Controversial Jamiat-ul-Ulema Islam leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman's high-profile visit to India and the attention accorded to him in governmental and non-governmental circles in New Delhi are being viewed by many India-watchers in the US with bewilderment and concern.

Rahman is a fundamentalist with a difference, known for his proximity to Benazir Bhutto and her Pakistan People's Party. Despite his fundamentalist orientation, he supported her right to become prime minister and opposed the Jamaat-e-Islami campaign in the 1990s against a woman heading the government of an Islamic country.

Benazir rewarded him by making him Chairman of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee and allegedly asked the Inter-Services Intelligence to place a large amount from its secret fund at his disposal during his travels abroad.

The Maulana loves foreign travel and the good things of life. During Benazir's second term as prime minister, he spent more time abroad than in Pakistan.

In 1993-1994, Pakistan's cotton crop was practically destroyed by insects for two years in succession and many textile mills were threatened with closure. Asif Zardari, Benazir's husband, through a business crony in Hong Kong, entered into a contract with Turkmenistan for emergency supplies of cotton. The responsibility for transporting them to Pakistan by road via Afghanistan was given to the Hong Kong-based Pakistani businessman.

His cotton convoys were attacked and the cotton looted by armed followers of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar of the Hizb-e-Islami and Ismail Khan, the pro-Teheran warlord of Herat.

Zardari then asked retired Major General Naseerullah Babbar, Benazir's interior minister, to organize a special force to escort the cotton convoys through Afghanistan. Naseerullah, with Pervez Musharraf's help, organized the Taliban by rallying round many of the dregs of the Afghan war of the 1980s against the Soviet troops under Mullah Mohammad Omar's leadership.

They were helped in this by Fazlur Rahman and his protñ, Mufi Shamzai of the Binori madrasa of Karachi. Thus, the Taliban came into existence in 1994. The role played by Fazlur Rahman in helping Benazir and her husband create the Taliban led to serious differences between him and Qazi Hussain Ahmed of the Jamaat-e-Islami, who was a strong supporter of Hekmatayar. Another strong critic of the Maulana's soft corner for Benazir and Zardari was retired Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, Director General of the ISI during her first tenure as prime minister.

The US started viewing the Maulana with suspicion in 1995 due to the proximity of the Harkat-ul-Ansar, then headed by Maulana Fazlur Rahman Khalil, to the Maulana. In March 1995, Kamran Khan, the well-known investigative journalist, wrote a series under the title 'Jihad Worldwide' in The News, the prestigious Pakistani daily. In these articles, he exposed not only the Harkat's role in organizing terrorist operations in Jammu and Kashmir, southern Philippines, the Arakan area of Myanmar and Chechnya, but also its attempts to carry its jihad to the US homeland by recruiting and training a group of Afro-American Muslims. It was suspected that the Harkat could not have been indulging in such activities without Fazlur Rahman's complicity.

This was followed by the kidnapping of some Western tourists, including two Americans, one of whom escaped, by the Harkat in Kashmir under the name Al Faran. The Clinton administration sought Benazir's help in getting them released. She and Zardari asked Fazlur Rahman to go to India to persuade the Harkat to release them.

At the request of the US embassy in New Delhi, the Narasimha Rao government agreed to let him come. The Rao government was hoping he would keep his mission unpublicized, but Fazlur Rahman, who has a weakness for publicity, made the visit high profile. After reaching New Delhi, he demanded that he should be allowed to visit Srinagar to which the Indian intelligence agencies were strongly opposed.

On discovering about his visit, circles close to the present ruling coalition in New Delhi, which were then in Opposition, strongly criticized the Rao government for allowing the Harkat's patron to visit India. Thereupon, the Rao government totally cut off all contact with him and he returned to Pakistan.

In October 1997, the US State Department designated the Harkat a foreign terrorist organization under the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. Consequently, it is a crime for anyone in the US to be associated with it and foreigners associated with it are not entitled to US visas. Fazlur Rahman, as a suspected supporter if not the Harkat's mentor, is covered by this ban. After the ban, the Harkat-ul-Ansar ostensibly split into two organizations, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami. The Maulana is viewed by many in Pakistan and the US as the patron of both.

After the explosions outside the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, the Clinton administration exercised considerable pressure on the Nawaz Sharif government and Lieutenant General Ziauddin, the then DG of the ISI, to help US Special Forces organize a commando raid into Kandahar to capture Osama bin Laden and take him to the US for trial.

This pressure was kept up during 1999. Nawaz Sharif, fearing an adverse reaction from Musharraf, his Chief of the Army Staff, was initially hesitant to co-operate. However, after a visit to Washington, DC by Ziauddin after the Kargil war, Nawaz agreed to pressurize the Taliban to hand over bin Laden to the US and, if it refused, to co-operate with US Special Forces in their planned raid.

Ziauddin met Mullah Omar at Kandahar in this connection. While sticking to his refusal to hand over bin Laden to the US, Mullah Omar agreed to consider expelling him to another Islamic country. On discovering this, Musharraf, who was not kept in the picture by Nawaz Sharif or Ziauddin, sent Mohammad Aziz, then his Chief of the General Staff, along with Fazlur Rahman to Kandahar to tell Mullah Omar that he should not carry out any instructions received from Ziauddin.

It was on discovering this that Nawaz Sharif decided to sack Musharraf and appoint Ziauddin as the COAS, triggering off the October 12, 1999 coup.

Following Ziauddin's visit to Kandahar, there were many speculative reports in the Pakistani media that US Special Forces had already arrived in the North-West Frontier Province and were about to raid Kandahar. Fazlur Rahman issued a statement warning the US that if bin Laden were killed or captured, no American national in Pakistan would be safe.

A senior US diplomat posted in Islamabad thereupon visited him and reportedly warned him that if any US national in Pakistan came to any harm, it would hold him personally responsible and act against him. Threafter, he lowered his anti-US rhetoric.

After 9/11, Musharraf sent a delegation of Pakistani mullahs headed by Mufti Shamzai to Kandahar to persuade Mullah Omar to hand over bin Laden to the US in order to avert a war. The delegation was accompanied by Lieutenant General Mehmood Ahmed, the then ISI chief.

Before going to Kandahar, the mullahs and the ISI chief met Fazlur Rahman at Peshawar. They then met Mullah Omar at Kandahar, returned and reported to Musharraf that the Taliban leader had refused to co-operate. It was said the US discovered from one of its sources in the mullahs' delegation that instead of pressurizing Mullah Omar to hand over bin Laden to the US, the delegation, in Mehmood Ahmed's presence, congratulated him for resisting US pressure and encouraged him to continue to do so.

It was after this that the US pressurized Musharraf to remove Ahmed, known to be close to Fazlur Rahman, from his post. He did so on October 7, 2001, and appointed Lieutenant General Ehsanul Haq, then Corps Commander in Peshawar and a close friend of Qazi Hussain Ahmed, as the new DG.

Musharraf's decision to co-operate with the US against the Taliban led to a re-alignment in Pakistan. The JEI and JUI forgot their past differences over Fazlur Rahman's role in helping the Benazir government in the creation of the Taliban as a counter to Hekmatayar's HEI and joined hands in backing the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the HEI in their joint operations against US forces in Afghanistan.

Despite the formation of the coalition of six fundamentalist parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, of which the JUI and JEI are the driving force, suspicions continue to mark the relations between the Maulana and the Qazi. Each suspects the other of continuing to maintain clandestine contacts with the military-intelligence establishment. There was also friction over the Maulana's decision to nominate a member of his party as the chief minister of the NWFP without consulting the Qazi.

Since 9/11, US suspicions of the Maulana have worsened because of the active role played by the HUM under the name HUM (Al Alami International) and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami in the terrorist strikes against French and American nationals in Karachi and Islamabad.

There were reports before the US invasion of Iraq that HUM had sent its cadres to Saudi Arabia under the cover of Haj pilgrims and that they were to infiltrate into Iraq to start a jihad against US troops. When an injured bin Laden escaped into Pakistan from Afghanistan in early 2002, Mufti Shamzai, Fazlur Rahman's protñ, gave him shelter at the Binori madrasa in Karachi till last August.

Five Pakistani jihadi organizations are members of bin Laden's International Islamic Front -- HUM, HUJI, the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Of these, HUM, HUJI, JEM and LEJ are close to the Maulana. The Lashkar, despite its strong Wahabbi orientation, is not. The Maulana's perceived hobnobbing with India could act as a red rag to the bull and provoke an intensification of terrorist strikes in Indian territory.

The questions being asked in the US are: Did the Maulana come on his own or at the instance of the Government of India or the Bharatiya Janata Party? What was the motive? What would be its implications?

It is alleged by many here that the Government of India has been making overtures to the Maulana through PPP circles close to Benazir in the hope of using his services to persuade Deobandi leaders in India to react more positively to the proposals made by the Kanchi Shankaracharya for a solution to the Ayodhya issue and to pressurize jihadi organizations close to him to stop their terrorist activities in India.

There is concern that this exercise might prove counter-productive and lead to an aggravation of the ground situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

An interview on the same site:
http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jul/18inter1.htm

'India, Pakistan should work together to end American expansionism'

| | July 18, 2003 | 17:33 IST

Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Pakistan senator and leader of the hardline Jamait Ulema-e-Islam, surprised the Indian media when he said the Simla Agreement of 1972 could be the guiding principle for resolving the Kashmir problem.

In an exclusive interview with Chief Correspondent Onkar Singh in New Delhi, Rehman, who is in India on an invitation extended by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind denied he had spawned the Taliban in Afghanistan or had links with the banned terrorist outfit, the Harkat-ul Ansar.

If you had received two votes more, you could have been prime minister of Pakistan instead of Mir Zaffarullah Jamali. Do you regret missing the opportunity?

(Laughs) No, I do not regret losing to Jamali. In fact, when he was elected prime minister of Pakistan, I was the first to go across and congratulate him. I assured him of the full support of my party.

The moment you crossed over to India, you visited the Golden Temple. What was the purpose of your visit?

Do not read any meaning into my visit to the Golden Temple. It was merely a goodwill visit. I met the religious leaders there. We did not discuss anything.

Instead of coming to Delhi, you first went to Deoband [in Uttar Pradesh, where one of India's most famous Islamic seminaries is located]. Don't you think that was unusual?

Nothing unusual as far as I am concerned. I am not saying anything beyond that.

You are known for your hardline views on Afghanistan and led demonstrations against President Pervez Musharraf when he offered to support America in Afghanistan?

We are against American expansionism. We are against the use of power against the innocent people of Afghanistan and Iraq. Though the United States has been saying that Al Qaeda was behind the terrorist attacks on America on September 11, 2001, the investigations are far from complete. No evidence has emerged that links Al Qaeda with the terrorist attacks in the US. Then why was a nation so heavily punished and bombarded by the Americans? They have taken over that country. They have installed their own man, Hamid Karzai, as president of Afghanistan.

The same thing happened in the case of Iraq. The CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] says that it has no evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and yet the Americans and British bombarded that country and took it over. India and Pakistan should work together to put an end to this American expansionism. Who knows where they would come next.

You are credited for founding the Taliban movement?

I deny this charge. This is a creation of the media and I have nothing to do with the Taliban. The Taliban were those who brought peace to Afghanistan and now the people of Afghanistan are asking where have those who brought peace in the state gone?

Do you have a formula for solving the Kashmir problem?

I am not speaking for those who are in power in Pakistan. So I leave it for them to sort out this matter with their Indian counterparts and solve it by sitting on the negotiating table.

Where has all the venom that you spewed against India gone?

The world has changed and we have to change too. Let us talk of peace and co-existence rather than of things in the past that are no longer relevant.

Why this sudden change?

This change is not sudden and it has come over the years. India and Pakistan must realize that if they keep on fighting like this, the Americans would benefit from our fights.

How can we solve the Kashmir issue? India insists Pakistan must stop cross-border terrorism and Pakistan is unwilling to do that.

Let me clarify that on this point I am with the Pakistan government. What you call cross-border terrorism is a freedom movement in our eyes. The people of Kashmir and the Mujahideen who are fighting want their right to live. I personally believe that the Simla Agreement provides us with the best framework to resolve the Kashmir problem.

Why do you think the Agra peace summit failed?

The Agra summit between Prime Minister [A B] Vajpayee and President Musharraf might have been inconclusive but it has not failed. The recent initiative taken by Prime Minister Vajpayee will pave the way to complete the process of talks and what could not be achieved in the Agra summit might now be possible.

So you feel the Simla Agreement could be the basis for finding a solution to the Kashmir problem?

I am convinced the Simla Agreement is the only framework of its kind through which the Kashmir problem that has been nagging both the countries can be sorted out. There should be no preconditions for starting a dialogue. India says remove the Mujahideen and Pakistan says the Indian Army should be removed. If one of the two takes place, then the Kashmir problem would automatically get solved.

Is it true that as political advisor of the Harkat-ul Ansar, you had offered to mediate to free the five foreigners kidnapped from Pahalgam in 1995?

I have nothing to do with Harkat-ul Ansar. I have never been its political advisor. I never offered to mediate between the kidnappers and Indian security forces. This is all a false and malicious propaganda and a creation of the media. The Jamait Ulema-e-Islam has never been associated with any jihadi organization at any point of time.

The situation in 1995 was different from one that exists today. Today we are all talking peace. Let us forget the past and talk peace so that the air of peace blows across the Indian continent.

What is the difference between your visit to India in 1995 and this visit?

The only difference is that this visit has come after eight years. I do not know why you are coming back to my visit in 1995.

Why is Islamic fundamentalism growing around the world?

Islam does not preach violence. Fundamentalism could breed in any part of the world. In India you have Hindu fundamentalists like the Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad. You have fundamentalists amongst Christians and Jews and so on.

You have not condemned the violence in Kashmir.

I do not support violence. Violence will end if the Kashmir problem is sorted out once and for all. Since the governments do not attend to the problems of the people soon and tend to prolong their miseries, there comes a stage when people get sick and tired of assurances and take things into their own hands. They pick up arms and that is why violence begins. The culture of violence would end if governments discharge their responsibilities.

'Nuther article:
http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/jul/17pak1.htm

Why did the Pak Maulana visit Deoband?

Ehtasham Khan in New Delhi | | July 18, 2003 | 00:40 IST

When Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman decided to visit Deoband in Uttar Pradesh -- a non-descript town by any standard -- most, including the usually well-informed media, were caught on the wrong foot.

'What was the leader of the Pakistan opposition and chief of the hardline Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, with three colleagues to boot, doing in Deoband of all places?' was an oft-repeated question.

Deoband is one of world's leading centres of Islamic learning. Interestingly, the hardline Pakistani outfit's roots can be traced to this town.

No room for terrorism in Islam: Rehman
'Fundamentalist groups do not believe in terrorism'
Intelligence foxed by Pak hardliner's visit to India

The Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind -- the parent organisation on whose invitation Rehman is in India -- was formed in November 1919 by leading Islamic scholars (Ulemas).

Some of its founders were Abdul Mohasim Sajjad, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Ahmed Saeed Dehlvi and Abdul Bari Firangi Mehli. Mahmood Hassan, a leading Islamic scholar of that time, was the guiding force behind the initiative.

Their aim was to take on the British rulers head on. The organisation's involvement in the Khilafat Movement brought them close to Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress, a link that is existent to this day.

Leading Congress leader Abul Kalam Azad, himself a product of the Islamic seminary, was the president of the JUH in 1948. Others like Saifuddin Kitchlu and Maulana Mohammad Ali Johar were also closely associated with the Jamiat.

Historian Mohammad Sajjad of Jamia Millia Islamia University said, "It remained with the Congress through out the freedom movement and even after that. It played an important role in Muslim mobilisation."

Echoing Sajjad, JUH spokesman Abdul Hameed Nomani told rediff.com: "We demanded complete independence from the British in 1927. This was even before the Congress did. We collected money and took Gandhiji throughout the country for mobilisation."

"It was Maulana Abdul Bari of Jamiat who gave the title of Mahatma to Gandhiji in 1920," he said.

Bari was Jamiat's first president.

One of the Jamiat leaders, Shabbir Ahmed Usmani, split from the organisation in 1937 and later formed the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam in Dhaka in 1940.

"They believed in the two-nation theory. They went towards Muslim League. They believed that religious identity defines a nation. But we said no. Culture defines a nation. Wherever we go in the world, we are identified as Hindi," Nomani said.

"Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and all others living here are Indians. And hence one nation," he said.

After the partition, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam went to Pakistan and Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind remained in India.

But Jamiat's links with Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam remained intact.

"We had a different political viewpoint. But they still seek guidance from us in the matters of Sharia (Islamic law and jurisprudence)," he said.

Despite a fundamentalist image of Pakistan's Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind had no problems in inviting them to India.

"If somebody is firm on his religious faith, you cannot call him fundamentalist. It is propaganda against Islam. It is the conspiracy of the Zionist lobby to dub Muslims with beard and cap as fundamentalist and terrorist. We don't care about this image," he said.

"The world is changing. People are hungry for love and peace. We have to do something about it. How long will we continue looking at each other with suspicion?" he asked.

"The major problem between India and Pakistan is Kashmir. Let us not talk about it. It will get solved in course of time with negotiations," he added.

Jamiat, which is well networked across the country, identifies itself as a religious and social group.

The membership, however, is confined to Islamic scholars, who mostly pass out of Islamic seminaries.

Some Imams of mosques are also its members. Though Jamiat claims to represent all Muslim groups, most of its members are from the Deoband school of thought.

JUH hopes the visit of Rehman will help in carrying forward the peace initiative taken by India and Pakistan.

Rehman and three of his parliamentary colleagues -- Qazi Hamidullah, Gul Nasseb, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed -- are in India on an official visit.

Nomani said, "Religion can help reduce tension between India and Pakistan. If religious leaders from both sides convince the people that war is not a solution then a peaceful atmosphere can be created."

More people-to-people contact and exchange of religious leaders from both sides, he added, will lead to a cordial environment between the neighbours.

"That is why we have invited Maulana Fazlur Rahman here. He is a religious head. This is in continuation of the peace initiative taken by our Prime Minister (Atal Bihari Vajpayee). Pakistan has also responded positively this time," he said.

"Many politicians and cultural groups from both sides have taken delegations to the other country. But nothing has worked out so far. Politics is seen with suspicion. So we thought of the exchange of religious leaders that may help in the long run," he added. "People from both sides will pressure their respective governments to avoid the path of war and violence."

After crossing the border at Wagah, Rehman first went to the Golden Temple in Amritsar and met the leaders of the Akal Takht. He also went to pray at the Sufi shrine in Sirhind.

World

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

Fazl’s comments draw flak from fellow Islamists

New Delhi, July 23: Leaders of Pakistan’s six-party Islamist alliance, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) are slated to hold a “stormy supreme council meeting” to discuss “controversial” statements issued by the central MMA leader, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, during his visit to India, Pakistani daily, The News, reported on Wednesday.

Quoting a source in the MMA, the newspaper reported that “the statement of Fazlur Rehman that the Simla Accord should be a ‘basis for future dialogue’ between India and Pakistan on the Kashmir dispute and his ‘softer stance’ over the idea that the Line of Control should be turned into a permanent border between the two countries had really upset the MMA leadership”.

The reports said that MMA leaders Qazi Hussain Ahmed of the Jamaat-e-Islami and Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan are on tours abroad and the remaining MMA leadership, comprising senators and legislators expressed “shock” and “embarassment” over the statements of their key colleague.

The alliance might seek an explanation from Fazl for violating the alliance’s policy line on the Kashmir issue, The News report said.

In another development, renowned Pakistani intellectuals supporting the Two-Nation Theory are also peeved with the Maulana’s reported statements in India. According to a report in The Nation, prominent Pakistani intellectuals including members of Parliament and retired Army officers and members of the judiciary held a meeting to discuss Fazlur Rehman’s statements as published in a detailed interview with IANS news agency and published in the Sunday Mid Day.

During his interview, Fazlur Rehman had reportedly described Pakistan as a “failed state” and also added that Islamabad had “failed to control cross-border terrorism”.

Expressing grave concern over the Maulana’s interview through a resolution, the participants of the meeting in Lahore regretted the fact that Fazlur Rehman’s party, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam “takes pride in following the footsteps of its counterpart in India which had always opposed the establishment of Pakistan”.

On Tuesday, a three-member fidayeen (suicide squad) attacked an Army camp in Akhnoor in Jammu and Kashmir, killing a Brigadier and seven others and injured senior Army officers, including the Northern Army Commander. A little-known terrorist group, believed to be a front of the Lashkar-e-Taiba had claimed responsibility, saying that the attack was a protest against Fazlur Rehman’s comments on Kashmir.

In Pakistan, senior Lashkar leaders expressed their anger over the Maulana’s remarks in India, accusing him of “playing with the blood of martyrs”.

Long time observers of Pakistan believe that Tuesday’s attack on the Army camp in J-K could be an indirect reaction from the Pakistani military against the Maulana’s “soft” statements in India. While mainstream Pakistani politicians favoured good relations with India, the track record of the Pakistani military establishment reveals that it always favours a “hard” approach to relations with India.

A prominent analyst in New Delhi observed, “The reactions from the Islamists in Pakistan were expected. But if one looks at all of India’s neighbours, the Nepalese, Sri Lankans and the Bangladeshis. They realise the importance of having a political lobby in India. Whenever anything happens in these countries, one sees their politicians making a beeline for India. It seems Pakistani politicians have also begun to realise the importance of a political lobby in India. We will see more Pakistani politicians making visits to India in the next few months. This is part of a long term strategy of Pakistani politicians to develop a political hinterland in India.”

Summing up the latest developments, he observed, “All indications point to the Pakistani military and the ISI’s hand behind Tuesday’s attack. Politicians in Pakistan do not want military intervention and on the other hand, the military is determined that it will have the final say.”

URL: http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=23262

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