Karachi – home to 16 million people and one of the biggest Muslim cities in the world – has two sea ports which are a gateway to the world and transit hub for NATO supplies heading to the war effort in neighbouring Afghanistan.
For decades, Karachi has been connected with the criminal underworld and since the September 11, 2001 attacks, with extreme Islamist networks too.
US journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in the city and beheaded in 2002. In 2007, more than 136 people were killed at the homecoming parade of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in Karachi, Pakistan’s deadliest ever bomb attack.
While officials refuse to confirm details of how, when and where Taliban number two, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was arrested, the American media reported that the US and Pakistani spies captured him in Karachi.
“The arrest of a top Afghan Taliban commander proves the premise that some Afghan Taliban are present in Pakistan,” says Hasan Askari, a security analyst.
“Karachi has become the most attractive hideout for militants because it is a massive city and there are all kinds of ethnic and linguistic groups, where Pakistani and Afghan Taliban can disappear,” he added.
Around 2.5 million Pashtuns from the north-west are estimated to live in Karachi – a migration that began in the 1950s but accelerates with each successive offensive against Pakistani Islamists in the region.
One self-professed militant said that he comes to Karachi to take a break from the battlefield in Pakistan’s tribal belt on the Afghan border, where al-Qaeda and the Taliban are hunkered down and targeted by US missiles.
“We come here to relax,” said the man calling himself Aqeel Ahmed over the telephone, saying that he fought against the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan and is now affiliated with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) faction.
“We do jobs as labourers or other menial work in Karachi when we are permitted to leave the battle. And we go back to the battlefield when we receive a call from the top,” he said.
Tensions between Pashtuns and the local population have provoked riots, while bomb attacks have targeted Shia Muslims, killing 76 people in the last two months.
“We have arrested a couple of dozen militants associated with the outlawed TTP and seized large quantities of explosives and weapons including explosive-filled suicide jackets,” a police official said.
Karachi, with its moneyed residents and big business, has proved fertile ground for financing Pakistani Islamist activities. Security officials acknowledge, but have less intelligence on, the presence of Afghan Taliban.
“Taliban do come here. They send money to their mentors in the north-west and even some deals with the families of kidnapping victims (in Karachi) were finalised in Waziristan,” said the police official.
Money is wired to north-west Pakistan through the traditional but illegal method of “hundi”. Groups can also demand ransom payments in the tribal areas, which include the militant bastions of North and South Waziristan.
“They (militants) have safe havens on the outskirts where they run their operations,” said Sharfuddin Memon, an official of Citizen-Police Liaison Committee, a state-run watchdog organisation.
“They generate funds through kidnappings and robberies and also militants plan attacks in Karachi, most of which our police foiled,” he said.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement – which represents Muslims who migrated from India – sits in government and is a bitter rival of Pashtun political parties. It also believes there is a heavy militant presence in the city.
But Mufti Mohammad Naeem, the head of Karachi’s notorious Jamia Binoria madrassa, one of the largest among thousands of religious schools in the city, says there is a conspiracy against the religious political parties and groups.
“Our rulers are falsely accusing our madrassas of being involved in terrorism or having links with the Taliban. Rulers are doing this to appease their Western masters who pay them with loads of dollars,” he said.
