08-11-2007, 02:08 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Al Qaeda in India </b>
Pioneer.com
Wilson John
Apart from a huge, disaffected population that has been successfully tapped by lesser terror groups before, Osama bin Laden may be helped by a complacent and ignorant security establishment
On August 6, Union Minister of State for Home, Sri Prakash Jaiswal, made two points while reacting to an Al Qaeda video stating that Delhi was its "legitimate target" in the future. First, he said, there was no confirmed news of any such threat "till now". Second, he said, "Our forces are alert to avert any such attempt." Both the points betray fatal ignorance and criminal ineptitude on the part of the Government, as represented by Mr Jaiswal.
By now Mr Jaiswal should know that Al Qaeda is not an organisation with a postal address and a mobile phone and a fax number or an email ID. It is an idea, howsoever devious, that has fired the imagination of countless Muslim men and women in different parts of the world, including India, for whom Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has become an icon of hope and inspiration.
With generous help from Washington, Laden, a Saudi billionaire businessman, has, in the first decade of the 21st century, become perhaps the most famous, and dreaded, figure. His agenda is clear: He wants to oust the Americans, once his benefactors, from Iraq and Afghanistan and punish the US and its allies for targeting Muslims and Muslim nations.
From a guerrilla leader, Laden has transformed himself into a crusader for the Islamic cause. He works with a composite group of aides and commanders (estimated to be no more than 500 across the world), adept equally in planning terrorist operations, drawing funds and weapons from various sources and activities, spreading propaganda largely through internet and working with various criminal, religious, political and social elements, including Dawood Ibrahim.
For Laden's Al Qaeda, India has always been a playground, both as a potential recruitment base and a target of terrorist onslaught. India, home to 140 million Muslims, second largest in the world after Indonesia, a land where Muslim rulers reigned once bringing glory to Islam, is a key element in Al Qaeda's long-term strategy, a large part of which is yet to unfold.
This strategy is largely inspired by the well-known ideologue of jihad, Syed Abul Ala Maududi, who wrote: "Muslim revivalists must not rest content with establishing the Islamic system in one or more countries already inhabited by the Muslims. They must initiate such a strong universal movement as may spread the reformative and revolutionary message of Islam among mankind at large. The final aim is to enable Islam to become a predominant cultural force in the world and capture the moral, intellectual and political leadership of mankind."
Jihad has flourished in India since long before Maududi's birth (1903) and bin Laden's emergence. In 1732, a Muslim preacher, Shah Waliullah, returned to his home in Delhi after studying Islamic concepts in Saudi Arabia for two years, and began preaching the need for purity in religious beliefs and practices.
An Arabian heretical preacher, Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab, who despised Sufism and other influences in the religion, inspired Waliullah and his followers. While Wahhab's followers called themselves Wahhabis, Waliullah's group came to be known as the Ahl-e-Hadith (the People of the Prophetic Tradition), which "refused to accept the supremacy of the British and the Hindus", and vowed to carry on the struggle through other means to "convert" India into an abode of Islam (dar-ul Islam) through jihad.
Although Waliullah's dreams remained hostage to historical changes taking place elsewhere in the world, several decades later, a Wahhabi, Osama bin Laden, decided to revive the fortunes of Ahl-e-Hadith by raising an organisation in Lahore, Pakistan, called Markaz Da'wat wa'l Irshad in 1986 which lost no time in setting up an armed wing to train mujahideens for Afghan jihad. The wing was named Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) or the Army of Pure.
There were two reasons why Laden chose to lend his money and support to the Ahl-e-Hadith organisation and not a Deobandi one which would have been the obvious choice. The group shared ideological moorings with Wahhabis and was more extreme in its religious leanings and practices than Deobandis who were larger in number and were exploited by Pakistan in launching a proxy war on India after the 1971 debacle. Second, it had a historical presence in India and had the potential of becoming a vehicle for Al Qaeda's future agenda to establish an Islamic arc of influence across Asia.
An assessment of LeT's operational history in India past decade or more reveal that it was acting according to a well-laid out Al Qaeda plan to set up a foothold in the country, with carefully chosen terror attacks to create fear and division among the people through mass deaths, destroy or damage religious and economic targets and incite communal violence. It is probable that this plan could have been devised by two of the best operational brains in Al Qaeda, Abu Zubeydah and Khaled Mohammad Sheikh, both of whom had visited India.
There is ample evidence to show that, in the recent years, after setting up its network in north and west India, LeT has been expanding its influence in east and south India and networking with other groups like Harkat-ul Jihad al Islami (HuJI) and Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) which are more openly aligned with Al Qaeda. National Security Adviser MK Narayanan last year summed up LeT as "nothing but Al Qaeda compact".
Another key element in Al Qaeda's India plans was Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) which, before it was banned, drew large funds from a group (banned after 9/11), the World Assembly of Muslim Youth founded by Laden's brother, Abdullah Laden, headquartered in Fall's Church, Washington. SIMI was created to give voice to the Muslim youth angered by the Indian state's failure to stem the communal violence and at a later stage become a coordination centre for recruitment, indoctrination and logistical command for terrorist operations in India.
Despite the ban, the series of terror attacks in India in the past decade, including the recent ones, have clearly shown the involvement of SIMI activists and their collaboration with groups like LeT and HuJI.
It is, therefore, clearly a case of colossal denial that there is no evidence of Al Qaeda in India. What Mr Jaiswal, and the Government of India, needs to do is to wait for Al Qaeda to make the next move. Soon.
--The writer is Senior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation
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Pioneer.com
Wilson John
Apart from a huge, disaffected population that has been successfully tapped by lesser terror groups before, Osama bin Laden may be helped by a complacent and ignorant security establishment
On August 6, Union Minister of State for Home, Sri Prakash Jaiswal, made two points while reacting to an Al Qaeda video stating that Delhi was its "legitimate target" in the future. First, he said, there was no confirmed news of any such threat "till now". Second, he said, "Our forces are alert to avert any such attempt." Both the points betray fatal ignorance and criminal ineptitude on the part of the Government, as represented by Mr Jaiswal.
By now Mr Jaiswal should know that Al Qaeda is not an organisation with a postal address and a mobile phone and a fax number or an email ID. It is an idea, howsoever devious, that has fired the imagination of countless Muslim men and women in different parts of the world, including India, for whom Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has become an icon of hope and inspiration.
With generous help from Washington, Laden, a Saudi billionaire businessman, has, in the first decade of the 21st century, become perhaps the most famous, and dreaded, figure. His agenda is clear: He wants to oust the Americans, once his benefactors, from Iraq and Afghanistan and punish the US and its allies for targeting Muslims and Muslim nations.
From a guerrilla leader, Laden has transformed himself into a crusader for the Islamic cause. He works with a composite group of aides and commanders (estimated to be no more than 500 across the world), adept equally in planning terrorist operations, drawing funds and weapons from various sources and activities, spreading propaganda largely through internet and working with various criminal, religious, political and social elements, including Dawood Ibrahim.
For Laden's Al Qaeda, India has always been a playground, both as a potential recruitment base and a target of terrorist onslaught. India, home to 140 million Muslims, second largest in the world after Indonesia, a land where Muslim rulers reigned once bringing glory to Islam, is a key element in Al Qaeda's long-term strategy, a large part of which is yet to unfold.
This strategy is largely inspired by the well-known ideologue of jihad, Syed Abul Ala Maududi, who wrote: "Muslim revivalists must not rest content with establishing the Islamic system in one or more countries already inhabited by the Muslims. They must initiate such a strong universal movement as may spread the reformative and revolutionary message of Islam among mankind at large. The final aim is to enable Islam to become a predominant cultural force in the world and capture the moral, intellectual and political leadership of mankind."
Jihad has flourished in India since long before Maududi's birth (1903) and bin Laden's emergence. In 1732, a Muslim preacher, Shah Waliullah, returned to his home in Delhi after studying Islamic concepts in Saudi Arabia for two years, and began preaching the need for purity in religious beliefs and practices.
An Arabian heretical preacher, Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab, who despised Sufism and other influences in the religion, inspired Waliullah and his followers. While Wahhab's followers called themselves Wahhabis, Waliullah's group came to be known as the Ahl-e-Hadith (the People of the Prophetic Tradition), which "refused to accept the supremacy of the British and the Hindus", and vowed to carry on the struggle through other means to "convert" India into an abode of Islam (dar-ul Islam) through jihad.
Although Waliullah's dreams remained hostage to historical changes taking place elsewhere in the world, several decades later, a Wahhabi, Osama bin Laden, decided to revive the fortunes of Ahl-e-Hadith by raising an organisation in Lahore, Pakistan, called Markaz Da'wat wa'l Irshad in 1986 which lost no time in setting up an armed wing to train mujahideens for Afghan jihad. The wing was named Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) or the Army of Pure.
There were two reasons why Laden chose to lend his money and support to the Ahl-e-Hadith organisation and not a Deobandi one which would have been the obvious choice. The group shared ideological moorings with Wahhabis and was more extreme in its religious leanings and practices than Deobandis who were larger in number and were exploited by Pakistan in launching a proxy war on India after the 1971 debacle. Second, it had a historical presence in India and had the potential of becoming a vehicle for Al Qaeda's future agenda to establish an Islamic arc of influence across Asia.
An assessment of LeT's operational history in India past decade or more reveal that it was acting according to a well-laid out Al Qaeda plan to set up a foothold in the country, with carefully chosen terror attacks to create fear and division among the people through mass deaths, destroy or damage religious and economic targets and incite communal violence. It is probable that this plan could have been devised by two of the best operational brains in Al Qaeda, Abu Zubeydah and Khaled Mohammad Sheikh, both of whom had visited India.
There is ample evidence to show that, in the recent years, after setting up its network in north and west India, LeT has been expanding its influence in east and south India and networking with other groups like Harkat-ul Jihad al Islami (HuJI) and Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) which are more openly aligned with Al Qaeda. National Security Adviser MK Narayanan last year summed up LeT as "nothing but Al Qaeda compact".
Another key element in Al Qaeda's India plans was Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) which, before it was banned, drew large funds from a group (banned after 9/11), the World Assembly of Muslim Youth founded by Laden's brother, Abdullah Laden, headquartered in Fall's Church, Washington. SIMI was created to give voice to the Muslim youth angered by the Indian state's failure to stem the communal violence and at a later stage become a coordination centre for recruitment, indoctrination and logistical command for terrorist operations in India.
Despite the ban, the series of terror attacks in India in the past decade, including the recent ones, have clearly shown the involvement of SIMI activists and their collaboration with groups like LeT and HuJI.
It is, therefore, clearly a case of colossal denial that there is no evidence of Al Qaeda in India. What Mr Jaiswal, and the Government of India, needs to do is to wait for Al Qaeda to make the next move. Soon.
--The writer is Senior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation
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