[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 45 (Friday, March 10, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E575-E576]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


               PAKISTAN-BASED GROUPS TRAINS HOLY WARRIORS

                                 ______


                           HON. SHERROD BROWN

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, March 10, 1995
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, two American diplomats lie dead and 
another seriously wounded after Wednesday's brutal attack in Karachi, 
Pakistan. These Americans were gunned down when their vehicle stopped 
at a traffic light on Karachi's busiest road while the employees were 
en route to work in the service of the United States.
  Mr. Speaker, Karachi is a city out of control, and Pakistan's 
continuing support of international terrorism has come home to roost. 
The Cleveland Plain Dealer has run just today an article that first 
appeared in the Washington Post in which Karachi is described as a 
``city of violence,'' where Islamic militancy is the rule and not the 
exception.
  Mr. Speaker, this tragedy illustrates our need to stop terrorism no 
matter where it occurs. If American citizens in Pakistan are not safe 
when they are representing their country, then we must demand 
protection. If the Government of Pakistan cannot ensure their 
protection, we must take action to protect them ourselves.
            [From the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Mar. 10, 1995]

               Pakistan-Based Group Trains Holy Warriors

                (By John Ward Anderson and Kamran Khan)
       Karachi, Pakistan.--On the third Thursday of every month, a 
     bus with about two dozen young men pulls away from a secret 
     rendezvous point in this port city and travels 600 miles 
     north to a base in Afghanistan, where the men spend 40 days 
     in basic training for a worldwide holy war.
       The camp, just north of the Pakistani border town of Miram 
     Shah, is operated by Harkatul Ansar (Movement of Friends), a 
     radical group headquartered in the Pakistani capital, 
     Islamabad, that is sworn to fight for the global supremacy of 
     Islam. Since 1987, more than 4,000 militants--including 
     Pakistanis, Indians, Arabs from several countries and a small 
     number of Americans--have been trained by the group in making 
     bombs, throwing hand grenades and shooting assault weapons, 
     members of the group said.
       ``Ours is a truly international network of genuine Muslim 
     holy warriors,'' said Khalid Awan, who joined Harkat, as the 
     group is popularly known, after receiving his master's degree 
     in economics from Pakistan's Punjab University. ``We believe 
     frontiers could never divide Muslims. They are one nation, 
     and they will remain a single entity.''
       Harkat is one of the largest and most militant Islamic 
     groups operating in Pakistan, which critics complain has done 
     little to keep radical Muslims from using its soil to launch 
     terrorist attacks.
       Pakistant's reluctance to crack down was spotlighted last 
     month when Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, suspected mastermind of the 
     1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York, fled here as a 
     world-wide dragnet tightened around him. Yousef was arrested 
     Feb. 7 in Islamabad when U.S. officials led Pakistani police 
     to the guest house where he was staying.
       Pakistan has been a haven for armed Islamic militants since 
     the early 1990s, when dozens of fundamentalist groups and 
     thousands of soldiers who had fought a jihad, or holy war, to 
     drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan began searching for 
     new theaters in which to wage battle.
       The groups have continued to thrive here and in Afghanistan 
     because of the easy availability of cheap and sophisticated 
     weapons--many can be traced to more than $1 billion per year 
     the United States gave to Afghan militias based in Pakistan 
     during the war against the Soviets--and because large tribal 
     areas along the Pakistani-Afghan frontier are unpatrolled and 
     lawless.
       Politicians in Pakistan have been reluctant to launch a 
     committed effort to shut down the groups because they have 
     the support of the country's powerful Muslim clergy. The 
     groups openly raise funds and recruit members.
       ``The government at the highest levels is sufficiently 
     frightened of these people, but its ability to crack down on 
     them is very limited,'' said a Western diplomat in Islamabad. 
     ``No, they are not doing enough but it's not a lack of will--
     it's that the government here is not terribly efficient.''
       Observers say Pakistan has put itself in the difficult 
     position of allowing the groups to operate in the country to 
     fight against Indian troops in the disputed region of 
     Kashmir, and at the same time trying to prevent the groups 
     from using Pakistan as a base for operations against other 
     countries.
       The Pakistani government did not respond to requests to 
     provide a spokesman to answer detailed questions.
       In a brief telephone interview, Foreign Secretary 
     Najamuddin A. Sheikh said the 
     [[Page E576]] underlying problem is religious extremism, 
     fueled by sectarian clashes between Pakistan's majority Sunni 
     and minority Shiite Muslims. Often, he said, the extremism is 
     encouraged in religious schools, which receive millions of 
     dollars a year in state funding and are prime feeders for 
     militant Islamic organizations.
       Sheikh, the Foreign Ministry's highest-ranking civil 
     servant, said Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has proposed 
     registering the schools as one way to moderate them.
       India has long charged that Pakistan is involved in ``state 
     terrorism'' by arming, training and funding Muslim insurgents 
     waging a brutal civil war in Kashmir.
       In 1993, the United States warned Pakistan that unless it 
     stopped supporting Kashmir insurgents, the country would be 
     put on the U.S. list of terrorist states. Since then, say 
     U.S. officials, Pakistan has significantly reduced its role 
     in the conflict.
       Last month, during a state visit by Bhutto to the 
     Philippines, President Fidel Ramos protested that Pakistanis 
     were fighting alongside Muslim extremists battling for 
     autonomy against his government. Russia has charged 
     Pakistanis are aiding the separatist battle in Chechnya.
       Following complaints by moderate Arab governments in Egypt, 
     Algeria and Jordan that Pakistanis were involved in extremist 
     movements in their countries, Pakistan asked Afghan aid 
     groups--many were really fronts for militant organizations--
     to leave. That forced some groups underground and pushed 
     others into Afghanistan.
       ``They have a right to protest, but we have our duties to 
     perform as Muslims,'' said Tariq Cheema, 26, a member of the 
     radical Markaz Dawatul Arshad organization, which aims to 
     establish ``the rule of God'' throughout the world. While 
     conducting street-corner recruiting in Karachi, Cheema passed 
     out a list of names and addresses of 56 Markaz members killed 
     last year during fighting against government troops in 
     Tajikistan, the Philippines, Bosnia and Kashmir.
       Since the end of the Afghan war in 1989, Pakistani 
     officials estimate at least 10,000 Islamic militants have 
     been trained by various groups in the Pakistan-Afghanistan 
     border areas.
       ``Arabs run exclusive training camps for the recruits of 
     Middle Eastern origin,'' a leading member of Harkat claimed, 
     adding the instructors are Sudanese, Egyptian and Libyan 
     veterans of the Afghan war. ``We only go to those camps for 
     advanced military training that involves operating 
     antiaircraft guns and tanks'' and laying land mines, he said.
       Funding often comes from Muslims who think moderate Arab 
     governments are becoming too Westernized.
       ``Funding for our organization largely comes from Saudi 
     Arabia, where several philanthropists are not happy with the 
     way the country is governed by the ruling family,'' said a 
     Markaz activist. A Harkat official said his organization's 
     largest donor is a group of Muslim merchants from India who 
     now live in England.
     

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