Pakistan army ‘pushed political role for hardline groups’

LAHORE: A new Pakistani political party controlled by a militant with a $10 million US bounty on his head is backing a candidate in a by-election on Sunday, in what a former senior army officer says is a key step in a military-proposed plan to mainstream hardline groups.

The Milli Muslim League party loyal to Hafiz Saeed has little chance of seeing its favored candidate win the seat vacated when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was removed from office by the Supreme Court in July.

But the foray into politics by Saeed’s group is following a blueprint that Sharif himself rejected when the military proposed it last year, retired Lt. Gen. Amjad Shuaib told Reuters. “We have to separate those elements who are peaceful from the elements who are picking up weapons,” Shuaib said.

Saeed’s religious charity launched the Milli Muslim League party within two weeks after the court ousted Sharif over corruption allegations.

Yaqoob Sheikh, the Lahore candidate for Milli Muslim League, is standing as an independent after the Electoral Commission said the party was not yet legally registered.

But Saeed’s lieutenants, Jamaat-ud-Dawa ( JuD) workers and Milli Muslim League officials are running his campaign and portraits of Saeed adorn every poster promoting Sheikh.

Another extremist Fazlur Rehman Khalil has told Reuters he too plans to soon form his own party to advocate strict Islamic law. “God willing, we will come into the mainstream — our country right now needs patriotic people,” Khalil said, vowing to turn Pakistan into a state government by strict Islamic law.

Saeed’s charity and Khalil’s Ansar ul-Umma organization are both seen by the US as fronts for militant groups.

Both Saeed and Khalil have a history of supporting violence — each man was reportedly a signatory to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa declaring war on the US.

Analyst Khaled Ahmed, who has researched Saeed’s Jamaatud-Dawa charity and its alleged connections to the military, says the new political party is clearly an attempt by the generals to pursue an alternative to dismantling its militant proxies.

“One thing is the army wants these guys to survive,” Ahmed said. “The other thing is that they want to also balance the politicians who are more and more inclined to normalize relations with India.”

He said the proposal was shared with him in writing by the thenchief of Inter-Services Intelligence Agency, adding that he himself had spoken with Khalil as well as Saeed in an unofficial capacity about the plan.