ISLAMABAD
A banned terrorist outfit led by Mangal Bagh has announced it wants to join the peace talks with the government and has asked a cleric to be its intermediary, a cleric said on Saturday.
According to the media reports, the Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) operating in Khyber Agency, a main supply route for NATO troops in Afghanistan, is blamed for many attacks on security forces, pro-government tribal volunteers and NATO supply trucks.
Bagh has gone into hiding for years in the wake of military operations in the agency. He has been fighting the security forces in the region since 2004 that has claimed lives thousands of lives.
The group has approached cleric, Tayyeb Tahiri, chief of Jamaat-e-Ishaat-e-Tauheed Wa Sunnah, which is purely a religious and non-political organisation, to contact the government on its behalf.
Tahiri, who is also head of an influential religious school in Swabi District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has confirmed the group has requested him to mediate with the government. The founder of LI, Mufti Shakir, had studied at Tahiri’s religious school and had been promoting his specific and extreme ideas.
Tahiri has confirmed to the media that the group leaders have requested him to convey to the government their desire to join the peace process.
The LI had initially been involved in fighting with another outfit Ansarul Islam in Khyber Agency for years on sectarian-motivated thinking.
The government has not yet responded to the offer. The dialogue offer is seen very important as it could restore peace in the region and on the main NATO supply route.
CONSEQUENCES OF FAILURE:
Separately, a police report read that the banned terrorist outfit Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan would coordinate with activists at major seminaries in or near Islamabad to launch attacks if peace talks with the government fail.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took power last year promising to end Pakistan’s insurgency through negotiations. Talks got going in February but have achieved little.
The Taliban, allied with but separate from the Afghan Taliban, are fighting to overthrow the government and impose Sharia on the nuclear-armed nation of 180 million people. They called a ceasefire beginning on March 1 to facilitate the talks but it officially ended on Thursday. It is unclear if the ceasefire will be extended.
Police said in the report that two well-known seminaries would support attacks in the capital and its twin city of Rawalpindi if the talks break down and the military moves against the Taliban bases in areas bordering Afghanistan.
“If talks between the government and the Taliban fail like-minded religious seminaries and mosques have been given the target of fully contributing in carrying out attacks,” police said in the report, which was prepared last month.
Police identified two well-known seminaries, or madrassas, on the outskirts of Islamabad. They said the two had already helped launch several attacks, including a 2009 assault on the army’s headquarters in Rawalpindi.
One is led by a cleric Azizur Rehman Hazarvi. It provides “brain washing courses and lessons on sacrificing oneself for jihad”, police said in the report.
The other is run by Fazlur Rehman Khalil, who is on a US terror watch-list and signed a 1996 fatwa or decree from Osama bin Laden in which he declared war on the United States.
At Khalil’s seminary, commanders provide “jihadi weapons training classes” to students from the ethnic Pashtun tribal areas which have long been terrorist-recruiting grounds, police said.
The two seminaries also host fighters who come to carry out attacks and help with “all last minute preparations”, they said.
Militant fighters have set themselves up with activists at hardline mosques in Islamabad before.
Police and government spokesmen declined to comment on the report but security officials who requested not to be identified said the information was correct. One police officer said 20 seminaries in Rawalpindi were being investigated for similar Taliban links.
KILL THEM IN CITIIES:
Khalil denied any connection with the Taliban and said his seminary was being threatened by insurgents for being pro-government.
“We openly believe that any attacks against Pakistan are wrong and against Islam,” Khalil said. “Ask the police to show me one arrested person who is linked to my seminary.”
The other cleric identified in the report, Hazarvi, was not available for comment.
The TTP spokesman was also not available to comment but a member of the Taliban shura council said fighters were present in all major cities and would be “unstoppable” if the talks with the government broke down.
“If the government attacks us in the tribal areas, we will kill them in the cities,” he said. “By the grace of God, the Taliban today are more united and present everywhere.”
A bomb in a market on the outskirts of Islamabad on Wednesday killed 24 people. The Taliban denied responsibility.
Despite Khalil’s denial of militant links, police say he runs a faction called Ansarul Ummah, which draws support from several groups linked to al Qaeda. Investigators say Ansar is a front for the banned Harkatul Mujahideen that Khalil founded in 1985.
A cleric knowledgeable about hardline seminaries said he believed that Khalil had links with the Taliban and described him as a middleman for Taliban and government negotiators. Khalil’s role in trying to get talks going has been reported in the media.
Seminaries alliance chairman Muneebur Rehman dismissed the findings of the police report and asked, if it were true, why authorities had not done anything.
“If this report carries evidence of seminaries collaborating with Taliban for attacks, the government must go ahead and take action,” Rehman said.
But security officials say they are often hamstrung because judges are too afraid to sentence terrorists.
“Khalil has been arrested before but freed for lack of evidence,” said a top official. “Is there even one judge in this country who can convict him?”
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