Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak

Inside Jihad
It was incidents such as this which brought LeT to the US State
Department’s attention and, in 2002, it was placed on the USA’s list of
terrorist organizations. Musharraf, having declared his support for the
war on terror, had little choice but to ban it. But the ban had little affect
on LeT’s power. Before it was even announced, the LeT leadership
had shifted their base to Indian-controlled Kashmir. This relieved
some of the political pressure from Musharraf as it made it more
difficult to claim that the Pakistani government was behind the Fidayin
attacks. While an entirely new Kashmiri leadership was appointed to
run the military wing, in Pakistan the outfit started working under the
banner of its political wing, Jamaat-ud Da’awa, with Hafiz Saeed as its
head. The new organization ostensibly restricted its role to preaching,
education and social welfare. But in reality it never ceased working in
support of the Kashmiri jihad. 28
LeT leaders admit that the proscription slowed down their operation
in Kashmir, but it certainly didn’t stop it; a large number of its militants
were still based in its camps in Muzaffarabad in Pakistani-controlled
Kashmir. After initial restraint, LeT was back recruiting volunteers and
its donation boxes had reemerged at public places and mosques. In
a speech on March 2004, Hafiz Saeed had declared that more than
7,000 new volunteers had received military training at LeT camps in
the previous six months. The first congregation of Jamaat-ud Da’awa
held in November 2002, after the government’s action against LeT,
attracted more than 100,000 people.
It was apparent that Jamaat-ud Da’awa was just a cover to avoid
international scrutiny. Neither its militant infrastructure nor its
propaganda machinery had stopped functioning. The group continued
to publish several magazines and run a website. Interestingly, no
LeT activist was arrested in the government’s crackdown on Islamic
extremists. After being detained for a few months, Hafiz Saeed was
freed by a High Court order in December 2002 and then moved freely
around the country, mobilizing Muslims for jihad. ‘For us jihad is sacred
like praying and fasting that cannot be forsaken under any condition,’
he declared at the end of his detention. ‘Ours is not such a cowardly
party as to bow down before the US pressure for halting support to
jihad. 29 The Pakistan government placed Jamaat-ud Da’awa on the
‘terror watch list’ in 2003, but the action did not affect its activities,
which included running a huge network of hospitals and schools.
While continuing the struggle in Kashmir, LeT had its own reason
not to take on the government. ‘Our main objective is to wage jihad