Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed says his fate is in the hands of God, not the United States and he moves about like an ordinary person.
In an interview with the New York Times, Hafiz Saeed said that he wants to correct “misperceptions”. Saeed insisted that his name had been cleared by the Pakistani courts. “Why does the United States not respect our judicial system?” he asked.
Ten million dollars does not seem to buy much in Lahore. That is the sum the United States is offering for help in convicting Hafiz Saeed, perhaps the country’s best-known jihadi leader. Yet Saeed lives an open, and apparently fearless life in a middle-class neighbourhood, the newspaper commented.
“I move about like an ordinary person, that’s my style,” said Saeed, a burly 64-year-old, reclining on a bolster as he ate a chicken supper. “My fate is in the hands of God, not America.”
The United Nations has placed him on a terrorist list and imposed sanctions on his group. But few believe he will face trial any time soon in a country that maintains a perilous ambiguity toward jihadi militancy, casting a benign eye on some groups, even as it battles others that attack the state. Saeed’s very public life seems more than just an act of mocking defiance against the Obama administration and its bounty, analysts say. As American troops prepare to leave Afghanistan next door, Lashkar is at a crossroads, and its fighters’ next move, whether to focus on fighting the West, disarm and enter the political process, or return to battle in Kashmir, will depend largely on Saeed.
At his Lahore compound, a fortified house, office and mosque, Saeed is shielded not only by his supporters, burly men wielding Kalashnikov rifles outside his door, but also by the Pakistani state. On a recent evening, police officers screened visitors at a checkpoint near his house, while other officers patrolled an adjoining park, watching by floodlight for intruders. His security seemingly ensured, Saeed has over the past year addressed large public meetings and appeared on prime-time television, and is now even giving interviews to Western news media outlets he had previously eschewed. Still, he says he has nothing against Americans, and warmly described a visit he made to the United States in 1994, during which he spoke at Islamic centres in Houston, Chicago and Boston. “At that time, I liked it,” he said with a wry smile.
In the interview, he said he prized talking over fighting in Kashmir.
“The militant struggle helped grab the world’s attention,” he said. “But now the political movement is stronger, and it should be at the forefront of the struggle.” Pakistani analysts caution that Saeed’s new openness is no random occurrence, however. “This isn’t out of the blue,” said Shamila N Chaudhry, a former Obama administration official and an analyst at the Eurasia Group, a consulting firm. “These guys don’t start talking publicly just like that.” What it amounts to, however, may depend on events across the border in Afghanistan, where his group has been increasingly active in recent years. In public, Saeed has been a leading light in the Defence of Pakistan Council, a coalition of right-wing groups that lobbied against the reopening of NATO supply routes through Pakistan last year. More quietly, Lashkar fighters have joined the battle, attacking Western troops and Indian diplomatic facilities in Afghanistan, the newspaper said quoting intelligence officials.
No bounty was placed on Hafiz Saeed: US
The United States government on Saturday clarified that no bounty had been placed for Lashkar-e-Tayyaba chief Hafiz Saeed. A State Department spokesman Victoria Nauland said that the US had offered a ‘Rewards for Justice’ proposal for obtaining information for his arrest and conviction. She clarified that the there was no bounty on Hafiz Saeed and instead, the 10 million dollars being offered by the US government was for information on his whereabouts. She urged people to come forward if they had any information that could stand in court against him. She further said that John Kerry would contact Hina Rabbani Khar on the issue soon.
