Intelligence update: Ghazi Force is gaining ground, says reports

Senate panel told that fears grow for more suicide attacks in the capital

ISLAMABAD:

The Ghazi Force, a militant outfit formed during Lal Masjid’s siege in 2007, is again gaining ground, resurrecting fears of suicide bombings in Islamabad, intelligence agencies and local police reports suggested.

After the Peshawar school massacre, Mullah Sabi and Mullah Rahim established contacts with Lal Masjid cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, in an attempt to revive the Ghazi Force to fight against Lal Masjid critics, said reports submitted to the Senate Standing Committee on Interior the other day.



“Police and intelligence agencies have identified 198 suspected militants who are believed to be working for the Ghazi Force,” disclosed the Islamabad police in one such report.

The Ghazi Force, which derived its name from the late Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the deputy cleric of Lal Masjid, has claimed responsibility for many blasts in the federal capital.

Some 111 suspects, allegedly linked with the Ghazi Force, have been kept under surveillance by the intelligence agencies and Islamabad police, said another report.

The Islamabad police is interrogating 53 such suspects who are believed to be working for the Ghazi Force, it further revealed, adding that the Islamabad police physically checked up 56 Ghazi Force facilitators.

The police have also traced hideouts of 51 suspects while 65 sympathisers of the suspects are still at large, pointed out the report.

“After the Peshawar school massacre, recruitment for the Ghazi Force could surge,” observed ex-IGP Islamabad Bani Amin Khan, who once launched a crackdown against this force in Islamabad.

“Dormant elements could take revenge of recent campaign against Lal Masjid and its affiliated madrassa Jamia Hafsa,” he said.  Mullah Sabir was commanding 164 dangerous terrorists who have facilitated in more than 21 suicide blasts in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, he recalled.

The Islamabad Capital Administration has already listed Maulana Aziz to fourth schedule and his security has been withdrawn, police officials said. Despite pardon application by Maulana Aziz, his name was not removed.

MQM Senator Tahir Mashhadi, who along with two other senators staged a token walkout in protest over the absence of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali in the meeting, demanded immediate arrest of Maulana Aziz.

“He [Aziz] must be put behind bars, we must try facilitators and well-wishers of terrorists,” he told The Express Tribune.



Maulana Aziz rebutted agencies’ claim by saying: “I’m not in contact with the Ghazi Force.” He, however, was of the view that some youth following Islamic teachings formed this force on their own. “I’ve been advised to restrict my movement due to security concerns,” Aziz told The Express Tribune.

Child smuggling

A senior official of the interior ministry informed the Senate panel that children were being smuggled to Afghanistan for waging Jihad.

“One such example is a boy who was kidnapped from Sector G-7 of Islamabad and trained in Afghanistan by Taliban for Jihad,” Additional Secretary Interior Asghar Chaudhry said.

The kid had been in contact with his mother for years but finally his mother was informed that her son had been killed in a drone strike, he added.

At this, Senator Talha Mahmood, who was chairing the committee meeting, expressed grave concerns over the rising trend of kidnapping in the capital.

Interestingly, not a single person was convicted in kidnapping cases in the federal capital though police have registered 99 such cases last year, the Senate panel was informed.  Only two men were convicted in 2012 while 110 cases were registered while in 2011 one person was convicted and police registered 76 cases, the panel was told.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 22^nd, 2015.