“The whole world will hear of me.” – Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, a.k.a Carlos, The Jackal, 1970.

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Homo Homini Lupus

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Muridke, Punjab

Islamic Republic of Pakistan

October 2000

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’’جہاد میں گزارا ہوا ایک دن بھی سو سال کی عبادت سے افضل ہے۔‘‘

“Even one day spent in jihad is better than a hundred years spent in worship.”

The words, spoken in chaste Urdu, were delivered in a flat monotone, devoid of emotion, the voice soft but slightly high-pitched, almost effeminate. The man who spoke them sat cross-legged by the window, on a red and black striped rug that covered the floor, wall to wall.

It was the voice of Lashkar-e-Taiba(LeT) chief, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, a.k.a Abu Hafiz, a.k.a Emir. The LeT is a particularly murderous Government-backed terrorist outfit in Pakistan. The US, the UN, India & Canada have officially designated the LeT as a terrorist organization.

Ailing from the after-effects of six high velocity APS rounds he received while planting an IED years back near Kunduz, northern Afghanistan, he leaned against some large cushions to support his back. From time to time, he grimaced as he twisted his torso to his right to pick up the cup of heavily scented cardamom tea that he drank in gallons throughout the day.

Yes, he had known and fearlessly courted pain. He had exulted in suffering as no one in the Afghan War ever had. To his faithful, he was known as the Emir. The name on his birth certificate – Hafeez Mohammad Saeed.

Well into his 60s, the Emir was short, overweight and entirely humorless. His perceived faith, Islam, did not take kindly to any kind of humor. Laughter, jocularity, amusement or pranks, these were frivolous…….. haram.

“Haram” – In Arabic or Urdu, the word means abominable, unlawful, or sacred restriction. It is also the direct opposite of “halal”, which means permitted or lawful. Islam brands a 1000 times more things condemned as haram, than halal. In predominantly Muslim-inhabited areas of any city, one finds the word ‘halal’ on the fronts of restaurants to assure Muslims that it is safe to eat their food. Likewise, butchers serving those locales display the word on their fronts. But I digress.

His pig eyes barely open in slits, the Emir’s eyelids flickered constantly every few seconds, the way that the eyes of someone trying on contact lenses for the first time, would do. True to the stereotype of an Islamic fanatic, he had a beard, though it was moderate in length and his hair was long and unkempt, most of it hidden under a pakol, a round-topped Pashtun cap that is made of wool and looks like a round bottomed bag when not worn. The wearer usually rolls up the sides nearly to the top, forming a thick band, which then rests on the head like a beret.

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A few feet away from the Emir, a heavyset and heavily bearded man sat on the floor in the shadows, by the door. Everyone here was bearded. If you were clean shaven, there is a chance you could receive a 7.62mm projectile, exiting the barrel of a Kalashnikov at 715 meters per second, right between your eyes, before you could even begin to explain yourself.

The hulk’s eyes were half closed, appearing to be in the midst of grabbing a shut-eye. He was actually wide awake and extremely alert, the fingers of his right hand only inches away from a 9mm Mauser automatic which lay flat on the rug next to him, it’s safety off.

Known as just ‘Suleman’, the mountain of a man was the Luca Brasi to the Emir’s Don Corleone. Like Luca he didn’t say a word, didn’t even nod, but unlike the Godfather heavy, Suleman accompanied the Emir wherever he went, like a shadow, staying with the Emir, from dawn every day, right until he retired for the night.

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Suleman’s loyalty to the Emir was total. It is easy to be ready to give your life for a man to whom you owe it. Two decades prior, a Soviet fragmentation grenade shrapnel had removed a part of his brain that powered long-term memory. But it was the one day that Suleman would never forget…..

It was late 1986 and the writing for the Soviet forces was on the proverbial wall. Morale was low and frequently Soviet infantrymen had to be threatened with execution if they didn’t stand and fight the fanatically committed Mujahedeen. How could you fight a culture that was willing and ready to die? The Soviet economy in shambles, the Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev, would soon make up his mind to withdraw from an unwinnable war. But that was still months away.

Late one night in November, outside Kunduz in Northern Afghanistan, Suleman was sitting at the wheel of the Toyota Tundra, waiting for the Emir (he was known only as Abu Hafiz then) and six of his Pakistani jihadis, who were putting the finishing touches to the camouflage over an IED on the dirt road that Soviet replenishment convoys frequently took, when entering through Tajikistan. Abu Hafiz was one of the few Pakistanis who were fighting alongside the Ahmed Shah Masood-led Northern Alliance. Masood, the Tajik-born ‘Lion of Panjshir’ had taken to the young Pakistani Mujahid who would one day be known as the Lion of Lahore.

Maybe they were upwind, because they didn’t hear it coming. Suddenly they came under withering fire from a Spetsnaz platoon that had materialized out of nowhere over a knoll just yards away, dropped off by an Mi-24 Hind and the next thing he knew, a fragmentation grenade came crashing through the windshield and skittered around next to his foot.

Suleman dove but unfortunately not far enough. When he came to, he felt himself moving, slung over someone’s shoulders. It was Abu Hafiz and he was staggering under Suleman’s 220lb weight and trying not to lose his footing as he slipped and slid over the rocky terrain. All the others died that night, but not before wiping out the entire Spetsnaz platoon. The Mi-24 had tried to back-track and beat the hell out but that was a mistake it would regret – the sharp turn slowed it down and got blown out of the sky by a CIA-provided infra-red homing Stinger that one of the Mujahid had had ready.

“Leave me here, Abu Hafiz, go while you can. Inshallah, I’ll make my own way back if I can,” said Suleman, his words hoarse with pain, jerky with the bobbing that the Emir’s shoulders did as he ran.

“If I left you here, how would I be any different from those infidel animals, Bhaijan?” panted the Emir.

It was only after they had reached the tiny hamlet of Kamshar, that Abu Hafiz collapsed and let the tribesmen take over and nurse them back to health. No one really can tell how he was able to cover that distance with a 220lb load and six rounds in his back. It was seen as a miracle and Abu Hafiz was elevated to Emir, a status which was considered a hair-breadth short of Prophet.

Since that day, Suleman has made protecting the Emir his mission in life. If you wanted to take the Emir down, there was no question that you would have to kill Suleman first.

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After  9/11 and the consequent paradigm shift in the security environment of the world, Pakistan’s security establishment could no longer openly patronize terrorist organizations.

But prior to that, in October 2000, they could and they did. It was the time when the Lashkar-e-Taiba could still operate openly with impunity. It’s minders, the Pakistani Intelligence Agency, ISI, restrained it from carrying out those operations that might precipitate a full-scale war with India.

Meanwhile, with American funding arranged by a misguided Texas Republican congressman named Charlie Wilson, the ISI had set the Emir and his followers up in a sprawling 1200-acre compound on a picture-perfect countryside just outside Pakistan’s cultural capital, Lahore.

(Charlie Wilson(1933-2010) resides in infamy, hopefully in hell, now known worldwide, thanks largely to the 2007 Tom Hanks film, “Charlie Wilson’s war”).

Back in those days, The Lashkar-e-Taiba had a different, far more deceptive, name – Markaz Daawat Wal Irshad (Center for preaching and guidance). The then Pakistani President, Zia-ul-Haque’s Islamization of Pakistan had laid the groundwork for the channeling of millions of US aid dollars to the Muridke compound which boasted a state-of-the art security system operated by the ISI. It had schools, farms, factories and all sorts of facilities within it.

The Emir’s aim had been to create a Medinat-al-Tayyiba, a pure city that would reflect life inside Prophet Muhammad’s 7th century Medina – an environment where there would be no music, no images, no TV, no movies, nothing – just prayer. The only ‘entertainment’ would be barbaric Islamic warrior songs played over loudspeakers and available in music cassettes. Women would be subservient, human but not entirely human. There would be no divorces and no such thing as a sexual abuse complaints.

One could easily liken the Muridke compound to an accurate image of what hell really looked like.

Inside this ‘utopia’, the Markaz would enforce the Ahl-e-Hadith school of thought, a particularly virulent strain of the Saudi Wahhabism, which believed that there was no such thing as love, peace, democracy, secularism, multi-culturism and universal brotherhood. The only form of existence was in armed struggle, until the following were achieved……

• Mass conversions to Islam
• A gradual ‘purification’ until the whole world was Muslim, with the formation of one state, the State of Islam, with one single religion and one single system of justice and governance, the Sharia.
• During the interim period, when the process of the said purification was ongoing, non-Muslims would have to pay a jizya, a ‘protection tax’.
• There would be no challenges to the establishment of the new Islamic world order and therefore every able-bodied Muslim man and woman would have to undergo compulsory military training. Democracy would seize to exist.

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There was a tiny paradox here that the Emir might have failed to recognize – since only non-Muslims were required to pay the jizya tax, I should think that it would be in the Muslim rulers’ interests to let their non-Muslim subjects remain non-Muslim. The state would no longer be able to collect the jizya tax once they were converted, no?

But hey, to expect Islamic militants to make sense is insanity in itself.

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The Muridke compound still exists and nothing has changed. It is still a nation within a nation. Like Waziristan, the north-western border region of Pakistan, the normal laws of the land do not apply to the Muridke compound. Unlike Waziristan, it is situated in the heart of Pakistan and wholly sponsored by the Pakistani state. It is like a black hole with an event horizon that no one who enters ever leaves.

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That evening, the Emir had a visitor, a white man, an American, who sat a few yards away and it was to him that he had directed those words about a day in jihad being better than a hundred years in worship.

When the visitor sat down, he did attempt but failed to cross his legs, not being used to sitting on the floor. He sat instead, on his butt, his arms folded over his knees and he listened to the old man, rapt.

Yes, even though he was soft-spoken, the Emir commanded total attention when he spoke. Swaying ordinary Pakistanis into putting their faith and their lives into armed struggle and martyrdom, propelling them into a pattern of blind hatred that is incomprehensible to any westerner, required charisma and the Emir had oodles of it. He had demonstrated it in fact, when the American had walked in. He seemed to know everything about him – his marriages, his kids in the US, his drug smuggling escapades, his arrest with the 2kgs of pure heroin at Peshawar, the brief incarceration, the sudden born-again-Muslim awakening and finally, the release by the ISI into the custody and care of the Emir.

The American felt like a child, being told after he had been naughty that it was all right, everything would be fine.

“Islam,” the Emir spoke,” means submission, to the will of Tawhid, the one God and to his sole messenger, Hazrat Muhammad, our Prophet.” His beady, blinking eyes settled on the American. Then, noting the American’s wildly charged-up eagerness, he launched into another diatribe….

“Look at it this way – Even though there are five oceans and as many seas and all have their own currents, there is technically actually one ocean in the world, one body of water. The Pacific may not know that it’s waters might wash up at the shores of the Atlantic. Similarly there is only one religion in the world – Islam. It is just a matter of time before Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Jews and all those others, realize this. They don’t know it now but they were all actually born Muslims. We all belong to one faith and one God and we follow one Prophet – Hazrat Muhammad. Our job, yours and mine, is to accelerate that process of Islamization of the world. We have to work toward the day when there will no longer be any infidels, because every human being will then be a brother of the faith.

With that, the beady eyes opened a bit wider and rested upon the American, the gaze reptilian, devoid of emotion. He was expecting some sign of comprehension.

“Point me, Emir,” stuttered the American, his Urdu not as fine as the Emir’s,” Show me the direction you want me on. I am ready.”

“Stay here tonight. Suleman Bhai will show you to your lodgings. Tomorrow, there will be a man, a fauji (military officer), who will explain what needs to be done. Upto now, we have never attempted anything spectacular, like multi-target, multi-operative, large-scale strikes that stretch over days. Having you with the brothers could change that. Inshallah, you will be one of our greatest jihadis, one whose name will be spoken in awe, for years from now. Allah Hafeez, Bhaijaan.”

The American saw the man called Suleman rise and approach the Emir. As he passed by the American, he paused for an instant, to give him a look that said – I am going to watch you every millisecond, asshole.

Suleman stopped by the Emir, stooped and with a gentleness that would come as a shock to anyone who knew what he was capable of, helped the old man rise and followed him through the door, out of sight.

The American too made to rise but the man named Sajid placed a hand on his shoulder and said, “Please, remain seated for a while – a normal security precaution.”

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Ps:

The Muridke compound still stands, untouched till this day though, thankfully, the Emir’s vision – that one day the whole world would emulate the Muridke ‘commune’ – hasn’t yet become reality.

Muridke boasts some very high profile alumni….

Ramzi Yousef – Kuwaiti-born militant responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in Manhattan. Status – apprehended in Islamabad, Pakistan and extradited and incarcerated in the US, serving life without the possibility of parole.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammad – Pakistan-born 9/11 mastermind. Status – Extradited and incarcerated in the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, no way he will ever see freedom again.

Anwar Al Awlaki – American-born Yemeni bomb-maker and terrorist master mind. Status – vaporized by a Hellfire missile from an American MQ9-Reaper drone in 2011, when his convoy stopped for refreshments while driving through the Yemeni desert.

And now, the American I referred to in this post – David Coleman Headley (aka Daood Sayed Gilani), Pakistan-born son of ex-Pakistani diplomat and white Christian American mother, drug trafficker, FBI informant, 2008 Mumbai terrorist strike planner. Status – incarcerated in the US, scheduled to be released in 2048, when he will be 87-years old.

If David Coleman Headley’s crimes had been against the US instead of India, I am certain he would have fried or at the least, received at life without parole.

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One hopes and prays that some day, there will be an MQ-9 with a Hellfire and the name, “Hafeez Mohammad Saeed” on it. He has flipped the bird for too long.