A Holy Warrior Reborn: Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil Enters Pakistan’s Mainstream
A Holy Warrior Reborn: Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil Enters Pakistan’s Mainstream
Once an infamous militant leader who unleashed a reign of terror in India’s Jammu and Kashmir in the early 1990s, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil looks poised for an image makeover. Recently, Khalil has launched a political front in Pakistan, and he has worked in assisting the government’s de-radicalization drives through his famed Deobandi madrasa (religious seminary) Jamia Khalid bin al-Waleed, as well as issuing and supporting pro-government fatwas (religious diktats) denouncing militant violence in Pakistan.
One of the founding leaders of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM, Movement of the Holy Warriors) and a core commander of the dreaded Harkat Triad—the other two being Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami and Harkat ul Ansar—Fazlur Rehman Khalil has changed the tone of his rhetoric many times to survive, and even thrive, in Pakistan’s ever-shifting militant landscape. Therefore, it is not surprising that he presently aims to enter into Pakistan’s political arena under the banner of Islah-e-Watan Party, which he says will work for the promotion of peace and tranquility in Pakistan.
Early Militancy
Fazlur Rehman Khalil, a veteran of Afghan and Kashmir jihad movements, co-founded Harakat-ul-Jihad-ul-Islami (HuJI) in 1980 with two other renowned militant personalities, Irshad Ahmad and Qari Saifullah Akhtar. [1]
Now in his mid-50s, Fazlur Rehman Khalil studied in Karachi’s Jamia Uloom-ul-Islamia, located in Binori Town. Presently, he is based in Rawalpindi, the Pakistani garrison city adjacent to the capital Islamabad. A known religious cleric and Islamic scholar, Fazlur Rehman Khalil was a signatory of Osama bin Laden’s February 1998 fatwa against Israel and the West, the “International Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders” (IIF). [2] Though he was wrongly named in the media as one of the five original signatories, Khalil came into the IIF later, after a U.S. cruise missile attack killed many HuM militants in an al-Qaeda training camp in Khost, Afghanistan, in August 1998. His name was often confused with another original signatory, Fazlur Rehman, the Amir of the jihadist movement in Bangladesh. The Khost bombing prompted Khalil to vow revenge against America.
Khalil was listed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the U.S. Department of Treasury in September 2014. [3] However, even earlier, his organizations, such as HuM and Ansar-ul-Umma (AU), came under scrutiny and proscription in Pakistan and elsewhere (e.g. the United States and India). HuM was first listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. Department of State in 1997. [4] After HuM’s ban, Khalil renamed the group as Ansarul Ummah, claiming that the new group was engaged in religious preaching, politics and social-humanitarian services, albeit in an effort to avoid international sanctions. Despite this rebranding, then-Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf banned HuM in January 2002. In mid-2014, the United States also classified Ansarul Ummah as an HuM front organization. Though both Khalil and his AU openly operate in Pakistan, raising funds and recruiting youths for jihad, neighboring India banned AU under its Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in April 2015 (Economic Times, April 13, 2015).
After his designation as a global terrorist in 2014, Fazlur Rehman Khalil vehemently rejected the ban, openly challenging the decision as “unjust” and blaming it on his support for the Palestinian cause. He was quoted at the time as saying that he and his organizations had “never been involved in terrorism,” and were instead “Islamic Mujahideen” (Express Tribune, October 2, 2014).
After the formation of HuM under Khalil’s leadership, the group’s jihadist activities were undertaken in Afghanistan. Khali had successfully forged links with Maulvi Yunus Khalis of Hizb- e-Islami and played important role in supplying manpower and raising funds for the Afghan jihad in the 1980s. As the U.S. Department of Treasury noted, in his capacity as HuM emir, Khalil wielded immense control over HuM’s overall affairs, including financial decisions. He even traveled to the Middle East for donations for HuM operations. [5]
Kashmir Jihad
Khalil once stated candidly: “I have fought with the Americans in Afghanistan […] But I haven’t gone to Kashmir for a single day” (New Indian Express, March 29; Associated Press, March 29).
After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, HuM shifted its focus to the Kashmir theater as part of the Pakistani military’s grand strategy to relocate its proxies. As with HuM, other Pakistani-sponsored militant groups began to call for Kashmir’s secession from India and its accession to Pakistan. With a pan-Islamic ideology, HuM, with all its formations and its leader Fazlur Rehman Khalil, has remained steadfast in its efforts to achieve the secession of Jammu and Kashmir from India through violence. Even today, Khalil has been a regular in pro-Kashmir rallies across the country along with likeminded religious extremist groups and leaders (e.g. Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamat, Jamiat Ulema Islam and Jammat ud Dawa) that the Pakistani establishment has supported for several decades. Khalil openly states that “Jihad is the only way to liberate Kashmir from Indian occupation.” He once, during a Kashmir rally in Islamabad in 2016, even urged the Pakistani government to cut off diplomatic and trade ties with India (The Fortress, July 15, 2016).
Khalil and his trusted commanders in the Harkat Triad were blamed for two major militant operations against India in the 1990s, as well as for many other violent attacks targeting India. His group was suspected to be behind the 1995 hostage crisis in Kashmir. A front group, al-Faran, took six foreigners hostage to negotiate the release of Pakistani terrorists in Indian prisons. When the Indian government refused to accept their demands, the abductors killed the hostages (Express Tribune, June 25, 2011). In December 1999, HuM leaders in Pakistan masterminded the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight IC 814, which they used to leverage the release of several high-profile militants—Maulana Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Mushtak Ahmed Zargar (Rediff.com, December 28, 2004). Included in the release was Khalil’s protégé, Masood Azhar, who went on to establish his own militant group, Jaish-e-Muhammed, in early 2000. However, in February of that year, Fazlur Rehman Khalil reportedly stepped down as HuM leader. His fellow militant Farooq Kashmiri took over the reins of HuM and Kashmir operations.
HuM has operated training camps in Muzaffarabad, in Pakistan Administered Kashmir, Rawalpindi and several other locations in Pakistan, especially in the border regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. It once had a robust presence Kashmir’s Srinagar, Budgam, Pulwama, Baramullah and Rajouri districts. Khalil reportedly personally supervised camps and madrasas located in Pakistan’s territory (India TV News/ Press Trust of India, June 16, 2011).
In addition to the attacks on Indian soil, a HuM faction, HuM-Al Alami, and its leadership are linked to several notable terrorist events in Pakistan—most notably the June 2002 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Karachi that killed 11 people and the abduction and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in January 2002. Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was released by the Indian authorities in exchange for hostages in December 1999, masterminded Pearl’s abduction and killing.
While evidence of Fazlur Rehman Khalil’s direct role in many of these events remains tenuous, his fellow militant followers carried them out under his watch and influence. After 9/11, Khalil maintained a low profile as secretary general of HuM. With his considerable clout intact even after he stepped down from his active role within HuM, he activated his networks and influence to support the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the wake of the U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. Khalil openly recruited and sent militants to Afghanistan in the name of “Holy War” to fight along with the Taliban.
In May 2004, Khalil was arrested and detained for a few months for sending Pakistani militants into the Afghan war zones (Pakistan Herald, October 13, 2014). Though initially under pressure by the Musharraf government due to U.S. pressure, the government used Khalil, and his considerable stature among other militant groups, in negotiations over the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque, Islamabad) standoff in July 2007. He was one of the few clerics appointed by the Musharraf government to negotiate with the militants and their leaders before the military stormed the mosque (The News, July 10, 2007). Again, in October 2009, the Pakistani government asked for Khalil’s help— along with other pro-Pakistan militant leaders—to hold talks with the militants who had stormed the Pakistan Army’s General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi and had taken many hostages (The Nation, October 12, 2009; Rediff.com, October 16, 2009).
Entering the Mainstream
Like Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and its leadership who entered the mainstream, dabbling in social welfare and humanitarian activities, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil too has jumped into the political sphere with the proposed launch of the Islah-e-Watan Party (IWP) (Pakistan Today, August 25, 2017). According to Khalil, the IWP will work to promote peace and tranquility in the country, to mobilize the masses against corruption and to raise issues like the government’s failure to meet people’s basic needs—like food and water, shelter, access to affordable healthcare. His political posturing also uses anti-U.S. rhetoric aimed at harnessing popular sentiment in Pakistan. Khalil once criticized U.S. President Donald Trump and threatened to make Pakistan into a “graveyard” for aggressive (U.S.) forces (Pakistan Today, August 25, 2017). This was not the first occasion when Khalil threatened U.S. forces. In 1998, Khalil publicly issued a warning against the United States at a news conference. He said, “For each of us killed or wounded in the cowardly U.S. attack, at least 100 Americans will be killed. I may not be alive, but you will remember my words” (The News, October 4, 2014).
It should be noted that Khalil was a major voice against NATO forces routing supplies to Afghanistan through Pakistan. He used the Difa-e-Pakistan Council, an umbrella group of anti-India and anti-U.S./NATO political and religious parties, to put pressure on the Pakistani government against any facilitation of NATO, the United States or India (The Express Tribune, May 06, 2012).
Conclusion
In mid-January of this year, more than 1,800 religious scholars issued a fatwa forbidding suicide bombings in Pakistan. Khalil has been vocal about his strong endorsement for the directive. Active in social media, Khalil reached out to his followers, voicing concern about the ongoing suicide attacks, bombings and killing of civilians in Pakistan and characterizing them as against Sharia law. Along with his change of tune, Khalil has made efforts to reach out to support Afghanistan’s President Ghani in issuing a similar fatwa (Associated Press, March 29; Khaama Press, March 29). He advised President Ghani to invite Islamic scholars to issue a fatwa similar to Pakistan and even offered to help draft the fatwa.
Despite this outward shift in his position, many of Khalil’s statements remain irreconcilable with his actions. Khalil continues to participate in pro-Kashmir rallies, calling for jihad (YouTube, May 7, 2017). Meanwhile, he publically condemns suicide bombings and acts of terrorism elsewhere. Although this calls into question Khalil’s true positon, such a dissonance is not uncommon among the veterans of Kashmiri jihad who are currently under rehabilitation under the Pakistani government’s watch.
While several pro-Kashmir militant groups, including HuM, have lost their relevance in a changing geopolitical situation, Pakistan has made clear efforts to protect and rehabilitate its proxies. Like Lashkar e Taiba, HuM continues to be a banned militant outfit in Pakistan and elsewhere. Nevertheless, its leaders, such as Fazlur Rahman Khalil, maintain a significant domestic following and clout. Pakistan’s security services consider many such men to be assets who can help guard the state against anti-Pakistani elements and the ideologies espoused by al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Islamic State. Therefore, Khalil’s rebranding is likely a savvy move for survival, aligning him with the government’s effort to integrate militant-linked groups that maintain significant domestic followings into mainstream politics and civil life in Pakistan.
NOTES
[1] Amir Rana, Gateway to Terrorism, New Millennium, London, 2003, p.264-265 [2] “Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders: World Islamic Front Statement”, February 23, 1998, https://fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm [3] “Treasury Department Targets Senior Official and Support Networks of Two Pakistan-based Terrorist Groups”, September 30, 2014, https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl2653.aspx [4] Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations: Harakat ul-Mujahidin (HUM), August 10, 1997, https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm [5] “Treasury Department Targets Senior Official and Support Networks of Two Pakistan-based Terrorist Groups”, September 30, 2014, https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl2653.aspx
