India's bombs haven't killed the Jaish

“Mohabbat ka zamaana aa gaya”, Maulana Masood Azhar Alvi lamented in 2016, “the age of love is upon us.” From inside the Islamabad safehouse where he’d been confined by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government after the Jaish-e-Mohammed hit the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot, the terror commander recounted the strange workings of fate. In 2002, he recalled, General Pervez Musharraf’s government had put him in prison, where he had been “manacled to a bedstead, clothes drenched in blood”; three years earlier, he had faced similar torments in an Indian jail.

The mujahideen, he prophesied, would prevail: god had ordained for them the task of defending Pakistan’s frontiers against “its eternal enemy India, and the enemy created by the government’s policies, the regime in Afghanistan”.

He was right.

Pushed to the edge by the Pulwama suicide-bombing, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has chosen prudence over passion: the costs of a large-scale war far outweigh the potential gains of striking at terrorist groups across the border.

For the fourth time since 2002, though, India is walking away from a terrorism-induced crisis with a promise from Pakistan’s government it will act against jihadists General Pervez Musharraf banned the Jaish in 2002; Prime Minister Asif Ali Zardari shut down terror camps after 26/11; Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif jailed Masood Azhar in 2016, briefly.

In the Jaish-e-Mohammed’s headquarters in Bahawalpur, that’s being understood as a sign of weakness — meaning more lethal attacks are, almost certainly, just weeks or months away.

Heads of the serpent

In 2009, just months after 26/11, Masood Azhar’s brother, Abdul Rauf Rasheed Alvi, arrived at a small government office in Bahawalpur to register the purchase of 9 acres and 1 kanal of farmland off the Bahawalpur-Karachi highway. For a stated value of ₹1.5 million, documents obtained by Firstpost show , local resident Ahmad Nayeem sold the property to Rauf and his partner Rashid Ahmed on 23 March that year. The property has now flowered into a sprawling Jaish-e-Mohammed seminary on the outskirts of the city, with space for 12,000 students — the heart of its jihadist empire.

The story of that seminary shows just how committed Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishment is to keeping the Jaish untouchable—even as its political leadership promises the international community it will act.

Following the suicide-bomb attack on the Central Reserve Police Force in Pulwama, Pakistan had announced that it was taking over administration of the Jama-e-Masjid Subhanallah in Bahawalpur, allegedly the headquarters of Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Then, just a day later, Bahawalpur Deputy Commissioner Shahzaib Saeed told a group of visiting journalists it was just “routine seminary having no link with the Jaish-e-Mohammed.” Fawwad Chaudhury, information minister for Punjab, weighed in, too, proclaiming “ India is doing propaganda that it is the Jaish-e-Muhammad’s headquarters.”

From the documents Firstpost has obtained, it is clear the Pakistan government lined up to lie. Rauf, the owner of the property, was sanctioned by the United States Treasury Department in 2010 for his role in “deadly attacks against innocent civilians in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.”

Perhaps more important, he was identified by the Jaish’s own house journal, al-Qalam, as “General of the Jaish-e-Mohammed”, in its February 9, 2017 issue. The magazine said Rauf, had addressed a mosque gathering in the village of Gumtala, telling it that “Islam is a world power and cannot be destroyed,” the cleric who led the congregation said, “whoever tries to destroy it will be destroyed himself. He went on: “Jihad is the most important obligation of our faith.”

In 2010, the organisation put jihad veteran Maulana Ghulam Murtaza in charge of reviving the al-Rahmat trust, once run by Allah Baksh, the Azhar brothers’ father. The trust began soliciting funds in Pakistan and the Gulf monarchies, to build mosques and seminaries. That year, a Jaish-affiliated publication said the trust was paying pensions to the families of at least 850 jihadists killed or imprisoned in India, as well as in other countries

In 2016, footage surfaced showing showed young men outside the Jamia Uloom-e-Islam seminary in Karachi—alma mater to several jihadist leaders including Masood Azhar, and al-Qaeda’s Indian-born regional chief, Sami-ul-Haq—collecting funds from congregants, saying it was for “the brave young men of the Jaish-e-Mohammed who are fighting for the victory of the name of god and Islam.” Local police stood by.

Pakistan’s National Counter-Terrorism Authority, NACTA, states on its website that the organisation was proscribed on January 14, 2002—which leaves open the question of how Rauf was able to collect the funds needed to purchase the land on which the Bahawalpur seminary flourished.

Few terrorist groups have high officials so willing to lie on their behalf. After 26/11, Pakistan said he had been put under arrest. A week later Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi declared he had disappeared abroad. Following Pathankot, even as Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed action against Jaish terrorists, the perpetrators were allowed to disappear.

This patronage goes to the heart of why India will struggle to degrade the Jaish-e-Mohammed’s terror capabilities, irrespective of how many cross-border strikes it carries out.

Is the Jaish hurt?

From along the Mansehra-Balakote road, at the village of Jaba, a bright-red arrow on top of a blue signboard points towards the mountains: “Madrasa Taleem ul-Quran” it reads, ‘seminary for education in the Quran.’ The small lettering at the bottom tells passers-by the institution runs under the sarparasti, or guardianship, of Maulana Masood Azhar. His brother-in-law, Muhammad Yusuf Azhar, husband to Ruqayya, one of twelve siblings, is identified as as the executive in-charge. Phone numbers are helpfully provided.

Research and Analysis Wing analysts, who have been examining intercepted communications traffic after the Madrasa Taleem ul-Quran was bombed by the Indian Air Force on February 26, have told the National Security Council they believe some 90 jihadists were killed in the strike—the largest single loss the jihadist group has ever suffered.

The dead, RAW believes, includes three retired former Pakistan Army personnel serving as trainers and seven individuals who served in command capacities with Jaish-e-Mohammed fighting units. The killed, RAW believes, consisted both of fighters being trained to reinforce Taliban ranks in Afghanistan, and cadre pulled back from the Line of Control to preempt an Indian land-based strike.

Even though Pakistani and foreign journalists have visited the area around the signboard, and reported little damage was evident other than to trees, their reports make clear none was allowed to travel into the hills, along the path pointed to by the signboard. Local villagers say the area had been cordoned off by troops soon after the air strikes, and that even local police were not allowed on to the site.

Bahawalpur-based sources told Firspost at least three Jaish volunteers who left for training at Balakote early in February could not be contacted by their families after the attacks—even though an audio message circulated on WhatsApp from Rauf mocked India’s claims.

There is no no witness testimony that allows independent assessment of RAW’s claims, or those of the Jaish and Pakistan.

Images produced by the super-secret National Technical Research Organisation’s spy satellites, which used to organise the February 26 air strikes and seen by Firstpost, show at least mid-sized large earthworks, as well as larger, tin-roofed structure.

The images suggest 100-150 people could have been housed at the site—consistent with satellite photographs of the same camp the Federal Bureau of Investigations had used in 2007, during the trial of alleged terrorists Hamid and Umar Hayat.

Larger numbers are thought to be present at a larger Jaish-e-Mohammed camp at nearby Garhi Habibullah—though the facility there is closer to civilian populations, like the organisation’s great centres in Bahawalpur.

Even if the Jaish did sustain the losses India hopes for, though, it’s unclear if these would have any strategic impact. The scholar Afsandyar Mir has noted it took the United States over 400 precision airstrikes, conducted with drones loitering in leisure over their targets, to degrade al-Qaeda in Waziristan.

The Jaish-e-Muhammad, moreover, has a pool of rural recruits from which it replenishes its ranks, a ready supply of funds, and, most important, government patronage.

Maximum terror

Even as India was preparing its response to the Pulwama attacks, we know the Jaish-e-Mohammed was at work, too. The February 28 issue of al-Qalam is peppered with references to meetings held across Pakistan, where young people are recruited to the group. In Karachi, the magazine records, there were “magnificent gathering at two locations, where hundreds of volunteers assembled to learn about the realities of jihad Mufti Khalilullah.” In Bahawalpur, clerics led by district-in-charge Rana Shahid led similar gatherings, in the name of the emir-ul-mujahideen, Masood Azhar.

Inside Kashmir, India’s intelligence services are increasingly worried planning for future attacks is already underway. Police have been seeking Mudassir Khan, a one-time resident of the village in Midoora in Tral, who is thought to be at the core of cell planning attacks outside the state—possibly in New Delhi, or other major cities.

The networks were assembled painstakingly from 2014 on, when top ethnic-Kashmiri Jaish operative Noor Muhammad Tantrey was released from prison on parole, and promptly rejoined the group. His recruits—Pulwama suicide-bomber Adil Dar among them—are now in place to strike when ordered to.

From Masood Azhar’s words, it is clear he believes the game is going his way. “There are people who say the Pulwama attack has aided Modi,” he writes in the al-Qalam. “People who say this understand neither Indian politics, nor the Hindu mindset. If the government of Pakistan shows resolve at this juncture, instead of succumbing to pressure, Modi will roll backward.”

The confidence stems from the realisation of the Jaish-e-Mohammed’s special place in Pakistan’s security establishment: as a trusted linking the army to the wider world of its jihadist allies. Nizamuddin Shamzai, Azhar’s mentor, long served as a mediator between the Taliban and Pakistan’s military. Rauf himself has negotiated between jihadists opposed to the Pakistani state and the army. The organisation has been key to healing the rifts between the state and the jihadist movement that opened up after 9/11.

Like the Lernaean Hydra, the many-headed serpent of Greek mythology, the Jaish-e-Mohammed has proved invulnerable to decapitation. India needs a new strategy—but it’s hard to see what it could be.

Pakistan’s action against terror outfits

Pervez Musharraf government, January 2002

General Pervez Musharraf bans five extremist outfits – Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Sipah-e-Sahaba (Sunni outfit), Tehreek-I-Jafria Pakistan (Shia outfit), Tehreek-I-Nifaz-e-Sharaiat Mohammedi (which took Pakistani fighters to Afghanistan)

Musharraf says Pakistan would continue moral and political support to the Kashmir movement, but no one would be allowed to indulge in terror in the name of Kashmir. However he rules out handing over of any Pakistani citizen to India.

Asif Ali Zardari government, December 2008

Pakistan’s ambassador to UN Abdullah Hussain Haroon signals that the Asif Ali Zardari government would take action against the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an alias of Lashkar-e-Taiba, after the United Nations Security Council added it to the list of entities known to support al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Pakistani security forces raided Lashkar camps and offices and rounded up two senior LeT members, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah, named by India as involved in the Mumbai attacks, along with a handful of Lashkar-e-Taiba fighters.

Nawaz Sharif government, July 2018

After a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan detains several leaders of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, suspected to have engineered the Pathankot attack. The action comes just two days ahead of foreign secretary S Jaishankar’s scheduled visit to Islamabad for talks with his counterpart on resuming the bilateral dialogue process

Action against Masood Azhar

December, 2001

Soon after the Indian parliament attack, Masood Azhar was detained for a year by Pakistani authorities, but never formally charged. The Lahore High Court ordered him released December 14, 2002

December, 2008

It was rumoured that Azhar was among several arrested by the Pakistani government after a raid on a Muzaffarabad camp after the Mumbai attacks. The government denied it had arrested him, and Azhar remained out of sight for six years. He reappeared on January 26, 2014 and has been addressing jihadist rallies and raising funds and fidayeen for JeM

Action Against Hafiz Saeed

9 August, 2006

Pakistan arrests Hafiz Saeed, keeps him under house arrest till he is ordered released by Lahore High Court on August 28.

He is arrested again on the same day and finally released on a Lahore High Court order on October 17, 2006

11 December, 2008

Hafiz Saeed placed under house arrest after the UN declares Jamaat-ud-Dawa to be an LeT front, until early June 2009, when the Lahore High Court orders his release.

25 August, 2009

Interpol issues a red notice against Hafiz Saeed, along with Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi, after Indian requests

September 2009

Hafiz Saeed placed under house arrest

12 October, 2009

Lahore High Court quashes all cases against Hafiz Saeed and sets him free while also declaring that the Jama’at-ud-Da’wah is not a banned organisation

April 2012

United States announces a bounty of $10 million on Hafeez Saeed for his role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks