dangerous, festering sore. Yet for those who might place all responsibility at
Washington’s feet, it is important to note that Zia’s Islamization campaign
pre-dated the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the windfall of American aid
to Pakistan.
Moreover, Washington’s use of radical Islamists for military purposes, or
for that matter, Zia’s appeal to religion for political ends, would never have
been possible if not for other contemporaneous changes taking place in the
Muslim world. The 1979 Iranian revolution that swept out the U.S.-backed
Shah and catapulted the fire-breathing Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power
was the most recent and dramatic of these. For many Pakistanis, even those
with no sympathy for Teheran’s new Shia regime, the revolution revealed that a
Muslim nation could stand up to any country on earth, including the American
superpower. Iran’s clerical revolution also raised contentious issues about the
appropriate relationship between the mosque and the state. These issues were
never resolved; they resonate down to the present day in the context of the
“Arab spring” of 2011.
As is true today, oil-rich Saudi Arabia had an important role to play through-
out the 1980s. The Saudis bankrolled the Afghan mujahedeen through the Pak-
istani conduit, matching U.S. contributions dollar for dollar. And because the
Saudis saw themselves in a political and sectarian competition with revolution-
ary Iran, they shoveled cash into Sunni projects throughout the Muslim world.
In Pakistan, this included high-profile gifts like the cavernous Faisal mosque
in Islamabad, named after the Saudi king who financed it. More influential
was the Saudi money that sponsored a vast array of other Pakistani mosques,
schools, and organizations, especially those that hewed to Salafism, the official
Saudi creed.92
All told, Zia’s Islamization, Charlie Wilson’s war, and the Sunni-Shia com-
petition engulfed Pakistan in weapons, money, and radical ideas. Each of these
helped to beat the Soviets in Afghanistan, and by extension, to win the Cold
War. In turn, that victory cultivated a taste for jihad in a small, hardened group
90 For more on the various aspects of Islamization, from its exacerbation of Sunni-Shia tensions to judicial reform, the Islamic Penal Code, economic activity, education, and impact on women and minorities, see Talbot, Pakistan, pp. 270–83.
91 For an excellent study of the rise of sectarianism in Pakistan, see Muhammad Qasim Zaman,
“Sectarianism in Pakistan: The Radicalization of Shi’i and Sunni Identities,” Modern Asian Studies, 32, no. 3 (1998), pp. 689–716. Importantly, Zaman observes that radical sectarian identities are “imports” into rural Pakistani communities, have modern, urban origins, and hold the potential to revolutionize religious practice, especially in parts of Punjab.
92 For more on the Saudi role, see “Pakistan: Madrasas, Extremism and the Military,” International Crisis Group Asia Report No. 36, pp. 9–13.
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Why Do They Hate Us?
99
of Pakistanis, Afghans, and foreign fighters. It also reinforced ties between the
Pakistani state and Islamist militants. By way of officially sanctioned indoctri-
nation in public and private schools, jihadist ideals sank roots throughout the
country, even in places far from the Pashtun mountain villages and sanctuaries
that were directly touched by Afghanistan’s war. These groups remain united in
hatred for India and America, even if doctrinal, political, and other differences
mean they cannot agree on much else.
Hafiz Saeed
Osama bin Laden was the most notorious, globally recognized face to have
been produced, if indirectly, by the era of Afghan jihad. Mullah Mohammed
Omar’s Afghan Taliban and his Pakistani counterparts like the late leader of the
Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud (allegedly responsible for, among other
attacks inside Pakistan, the killing of Benazir Bhutto, Zulfikar’s daughter and
leader of the PPP), are the most important Pashtun faces. However, because
both al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban have taken up arms against the Pak-
Pashtun) set them apart, their appeal throughout most of the country is limited.
In the heartland of Pakistan’s dominant province, Punjab, is found another
face of jihad, also born from the cauldron of the 1980s. That is the face of Hafiz
Muhammad Saeed. One day, if Islamists win control over Pakistan, they are
likely to have more in common with Saeed than either bin Laden or Baitullah
Mehsud.
Born in 1950, Saeed is now heavy-set, his face framed by large glasses, a long
scraggly beard, and the dark forehead spot common to Muslims who prostrate
themselves routinely. He is the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Pakistan’s
most powerful and sophisticated terrorist organization and the one that enjoys
the closest relationship with Pakistan’s military.
In 2002, Saeed sidestepped an official ban on LeT by taking up a new title as
the leader of LeT’s humanitarian and charitable wing, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD).
Yet there can be no doubt that Saeed, like a mafia godfather, still runs LeT
even as he denies its very existence.93 In any event, JuD is now listed as a
terrorist organization by the United Nations and the United States. Saeed is
its chief ideologue and most outspoken voice. Among his many bloody deeds,
Saeed is said to have blessed personally the Mumbai terrorist operation over
Thanksgiving weekend in 2008 that ended 166 innocent lives.94
Saeed is a “hafiz” because he learned to recite from memory all 114 chapters
of the Qur’an, a feat he accomplished by the age of twelve. His family members
93 Declan Walsh, “Pakistani Militant, Price on Head, Lives in Open,” New York Times, February 6, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/world/asia/lashkar-e-taiba-founder-takes-less-militant-tone-in-pakistan.html.
94 Stephen Tankel, Storming the World Stage (New York: Columbia/Hurst Press, 2011), p. 222.
On this point, Tankel cites testimony from American LeT operative David Headley.
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100
No Exit from Pakistan
were Ahle Hadith Muslims with conservative views very similar to those of the
Salafis of Saudi Arabia. At the time, this made them unusual. Most Pakistanis
practice other variants of Islam and perceive Salafism as a dangerous, imported
creed that threatens to rid Islam of a rich tradition of centuries-long practice.
Over the years, massive injections of Saudi money and persistent efforts
of leaders like Saeed have attracted an influential and growing contingent of
followers to Salafism in Pakistan. Gulf oil money has enabled LeT to maintain
a sprawling 200-acre campus for training and conventions at Muridke, near
Lahore. Most important, LeT’s humanitarian outreac
h efforts – from hospitals
and schools to rapid disaster response teams in the wake of earthquakes and
floods – have won over converts as well as sympathizers who may not share
Saeed’s particular brand of religion. Annual conferences at Muridke attracted
as many as 1 million attendees by the late 1990s.95
After studying Islam and Arabic at the University of Punjab, Saeed moved
to Riyadh in the mid-1970s, where he expanded his connections with a range
of renowned Salafist scholars. In the early 1980s, Saeed returned to Pakistan
to take up an Islamic Studies professorship in Lahore. That position offered
him the ideal platform from which to translate his scholarship into practice.
In 1986, Saeed joined with sixteen others to found an organization devoted
to proselytizing the Ahle Hadith creed through preaching and social services
(dawa) and war (jihad).96 With the war raging in Afghanistan, Saudi support
flowing freely to Salafis throughout the region, and Zia’s Islamization campaign
in full swing, Saeed and his compatriots – including Osama bin Laden’s early
co-conspirator, Abdullah Azzam – could not have asked for a more auspicious
time to start.
As it happened, things would get even better for Saeed’s fledgling organiza-
tion that formally gave birth to LeT in 1990. As the Afghan war wound down
in the late 1980s, the insurgency in Kashmir was on the rise. Because Saeed
and a number of his colleagues were Punjabis scarred by Partition in ways that
made them rabidly anti-Indian, their organization was well suited to waging
jihad in Kashmir. And since the Pakistani military and ISI were eager to find
militant proxies that would push India to the breaking point, LeT found itself
a powerful ally and protector.
From 1993 until 2000, LeT was first and foremost an anti-Indian organi-
zation with intimate ISI connections, in spite of the fact that it was initially
formed in the anti-Soviet Afghan campaign. LeT quickly grew into the most
dangerous insurgent force in Kashmir. Safely ensconced in Pakistani training
camps, where LeT militants worked alongside army and intelligence officers,
LeT learned how to take its suicidal commando (fedayeen) raids to new levels
of sophistication.97
95 Tankel, Storming the World Stage, p. 81.
96 On the early history of LeT, see Tankel, Storming the World Stage, pp. 2–4.
97 Tankel, Storming the World Stage, pp. 60–1.
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Why Do They Hate Us?
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In December 2000, LeT crossed a new threshold by sending attackers into
New Delhi’s Red Fort garrison, far from the disputed Kashmiri territory. Over
the course of 2001, Indian officials credited LeT with responsibility for a
majority of the twenty-nine suicide attacks on their military personnel and
installations.98
The next step came in Mumbai. LeT’s spectacular 2008 attack dominated
television news across the world. LeT gunmen went out of their way to target
a city far from Kashmir – and not claimed by Pakistan – and then murdered
people, like Israeli Jews and Americans, who had nothing to do with that
disputed territory. Symbolically, at least, LeT had gone global. And LeT’s
worldwide aspirations also had other, less visible, effects. For years, the group
had established and maintained a network for recruitment and fundraising
that included members in Asia and Europe.99 After 2008, it was painfully clear
that LeT’s global network even extended into the United States. An American,
David Coleman Headley (born Daood Sayed Gilani), was the primary source
for LeT surveillance on targets in Mumbai prior to the attacks.100
Judging by Saeed’s own rhetoric, none of these developments should be
particularly surprising. For instance, shortly after the United States invaded
Iraq in 2003, he argued in an interview that “Jihad is prescribed in the Quran.
Muslims are required to take up arms against the oppressor. The powerful
western world is terrorizing the Muslims. We are being invaded, humiliated,
manipulated, and looted. How else can we respond but through jihad?” He
went on to add, “Suicide missions are in accordance with Islam. In fact, a
suicide attack is the best form of jihad.”101 In May 2008, Saeed reiterated that
“the Crusaders, the Jews, and the Hindus – all have united against the Muslims,
and launched the ‘war on terror’ which is in fact a pretext to impose a horrible
war to further the nefarious goals of the enemies of Islam.”102
After bin Laden’s death, Saeed called the al-Qaeda leader “a great man”
and unloaded on the United States, calling on Muslims around the world to
“stand up against America,” and declaring that “now is the start of a battle
98 Tankel, Storming the World Stage, p. 65.
99 On LeT’s global ambitions and networks, see Mark Mazzetti, “A Shooting in Pakistan Reveals Fraying Alliance,” New York Times, March 12, 2011; Tankel, Storming the World Stage, pp. 88–102, 150–71.
100 “Chicago Resident David Coleman Headley Pleads Guilty to Role in India and Den-
mark Terrorism Conspiracies,” U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, March 18, 2010, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/March/10-ag-277.html. CNN’s expert on al-Qaeda, Peter Bergen, notes that since 2001 at least eight Americans have been caught
after they received training from LeT. See Peter Bergen, The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al-Qaeda (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), p. 237.
101 Mohammad Shehzad, “Suicide Bombing Is the Best Form of Jihad,” Friday Times, April 17, 2003, http://forum.pakistanidefence.com/index.php?showtopic=10243.
102 Praveen Swami, “Pakistan and the Lashkar’s Jihad in India,” Hindu, December 9, 2008, http://www.hindu.com/2008/12/09/stories/2008120955670800.htm.
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No Exit from Pakistan
between Islam and infidels.”103 In 2012, Saeed was a prominent member of
the Pakistan Defense Council, along with the former ISI chief Hamid Gul. He
appeared before LeT flag-waving crowds to taunt the United States, even after
Washington declared it would offer $10 million for “information leading to
his arrest or conviction.”
The question now is whether LeT really intends to take its fight all the way
to American territory: whether it will launch attacks on U.S. soil. The answer
is complicated by LeT’s unusually close connections with Pakistan’s military
and intelligence services. In the 1990s Hafiz Saeed’s organization enjoyed carte
blanche to rail against all enemies of Islam, safe in the assumption that LeT
enjoyed full state protection.
After President Musharraf joined Washington against al-Qaeda, LeT had to
play a more sophisticated game. As scholar Stephen Tankel argues in his exten-
sive study of LeT, Storming the World Stage, in the years following 9/11 Saeed n
avigated his organization between the seams of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship.
Given that LeT continued to benefit from its sanctuary in Pakistan, its lead-
ers preferred to avoid an open break with the Pakistani military. But because
LeT’s ideological compulsions also did not permit a soft line in its struggle
against India or the United States, it chafed at attempts by Islamabad to rein
in the jihad. Moreover, LeT could not afford to be outflanked by harder line
organizations.
To complicate matters further, LeT-trained fighters routinely work with
other radical groups focused on the Afghan front and beyond. Many of these
groups are completely untethered, even opposed, to the Pakistani state. For
instance, the al-Qaeda-linked perpetrators of the July 2005 London bombings
trained in LeT camps before carrying out their attacks.104 David Headley’s LeT
handlers also shared him with al-Qaeda, who sent him to conduct surveillance
in Denmark against the newspaper that had published what al-Qaeda consid-
ered blasphemous cartoons in preparation for a planned attack in 2009.105
These facts belie the notion too often voiced by Pakistanis that Washington’s
concerns about LeT are overblown or driven merely by an eagerness to cultivate
better relations with India.
Whether or not LeT, Hafiz Saeed, and the Ahle Hadith creed enjoy contin-
ued success is less important than the fact that they have already provided a
model for how violent Islamist movements can gain steam in Pakistan. Vicious
attacks against external enemies, humanitarian service at home, and favor
from Islamabad could permit LeT or a successor organization to take jihadist
103 “JuD Holds Prayers for Osama in Lahore, Karachi,” The News, May 4, 2011; Patrick Quinn, “Kerry: US-Pakistan Alliance at ‘Critical Moment,’” Associated Press, May 15, 2011, http://cnsnews.com/news/article/kerry-us-pakistan-alliance-critical-moment.
104 Tankel, Storming the World Stage, pp. 162–3.
105 See Bruce Riedel, Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of Global Jihad (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2011), p. 101.
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