05-14-2009, 09:31 PM
<b>Terrorism-Linked Charity Finds New Life Amid Pakistan Refugee Crisis</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Just five months after <b>Pakistan banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) over its links to the terror organization blamed for last November's Mumbai massacre, the Islamist charity group's flags are flying high over a relief effort for refugees fleeing the fighting in the Swat Valley.</b> The banned group's signature black-and-white banner bearing a curved scimitar flew in the heart of Mardan, as tens of thousands of refugees poured into the northwest garrison town, fleeing the military campaign to oust the Taliban from Swat and its surroundings.
<b>The JuD flags are being flaunted by a group with a different name: "We are with the Falah-e-Insaniat (Human Welfare) Foundation," Jafar Khan, a volunteer, told TIME. "We used to be known as Jamaat-ud-Dawa. We are doing the work that the government is not here to do." </b>Volunteers told TIME that their well-resourced relief operation includes a network of ambulances, emergency camps on the edges of the fighting, and a steady stream of food and medicine. It was precisely this type of welfare work - filling the vacuum left by the absence of state aid to suffering Pakistanis in the wake of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake - that made it so politically risky for the authorities to close down the JuD last December. And the role of Islamist organizations in providing relief underscores the difficulty Pakistan faces in coping with the displacement of an estimated 1.3 million people by military action against the Taliban
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<b>The JuD flags are being flaunted by a group with a different name: "We are with the Falah-e-Insaniat (Human Welfare) Foundation," Jafar Khan, a volunteer, told TIME. "We used to be known as Jamaat-ud-Dawa. We are doing the work that the government is not here to do." </b>Volunteers told TIME that their well-resourced relief operation includes a network of ambulances, emergency camps on the edges of the fighting, and a steady stream of food and medicine. It was precisely this type of welfare work - filling the vacuum left by the absence of state aid to suffering Pakistanis in the wake of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake - that made it so politically risky for the authorities to close down the JuD last December. And the role of Islamist organizations in providing relief underscores the difficulty Pakistan faces in coping with the displacement of an estimated 1.3 million people by military action against the Taliban
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