Crimson tide

More than three years after being stormed by the military’s elite commandos, the Lal Masjid still stands in the heart of Islamabad — a defiant symbol of radical Islam’s increasing influence over society.

The Jamia Hafsa, then just a mosque and an affiliated women’s seminary, has since grown since into a network of madrassas through the country, a public welfare organisation and, it is speculated, now a potential militant group setting out to avenge the killing of Ghazi Abdul Rasheed, one of the two radical clerics who once controlled Lal Masjid.

The semi-secretive network of seminaries and the charity are closely connected and complement each other in accomplishing their shared goal — winning public sympathy and goodwill to attract more people to their madrassas and eventually to their greater cause.

Naturally, the third arm is the most controversial: Pakistani intelligence agencies believe the network operates a militant gang called Ghazi Force, presided over by Maulana Niaz Raheem, one of several thousand students at Jamia Faridia, the men’s religious seminary affiliated with the Lal Masjid.

But clerics associated with Lal Masjid deny any links with Ghazi Force. “Niaz Raheem once studied with us but we haven’t heard of him being leader of a terror outfit,” claims Mufti Tehseenullah, one of the teachers at Lal Masjid who has completed a religious course after which one can issue edicts from Jamia Faridia.

“We can’t stop anyone from using our name. I have never incited violence,” says Maulana Abdul Aziz Ghazi, the elder brother of Rasheed, who attempted to escape the 2007 attack on Lal Masjid in a burqa.

Aziz now controls more than three dozen seminaries all over Pakistan — from the mountainous Dir valley in Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa to the agrarian plains of Rajanpur at the border between Punjab and Balochistan provinces — as mohatam or supervisor.

the network

The Lal Masjid administration publicly owns only 20 madrassahs of the 40 allegedly working under it. According to Mufti Tehseenullah, of the 20 seminaries associated with Lal Masjid, 16 are in Islamabad, of which 15 are for women.

The institution for boys is in a neighbourhood that houses retired military officials, politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats. Jamiatul Uloom Al-Islamia Al-Faridia commonly known as Jamia Faridia, is in the foothills of  the Margallas; 1,200 students between the ages of 12 and 30 from all over Pakistan are enrolled in it.

Kept in an insulated world, their access to newspapers, mobile phones, radio and television is banned. They are rarely allowed visitors and an hour between the late afternoon and early evening is the only time they can go out, that too in groups.  “This helps them concentrate on their studies, which are daunting,” says Maulana Muhammad Tahir, a graduate of the madrassa who now teaches there. “Otherwise get would get involved in worldly things.”

Blocking exposure to the world also helps administrations at radical seminaries train young minds according to their specifications.

“Once their hearts and minds are controlled, these students are entirely subservient to the ideology of their teachers,” says Amir Rana, the head of an Islamabad-based think tank, which studies, among other things, behavioral aspects of terrorism. “That’s why we have willing suicide bombers.”

The 15 female seminaries are in different suburbs of Islamabad, mainly poor neighbourhoods. Together these madrassas have absorbed the students that formerly made up the Jamia Hafsa, the seminary at the heart of the controversy that led to the bloody attack on the Lal Masjid. The total strength of students at these seminaries is 4,500 according to Tehseenullah whereas when the Ghazi brothers launched their ‘anti-vulgarity’ campaign in 2007, 8,000 burqa-clad, stick-wielding women were part of the drive to ‘clean’ the city of “unIslamic activities”.

Meanwhile, the passion for establishing an Islamic state and society is still alive and even more vigorous in these female students. Events of 2007 cemented their radical thinking rather than changing their worldview.

“Nothing can deter us from demanding the implementation of the Sharia,” said Sidra Uftaj, 18, who was one of the last students who escaped the Jamia Hafsa with Umme Hassan and is now in her final year of studies. “We were on the right path and we knew it…that’s why we accepted death but refused to surrender.”

The then government put casualties at little over 100 while the Lal Masjid administration claimed more than 1,000 students died.

The repercussion of the attack on Lal Masjid has been a surge in al-Qaeda-inspired militancy in Pakistan. But according to some officials in Pakistani security agencies, it was necessary to prevent the Taliban from establishing a network from Islamabad to Swat and from Swat to Waziristan to strengthen their hold on the country.

“We would have seen several Lal Masjids spring up in various areas between Islamabad and Swat had the one in the capital been spared,” said one security official.

But according to some analysts the move against the mosque took place under American pressure because the Lal Masjid housed the widows and orphans of al Qaeda operatives who died in Afghanistan.

Whatever the reason, the storming of Lal Masjid has cast a long shadow on the Pakistani state and society and motivated Taliban insurgents.

“That was a turning point in the war on terror. Pakistani Taliban started to disown the country,” said Zahid Hussain, a journalist and author who has been covering the rise of Taliban in Pakistan.

ghazi force

Security officials claim that the Taliban would not have emerged in Swat valley had Lal Masjid not been attacked.

“The militants’ original plan was to strengthen their bases before emerging and giving counter-terror forces a tough time,” says Hussain. But Lal Masjid made them rush their plans and ultimately they surfaced in Swat prematurely. “Had they moved according to initial planning, Swat would have been as difficult for the army as Waziristan.”

Along with the Swat Taliban, the Ghazi Force also emerged from the wreckage. According to security agencies, it was set up by a former student of the Jamia Faridia, Maulana Niaz Raheem, together with pupils of the Ghazi brothers in the Galjo area of the Orakzai tribal region that was then controlled by Hakimullah Mehsud.

Militants from the group have been involved in attacks on security forces and high profile targets. A classified document reveals that six Ghazi Force militants have been arrested from Islamabad alone.

The group’s most devastating attack was on a by-election day in the Buner district of Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa which killed 109 people. In Swat, 12 people died when the group blew up a bridge. An attack on a United Nations agency in Islamabad was also traced to Ghazi Force, making it one of the most potentially  dangerous militant organisations, according to the document.

Though the Lal Masjid’s administration denies these allegations, security officials say there is a definite link between Ghazi Force militants and Jamia Faridia.Why Pakistani intelligence agencies have not moved against the seminary is a mystery. It could be because of fear of the backlash.

charity

Like other banned and jihadi outfits, slain Lal Masjid leader Ghazi Abdul Rasheed was ingenious enough to establish a public welfare wing of the mosque. Al-Qasim Foundation was set up immediately after the 2005 earthquake and delivered relief goods worth Rs100 million to affectees under Ghazi’s supervision. The charity is still active under Maulana Abdul Aziz.

Jamia Faridia students provide the manpower for the charity and donations come from not only within the country but also from Islamic states in the Arab Gulf including Saudi Arabia, said Shahzad Abbasi, one of the administrators of the charity.

Lal Masjid has undoubtedly spread its wings all over Pakistan in one way or the other. Only time to come will tell how long a shadow it casts.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 15^th, 2010.