Maverick's World

The strange case of Fazl ur Rehman Khalil

I have just heard about the recent attack on Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil is one of the old hands of the jihad. He was the head of the Harkat ul Mujaheddin though over the past decade, some felt that he was increasingly in the background. Fazlur Rehman Khalil was recently in the news firstly on account of a somewhat public disagreement with Maulana Muhammed Farooq Kashmiri, the HUM's chief of operations and later in connection with the Umer Hayat (r/o Lodi California) . It may be recalled that FBI informants suggested that people in Lodi had hosted Ayman al Zawahiri, the "Al Qaida No. 2" .

Some Indian analysts have suggested that Musharraf is having a hard time on two fronts. One the one hand, the US is making increasing demands to have people like Fazlur Rehman Khalil arrested and brought to trial in the US. Initially Fazlur Rehman had allegedly been interviewed by the FBI, but if Harkat Ul Mujaheddin has overseas operations in the US - as evidenced by the training of Umer and Hamid Hayat at the Tamal/Tarnal terrorist training camp near Rawalpindi, American pressure will be very high. On the other hand, Pakistani Deobandi clerics are the core of the Taliban, and most radical Islamist groups in Pakistan. Most of the assasination attempts on Musharraf have been organized by the Deobandis. Musharraf cannot openly challenge the Deobandis into a showdown. This is a fight he will not win.

Fazlur Rehman is not some random person that anyone can pick up and beat up. He always travels with a heavily armed escort (that fellow you see in the back of the photograph is one his personal bodyguards and he carries an AK-47 assault rifle) . Whoever beat Khalil up, didn't get into a firefight with Fazl's escorts. This narrows the field down to someone who knew the guards and whom the guards did not feel they had the authority to stop. This narrows it down to two suspects - the Pakistan Army ISI people that run the HUM or Maulana Farooq Kashmiri - the heir apparent to the HUM.

A man of Maulana Khalil's stature has been killed in Pakistan- one would expect a massive upsurge of violence to follow and yet everything is quiet. There are no riots, no shia mosques being blown up, no christian churches being bombed. And all this while - one of the most respected warriors of Islam is battling for his life after having been beaten by unknown people. There is no attempt made by the press secretary of the HUM to ask the government to investigate the matter, and the mullahs who can't wait to scream at a moment's notice are keeping very very quiet.

There is one thing however - the US can no longer ask for Maulana Fazlur Rehman's extradition. From what I hear - Maulana Rehman is unable to get up from his bed.

And that my friends, concludes the strange case of Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil.

I wonder what the Harkat's website will have to say about this.

posted by maverick @ 12:12 PM