‘Punjabi Taliban’ and the attack on Pak army HQ

Tahir Ali

The October 10 attack on the Pakistan Army headquarters in

Rawalpindi has set off a series of speculative ‘news’: that the
attackers were ‘Punjabi Taliban’, that they were from the Ileyas
Kashmiri Group, that the attackers owed allegiance to the Amjad
Farooqi Group, that it was carried out by the Jaish-e Muhammad, that
Lashkar-i-Jhangvi had something to do with it…

These attributions, which have taken up considerable space in the

local and international media, indicate only one thing: that within
Pakistan, there are dozens of suspect groups that have both the
capability and the motivation to carry out an attack of this nature.
Outside of thus underlining what everyone here knows, however, the
stories have no probative value.

Confusion has been compounded by the fact that the sole terrorist
captured alive – Aqeel, aka Doctor Usman – is supposedly part of the
Ileyas Kashmiri group, while the only ones to claim public credit
for the attack has been the Amjad Farooqi group, with which Aqeel
has no known connection.

Matters will hopefully become clearer once the doctors attending on

Aqeel manage to get him sufficiently recovered from his injuries to
stand the rigors of questioning. In the interim, speculation will
necessarily continue.

The Ileyas Kashmiri group has in recent times been linked with
almost every major terrorist attack within Pakistan, including
various attempts on the life of then President Pervez Musharraf,
attacks on various Inter Services Intelligence installations, the
2008 bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad and on the Sri
Lankan cricket team in March this year. By contrast, no one has
named the Farooqi group as being responsible for any of those
activities, and hence it came as a surprise when a spokesman of the
group telephoned a local TV channel to claim credit for the attack
on the army GHQ.

Ironically, the Farooqi group has been operating for a few years
now, but has thus far kept a very low profile, leading to a
situation where others have been blamed for its actions. The group
is a splinter of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, which was once headed by
Amjad Farooqi, the person behind the killing of Wall Street Journal
correspondent Daniel Pearl.

Amjad Farooqi, popularly known as ‘Bade Bhai’, was killed in 2004,

and the L-J fragmented. One of his senior colleagues, Qari Zafar,
gathered up a core group and based himself in Karachi, banking on
financial support from various Saudi Arabian individuals and groups
with whom Zafar has good relations. Zafar was also known to be close
to Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistan Taliban, and is
currently believed to be operating out of South Waziristan.
Farooq, another of Amjad Farooqi’s close associates, simultaneously
formed his own outfit with the help of a bunch of L-J cadres and
named it the Amjad Farooqi group, trading on the name of the one-
time leader of the LJ with whom he is believed to have been very
close.

The group has managed to keep its head below the radar. An exception
occurred in early 2006, when Farooq and his men went to Wana in
South Waziristan, where they were welcomed by Haji Omer, then head
of all Taliban factions in the region.

It is worth noting here that South Waziristan is broadly divided

into two parts – the Mehsud region and the Wazir region, inhabited
by Mehsud and Wazir tribesmen respectively. On date, Waliur Rehman
heads the Mehsud militants, while Mullah Nazir is head of the
Wazirs.

Haji Omer, during his tenure as commander-in-chief of all Taliban in

the Wazir region, had welcomed militants from around the worlds –
Arabs, Uzbeks, Chechens, Chinese and non-Pashtoon fighters from all
around Pakistan.

It was in this encouraging environment that Farooq’s group

stabilized and grew, adding more young fighters drawn from the
Punjab region to its ranks.

Once the group gained strength, it began a program of systematic

attacks, not on prominent Shias as is popularly supposed but on the
ISI and Pakistan’s military, which it proclaimed as the number one
enemies.

Locals in Wana call it the ‘Bhai Jaan group’, and the Punjabis are
among the most respected militants in the area. Its growing fame
attracted high profile recruits including ‘Commander’ Asim, one of
the terrorists involved in the December 1999 hijack of Indian
Airlines Flight 814 that resulted in the freeing of Maulana Masood
Azhar and two others.

The media, and even experts, have tended to mix the Bhai Jaan group
with the Ileyas Kashmiri group, though the differences in aims,
ideologies and targets is very clear.

The Farooqis are staunchly affiliated with the popular Deobandi

school of thought, while Kashmiri’s men are mostly Sulfis or
‘Wahabis’. Ideological differences also reflect in personnel: Ileyas
Kashmiri is mostly staffed with former members of the Lashkar-e-
Tayeba, while the Farooqi group avoids recruiting from those ranks
because of the LeT’s known relations with the ISI.

Also, Ileyas Kashmiri avoids any statements or actions aimed against

the Pakistan government; maintains that India is enemy number one,
and is focused on attacking India not only in Kashmir but also in
Afghanistan.
Until March 2007 at Wana and its surrounding all the Taliban groups
were allow to do their activities without any interruption.
Exploiting the situation the Uzbeks, with the support of Haji Omer,
started killing the local chieftains that compelled Mullah Nazir to
take action against them. ‘Bhai Jaan Group’ was also against Uzbeks
activities thinking that such acts against the locals could risk
their presence in the area.

In early 2007, when Mullah Nazir became head off all Taliban
factions in the area, he immediately ousted the Uzbeks of the Wazir
region, known as Wazir-built to differentiate from Mehsud-built,
along with their host Haji Omer. These Uzbeks then found shelter
under the wing of Baitullah Mehsud, who opened his arms to all who
had incurred the wrath of Mullah Nazir.

As Mullah Nazir began getting closer to the state agencies, the

‘Bhai Jaan’ group migrated to the area controlled by Mehsud, and
from there the failed August 2007 attack against President Musharraf
in August 2007. At the time, the media said the attack was to avenge
the army assault on the Lal Masjid, but in reality the strike had
been planned well before that incident.

It was under Mehsud’s patronage that the Bhai Jaan group began to be
known as the Punjabi Taliban’, and increased its reputation as an
anti-state actor through attacks on ISI installations, and on the
Sri Lankan cricket team and other incidents. The group also abducted
USAID official Stephen Deviancy, intending to negotiate for the
release of some of its arrested members, but ended up killing him
instead.

The media, for its part, mixed up the real Punjabi Taliban with a
group of the TTP under Qari Hussain that carried out a ruthless
attack earlier this year against an Imamdargah in Chakwal.

Over time, the Farooqi group has devised its own modus operandi – a
senior member travels to the area where its next target is, and
local TTP commanders provide the logistics and personnel for the
strike.

Given its anti-state bias, the members of the Farooqi group have
been targeted by the Pakistan military and police forces, and
several of their cadres are in official custody.

Of late, the Farooqi group – the ‘real’ Punjabi Taliban – has been
carrying out attacks designed to free their cadres, and the attack
on the Army GHQ was one such attempt that failed.

The fallacy in the media reasoning has been that the latest attack
was planned by the TTP as a counter to the security operations in
South Waziristan. What this analysis fails to consider is that such
attacks are not planned and executed overnight – the attack on the
Army HQ has been in the planning stages for a year or so before it
was actually carried out, and is part of the group’s stated intent
to hit hard at Pakistani officialdom.