Got to give Musharraf credit, however: each time he declares victory against the jihadists, he gets international headlines — and probably accolades and more from the State Department. From Asia Times, with thanks to RB:
KARACHI – Contrary to the much-touted claims of the government of President General Pervez Musharraf having taken concrete measures to uproot the extremist jihadi mafia and its terror network in Pakistan, a cursory glance over the activities of four “banned” militant organizations in the country shows they are once again back in business, with changed names and identities, operating freely and advocating jihad against infidels to defend Islam.
While banning six leading jihadi and sectarian groups in two phases – on January 12, 2002, and November 15, 2003 – Musharraf had declared that no organization or person would be allowed to indulge in terrorism to further its cause. However, after the initial crackdown, the four major jihadi outfits operating from Pakistan – Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), resurfaced and regrouped effectively to run their respective networks as openly as before, though under different names.
Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, Maulana Masood Azhar, Maulana Fazalur Rehman Khalil and Syed Salahuddin – the respective leaders of these organizations – are again on the loose. The pattern of treatment being meted out to these leading lights of jihad by the Musharraf-led administration shows that they are being kept on the leash, ostensibly to wage a controlled jihad in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K).
After the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the four jihadi leaders were placed under house arrest in their respective home towns in Punjab, since they were becoming increasingly vocal in their condemnation of Musharraf’s policy of “slavery to the Americans”. A countrywide crackdown also had to be launched against activists of the jihadi groups who were furious over Musharraf’s u-turn on the Afghan jihad. Groaning under US pressure, Islamabad also had to temporarily stop cross-border infiltration into J&K, which eventually reduced violence levels in the Valley. Though most of the jihadi groups accepted the establishment’s advice and adopted a “lie low and wait and see” policy, the fact remains that no concrete step was taken by the authorities to dismantle the jihadi infrastructure. This was chiefly due to the fact that the unholy alliance between the state agencies and the jihadi groups was quite old and had an ideological basis….