Nice article on the topic
Purging Pakistan\'s jihadi legacy
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - The silent tug of war being fought between the Pakistani army\'s Islamists and its liberal army leadership appears to have reached a boiling point, with well-placed sources telling Asia Times Online that the army, for the first time in its history, has taken on a different - and much more harsh - strategy to deal with its internal struggles, one that includes the death penalty. In the 1980s, for the sake of maintaining its \"strategic depth\" against India, the Pakistani army modified the structure of its jihadi outfits, with the aim of boosting its leverage in Central Asia and Afghanistan before forging a strategic alliance to establish Pakistan\'s political hegemony on South Asia. Since September 11, 2001, however, under immense US pressure, Pakistan was forced to take a U-turn and undo this policy, which resulted in many internal divisions within the army - the only organized institution in the country. Over the past year, several pictures have emerged to support this connection, but the latest discovery by Asia Times Online points to an obvious change already in place.
Behind the iron curtains of Pakistan\'s military bases, an army that for two decades was oriented in Muslim renaissance and pan-Islamism dwells. Whatever little news that spills out from the closed doors of the army\'s cells is enough to determine that a serious problem has indeed been simmering since September 11; President General Pervez Musharraf himself admitted after the two failed attempts on his life in Rawalpindi late last year that army officials were involved in the conspiracy.
Musharraf reacted to the situation in a number of ways, including by court-martialing the renegade officials and sending officials who were not ready to go along with government\'s U-turn policy into early retirement. But this was not enough. Well-placed sources maintain that cases of indiscipline and defiance were so rampant after the South Waziristan operation [1] on the Afghanistan border this year that the government decided to deal with the situation with an iron fist, and has adopted a new modus operandi to deal with problem.
Under the new strategy, all those who were officially assigned to government-sponsored military training camps in the past, in Afghanistan and Pakistani Azad (Free) Kashmir, are now viewed as a threat to the government, and the process of \"cleansing\" them from the army has already begun. This includes both commissioned and non-commissioned army officials.
The basis of this new assumption is a study on all those who officially interacted with militants in training camps. Instead of cultivating the militants, the camps imbibed their radical influences and in many instances were found to be taking part in activities geared against Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and other national targets. As a way to deal with these dissenters, for the first time in the history of Pakistan, defiant commissioned and non-commissioned army officials can be given the death penalty.
According to information from well-placed sources, the first death sentence was issued to soldier Muhammed Islam Siddiqi, army number 8831068, on October 20 by a military court. Among the number of charges laid, the most significant one relates to abetting a mutiny against Musharraf. Siddiqi is also charged with receiving terrorism training in Bhimber (Azad Jammu and Kashmir) during August 2002 at the \"Maasker\", a training camp of terrorist group Jaish-e- Mohammed; attempting to seduce a person in the military forces of Pakistan from his allegiance to the government of Pakistan; departing from Pakistan without a passport at the Pak-Afghan border; and maintaining associations with a tanzeem (organization) of Pakistan air-force personnel that was advancing a plot to eliminate Musharraf. He was caught in South Waziristan, where he refused to fight against the insurgent tribes.
It is interesting to note that in Azad Kashmir, sources say all jihadi camps have been closed by the Pakistani army and all past training operations that were part of the Inter-Services Intelligence\'s (ISI\'s) forward section operation, and those who were trained in the camps - whether operated by Jaish-e-Mohammed or any other organization - were subject to prior approval by ISI cell officials. Having said that, Siddiqi was posted there on official assignment. Even the banned Jaish-e-Mohammed (renamed as Khuddamul Islam) is still part of the 13-member United Jihad Council, supported by the government of Pakistan.
Sources say Siddiqi is a model case, with several other soldiers said to have secretly faced identical trials, who in many cases were also issued the death sentence. These cases indicate that the military leadership of the country has decided to open a Pandora\'s box to expose its men and their jihadi connections, with the aim of wiping the slate clean.
Apart from all other aspects of the charges, Siddiqi\'s case is indicative of the trends simmering within the Pakistani army. Announcing a death sentence for Siddiqi is symbolic of the struggle to oppress the growing voices of dissent, and how pro- and anti-US divisions have taken place within the army.
It is important to note, however, that conspiracies and defiance in the Pakistani army are not a new phenomenon; they have been occurring on a much broader scale, but a review on the handling of those cases indicates they were dealt with in a much less harsh manner:
In February 1951, 13 army officers and four civilians were arrested on conspiracy charges. The detainees included among others Chief of General Staff Major-General Akbar Khan, Air Commodore Mohammed Khan Janjua, Major-General Nazir Ahmed, Brigadier Siddiq Khan, Brigadier Latif Khan, Naseem Akbar Khan, and famous poet and then editor of the Pakistan Times Faiz Ahmed Faiz. They were accused of conspiring with communists and revolutionary elements to bring about a military takeover. After a few years of detention, all accused were set free. However, military personnel were expelled from service. The case is best known throughout Pakistan as the Rawalpindi conspiracy.
On January 6, 1968, the government announced that 28 people had been arrested on charges of hatching a plot to bring about the secession of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The accused also included naval official Lieutenant-Commander Muazzam Hussain, a non-commissioned seaman. The then president, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, released all accused after a few years\' jail. The case is known as the Agartala conspiracy.
Several officers of Pakistan\'s army and air force were arrested on March 30, 1973, on charges of conspiring to overthrow the government of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. The detainees included Major Farooq Adam, Major Nadir Pervez (who later became a federal minister in the Nawaz Sharif government), Brigadier Wajid Ali Shah, Colonel Hamdani, and Major Ayaz Sipra, and a total of 59 officers were declared conspirators. The case is well known as the Attock conspiracy. Fifteen army and four air-force officers were found guilty of conspiracy and were handed jail terms ranging from three months to life.
The Tajammul Hussain Malik conspiracy case is another example in which several military officials allegedly tried to launch a coup against the Zia ul-Haq government in 1980. The officers involved were set free after a plane crash in which General Zia ul-Haq died.
Several army officers were arrested on January 3, 1984, for hatching a conspiracy against the Zia ul-Haq government in connivance with India. The case is known as the Attock conspiracy case II. Several were freed because of a lack of evidence and a few were sentenced to jail.
Operation Khilafah is another case in which Major-General Zaheerul Islam Abbasi and other army officials allegedly try to topple Benazir Bhutto\'s government in the mid-1990s. The military court only sentenced the officials involved to a few years\' imprisonment, beside expelling the officers from service.
All of the above incidents appear to have been more serious than the one involving Siddiqi and the dozens of other recent cases in which several commissioned and non-commissioned officials were given extreme penalties - including death - demonstrating just how serious the situation really is.
Notes
[1] On US pressure, 70,000 Pakistani troops were deployed to the tribal areas on the Pak-Afghan border, where they fought a massive operation in South Waziristan in early 2004 against foreign fighters and their pro-Taliban supporters. However, despite air-force supremacy, the ratio of casualties on the government side remained very high and dozens of commissioned and non-commissioned officers refused to take part in action against tribals on religious grounds.
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