The Terrorist Next Door: Pakistan’s Hammad Adil

The Terrorist Next Door: Pakistan’s Hammad Adil

Early on August 30, 2013, a large contingent of the Anti-Terrorist Squad of Islamabad’s Capital Territory Police along with officials from intelligence agencies, the Special Branch and Criminal Investigations Departments, raided the house of Muhammad Adil, a property dealer, in a suburb of Islamabad. The police were looking for high value al-Qaeda suspects after being tipped off. The raid turned out to be a huge success, resulting in the recovery of 130 kilograms of explosives packed inside a car, all set to be used as a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED), along with handguns and maps of sensitive installations. They also found a dead body buried in the lawn. As a result of this evidence, the police arrested Hammad Adil, one of Muhammad’s sons, who was living at the residence (Dawn [Karachi], September 17, 2013). Adil’s arrest led to the discovery of a well-organized terrorist cell and extended network that had carried out numerous attacks within Islamabad.

Background

Born in a middle class but highly religious business family, Hammad received his early education in Lahore and graduated from the International Islamic University in Islamabad. According to his father and brother, Hammad ran away from their family home in Islamabad in 2007 to join the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in order to train at a camp in North Waziristan. His brother Kamran somehow managed to bring Hammad back but only disclosed Hammad’s connections with the TTP to authorities after his arrest. [1] Hammad initially joined TTP through his connections with the organization’s Punjabi wing.

Evidence confirms Hammad Adil’s involvement in several high-profile cases of terrorism in Islamabad, including the:

What the ensuing media attention missed was the fact that one of Hammad’s brothers, Kamran, who also lived at the house, was a senior police officer and member of Pakistan’s most prestigious police service. Police and intelligence agencies were initially skeptical about Hammad’s direct involvement in the cases he confessed to. How could a member of the family bury a terrorist in the family’s lawn right under the nose of a distinguished police officer?

Local residents later confessed that they were suspicious about the activities of Hammad and his links with jihadist groups. [3] A local journalist strongly condemned the role of Hammad’s brother and commented: “Where was this honest police officer, Kamran Adil, at that time? Why [did] Kamran remain silent about his brother’s activities all the time? Why [did] Kamran never inform the intelligence agencies?” [4] No action was ultimately taken against Kamran.

Connections to Other Jihadist Groups

As their investigation progressed, the officers were startled at the sheer magnitude of Hammad’s terrorist activities and his connections to several jihadist groups in Pakistan in addition to the TTP. He had connections with Punjabi Taliban groups Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) and Harkat-ul Mujahideen (HuM), helping provide financial and logistical resources that were required for conducting operations in the Islamabad Capital Territory. He had also established links with Deobandi organizations such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jaysh-e-Muhammad (The News [Islamabad], September 19, 2013). Hammad also had connections to al-Qaeda Central based in the territories controlled by the TTP. For example, al-Qaeda sent an Arab suicide bomber to Adil’s cell in Islamabad, who Adil directed to attack the Danish Embassy. [5]

Hammad’s association with Kashmiri Islamist groups emerged during the very first phase of the investigations, after some of his accomplices were arrested at a hospital in neighboring Rawalpindi. Injured members of the cell were taken to the Quad-e-Azam Hospital, where they were treated by Dr. Mujahid Gillani, a nephew of Asiya Andrabi. Andrabi is the leader of Dukhtran-e-Millat, an Islamist organization that operates in Indian-held Kashmir. Two other nephews of Andrabi were also arrested in connection with Hammad Adil’s cell. It may be the case that Hammad somehow managed to develop a rapport with HuJI’s splinter faction, Brigade-313, led by Ilyas Kashmiri, who was working closely with al-Qaeda in collusion with TTP, and is based in tribal areas. [6]

The TTP’s Islamabad Cell

Hammad’s cell is a case study revealing the nature and structure of al-Qaeda-linked urban area cells. The group was small and membership was restricted. According to police investigation reports, there were no more than 13 active members, though not all took part in every terrorist attack planned and executed by the cell. Core members were Hammad Adil, Omar Abdullah (a.k.a. Ghulamullah), Tanweer and Haris Khan. Tanweer was their point man in executing operations, while planning and logistics were handled by Hammad and Omar Abdullah (The News [Islamabad], September 19, 2013). Hammad was also pivotal in the reconnaissance of police and other security agencies’ offices and installations. No other known Islamist terrorist managed to collect as high-level information as Hammad (The News [Islamabad], June 25, 2013).

Hammad Adil had an advantage in conducting terrorist operations: he had access to all police stations and offices of senior police officers in Islamabad and adjoining Rawalpindi through his older brother Kamran. Hammad was well aware of the police culture, their response time to incidents and their overall strengths and weaknesses. Both the attack on the Danish Embassy and the assassination attempt on Federal Minister of Religious Affairs Hamid Saeed Kazmi took place in areas where Kamran Adil had been posted.

Hammad’s arrest led to dissolution of the cell. Those arrested in connection included Adnan Adil (Hammad’s brother), Saad and Fahad (sons of retired government officers) and Abdullah Omar. Omar is the son of Colonel Khalid Mehmood Abbasi, who was involved in assassination attempts on former President General Pervez Musharraf (Pakistan Observer, September 20, 2013).

The body recovered from the lawn of Adil’s family home was that of Haris Khan. Khan was seriously injured a shootout with police guards accompanying the slain FIA prosecutor Choudhry Zulfiqar Ali in May 2013. Hammad tried to have them treated at the Quad-e-Azam hospital. Abdullah Omar received bullet wounds that paralyzed his lower body. Khan succumbed to injuries and Hammad buried him at the Adil family home (The News [Islamabad], July 19).

Conclusion

It is evident from the activities of the Hammad Adil Cell that al-Qaeda-linked urban area terrorist cells are adept in niche construction. The cell members initially connected with each other while some of them were studying at the International Islamic University in Islamabad. They carefully planned all of their terror strikes keeping in view the impact of every terrorist attack. That the cell members remained at large for a number of years despite their high-profile terrorist activities proves their adaptability and sharing of information only on a need-to-know-basis, quintessential requirements for the effective working and endurance of a terrorist network. The cell structure also presents a loose network of networks that terrorist groups have been able to establish in urban areas of Pakistan (The News [Islamabad], September 28, 2013).

Urban cells are difficult to detect and can inflict large-scale destruction because of their ingress of state institutions. Hammad Adil’s cell clearly shows al-Qaeda’s preference for perpetrating acts of terrorism in urban areas. The case of Hammad Adil is also indicative of increasing Islamist trends in urban-middle class youth of Pakistan society. The involvement of family members of senior bureaucrats, police officers and military officers is not something new in Pakistan. Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber in 2009, was the son of a retired air-vice marshal (Dawn [Karachi], June 18, 2010).

Farhan Zahid writes on counter-terrorism, ai-Qaeda, Pakistani al-Qaeda-linked groups, Islamist violent non-state actors in Pakistan, militant landscapes in Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban.

Notes

1. Discussion about the case with former Senior Superintendent of Police, Islamabad, May 4, 2014.

2. Author’s discussions with senior police officers and investigating officers about the cases registered against the Hammad Adil Cell, June 5, 2014, Islamabad.

3. Discussions with local residents, July 10, 2014, Islamabad.

4. Discussions with local journalist, July 10, 2014, Islamabad.

5. Khurram Iqbal, Evolution of Suicide Bombings in Pakistan, Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies, www.san-pips.com/download.php?f=142.pdf.

6. “Terrorism-related Incidents in Islamabad-2013,” South Asia Terrorism Portal, September 11, 2013, https://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/punjab/datasheet/Islamabad_incident2013.htm; “Three nephews of DEM founder-chairperson Syed Asiya Andrabi arrested in Islamabad over terror links,” South Asia Terrorism Portal, September 11, 2013, https://www.satp.org/satporgtp/detailed_news.asp?date1=9/11/2013&id=10#10.