[India and Pakistan have been at odds for 70 years, and the “Kashmir freedom struggle” is a proxy for the existential threat Pakistanis see in their larger, more powerful neighbor. Public sentiment is reinforced by patriotic media and military propaganda. The annual Kashmir Solidarity Day holiday features posters of Indian repression, not militant-bomb victims.]
By
Pamela Constable
 |
| @ The Washington Post |
KABUL
— Jaish-e-Muhammad, a
secretive Islamist militia based in Pakistan, is known mostly in the West for
its involvement in the abduction and gruesome, video-recorded beheading of Wall
Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl while he was working in Pakistan in early
2002.
But Jaish’s main target is India, and its
stock in trade are suicide bombings, like the one it claimed Feb. 14 in Pulwama,
Kashmir. The attack, which killed 40 Indian paramilitary police officers,
triggered two days of military skirmishes between India and Pakistan this week
and raised the specter of full-scale war between the nuclear-armed rivals.
The deadly bombing in Kashmir, a region
claimed by both countries, was one of scores of militant attacks on the
Indian-controlled side that have taken thousands of lives in the past
quarter-century. India has blamed them on guerrilla groups with covert
Pakistani support; Pakistan has routinely denied such charges and focused
instead on alleged abuses by Indian troops.
But behind those denials is a complicated mix
of reasons that Pakistani officials are unwilling or unable to challenge the
violent sway of underground, anti-India groups.
India and Pakistan have been at odds for 70
years, and the “Kashmir freedom struggle” is a proxy for the existential threat
Pakistanis see in their larger, more powerful neighbor. Public sentiment is
reinforced by patriotic media and military propaganda. The annual Kashmir
Solidarity Day holiday features posters of Indian repression, not militant-bomb
victims.
Successive Pakistani governments have banned
militant groups, usually after international protests following especially
shocking attacks; Jaish was banned in 2002 after it attempted to assassinate
the country’s military ruler at the time, Pervez Musharraf. But prosecutors and
judges have been reluctant to aggressively pursue or punish militant leaders
because of their religious influence and military ties.
Imran Khan, who took office as Pakistan’s
prime minister in August, is a secular-minded liberal who campaigned against
religious extremism but was careful not to challenge the armed forces on
foreign policy, especially their core mission of competing with India.
In the current crisis, Khan has walked a line
between politician and statesman, calling on India to “settle this with talks”
and offering to investigate the Pulwama bombing if India provides evidence of a
Pakistani connection, while also echoing domestic bravado and warning that Pakistan
is prepared to respond forcefully if attacked.
The contradiction has been more awkward for
some of his aides.
On Thursday, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood
Qureshi was asked in a televised interview about Jaish and the whereabouts of
its reclusive leader, Islamist cleric Masood Azhar, 50. He answered vaguely
that Azhar was in Pakistan but was “unwell . . . That is the information I have.” Qureshi
also said that if India had “solid evidence” linking Azhar to the bombing, it
should share that proof “so we can convince the judiciary and the people.”
Qureshi’s answer was as telling as it was
terse. It spoke to the broad popularity of the Kashmir cause and the triumphal
mood of the moment. It also pointed to the historic reluctance of Pakistani
courts to crack down on militancy. In recent years, a number of militant
leaders have been arrested and charged with crimes, only to be released for
lack of evidence or on technicalities.
The best-known anti-India militia is
Lashkar-e-Taiba, founded in 1989 with the goal of toppling Indian rule in
Kashmir. Its longtime leader, a fiery cleric named Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, is a
popular religious figure who has been periodically detained but then freed.
Laskhar was banned in Pakistan in 2002 but is
believed to have carried out numerous attacks in Kashmir since then. In 2008,
it was blamed by Indian and U.S. officials for orchestrating a shooting rampage
by commandos in Mumbai, which killed 160 people. It has changed its name
several times, rebranded itself as a humanitarian and disaster relief
organization, and recently established a political party that ran candidates
for Parliament.
Jaish is a much smaller, more secretive
group, founded in 2000 by Azhar. Over the next few years, it carried out many
high-profile attacks, including the storming of India’s Parliament building in
2001, then shifted its focus to Kashmir with a suicide car bombing at the gate
of an army headquarters.
Unlike
Lashkar, Jaish has no political or social arm and no high-profile leader. It is
also said to be internally divided, and some Pakistani experts said the Pulwama
bombing could have been carried out by a faction or spinoff group.
A third militant group once active in
Kashmir, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, comprised former Islamist fighters in Afghanistan
who switched to the anti-India cause.
The United States designated Jaish as an
international terrorist organization in 2001 and was joined by several European
governments in asking the U.N. Security Council to do the same. The moves were
reportedly vetoed by China, an emerging ally of Pakistan. This week, after
India bombed what it said was a Jaish militant training camp, the Western
governments again asked the U.N. body to take action.
Last year, the Pakistan government enacted a
law to ban all internationally sanctioned militant groups, but it lapsed and
was replaced by an administrative measure with less teeth.
“Pakistan has taken some measures to put
pressure on militants, but that pressure should be sustained and expanded,”
said Muhammad Amir Rana, a Pakistani analyst. “It has to reflect the state’s
resolve that no militant group will be allowed to operate here, that they will
not be allowed to hide behind the state’s religious-nationalist paradigm.”
Rana said that in the past, “Pakistani
intelligence agencies have been blamed for ties with militant bodies, but I
feel now there is a realization that these groups are a major problem.”
Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad contributed to
this report.
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