In Brief

• A Sunni sectarian radical group with the goal of establishing a Muslim state in Pakistan • Base: primarily in the Punjab region of Pakistan and the port city of Karachi • Activities: Assisted in the January 2002 abduction and murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl • Affiliates: Banded with Kashmiri militant groups Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami to form Lashkar-e-Omar in 2002. Known collaborators with al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership

Designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States on Jan. 30, 2003, Lashkar I Jhangvi (LIJ) is a Sunni-Deobandi Muslim extremist group based primarily in the Punjab region of Pakistan and the port city of Karachi. It has confirmed links with al Qaeda and has assisted in several high-profile attacks on Westerners in Pakistan, including the January 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Recently LIJ banded with two other Sunni extremist groups and, together, they are said to form the Pakistani wing of al Qaeda.

Background

LIJ formed in 1996 as an offshoot of the sectarian radical group Sipah-e-Sahaba (the Army of Mohamed's companions) Pakistan (SSP). The SSP was founded by the cleric Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi in the 1980s with the goal of establishing a Sunni Muslim state.

The group's original targets were the rival Shia minority in Pakistan and Iranians across the border, who are predominately Shia. This sectarian rivalry is bitter and longstanding. Some reports claim thousands of people have been killed in tit-for-tat vendetta attacks since the 1980s.

Jhangvi was assassinated in 1990, allegedly by a Shia terrorist group, and attacks between the two sects intensified. In 1996, accusing the SSP of deviating from Jhangvi's ideals, members Akram Lahori, Malik Ishaque and Riaz Basra created the more radical and violent LIJ.

Throughout the late 1990s, LIJ claimed responsibility for, or was otherwise linked to, a steady spate of gun attacks on sectarian rivals including religious leaders, diplomats, priests and worshipers. The LIJ reportedly killed 25 Shiite Muslims and injured 50 others during the 1998 Lahore Mominpura Cemetery massacre. It has claimed responsibility for killing four American oil workers in Karachi in 1997, and for carrying out an assassination attempt in 1999 on then Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

In the past year, the group has raised the technical and political level of its attacks with the use of package bombs and suicide attacks on high-profile targets. Most famously, the group is believed to have taken part in the January 2002 kidnapping and murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl. The LIJ is also believed to have been involved in two car bombings last spring (see below). More recently, LIJ appears to have broken a seven-month end to sectarian violence with an attack on a Shiite mosque Feb. 22, 2003, in which at least nine people were killed and nine injured.

On Aug. 14, 2001 the Pakistani government formally outlawed both the SSP and the LIJ. Several high-ranking leaders of the groups have either been arrested or killed since then. LIJ founding member Riaz Basra was killed by police last May, after a long and secret detention according to some investigators. Asif Ramzi, believed to have been second-in-command, apparently blew himself up while attempting to make an explosive device last December. Akram Lahori is reportedly the new head of the militant group.

The al Qaeda Connection

The al Qaeda connection first became apparent during the investigation of two car bomb attacks against Western targets in Pakistan in the spring of 2002. Investigators believed two things about those attacks - that LIJ was responsible, and that they could not have succeeded without al Qaeda help.

In the first attack, on May 8, a militant rammed an explosive-filled car into a Pakistani Navy bus, killing 14 people, including 11 French technicians. The second attack, June 14, another car bomb was driven into the American consulate, killing 12 Pakistanis. Never before had LIJ purposefully targeted foreigners (except, of course, Iranians but those attacks were a factor of the Sunni-Shia rivalry). The Western targets, and the reported use of suicide bombers, branded the attacks with the mark of al Qaeda.

The LIJ's associations with al Qaeda reach back to the time of the Soviet-Afghan war, in which most of the LIJ senior leadership fought alongside the Afghan mujahedeen. LIJ members also took arms training in several camps in Afghanistan and are likely to have met al Qaeda extremists. Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar is also reported to have helped hide LIJ group members from Pakistani authorities.

Late last September, three chemical labs were found in LIJ safe houses in Karachi. According to Pakistani authorities, LIJ members are not sophisticated enough to have maintained the stores of cyanide and other toxic chemicals found in the labs. They believe al Qaeda operatives, working with the LIJ, moved its chemical stores and shipments of gold out from Afghanistan to reestablish operations from Pakistan.

Anti-Terror Efforts Beget New Terror Coalition

In a Jan. 12, 2002 address to the nation, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, under pressure from the United States, committed himself to a government crackdown on indigenous terrorist groups. After the speech, Pakistani authorities arrested several high-ranking local Islamists. Soon thereafter, law enforcement officials believe, the LIJ entered into a loose coalition with two other radical groups, Harkat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami (HuJI) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), to form Lashkar-e-Omar (LeO), sometimes called al-Qanoon.

The LeO is reportedly structured similarly to Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front, with cells of five to 15 members acting independently from one another. According to researchers at the South Asia Terrorism Portal, the etymology of LeO is unclear. It is either named after Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar, or for Syed Ahmed Omar Sheikh, a senior-ranking JeM terrorist sentenced to life imprisonment July 15, 2002, for his role in the Daniel Pearl abduction and murder.

LIJ's decision to join the new organization may have been driven for pragmatic reasons. Since early last year, Musharraf seems to have taken a particularly hard line with groups like LIJ who are involved in sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, while remaining somewhat lax toward groups involved in the Kashmir conflict, such as Jaish-e-Mohammed. According to Pakistani authorities, little or no effort has been made to disarm such groups and hundreds of militants who were arrested after Musharraf's speech have been released.

Pakistani authorities acknowledge that LIJ and other sectarian extremist groups are a serious threat to internal stability. Their newfound association with the Kashmiri militant groups, not to mention their ties to al Qaeda, marks an unprecedented collaboration that could magnify the group's power and influence, and certainly makes it harder for Musharraf to make a distinction between outlaw militants and so-called Kashmiri freedom fighters.

Sources

"Suspect in Pearl Kidnap Dies in Karachi Explosion," Associated Press, Dec. 20, 2002.

Afzal Nadeem, "9 Killed in Attack on Shi'ite Mosque," Washington Times, Feb 23, 2003.

BBC News Online: Pakistan's Militant Islamic Groups

Council on Foreign Relations

John Lancaster and Kamram Khan, "Extremist Groups Renew Activity in Pakistan: Support of Kashmir Militants Is at Odds With the War on Terrorism," Washington Post, Feb. 8, 2003.

Ralph Joseph, "Chemical Labs Show al Qaeda Still Active," Washington Times, Oct. 6, 2002.

Raymond Bonner, "Gunmen Kill 7 Shiite Worshipers in Pakistan," Washington Post, Feb. 23, 2003.

South Asia Terrorism Portal 

U.S. State Department

Zaffar Abbas, "Pakistani Militants' New Targets," BBC News, June 29, 2002.