‘LeJ struck 10 times in Karachi last year’

Though weak and without leadership, sleeper cells of banned

sectarian outfit appear to be making their presence felt

Despite the law-enforcement agencies’ crackdown on the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in Sindh and Punjab and the killing of its key leaders, the banned sectarian outfit still managed to carry out 17 attacks in the country last year, 10 of them in Karachi alone, an Islamabad based security think-tank said in its report released recently.

Ten people were killed and 30 others injured in the 10 attacks carried out by the LeJ in Karachi in 2016, the Pak Institute of Peace Studies (PIPS) said in its annual report “Pakistan Security Report 2016.”

The LeJ also carried out four attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and one each in Punjab, Balochistan and Sindh excluding Karachi last year.

Overall, 20 people were killed and 35 injured in all these 17 attacks.

However, the think-tank pointed out in its report that the operational capacity of the terror outfit has been further affected in 2016 in comparison with 2015. The LeJ had carried out 33 terrorist attacks in 2015.

Muhammad Amir Rana, the PIPS director, said the terror group was trying to fill the void created by the elimination of its main leaders and weakening infrastructure. He said that many of its top leaders had been killed or arrested in the past two years.

In February 2016, the Inter-Services Public Relations’ then director general Lt Gen Asim Bajwa at a press conference in Karachi had announced the arrest of the LeJ Sindh chief Naeem Bukhari, whose real name was Atta-ur-Rehman, describing it as a major blow to outfit’s network in the province.

The Punjab police’s counter-terrorism department on January 17 this year announced that it had killed Asif Chotu, the LeJ chief, along with three other members, in a shootout in Sheikhupura district.

Chotu was heading the LeJ since the killing of the group’s head Malik Ishaq in a gunfight with police in Muzaffargarh district in July 2015.

Raja Umar Khatttab, a senior CTD official in Karachi, corroborating Rana, said after the killing and arrest of top LeJ leaders, the outfit was facing a leadership crisis.

“We are now focusing on its lower cadres, who are believed to be present in sleeper cells for restructuring and planning subversive activities,” Khattab told The News. “They remain quiet for sometime before planning and executing attacks.”

LeJ al-Alami’s evolution

In 2016, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami (LeJ-A) emerged as a new security threat. It was was found to be involved in six major terrorist attacks in Quetta, Mastung and Khuzdar districts of Balochistan and in Karachi.

The al-Alami faction, which is mainly based in Karachi, Peshawar and DI Khan, also coordinated many attacks, which the LeJ claimed responsibility for. Recently, the LeJ-A had claimed the responsibility of a suicide attack at a busy market in Parachinar town of Kurram Agency on January 22 that killed 25 people.

Rana said the LeJ-A offered a new platform for smaller, struggling militant groups and individuals, including those with violent sectarian credentials.

“The LeJ-A has widened its ideological and strategic spectrums to develop compatibility with global terrorist groups, including the Islamic State (Daesh),” Rana told The News.

He warned that this faction indicated that the LeJ was apparently emerging as a new threat with a new name and tactics.

Syed Safdar Shah alias Yousaf Khurasani is the head of the LeJ-A.

He is believed to be a resident of Karachi.

The group was once confined to the Miranshah town of North Waziristan after it was established in 2001 by a splinter faction of the LeJ led by Abid Iqbal Mehsud.

Now it has expanded its outreach to Balochistan and Karachi and has well-established operational links with LeJ members in Punjab, the PIPS said in its report.

Khattab said the Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan has not only cleared the tribal district of militant groups but had also made it difficult for LeJ militants to flee to Afghanistan. “Now the terrorists are hiding inside the country, where they are targeted by the law-enforcement agencies.”