Pakistan Charity Jamaat-Ud-Dawa Added to Global Terrorist List, But Not Its Leaders

By Victor Comras

Last November American soldiers were working along side members of the Pakistan Charity Jamaat-Ud-Dawa to provide needed relief to the victims of the Pakistan/India earthquake. I wrote a blog at that time describing the role Jamaat was playing in this relief effort and their success in implanting themselves in the devastated regions. It was clear then that Jamaat was closely linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba (aka Lashkar E-Tayyiba), an entity designated by the United Nations Al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee, and the US Treasury for its support of al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. In fact, Jamaat was established by the same group that led Lashkar-e-Taiba in order to circumvent the sanctions measures that flowed from this designation. Yet, it took the Administration another six months to get around to confirming this linkage and to designating Jamaat as a successor/partner organization to Lashkar-e-taiba.

The State Department issued its notice of designation on April 27th, 2006 pursuant to Executive Order 13224 which blocks all property, and interests in property, of Jamaat-Ud-Dawa and another linked organzation, Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq, that are in the United States or the under the control of U.S. persons. Perhaps one reason for this delay was to allow Jamaat to carry out its important relief activities through the winter months. Cutting them off during this period of disaster relief might have proved counter-productive. But what is still surprising is that no action has yet been taken to designate Lashkar's founder, Hafiz Muhammad Sayeed, who is also the head of Jamaat ud-Dawa. As I pointed out in an earlier blog, holding the leaders responsible, and penalizing them, is even more important and would be a much more effective step then seeking only to close down the charities they run. Experience has shown that you can’t truly shut down these operations unless you also put their leaders and organizers out of business.

Lashkar-e-Taiba was founded in 1989 in the Kunar province of Afghanistan as the military wing of Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad (MDI), an Islamic fundamentalist organisation of the Ahle-Hadith sect in Pakistan. The MDI is based in Muridke near Lahore, Pakistan and is headed by Prof. Hafiz Muhammad Sayeed, who is also the Amir of the LeT. Its first presence in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) was recorded in 1993 when 12 Pakistani and Afghan mercenaries infiltrated across the Line of Control (LoC) in tandem with the Islami Inquilabi Mahaz, a terrorist outfit then active in the Poonch district of J&K. Lashkar has established cooperative ties with religious militant groups throughout the middle east, southeast asia and in areas of the former soviet union. It is believed to have also been active in supporting the insurgency in Chechnya. The organization was designated as a terrorist group by the US Treasury Department in December 2001.. However, Pakistan, then a member of the UN Al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee was able to forestall a UN decision to also designate the group. Lashkar was finally added to the UN’s consolidated al Qaeda designation list on May 2, 2005, after Pakistan’s tenure on the Al Qaeda Committee had ended.

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