Taliban in Karachi: the real story

[SpArK]

 

[Wood]

An easier version to read.

ON the evening of March 13, Director Orangi Pilot Project Perween Rahman was shot and killed by masked men half a kilometre from her office just off Manghopir Road in Karachi. The police were quick to point a finger at the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

In an “encounter” the very next day, they killed Qari Bilal who they claimed was a leader of the TTP and the mastermind behind Ms Rahman’s murder. Many in the development sector, however, believe she was targeted because she had fallen foul of the city’s land mafia because she was placing their activities on record. They may both well be right, even if Qari Bilal was falsely accused by law-enforcement agencies.

The latest players in Karachi’s land grab — for long the domain of those with close links to the major political parties and forces amongst the establishment here — are TTP elements who have been putting down their roots in various parts of the city over the past couple of years.

Large swathes of Pakhtun neighborhoods in districts west and east, as well as pockets in districts Malir, central and south are reported to be under the influence of the TTP. While all 30 or so of its factions have a presence in the city, the most influence is wielded by the Hakimullah Mehsud and Mullah Fazlullah factions.

According to local police and residents of the affected areas, elements belonging to the TTP have entrenched themselves in these areas after having terrorised the local Pakhtun population into submission, and driven out the ANP from most of its traditional strongholds.

In the past few years, after it won two provincial seats in the 2008 elections and acquired real political clout in Karachi, the ANP and MQM frequently clashed in a deadly turf war. Both accused the other of killing its workers. In 2010 and 2011, when the MQM began to allege that the Taliban were acquiring a presence in the city, the ANP accused it of trying to use that claim as a pretext to ethnically cleanse Karachi of Pakhtuns. However, on 13th August 2012, when an attack in Frontier Colony killed local ANP office bearer and former UC nazim, Amir Sardar, and two party workers, the ANP did not accuse the MQM. Since then, numerous ANP offices have been shut down, scores of its workers killed and many driven out of Pakhtun-dominated areas. Qadir Khan, an ANP spokesman who has now joined the MQM, says “no political party or group can stand up to these militants”.

The TTP affirmed its presence in Karachi for the first time when the organization claimed responsibility for an attack on The Business Recorder/Aaj TV offices on 25 June, 2012 as a warning to rest of the media houses in the country.

The military operations in Swat and South Waziristan in 2009 triggered the latest wave of migration of Pakhtuns, compelling tens of thousands of residents to flee the fighting. Embedded within the exodus of these desperate internally displaced people (IDPs) were a number of Taliban fighters. Although the urban jungle that is Karachi had been a refuge for the latter even earlier, the untenable situation in their native areas prompted many of them to adopt a more permanent abode here.

The new arrivals, both IDPs and the TTP militants among them, gravitated towards where their compatriots had earlier settled, mostly in katchi abadis. Thus, for example, while natives of Swat moved into places like Pathan Colony in the west and Future Colony in Landhi in the city’s south-east, an influx of Waziris and Mehsuds from Waziristan, adjoining tribal agencies and settled areas moved into Sohrab Goth, parts of Manghopir, areas along the Northern Bypass and RCD Highway. This ultimately determined which TTP faction — usually either Hakimullah Mehsud or Mullah Fazlullah as mentioned before — held sway in that particular area.

The new migrants also took shelter in pockets within the heart of the city. According to one of Karachi’s most senior cops, there are more than 7,000 fresh Mehsuds in Sultanabad locality adjacent to the PIDC Bridge.

In 2010 and 2011 TTP elements were still gaining a foothold in the city, but last year saw them flexing their muscles to establish control over areas where they had a presence.

Let us just take the area on the northern side of Manghopir hills, where Ms Rahman was murdered on her way home. The militants are so well-entrenched here that confronting them is becoming exceedingly difficult even for law-enforcement agencies.

The SHO of the Pirabad police station discovered this to his peril one night in the spring of 2012. The official had received information that several militants were attending shab-e-dars inside Masjid-e-Tayyaba on the stretch of Qasba Road that is locally known as Ghausia Road. He arrived with a contingent and arrested the imam, Qari Fazal, and the nine militants who were present. However, while his men swept the building looking for more that may have been in hiding, he realised they were being surrounded by armed men. When the SSP Orangi received his SOS, he headed to his SHO’s support with additional police. Calls to other law enforcement agencies and relevant authorities within police for backup were met with refusal. The outnumbered police officials were roughed up by the militants and finally had to negotiate their release and that of their men, as well as set free the nine heavily armed militants they had apprehended.

About 100 metres east from Masjid-e-Tayyaba on this road is a building that houses the TTP office which operates by the name of “Anti Crime Control Committee”. A short distance from this office one comes across Masjid-e-Ibrahim where members of ****** organisations gather for shab-e-dars every Thursday night. Further down Ghausia road is the dera (compound) of the transporter Haji Rohtas that was attacked with grenades last year, allegedly by the TTP for not paying extortion money in time. Swinging towards Manghopir road one comes upon Masjid-e-Aqsa and another office – euphemistically named Ittehad-e-Qabail (Tribal Alliance) – of the TTP. Less than half a kilometre from here is situated Masjid-e-Safa at Quarry Colony. Further down are Pakhtunabad, Gulzarabad and Sultanabad, which also fall within the TTP stronghold in Manghopir.

Late last year, when the government released several Taliban prisoners as a goodwill gesture towards the Karzai government, there were wild celebrations in the part of this area that lies just north of Kati Pahari. These included a procession of vehicles, including four Vigos (double-cabin pickups), packed with young men firing incessantly into the air. According to Akbar Khan, a Pakhtun resident of the area and himself no stranger to celebratory firing, one of the men was standing head first on the bonnet of the lead Vigo, balancing himself on one hand as he triumphantly fired his gun into the air with the other, over and over again. “I have never seen something like this in my life,” he says. “That is how battle-hardened they are.”

The social order in these settlements has gradually reshaped itself to allow the TTP to set up courts for residents looking for a quick resolution to their problems in places like Quarry Colony, Gulshan-e-Buner (Landhi) and Sohrab Goth. Here, the qazi presides over a jirga-like setting, to pronounce judgment in the light of a mix of tribal traditions and his understanding of the Shariah.

The close links between the TTP, the Afghan Taliban, sectarian and other ****** organisations in Pakistan’s tribal areas continue outside that theatre of war.

Khyber Mohalla, which lies towards the hill slopes east of the afore-mentioned Tayyaba Masjid , is populated mostly by Afghan refugees. Many claim that the area’s Allahu Akbar Masjid and Maulana Zarghai’s adjoining madrassa serve as a rest house for Afghan Taliban visiting the city. According to some local PPP and ANP supporters, the notorious extortionist Bhalo who now operates in tandem with the TTP lives nearby, close to the summit of the Manghopir Hills, competing for influence in the area with a lesser known criminal Kamran aka Kami who us believed to be affiliated with a sectarian group.

Further north, members of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen are reportedly holed up in Sultanabad. They were led by Maulvi Haroon until he was killed last year over a land dispute. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) and Ahle-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat (the erstwhile Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan) elements as well as a witch’s brew of “good” and “bad” Pakistani Taliban and their militant cohorts have established a presence in mosques and madrassas dotted all over the city, including Hijrat Colony just off Mai Kolachi, behind Clifton Centre, on Korangi Industrial Area Road, Shah Faisal Colony, Gulistan-e-Johar, Gulshan Iqbal Block-2, Sohrab Goth and Nagan Chowrangi.

It is important to desist from facile assumptions that Pakhtuns in the city as a whole are TTP supporters. Although the community shares the TTP’s austere Deobandi beliefs – which may have helped tar them with the same brush – most of the residents have been forced by their tribal linkages to provide space to the militants. More than anything else, the latter have established their writ through the barrel of the gun. Therefore while their number may be extremely small in some areas, these heavily armed militants wield a disproportionate amount of influence here. The few remaining social activists within these communities and some police sources suggest that over 60 IDPs were killed by the militants soon after their arrival in Karachi because they had been on the wrong side of the TTP back home.

In this city of about 20 million, the directly affected settlements have an estimated population of around one million. It is difficult to estimate how many militants are among them, but according to local residents, they number mostly in the low double digits and may not exceed a triple digit in any particular area. However, one also cannot say with any certainty how many sympathisers they have within Karachi’s Pakhtun population.

What can be stated without any doubt is that the activities of TTP elements have an enormous impact on life for the citizens of Karachi. Criminal undertakings such as bank heists, kidnappings and extortion are their favored means for raising funds for the battle in the tribal areas.

The police and other law-enforcement agencies are well aware of their modus operandi, as they are of other ****** and sectarian organizations, but they have not made substantial headway in countering them. One common reason for their limited success remains that the law enforcers hardly ever agree to timely sharing of information with others in the same trade. There is money to be made in policing the largest metropolis of the country and it suits everyone to keep the fear alive.

The information was gathered through interviews with residents of affected areas, law-enforcement officials, members and leaders of political parties and religious organizations- spanning over a period of eight months, as well as from data and maps developed by DawnGIS. Given the subject matter, most of the interviewees spoke only on condition of anonymity.

 

[UmarJustice]

Eleven Pakistani Taliban militants arrested in Karachi
Eleven Pakistani Taliban militants were arrested by the security forces in different raids carried out in Karachi on Monday, DawnNews reported.

The District West Police have arrested six militants of outlawed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) from Manghopir area and recovered arms and ammunition from their possession.

Additional IG Karachi Ghulam Shabbir Shaikh told a news conference that the alleged terrorists have been taken into custody in a raid in Sultanabad area of Manghopir.

He said the police recovered 1 SMG, 2 repeaters, 2 rocket shells, 6 TT pistols, 1 9mm pistol, 2 7mm magazine, 6 hand-grenade, 25 kg potassium and other material used in bomb-making, wires, detonators, and 150 bullets.

Meanwhile, the anti-terrorism cell of CID police carried out a raid in Karachi’s Shireen Jinnah Colony and arrested five alleged TTP members. They also recovered a large quantity of explosives and weapons from their possession.

Moreover, in a four-hour-long operation by Rangers forces, several suspected terrorists were taken into custody of the law enforcement agency in Liaquatabad’s Ilyas Goth. The Rangers, other than finding a torture cell, have recovered different types of ammunition from their possession– APP/DawnNews
Eleven Pakistani Taliban militants arrested in Karachi | Pakistan | DAWN.COM

 

[Icewolf]

I want every caught TTP militant hung in the Mazar-e-Quaid as a example

 

[niaz]

I want every caught TTP militant hung in the Mazar-e-Quaid as a example

You cannot catch every TTP follower; way to combat the situation is to change the mind-set.

In my humble opinion main problem with Taliban is the educational background. Graduates from the madrasahs especially from Salafi/Deobandi schools come out the with certain mind set accompanied with world view set in the 8th/9th century.

Any student of Islam history will know that there have been many theological strands in the development of Islamic thought and Fiqh. This trend started after the Sheihkhain (first two Caliphs) and has continued to this day.

Shiism was initially an anti-Umayyad political movement and only became a different theological strand after the Abbasids took over the Caliphate side-lining the progeny of Hazrat Ali (RA).
Main Sunni strands were the orthodox Asha’aris and the rationalists Mu’tazalites. There were also minor strands such as Muturidiyya, the Zaidis, Ismailies and the Ibadiyya (Kharjites) etc. Finally, no one can ignore Ibne Arabi’s mysticism and Taqiuddin Ibne Timmiyya’s rejection of the Sufis and insistence on the literal interpretation of Quran.

To the best of my knowledge except a brief period when Wahhabis captured Mecca & Medina (kicked out by Moh’d Ali Pasha of Egypt); Hanafi & Shafii schools of theology were the dominant among the Sunnis that constitutes about 75% of the Ummah until WW1.

With the help of the British, the Wahhabis; basically followers of Ibne Timmiya; managed to oust the moderate Al Rashids from central Arabia and succeeded in carving out the Kingdom of the house of Saud. Following the discovery of oil and ensuing immense wealth, Saudis want to force the entire Ummah into following the Wahhabi ideology.

Madrasah students are being brainwashed into believing with absolute certainty that they are on the right path with the exclusion of every other interpretation of the faith. This also indirectly implies that nearly all the Muslim generations that did not follow Hanbalite theology have been following a heretic version of Islam. This is most presumptuous view to say the least.

This dogma makes TTP and all its affiliates such as Deobandi SSP & LeJ extremely intolerant and cruel. These people are living a time warp and have transformed a peaceful, tolerant and progressive religion into a bloodthirsty barbaric creed. Shias are targeted and killed as ‘kafirs’, shrines of Sufi saints attacked and their graves desecrated and even mosques declared as ‘masjid Zarar’ and destroyed.

In my view real reason of the decline of Ottoman power was not that the rulers had strayed from the true path but because retrogressive forces within Islam collaborated with the non-believers in the destruction of 500 year old Ottoman Caliphate. Conspiracy was not so much by the outside forces but from the intolerant streak within the Islamic world. The same forces are currently at work in Pakistan and will not rest until Pakistan as we know is completely destroyed.

A ray of hope appears to come from Turkey; what is left of the old Ottoman Empire. The article noted below describes the situation in Turkey as of now. I hope that sanity has not completely died out in Pakistan and that political forces can follow the Turkish model. This would require complete government control over the subjects and the text books taught in all madrasahs in Pakistan.

However with bigots of the like of Rana Sana Ullah in the forefront of PML-N; expected winners of the next election; chances of this happening appear to be slim.

Quote

Our textual religiosity


Dr Husnul Amin
Tuesday, April 02, 2013
From Print Edition


Whereas an ever-growing number of Islamic social forces in the Muslim world are looking towards Turkey and its Justice and Development Party to replicate its workable model of democratisation as well as to imitate Islamic social movements like the Fethullah Gulen.

Countries like Tunisia and Egypt and their respective Islamist movements have positively revised their strategies taking inspiration from the Turkish model of society and statecraft in which both modern trends and Islamic values can coexist in the context of a pluralist society. Yet, one should not be surprised that this wisdom is not found in Pakistan and its self-righteous Islamist movements.

On the contrary, Pakistan and its Islamic forces (both intellectual and social) have gradually become irrelevant in the larger context of the Islam-state-society relationship. The future scene of state and societal configuration in relation to Islamic values will be determined and shaped by the Turkish model and not by the ‘Islamic’ republic of Pakistan. Modern Turkey symbolises this new trend and the Islamic cosmopolitan culture in Istanbul presents the microcosm of this Turkish model.

Based on my recent visit to Istanbul, I feel that the most interesting part of the recent Turkish upsurge is not restricted to its economic development and the strengthening of democratisation but mainly relates to achieving a considerably beautiful balance between Islam and the needs of a pluralist and open society. A society that feels pride in its Ottoman heritage, projects its art and music, welcomes its guests from diverse cultures and backgrounds and tolerates the manifestations of leisure and pleasure in the streets of Istanbul. At least for now, and in the foreseeable future, Turkey has left us far behind in the context of Islam’s role and function in a modern society.

If, on the one hand, the Turkish society has pushed back its military and Kemalist elite, on the other, it could develop a Turkified Islam that better accommodates the needs and concerns of Turkish society. In contrast, Pakistan – this ‘laboratory of Islam’ – has miserably failed in developing an indigenous and pragmatic understanding of Islam. It seems then that the framework of a modern Muslim society will be set by no other Muslim nation than Turkey.

Caught in a historical process of either transforming and controlling state and society or resolving intellectual subtleties, Islam in Pakistan seems to have lost its creative energy. Every intellectual effort ultimately ends up one way or the other in constructing an empire of ideas that is more exclusive, authoritative and absolutist. The struggle for authenticity and claims to the final truth of everyone’s interpretation could not liberate us from despondency and we failed to appreciate the needs of a cosmopolitan culture. The quiet revolution in Turkey – achieved by social movements like the Hizmet movement of Fethullah Gulen – preaches tolerance, freedom, equality and service to humanity.

Islam and society in Turkey, particularly in Istanbul, seem to have achieved a considerably attractive balance. In a number of problematic issues in the context of Islam-state and Islam-society relationships, we are all now bound to ultimately depend on the Turkish experience of an Islamic secularism. The Pakistani experience of top-down Islamisation and social control has nothing to contribute to the development of an emerging Islamic cosmopolitan culture across the Middle East. Despite our claims to authenticity and purity of Islam, as practiced in Pakistani society and manipulated by the state since its inception, the final scene is to be set and shaped by the everyday Islam/lived Islam more in the manner of the Turkish elites and the Turkish bazaar.

Here again the Pakistani religious scholarship engaged day and night in theological discourses and textual intricacies seems to have lost ground in terms of contributing to the emerging Muslim cosmopolitan culture. In the current religious landscape, even one of the few sane and rational voices, Ghamidi seems to have lost his original direction and has thus finally ventured into re-Islamisation of society.

The problem with Pakistani religious scholarship is that it tries to make sense and develop an understanding of Pakistan’s culture and society using a social theory mostly derived from doctrinal texts and not from everyday practice of common Muslims. Such efforts in our religious articulations to define, judge and explain society in the light of doctrinal sources have further complicated a set of otherwise simple and intelligible issues.

While walking in the streets and bazaars of Istanbul, my Turkish friend Osman, a volunteer of the Hizmet movement, had more clarity of the issues and problems confronted by the contemporary Muslim world than most of our religiously trained scholars. I found Osman, a clean-shaven young Turk, to be a devout Muslim. At prayer time, he would stop walking and offer his regular prayers. Then he would spend a considerable time in optional prayers and dhikr. But he did not give me the impression that I was bound to offer prayers with him. Apart from his inward religiosity and spirituality, Osman had the ability and openness of mind to accommodate the religious and cultural diversity all around him.

Hundreds of thousands of tourists from diverse cultures travel to Istanbul. A number of critical observations can be made on their dress codes and leisure practices in the streets of Istanbul. I constantly kept my gaze fixed on Osman’s response to these ‘immodesties’ as we in Pakistan would label them. Osman told me that this was the domain of personal freedoms and that any use of force by vigilante groups is counter-productive.

Upon my suggestion that most Pakistani religious circles consider ‘immodesty’ and ‘vulgarity’ to be the most daunting challenge to the Muslim world, my Turkish friend added that such things can be normally categorised as sins and it may not be a very good idea to attack them. He added that there are three major problems of the Muslim countries: iftiraq (internal divisions), faqr (poverty) and jahala (illiteracy). He declined to accept ‘immodesty’ as a concrete problem for the Muslim Ummah.

Nearly all Muslim societies are facing burgeoning new middle classes, migration, urbanisation and globalisation. These trajectories and processes have their own challenges and opportunities. We cannot stop the development of cities and the introduction of modern lifestyles associated with an urban environment. Cultural and economic globalisation come with their own challenges and opportunities.

The question is: how would you reconcile inward religiosity with the public manifestations of leisure, music, art and dress code? A textual treatment of these issues – approved by most Pakistani clergy – may never be open to the opportunity of a cosmopolitan culture. The Turkish experience of creating an intricate balance between Islam as a value system and the state and society seems to be the only logical response – at least in the near future.

To conclude, too much engagement with intellectual rigour and doctrinal intricacies – as pursued in subcontinental Islamic scholarship – and top-down Islamisation campaigns including Zia’s Islamisation project, the Afghan jihad and vigilante activism of Islamist groups have distorted the intricate balance between Islam, local culture and society. This ill-conceived and illogical struggle of social control and increasing share in the social power has resulted into a social reconfiguration characterised by intolerance and superficial religiosity.

Our intellectual and political elite fail to understand and define this distorted social configuration. Our religious clergy and extreme right-wing intelligentsia insist on accepting and explaining this situation. Despite our louder claims to project Pakistan as the leader of Islamic countries, our textual religiosity has finally dragged us to a point where we are only at the receiving end. I hope our Islamic social forces learn from the Turkish model.

The writer is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Berlin Graduate School of Muslim Cultures and Societies, Berlin, Germany.Email: husnulamin@yahoo.com


Our textual religiosity - Dr Husnul Amin
Unquote.

 

[Beerbal]

I want every caught TTP militant hung in the Mazar-e-Quaid as a example

That will have serious consequences.. TTP will become more brutal. And moreover Human right activists will not allow such medieval tortures.