Inside a terrorist camp - Kashmir - training suicide bombers

New Internationalist, Dec, 2001

There were 12 of them in all, in one of the camps of Lashkar-i-Tayaba located on one of the highest mountain areas of Kashmir: all of them devoted to the planning and execution of suicide missions. It was a communication centre, well-equipped to monitor the activities of its Fadaieen inside the area of Kashmir under Indian occupation. Fadaieen are those who commit themselves to die alongside their enemies. Many of them from different camps have gone to Indian-occupied Kashmir for jihad. The main purpose of this camp was to keep in contact with them via radio.

Many of the mujahideen (holy warriors) from the Afghan jihad time of the 1980s were unemployed after the Soviet-supported regime of Dr Najibullah collapsed in 1992. The search for a new area for jihad brought them to Kashmir, where Pakistani military intelligence was only too willing to play the same role it did in Afghanistan in the 1980s and provide them with space, training and resources.

The motivational work was left to some religious organizations like Lashkar-i-Tayaba. They brought many young people from all parts of Pakistan into these camps in the name of jihad. These unemployed youth, mainly from poor peasant backgrounds, had it all -- food, shelter and clothes and above all, a place promised in heaven if they lost their lives.

Who are they and why are they there? We wanted to know the realities by joining them inside the camp. As we were locals from the village who spoke the local language and owned some land in the village, they happily agreed to the suggestion that we spend the night with them. We found out that only one them was from Kashmir -- one was Afghani and the rest were from southern Punjab in Pakistan.

The camp leader, Aziz, a man in his thirties, greeted us with joy with a good command of the English, Urdu, Pushto and Kashmir languages. His expectation was that, if we were motivated, as local Kashmiris we might join them to make up the nationality imbalance in the camp. For not many of our fellow youth would attend these camps. Our village is very often a sandwich in the crossfire between the Pakistani and Indian armies. Many of our villagers have died in the firing and, although no-one says it openly, not many would support these camps, which are at present the main base for our troubles.

We were offered a cup of tea. A lecture started after the prayer of Ishaa (the last of the five prayers of the day, around 8pm at night). The lecture was based on the theme that losing your life for a holy purpose will bring ever-lasting happiness. At the moment that you lose your life, your next life starts -- a life that you have waited so long for. A map of heaven is drawn in such a way, and along with glorious examples of those who have gone before, that the effect upon the listener is difficult to ignore.

The strategies of these jihad groups have changed tremendously from attacking enemy camps with firearms to suicidal attacks. I was told by Aziz, the camp leader, that it is cheap to use this tactic. All you lose is a life that many of our youth want to get rid of. But the effects are tremendous. The success ratio, he said, is much higher than that of our strategy of the 1980s. When the Russians were in Afghanistan, we did not have a clue about this strategy. We were more for guerrilla warfare. That is why the struggle in Afghanistan took such a long time. Aziz talked with us on and on into the night, long after others had gone to sleep.

What exactly do you do here? we asked. 'We monitor the activities of those who cross the border from here. They have some equipment that we provide them with so they can link up with us. Look, we are on a very high position in the mountains. This helps us to have the edge on the Indians. When we plan a Fedai attack, the mujahid is very well guarded by us. He is linked all the time with us. We provide him with accurate information, provided to us by several others in the same vicinity, to carry out a successful attack. He is motivated till the last minutes of his death. We often recite Qur' anic versions on the wireless system. He is encouraged to recite by heart the holy Qur'an and to read it to us. This helps. We have a very low ratio of those who went out on a mission and came back because of any fear.'

In the morning we were asked to get up at 3.30am. This was to pray for Tihajad, a prayer that is not obligatory for Muslims. But an extremely devout Muslim will not miss it. My friend asked me to ignore the call for prayer and sleep. But I told him that they might conclude that we were not good Muslims and thus find out who we were -- and that would be the end of our lives. Please get up and go to the prayer, I pleaded. So it was that we had our first-ever Tihajad prayer.

They were all there, jammat (in line). Then we were asked to read the Qur'an till Fajar, the first formal prayer of the morning. After that we were again lectured by Aziz. His voice was full of emotion and we felt the heat of his plea for jihad. It was an inspiring speech with a lot of concrete examples of how to find a place in heaven when you go for a mission.