Next wave of Al Qaeda leadership

"There are two types of recruits," says a senior Pakistani counterterrorism investigator. "There are Islamist-educated young men from middle-class and upper-middle-class families whose feelings are ignited in Islamic congregations at private houses, mosques, and madrassahs and are subsequently picked up by Al Qaeda men from there," he says. "Then there are jihadis who were trained by Arabs and Taliban in Afghanistan and have now been approached by Al Qaeda operatives or their trusted extremists."

Some of the jihadis are drawn from the ranks of local militant organizations, including Al-Badr (backed by the extremist religious party Jamaat-e-Islami), the Kashmiri outfits Harakat-ul Mujahideen and Jaish-e Mohammad, and the Sunni group Lashkar-e Jhangvi. Most of these groups have, until recently, focused their energies on Kashmir or sectarian conflicts.

The new independent splinter groups are small, receive funding from Al Qaeda, and attack Western targets using tactics like suicide bombings - once unheard of in Pakistan. Investigators in Karachi say several such groups of around 10 members each are operating in the city alone.

"They [Al Qaeda] are mostly banking on local jihadis," says one police investigator. "They themselves don't want to be seen on the ground as they don't feel safe, so they rely on these brainwashed jihadis."

To recruit, Al Qaeda leaders or operatives rely on trusted contacts, preferably people who have fought with Arabs or have been trained by them, says a senior Karachi police investigator. The go-between appoints a group of leaders, who in turn hires the services of members and assigns tasks mostly on the instructions coming from the go-between. For the jihadis, the work can be lucrative - they are paid $170 to $340 a month.

Amjad Farooqi, a top militant reportedly killed by security forces Sunday, was a main recruiter. A veteran of the Afghan resistance in the early 1990s, he linked up with Al Qaeda operatives following Sept. 11, 2001. Security forces arrested some 10 suspected Al Qaeda-linked Pakistani militants following the interrogation of two arrested accomplices of Mr. Farooqi.

The rise of splinter groups has made the task of investigators much more difficult. The police recently recovered a booklet of instructions from a jihadi in the wake of ongoing crackdown.

"Don't roam around with beard and Islamic dress in fashionable neighborhoods," read the instructions. "Always take out the chip of the mobile [phone] while sleeping to avoid being caught. Use mobile [phone] from a crowded place so police don't locate the positioning. Don't write the original numbers of mujahids in a notebook, try to memorize the last three digits."

To bolster secrecy, group members do not know the real names of their comrades, and only group leaders know the whereabouts of other members, says a police official. Suicide bombers are mostly young and usually live and operate separately, he adds.

The growing influence of militant groups within the law enforcement agencies has also set alarm bells ringing. Three policemen acted as suicide bombers in the Shiite mosques in Karachi and Quetta. Several low-ranking personnel from the armed forces were arrested for their alleged involvement in the foiled assassination attempts against President Pervez Musharraf.

"It is difficult to monitor the profiles of these new recruits and the new groups," says Karachi police chief Tariq Jameel. "If we want to defeat them then there is a need of collective effort from the entire society to eliminate terrorism and extremism. They are chasing us and we are chasing them. The battle is on."

Page: 1 | 2