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| India-Pakistan | |
| A circle of hate | |
| 2003-10-16 | |
| Investigation into the assassination of former State Home Minister Haren Pandya reveals that terrorism has found fertile ground in post-pogrom Gujarat. Pandya’s assassination, the joint investigation conducted by the Gujarat Police and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has found, could prove to be just the first of a wave of Islamist terror strikes intended to avenge the pogrom of February-March 2002. Drawing on a wide network of right-wing religious organisations that have flourished among Gujarat’s ghettoised and riot-battered Muslims, the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad have begun recruiting and training dozens of young people to execute acts of retaliatory terrorism. Maulana Sufiyan Patangia used to run the Waliullah seminary next to the Lal Masjid - officially called the Hafizi Masjid - in Kalupur in the old city area of Ahmedabad. Now, he is Gujarat’s most wanted criminal. Believed to be the head of the massive terrorist cell unearthed during the course of the investigation into Pandya’s assassination, Indian intelligence operatives last sighted the cleric in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in early September.
Al Qaeda’s bombing of the twin towers in New York on September 11 brought about seismic changes in the Lal Masjid and its seminary. Patangia declared that Islam was in danger and that it was obligatory on all Muslims to resist the U.S.’ war on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Drawing on a core group from among his earthquake-relief volunteers, Patangia formed an Islamist study cell called the Idara-e-Fadlullah-ul-Muslimeen (Institution of Charity for Muslims). The group monitored the events in Afghanistan, relying mainly on the Internet since its members were forbidden to use the supposedly anti-Islamic medium of television. One of the Bali bombers also closely monitored war in Afghanistan on the internet, and he claimed at his trial that over 200 000 civilians had been killed by American bombs there. In February 2002, when violence broke out in Gujarat, Patangia was in Saudi Arabia on his regular pilgrimage. He used the opportunity, the CBI and the Gujarat Police say, to seek support from the Pakistan-based Islamist Right. The road led directly to the Jaish-e-Mohammad’s Karachi-based commander Abdullah Shah Mazhar. Having broken with the mainstream Jaish-e-Mohammad leadership of Masood Azhar, Mazhar was keen to establish his credentials. He, however, wanted evidence that Patangia was serious - and evidence was duly provided on May 29, 2002, when five low-intensity bombs went off on public transport buses in Ahmedabad, injuring 26 people. Patangia now made available eight personnel to undergo training in Pakistan. The group underwent a basic weapons and tactics course, and then received specialised explosives training before returning in March. Their orders were simple: to do nothing until orders came in from Pakistan. Patangia, say investigators, chose to jump the gun. Vanjara said: "His problem was that he had already taken money for the hit on Pandya. The financiers in Saudi Arabia were leaning very hard on him for results. Moreover, the organisation had to show people that it could actually do something other than talk." The unsuccesfull ’hit’ lead to the dismantling of his cell.. Investigators in Pakistan discovered that a powerful dissident element within the Tablighi Jamaat had begun to reject organisational orthodoxy, and privilege jehad by the sword, over jehad for the conscience. Could something similar be under way in Gujarat? No one knows for certain, but investigation of the Sufiyan cell certainly points in that direction. In a recent book, The Origins and Development of the Tablighi Jamaat, the scholar Yoginder Sikand points out that the organisation has always been remarkably flexible, responding to changed times and circumstances. Although the sect is very secretive, and produces no worthwhile official literature on political events or ideology, it could well see the political rise of the Hindu religious right as the next great test to its project. If so, dozens of young people in Gujarat, scarred by the violence of 2002, seem ready to join the cause. Intelligence officials estimate that about four-dozen recruits may have separately made their way to Pakistan for training. Each riot feeds and informs the next bomb blast, which in turn legitimises and inspires the next riot. There is no end in sight, sadly, to this circle of hate. | |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |
| #4 Coming up next: The Trapezoid of Hate... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2003-10-16 4:24:30 PM |
| #3 Students and the faithful who attended prayers at the Lal Masjid received advice on everything from the clothes they ought to wear, the manner of their beards, and the correct methods of ablution and urination. (edited for brevity.) -hmm....being lectured on how to piss. Yep, that doesn't sound the least bit whacko. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2003-10-16 3:24:06 PM |
| #2 its members were forbidden to use the supposedly anti-Islamic medium of television Why is television anti-Islamic and the internet not? Shhhhh... quit asking questions, and let's get Al Jazeera turned off! |
| Posted by: snellenr 2003-10-16 10:11:13 AM |
| #1 its members were forbidden to use the supposedly anti-Islamic medium of television
Why is television anti-Islamic and the internet not? |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-10-16 8:27:29 AM |