Has the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba split as well?
By Ali K Chishti
The NATO and ISAF command in Afghanistan has recently witnessed a new kind of enemy, which, according to a NATO commander, "is not the Taliban or the Haqqani group", Daily Times confirmed. Officials confirm the presence of a new, more modern and sophisticated Punjabi Taliban in Kunar province of Afghanistan. They are a more militant section of the Pakistan-backed Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) who had broken off from their mother organisation and refused to take orders from LeT supremo, Hafiz Saeed.
In reality, this rebellious group, which had just split from the LeT, is the old Tehreekul Mujahideen (TM) and a faction of the previously split Kairun Naas (KN) of the LeT, which had been formed by the more fanatical Ahl-e-Hadith that held the Kashmir Conference in 1990, attended by both Hafiz Saeed and Professor Sajid Mir. Daily Times investigations reveal two reasons behind the split: Pakistani intelligence agencies have finally decided to split the jihadi groups as a policy to make them weaker, and Jamaatud Dawa (JD), LeT, TM and KN split as they had become too powerful; sectarian and ideological tensions within the Ahl-e-Hadith faction about the concept of jihad, as the more fanatical group fighting in Afghanistan is more into the Arab Mujahideen camp.
It is to be noted that previously a faction split from the JD in 2004 when armed clashes broke out in the premises of its headquarters, and the breakaway faction, KN, vowed to kill Hafiz Saeed, the JD head. Saeed had previously joined the Afghan jihad pretty late in 1987 on the insistence of Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, who had traditionally headed the operational part of the LeT.
Organisational structures of the JD and LeT were severely hurt by accusations from within the JD about Hafiz Saeed's involvement in nepotism, corruption, his second marriage to a fallen comrade's widow, which became a personal issue with Prof Iqbal, a top JD council member, who himself married an underage Baltistani girl. In a series of blunders, Saeed appointed his brother-in-law, Maulana Abdul Rehman Makki, then a teacher at Medina University in Saudi Arabia, second in command of JD, which did not go down well with a lot of people, especially with Lakhvi, as it was seen as an attempt by Saeed to control the finances of JD.
In 2001, Saeed also came under fire when he renamed Markaz Dawat Wal Irshad as Jamaatud Dawa, and separated it from LeT. Lakhvi disapproved of the decision then and Daily Times can confirm that he has finally fallen out with the JD chief now and is in-charge of most of JD's properties in Sindh and directly controls the Muridke centre, popularly known as 'Markaz-e-Tayyaba'. Lakhvi, said to be the mastermind behind the Mumbai attacks, has developed links with Arab militants in Pakistan, where he married his sister off with the top al Qaeda terrorist, Abdul Rehman Sherahi. He was the one who helped Lakhvi connect with top al Qaeda and Arab leaders, and heavily invested in LeT's infrastructure.
It should also be taken into account that the Jamaat Ahl-e-Hadith also opposed the formation of Markaz Dawat Wal Irshad (JD) because of possible Saudi support to it, which did not happen. JD was also barred from recruiting students from the Ahl-e-Hadith madrassas as they were under the control of Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith and openly supported by the Saudis. And it looks now, confirmed a former spy chief, "that the new rogue part of JD fighting in Pakistan could well be those who were behind 26/11 in Mumbai, you never know."
Interior Ministry officials confirmed to Daily Times about an American request to probe into the affairs of many Pakistani jihadis who are joining various Arab and Afghan forces in Afghanistan and FATA to carry out attacks on the ISAF forces, especially in Kunar province of Afghanistan.
