Another leading JEM member, Sheikh Omar Saeed, has been charged with the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl. Pearl, the South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, disappeared last January in Karachi, and was confirmed dead a month later. Twenty seven year-old British-born Saeed, had been arrested by Indian authorities in 1994 on charges of kidnapping an American and 3 Britons, and was serving a prison sentence for terrorist offenses when he was freed along with Azhar. Both men have lived in Pakistan since being released, part of the agreement worked out following the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane. Saeed's co-accused in the Pearl case are Sheikh Mohammed Adeel, Fahad Naseem and Salman Saqib. Seven other suspects are believed to still be at large. Evidence against the men includes a video of Pearl's execution, ransom emails, and 31 witnesses including FBI agents and a taxi driver who claims to have driven Mr. Pearl to meet Saeed.

The JEM has grown rapidly since its inception. It is now thought to number several hundred and be located mainly in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan, and India's Doda and southern Kashmir regions. The group's supporters are mostly Pakistanis and Kashmiris, although it also includes Afghan and Arab veterans of the conflict in Afghanistan. As well as the Pearl murder, the JEM has been implicated in a series of terrorist incidents, including:

	April 2000: A suicide car bomb attack on the main army base in Indian-administered Kashmir.
	May 2000: An attack on Kashmir's state secretariat building. 16 rifle grenades were fired at the complex, but missed, killing a civilian and wounding 2 other people, one of them a policeman.
	June 2000: The killing of 5 people, 3 of them policemen, and wounding of 3 in three separate attacks in Srinagar.
	November 2000: A landmine planted by JEM killed 1 and injured 7 when it exploded under a vehicle carrying paramilitary soldiers in Parimpora, Srinagar.
	February 2001: A grenade attack killing 1 member of India's Border Security Force and injuring 5 others.
	March 2001: The killing of one policeman and wounding of 6 paramilitaries in a gun attack in Srinagar.

The incident which brought the JEM under the scrutiny of the United States and saw the group targeted as part of the wider war against terrorism provoked by the Sept. 11 atrocities in America took place in Oct. 1, 2001. The attack took place in Kashmir's summer capital, Srinagar, where a suicide bomber exploded a hijacked government jeep loaded with explosives outside the state assembly building, while at least two accomplices wearing police uniforms seized a building in the complex. The ensuing gun battle left 38 people dead, and caused the chief minister of the region to demand that the Indian federal government attack Kashmiri-separatist terrorist bases in Pakistan. Initially the attack was claimed to be the work of the JEM, although they later retracted this.

The United States banned the JEM in November 2001. The following month a suicide attack on the Indian parliament killed 13 people. The JEM is thought to have carried out the assault along with another Pakistani-based terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Tobia (LET). Combined with the changed geopolitical environment that had developed since Sept.11, this put Pakistan's President Musharraf under immense pressure to move against groups such as the JEM and LET. He responded by banning both organizations, although he ruled out handing over Pakistani nationals on a list of militants drawn up by Delhi to the Indian authorities. A wave of police detentions followed in Pakistan, and included members of both the JEM and LET.

Like other Kashmiri separatist groups, the JEM has enjoyed the support of a large number of madrassahs (Muslim seminaries) in Pakistan. Indeed India has claimed that Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) conducts the insurgency in Kashmir, recruiting and training terrorist groups such as the JEM before dispatching them across the line of control (LoC) dividing the state between the two countries. It is alleged that the ISI pays militants, with foreign recruits paid approximately Rs400,000- Rs5000,000 ($8,500 - $10,630) over a two-year period, half of which is paid in advance to a recruit's family, with the rest collected upon completion of contract. Pakistan denies such charges.

According to Indian estimates, some 13, 609 terrorists have been killed between 1989, when the insurgency began, and October 2001. Over 3,140 members of India's security forces have also died in a conflict which has often threatened to erupt into full-scale war between India and Pakistan. The JEM is not the only player in this conflict, but it has become a major one. Moves by Islamabad to counter it, and similar groups, which have enjoyed Pakistani support over the years, official or unofficial, are therefore welcome, even if President Musharraf must tread carefully lest he provoke domestic unrest in Pakistan.

Sources:

April 2001, "Patterns of Global Terrorism, 2000," United States Department of State.

B. Raman, "The Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM)," South Asia Analysis Group, Paper no. 376.

M. Ehsan Ahrari, "Jihadi Groups, Nuclear Pakistan, and the Great Game," Srategic Studies Institute: U.S. Army War College, August 2001.

"Pakistan: Not a Pariah, A Friend," The Economist, March 7, 2002.

Rahul Bedi, "Kashmir Insurgency is Being 'Talibanised,'" www.janes.com, October 5, 2001.

Umer Farooq, "Pakistan to Reorganize Intelligence Services," Jane's Defense Weekly, April 3, 2002.

Various articles from BBC Online.

 

By Mark Burgess CDI Research Assistant mburgess@cdi.org

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