The reaction in Pakistan to the recently released Netflix series on the horrific hijacking of the IC-814 flight from Kathmandu to New Delhi has been complete silence. It is understandable, given that the power circles are completely bogged down in the domestic political drama. But there’s also little interest in being reminded of the country’s jihadi history, particularly when the show seems to give the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) a rather gentle treatment in its role in the incident.
While the intelligence agency’s role in aiding the hijackers in the initial phase is clear, it ultimately diverts attention toward Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, rather than placing responsibility where it actually belonged. In fact, the silence around the series in Pakistan conspicuously highlights that, over the years—particularly in the wake of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) sanctions on the country, which have now been lifted—the media was carefully managed to wipe out any discussion of the country’s links with global jihad.
The show ends with a mention of the hijackers and the three terrorists—Jaish-e-Mohammad’s Maulana Masood Azhar, Omar Saeed Sheikh (who was connected with both Al-Qaeda and Jaish-e-Mohammad), and Mushtaq Zargar—being feted by bin Laden. While there’s no evidence of such a meeting, this particular spin totally obfuscates the fact that it was the Taliban who drove the motley crew to the Afghan-Pakistan border, from where they successfully escaped to Pakistan.
Masood Azhar and jihadi world
I am reminded of an evening at the upscale Liberty market in Lahore in early 2000, when I saw a vehicle with speakers inviting people to attend a gathering where Masood Azhar and other freed terrorists would speak about jihad. Azhar, who after being released from Indian prison, came to formally establish Jaish-e-Mohammad. He was given a free run across the country to propagate his institutional venture, which was in the pipeline even when he was incarcerated.
Many of the death certificates I found in Bahawalpur during my research on extremism and militancy date back to 1998-1999, not when JeM was formally announced in 2000. Azhar’s rescue, including negotiations with the Indian team at the time, was being closely monitored and controlled by the ISI rather than Osama Bin Laden. A source that I spoke with talked about how logistics for the IC-184 hijacked passengers came from Quetta, which was closer to Kandahar.
Over the years, there has been a lot of reporting on JeM’s activities, but very little assessment of the organisation and Azhar’s role and significance in the jihadi world. This is partly because much of the international and domestic literature made the grave error of presenting Azhar and his organisation as dedicated to the jihad in Kashmir, without highlighting JeM’s overall cultural bias. JeM was a thoroughbred Deobandi militant group, fully committed to both Deobandi sectarian principles and pan-Islamic goals. My interviews with JeM members in South Punjab of Pakistan made me conscious of how deep their anti-Shia bias was, which didn’t surface in the terror outfit’s literature until after 2018 when articles critiquing Iran began to appear—something that wasn’t done before. The point being that JeM’s instincts were always sectarian and global jihadists than limited to Kashmir which was also their attraction for many financial supporters and the ISI.
Azhar and his team were certainly more strategic in their thinking regarding their overall role. This is also because the JeM leader acquired a bigger role from the beginning. He was a very important man for both the ISI and global jihad as he was launched in the early 1990s. For example, when Azhar landed in London on 6 August 1993, he was received by Islamic scholars from Britain’s largest mosque network.
In 1993, he wasn’t just the chief organiser of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), a Deobandi organization that predates JeM, but was also a key figure in the global Deobandi council. According to my sources, this council was established by people in Saudi Arabia and the Arab world to smoothen relations among the various Deobandi militant groups. During his visit to the UK that year, he planted the seeds of modern jihadi militancy, delivering speeches at several significant Islamic mosques and madrassas about “the divine promise of victory to those engaged in jihad”.
It was during this fundraising tour that he picked up money and recruits like Omar Saeed Sheikh. More importantly, the tour predated the formation of Al-Qaeda, underscoring the fact that Azhar was already dedicated to jihad in Kashmir, a cause that would later become associated with global jihad and linked more with Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden rather than the JeM.
Azhar’s significance both in the jihadi landscape and for the ISI needs a careful review. His ability to motivate people was enormous and borne by the fact that during his tour of the UK at age 25, he gathered more support from the various clerics. He was significant for a larger global jihadi network that, as far as Pakistan’s ISI was concerned, was crucial in pursuing militancy in Kashmir. Azhar’s ability to recruit South Asians from around the world and bring them to Afghanistan and Kashmir was a goldmine. It was important for Pakistan’s military intelligence to get this man back from India and nurture him.
Also read: IC 814 hijack was a victory for Masood Azhar—and the moment of his strategic downfall
Pan-Islamist principles
Was Azhar’s rescue operation a strategic blunder, as Praveen Swami argues in his recent article? Such an argument focuses too much on factors like Azhar’s conflict with Pakistan’s then Army Chief, General Pervez Musharraf, and events such as 9/11 that placed Pakistan in America’s crosshairs. However, other factors also need consideration.
The JeM leader was too significant to be abandoned by critical segments of the ISI, even after he was found involved in one of the two assassination attempts on Musharraf. Some of the senior police officers I spoke with talked about how orders by General Musharraf around 2004 to arrest Azhar were dramatically and carefully dodged. Those running the Punjab Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) soon realised that the man allegedly arrested and incarcerated that year was not the real Masood Azhar. The fact was hidden from Musharraf.
The real Azhar was taken underground, out of sight of the Army Chief. The incident draws attention to the discipline and culture within the ISI, where certain elements were powerful enough to carve their own trajectory and defy the Army Chief.
In any case, the war in Kashmir was critically part of the larger pan-Islamic jihad and could not be controlled tactically. While those in the ISI may not have been part of planning 9/11 or managing the day-to-day running of the jihadi network, little attention was given to streamlining the jihadi world and keeping it entirely dedicated to Kashmir alone. This was not possible, as jihad had multiple focuses for different militant groups, and there was sufficient sympathy within the ISI for broader pan-Islamist principles. Not to forget that suspicion and anger with the US runs very deep in Pakistan. Also, immediately after 9/11 the initial calculation was that the American will bomb Afghanistan and then leave.
During the early 2000s, and even later, it was difficult to separate the various jihads and jihadis. For instance, Omar Saeed Sheikh, who has a reputation for working for Al-Qaeda, was also very close to JeM. In fact, he was one of the few who attended to Masood Azhar during his recuperation from gallbladder surgery in Bahawalpur in 2002.
The post-9/11 environment did put limitations on Pakistan-based jihadis like Azhar, who got increasingly involved in Kashmir. But he never took his eyes away from global jihad. We could consider him an equally important character as bin Laden. The latter became notorious due to his attack on the Americans and the deep pocket that he used to finance terrorism.
The jihadi literature needs to re-examine Azhar’s role in feeding global jihad. His use of South Asian mosques and madrassas in the UK early in his career played a major role in the overall landscape of global jihad, more so than many Arab militant clerics. More importantly, the ISI machinery continues to protect him, perhaps in the hope that the battle in Kashmir could one day start again.
Ayesha Siddiqa is Senior Fellow at the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London. She is the author of Military Inc. She tweets @iamthedrifter. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)