US puts Pak’s role in terror under scrutiny

WASHINGTON, AUGUST 11: The Clinton Administration is on the verge of declaring the Lashkar-e-Toiba a terrorist organisation and has put th...

WASHINGTON, AUGUST 11: The Clinton Administration is on the verge of declaring the Lashkar-e-Toiba a terrorist organisation and has put the Hizbul Mujahideen on a watchlist in a process that also examines Pakistan’s official complicity in terrorist activity.

In fact, President Clinton has sent a stiff letter to Gen Pervez Musharraf about the rising violence in Kashmir, including the massacre of 100 people when the ceasefire was declared. The unprecedented letter, which followed Clinton’s telephonic conversation with Vajpayee, is seen by many analysts here as an indication of the rising concern in the administration about the path Pakistan is taking, analysts say.

Informed administration sources said the delay with regard to declaring Lashkar a terrorist organisation was only procedural. “We are dotting the i’s and dashing the t’s. We need to have a watertight case that will stand up in court because the designation can be legally challenged,” one official told The Indian Express.

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The official said the administration was also closely watching the Hizbul Mujaheddin and would begin the same process (of declaring it a terrorist organisation) if it was established that the organisation had gotten more violent.

Although the state department has outright condemned yesterday’s Srinagar blast that killed 11 people (for which both Lashkar and Hizb have claimed responsibility), the official said Washington was still assessing the situation since it was apparent the Hizb was deeply divided. There is a lot of manouevring going on, the official said.

The administration was fully aware that there were schisms in the Hizb, including the fact that while the ceasefire declaration had come from Srinagar, its reversal had come from Islamabad, the official said, concurring with the emerging view that the more radical of the Hizb organisation, headed by Syed Salahudin, was being run by Pakistan.

Asked if the transparent hosting and subversion of Syed Salahudin of Hizbul by Pakistan and his declarations of terrorist strikes against India from Pakistani soil did not amount to official complicity by Islamabad, a state department official said: “We are pressing Pakistan on this issue. It is not a good thing.”

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There is a recognition that with the Lahore process and initiation of dialogue with Hizbul, India is giving it a fair try. Kargil and the sabotaging of the peace process has nailed Pakistan, said Harold Gould, a South Asia scholar at the University of Virginia.

In recent weeks, the US media has reported extensively on Pakistans Jihad Universities that are training impressionable teenagers in fundamentalist theology and violence as a way of life. The latest story on the subject inFriday’s edition of Washington Times, included a breathless assertion by a fundamentalist teacher that eventually all people of the world mustbecome Muslims, including Christians and Jews.

Clinton administration officials say they have been trying to press the Musharraf government to rein in such madrassas (religious schools) and get a handle on the syllabus (that teach nothing by fundamentalist theology), but so far they have had little success.