TTP (Daily Times, October 19).

Further raids by the Crime Investigation Department (CID) of the Sindh police on October 21 resulted in the arrest of Muhammad Sahib Khan (a.k.a. Qasai) in Sohrab Goth, as well as two accomplices in other parts of the city. According to police, Muhammad Sahib Khan confessed to being tied to a Swat-based TTP commander named Farooq. He was found in possession of a suicide vest and was already wanted by police for involvement in murders, assassinations, kidnappings and attacks on security services. Police charged Muhammad Sahib Khan and his accomplices with “trying to establish a Taliban network in Karachi,” as well as “plotting terrorist activities, including suicide bombings.” They were also accused of destroying schools in the Swat valley (The News, October 21; Dawn [Karachi], October 21).

According to Pakistan’s Daily Times, some 60 second-level Taliban leaders evaded the government’s offensive in Swat earlier this year by traveling by train in small groups to Karachi, where the Karachi TTP arranged for their transit by plane to various points in the Gulf states (Daily Times [Lahore], October 19). The transfer went unnoticed because many natives of Malakand work in these same Middle Eastern states.

Mahsudi tribesmen who have fled the turmoil in their native South Waziristan for Karachi suburbs like Sohrab Goth report shakedowns by local police who threaten to arrest them as TTP members, as well as marginalization by government agencies on the basis of ethnicity, which local elders claim threatens to drive peaceful Mahsudis into the arms of the Taliban (The News, October 21). Army Chief of Staff Ashfaq Pervez Kayani took the unusual step of writing an open letter to the Mahsud tribe, assuring them that the current operations in South Waziristan were aimed only at terrorists rather than the tribe as a whole (The Hindu, October 19).

Though it lies over 1,000 miles from the military operations in the tribal regions of northwestern Pakistan, the port of Karachi has become a target of Taliban and al-Qaeda associated militants since April, when members of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) terrorist group were detained while planning attacks on local transportation firms responsible for shipping supplies destined for NATO forces in Afghanistan. A campaign of threats and bombings is intended to disrupt the NATO supply chain, which relies on Pakistani companies and drivers to transport supplies along the 1,200 mile route from Karachi to the Khyber Pass.  Karachi, the starting point of the route, was once regarded as a safe port, but recently it has been subject to infiltration by Taliban and al-Qaeda sabotage units. Earlier this month security forces arrested five members of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) terrorist group who were planning attacks on transportation firms responsible for shipping NATO supplies to Peshawar. This followed a similar roundup of militants last January after they threatened transporters not to carry NATO supplies.

The new Karachi Taliban leader, who gave an interview to the Daily Times on condition of anonymity, said the local TTP chapter was in accord with the ideology of TTP leader Hakimullah Mahsud but was not authorized to carry out operations (Daily Times, October 19).

This article first appeared in the October 30, 2009 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

Andrew McGregor

October 30, 2009

Establishing al-Qaeda’s battle is about establishing universal “servitude to God,” according to senior al-Qaeda commander Abu Yahya al-Libi who has expressed pride in the fact that his movement has no other agenda: “We are not a group that is concerned with finding economic solutions. We are not a group that is concerned with building skyscrapers. We are not a group that is concerned with finding solutions to social problems. All these problems were a result of people’s deviations, and occurred after the people agreed to become servants to other than God, the Great and Almighty.” The message was contained in a 45 minute video of al-Libi’s sermon on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr in September and posted to the web on October 27 (Al-Sahab Establishment for Media Production/Al-Fajr Media Center).

Pakistan Army in Swat

Typical of al-Qaeda and Taliban statements, al-Libi’s sermon heaped abuse upon President Obama, referring to him as a “black crow” who delivered a speech in Cairo while people clapped for him “as if he were Umar bin Abd al-Aziz” (an early 8th century Ummayad caliph renowned for his piety). “Obama has become the holder of the slogan of ‘change’ and the owner of the slogan of ‘openness.’ Through this openness, scores of people are being killed in Afghanistan on a daily basis and nobody hears of them.”

Al-Libi expresses his disdain for those “insane and defeated people” who urge coexistence with the non-Islamic world and mocks Western perceptions of what constitutes “acceptable” Islam: “If you become democratic, modern, or Western, the people will be content with you and praise and recognize you as a moderate and balanced Muslim.”  Al-Libi expresses astonishment that the Prophet Muhammad was never able to establish coexistence “among his people and in his house and homeland,” yet the means to coexistence have suddenly been “discovered in the 21st century.”

The senior al-Qaeda commander also condemned the “criminal Pakistani army that destroyed Swat,” asking why the army was fighting Muslims who wanted nothing more than the “Shari’a of Almighty God”

As he concluded the sermon, al-Libi called on the “mujahideen brothers all over the world” to trust in monotheism as a means of unifying their movement. Considering the source, al-Libi issued a rather surprising appeal for militant factions to be more conciliatory and less insistent in their belief that only they have the correct course of action and right to operate. “I say that there can be no possible agreement unless some groups are willing to concede some of their rights. That is a necessity. If a group holds fast to its right and the other group holds fast to its right, or what it claims to be its right, what kind of agreement or unity can be done after that?”

More specifically, al-Libi appealed to the Islamic State of Iraq and Ansar al-Islam to resolve their differences and “unite in one group and one rank.” Similarly, al-Libi also called on the Salafi mujahideen groups in Palestine to “get rid of the causes of division, disagreement, and dispute. There must be some kind of concession to make agreement and unity possible. Concession is necessary for the hearts to rejoin.”

This article first appeared in the October 30, 2009 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

Andrew McGregor

October 23, 2009

A commander of the Pakistan Taliban, Sahimullah Mahsud, recently provided a description of the measures taken by the Taliban forces and leadership to lower the impact of the American Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) missile attacks which have claimed the lives of scores of Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders in northwestern Pakistan, including the late leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mahsud. Based in South Waziristan, where he is a deputy to new Taliban leader Hakimullah Mahsud, Sahimullah provided the details in an interview with the Brussels-based Le Soir daily (October 12).

Sahimullah described the UAV counter-measures as being based on “mobility, secrecy and anonymity”:

• If a drone is heard, fighters must disperse into small groups of no more than four people. The Taliban have weapons capable of shooting down the drones, but lack the technology to detect their approach.

• Satellite or SMS [a form of text messaging on mobile phones] forms of communication are no longer used. All communications are done orally or by code.

• Meetings are announced only at the last minute, with nothing planned in advance in order to avoid leaks. Even senior commanders do not know the precise location of regional commanders.

• Taliban leaders have reduced the size of their security escorts to one or two men “in whom they have complete confidence.”

• Taliban security agents are constantly checking the identity and credentials of those active within the movement.

The Taliban commander added that the movement has many sympathizers within the Pakistan army and the security forces in Afghanistan who provide useful intelligence on infiltration efforts, the progress of NATO convoys and the timing and location of American or Pakistani military operations. American weapons are bought from the personnel of the Afghan National Army or seized in raids on NATO convoys.

Sahimullah claimed the Taliban were ready for the Pakistani offensive in South Waziristan: “We have about 20,000 fighters and we can move from one side of the border to the other as needed. We are very mobile. In eight years the United States and NATO have not managed to defeat the Taliban. How do you expect a few Pakistani soldiers, tanks, and planes to get the better of us! It is impossible!”

This article first appeared in the October 23, 2009 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor