U.S. bounty on militant leader misperceived; President Zardari’s visit to Delhi at risk

The U.S. announcement of $10 million bounty on the head of Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) Hafiz Mohammed Saeed has topped the world headlines for few days, but the analysts taking a close look at the statement by U.S. Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said majority of media had not reflected the actual U.S. statement so far.

They are with the view that the U.S. did not ask for the whereabouts of Hafiz Saeed and information leading to his arrest, as wrongly portrayed by most of the media. Instead, the U.S. statement required the information providing enough proofs against Hafiz Saeed that could lead to his arrest and a strong case to convict him with connection to his alleged role in Mumbai attacks of 2008.

The bounty declaration was made by Sherman in India and came at a time when Pakistan president Asif Zardari was scheduled to make a one-day visit to arch rival India during which he will pay homage to a shrine of centuries old Saint near Delhi and also have lunch with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh en route to the shrine of Nizamuddin Aulia.

The media uproar on the place and timing of U.S. bounty declaration has cast serious doubts over the scheduled visit of Pakistani president and pressure is mounting on him inside the country to cancel the visit.

Islamists and clerics are demanding Mr. Zardari to specify the objectives of his Indian visit and cancel it in view of Indian hostilities against Pakistan, especially after Delhi had been refusing to send the cricket team to play in Pakistan, and more recently, also barred the Indian hockey team to visit Pakistan on a scheduled series of games.

Although the majority of observers question the rationale behind the visit at a troubled time when the relations between the two countries are at the lowest ebb with Islamabad accusing Delhi of fanning a separatist militant movement in the eastern province of Balochistan by pumping in money and arms for the rebel leaders.

On the other hand a small section of media and intellectuals who support normalization of Pak-India relations at any cost are encouraging Zardari for the visit, hoping it would help in thawing of the ice.

Still the odds are against the scheduled visit as media is still echoing with the statement of a controversial Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz who declared that he arranged a meeting of a Kashmiri liberation movement leader of the Indian held part, Yaseen Malik, with a top official of Indian secret agency RAW.

Testifying before a judicial commission probing his role in a highly controversial memo seeking U.S. intervention to thwart a likely army coup in Pakistan following the US commandoes in choppers invaded a house deep inside Pakistan to kill Osama Bin Laden, Ijaz said sworn that the meeting took place in 2000 in Delhi. But Yaseen Malik strongly denied Ijaz’s claims and said it was a blatant lie.

The analysts said the U.S. statement was an admission that there were not enough proofs available to link Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) founder Hafiz Saeed with the Mumbai attacks and other charges made against him by Indian government and western media. Much stronger case of bounty in the U.S. statement was made against the LeT co-founder Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki, the foreign affairs head of Jamaat-ud-Dawah, which offers $2 million for the information leading to his whereabouts and arrest.

LeT was banned in 2001 by the then president Gen Musharraf after the U.S. declared it a terrorist organization along with many others working outside the U.S. soil.

India accused Hafiz Saeed of masterminding Mumbai attacks that killed 165 people including six Americans, which he strongly denied and Pakistani courts had freed him for want of evidence despite that he was tried for many months. Apart from that Hafiz Saeed and his LeT were accused of separate attacks on Indian parliament and Red Fort in New Delhi, which he denied.

The western and Indian media have been accusing Pakistani authorities for turning a blind eye to banned groups and charities resuming work with new names. Hafiz Saeed denies that he continues to have links with LeT and others which are waging a freedom struggle against the Indian occupant army in Kashmir.

However, Pakistani Foreign Office was quite clear about the connotation of the U.S. announcement as a spokesman termed it astonishing. The spokesman ruled out any possible ‘U.S. operation’ against Hafiz Saeed on Pakistani soil, and said the bounty aimed at soliciting more information and proofs specifies that the U.S. itself had no proofs against him.

The U.S. Foreign Ministry statement also accused Hafiz Saeed and his JuD of instigating terrorism against the U.S., India, Israel and other perceived enemies by using venomous language against them.
Hafiz Saeed and Pakistan’s political and military leaders have perhaps gone through the U.S. declaration with no ambiguity as no action was taken against him. Just a day after U.S. declaration came, Prof. Saeed addressed a large press conference at a hotel quite close to Pakistan Military Headquarters in Rawalpindi, the twin city of Capital Islamabad.

Seed however believed the media reports that perceived that the bounty was for his arrest, and mocked the U.S. for putting a bounty on a public figure and social worker like him, which should have been put on fugitives of law and enemies in hiding. He asked Washington to give him the bounty since he was making himself available at an open place.


(The writer heads the Urdu portal of Al Arabiya Net and is based at Islamabad. He can be reached via email at [e-mail])