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Abstract
This article uses a novel database of 1,625 posthumously published biographies of members of two Islamist militant organizations (Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM)), all of whom were killed in the course of carrying out militant attacks. In general, each biography provides data on the militant’s birthplace, education, recruitment, and training. The number of observations in this database is a full order of magnitude larger than those of previous databases assembled from militant biographies. While the sample of militants in this database is the product of multiple selection effects, analysis of the database undermines many common myths about Pakistani militants and casts doubt on current policy approaches to mitigating Islamist militancy in Pakistan.
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, the author would like to thank her colleagues at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, especially Don Rassler and Nadia Shoeb. Ms Shoeb was responsible for extracting the data elements from the Urdu-language biographies. Without her, there would be no dataset. Without Mr Rassler’s commitment to this project, providing its intellectual and programmatic guidance as well as financial support, there would also be no dataset. The biographies employed by the CTC team are derived from the author’s personal collection as well as from the much more extensive collection provided by Arif Jamal, another CTC team member. Anirban Ghosh not only performed statistical analysis for the CTC project he also provided statistical support for this analysis. In addition to the CTC, the author is grateful to the British International Studies Association for allowing her to present this article at its 2012 conference (held in Edinburgh, Scotland) and the many participants who contributed valuable comments. The author also thanks the US Naval War College for sponsoring that presentation. The author also thanks the Georgetown School of Foreign Service for subsidizing the analysis herein by funding both the work of Mr Ghosh as well as that of Ms Sarah Watson. Ms Watson provided meticulous editorial assistance. Mr Sun Lee, an undergraduate at Georgetown University, created the district-wise maps used herein. Despite the contributions of many, I alone am responsible for any errors of fact or interpretation.
Notes
1. 1T.V. Paul, ‘Causes of the India-Pakistan Enduring Rivalry’, in T.V. Paul (ed.), The India-Pakistan Conflict (Cambridge: CUP 2005), 3–24.
2. 2Praveen Swami, India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad (London: Routledge 2007), 172–205, 236–9.
3. 3Paul S. Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia (Stanford UP 2007).
4. 4Robert Looney, ‘Failed Economic Take-offs and Terrorism in Pakistan: Conceptualizing a Proper Role for US Assistance’, Asian Survey 44/6 (2004), 771–93; Lisa A. Curtis, ‘US Aid to Pakistan: Countering Extremism through Education Reform’, Heritage Foundation 2007; Barack Obama, ‘Renewing American Leadership’, Foreign Affairs 86/4 (2007), 2–16; US Congress, Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009 (S1707), 111th Cong., 1st sess. (4 May 2009).
5. 5See Alexander Lee, ‘Who Becomes A Terrorist?: Poverty, Education, and the Origins of Political Violence’, World Politics 63/2 (2011), 203–46; James A. Piazza, ‘Rooted in Poverty? Terrorism, Poor Economic Development and Social Cleavages’, Terrorism and Political Violence 18/1 (2006), 219–37; Graeme Blair, C. Christine Fair, Neil Malhotra and Jacob N. Shapiro, ‘Poverty and Support for Militant Politics: Evidence from Pakistan’, American Journal of Political Science 57/1 (January 2013), 30–48.
6. 6US Agency for International Development, Development Assistance and Counter-Extremism: A Guide to Programming, Oct. 2009, <www.coffey.com/Uploads/Documents/Development-Assistance-and-Counter-Extremism_20120712161541.pdf.>.
7. 7Blair et al., ‘Poverty and Support for Militant Politics: Evidence from Pakistan’; C. Christine Fair, ‘The Educated Militants of Pakistan: Implications for Pakistan’s Domestic Security’, Contemporary South Asia 16/1 (2008), 30–48.
8. 8Don Rassler, C. Christine Fair, Anirban Ghosh, Arif Jamal and Nadia Shoeb, ‘The Fighters of Lashkar-e-Taiba: Recruitment, Training, Deployment and Death’, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point Occasional Paper Series, March 2013. Please see the data appendix of this report for a discussion of the coding methodology. Note that this report only discusses the LeT data.
9. 9Ethan Bueno De Mesquita, ‘The Quality of Terror’, American Journal of Political Science 49/3 (July 2005), 515–30.
10. 10C. Christine Fair, ‘The Militant Challenge in Pakistan’, Asia Policy 11 (Jan. 2011), 105–37; C. Christine Fair, ‘Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Pakistani State’, Survival 53/4 (Aug. 2011), 1–23; Daniel L. Byman, ‘Agents of Destruction? Applying Principal-Agent Analysis to State-Sponsored Terrorism’, International Studies Perspectives 11 (2010), 1–18; Husain Haqqani, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 2005); Rizwan Hussain, Pakistan and the Emergence of Islamic Militancy in Afghanistan (Burlington, VT: Ashgate 2005), 79–81.
11. 11Sumit Ganguly, Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Tensions Since 1947 (New Delhi: OUP 2001).
12. 12Fair, ‘The Militant Challenge in Pakistan’; Haqqani, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military; Hussain, Pakistan and the Emergence of Islamic Militancy in Afghanistan; Arif Jamal, Shadow War: The Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir (New York: Melville 2009); Alexander Evans, ‘The Kashmir Insurgency: As Bad as It Gets’, Small Wars and Insurgencies 11/1 (Spring 2000), 69–81.
13. 13Jamal, Shadow War; Ganguly, Conflict Unending; Evans, ‘The Kashmir Insurgency’.
14. 14Ganguly, Conflict Unending; Evans ‘The Kashmir Insurgency’.
15. 15Author meetings in Srinagar and Baramullah in Kashmir, June 2012.
16. 16Byman, ‘Agents of Destruction?’.
17. 17Haqqani, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military; Hussain, Pakistan and the Emergence of Islamic Militancy in Afghanistan.
18. 18For authors who propose a more direct relationship between these groups and the ISI, see Haqqani, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military; Hussain, Pakistan and the Emergence of Islamic Militancy in Afghanistan. However, one of the anonymous reviewers of this article disagreed with this interpretation, arguing that JI set up the militant organizations for its own institutional goals but, in doing so, it enjoyed the support of the ISI. As neither the JI nor the ISI publically discusses these issues, it is perhaps impossible to discern which account is closer to the truth.
19. 19South Asia Terrorism Portal, ‘Hizb-ul-Mujahideen’, nd, <www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/jandk/terrorist_outfits/hizbul_mujahideen.htm>; Jamal, Shadow War.
20. 20Hizb Media Center, ‘Hizb-ul-Mujahideen – A Profile’, nd, <www.hizbmedia.com/index.php?q=node&nid=9>.
21. 21Jamal, Shadow War.
22. 22South Asia Terrorism Portral, ‘Hizb-ul-Mujahideen’; Global Security, ‘Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM)’ nd, <www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/hum.htm>.
23. 23Author field work in India, 2010.
24. 24Council of the European Union, ‘Combating Terrorism – Restrictive Measures against Certain Persons and Entities’, Brussels, 30 Nov. 2005, <http://ue.eu.int/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/misc/87236.pdf>.
25. 25Note that LeT has sought to rebrand itself as Jamaat-ud-Dawah and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation. In this article, I use its more familiar name, Lashkar-e-Taiba.
26. 26Fair, ‘Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Pakistani State’; Yoginder Sikand, ‘The Islamist Militancy in Kashmir: The Case of the Lashkar-e-Taiba’, in A. Rao et al. (eds), The Practice of War: Production, Reproduction and Communication of Armed Violence (New York: Berghahn Books 2007); Mariam Abou Zahab, ‘I Shall be Waiting at the Door of Paradise: The Pakistani Martyrs of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure)’, in Rao et al., The Practice of War; Saeed Shafqat, ‘From Official Islam to Islamism: The Rise of Dawat-ul-Irshad and Lashkar-e-Taiba’, in Christophe Jaffrelot (ed.), Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation (London: Zed Books 2002).
27. 27Fair, ‘Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Pakistani State’; Sikand, ‘The Islamist Militancy in Kashmir’; Zahab, ‘I Shall be Waiting at the Door of Paradise’; Shafqat, ‘From Official Islam to Islamism’.
28. 28See ‘Hizb placed on EU “terror list”,’ The Dawn, 1 Dec. 2005. <http://archives.dawn.com/2005/12/01/top13.htm>. Also see US Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Country Reports on Terrorism 2010 (2011). <www.state.gov/documents/organization/170479.pdf>.
29. 29One source suggests the following command structure: ‘the LeT leadership consisted of: Hafiz Mohammed Saeed (Supreme Commander); Zia-ur-Rehman Lakhvi alias Chachaji (Supreme Commander, Kashmir); A.B. Rahman-ur-Dakhil (Deputy Supreme Commander); Abdullah Shehzad alias Abu Anas alias Shamas (Chief Operations Commander, Valley); Abdul Hassan alias MY (Central Division Commander); Kari Saif-ul-Rahman (North Division Commander); Kari Saif-ul-Islam (Deputy Commander); Masood alias Mahmood (Area Commander, Sopore); Hyder-e-Krar alias CI (Deputy Commander, Bandipora); Usman Bhai alias Saif-ul-Islam (Deputy Commander, Lolab); Abdul Nawaz (Deputy Commander, Sogam); Abu Rafi (Deputy Divisional Commander, Baramulla); Abdul Nawaz (Deputy Commander, Handwara); Abu Museb alias Saifulla (Deputy Commander, Budgam).’ South Asia Terrorism Portal, ‘Lashkar-e-Toiba: ‘Army of the Pure’, nd, <www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/jandk/terrorist_outfits/lashkar_e_toiba.htm>.
30. 30According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, the Muridke Markaz (center) is comprised of a ‘Madrassa (seminary), a hospital, a market, a large residential area for “scholars” and faculty members, a fish farm and agricultural tracts. The LeT also reportedly operates 16 Islamic institutions, 135 secondary schools, an ambulance service, mobile clinics, blood banks and several seminaries across Pakistan.’ See South Asia Terrorism Portal, ‘Lashkar-e-Toiba’.
31. 31US Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2010, 225.
32. 32Abou Zahab, ‘I Shall be Waiting at the Door of Paradise’.
33. 33Source: Global Terrorism Database, University of Maryland, <www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?chart=fatalities&casualties_type=&casualties_max=&perpetrator=1380>.
34. 34Compare narrative accounts of LeT and HM attacks at South Asia Terrorism Portal, ‘Incidents Involving Hizb-ul-Mujahideen’, nd, <www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/jandk/terrorist_outfits/hizb_ul_mujahideen_tl.htm> and South Asia Terrorism Portal, ‘Lashkar-e-Toiba’.
35. 35Author interviews with Indian police and intelligence officials in New Delhi, Mumbai, Gujarat, Hyderabad and Srinagar in June 2012.
36. 36The author is especially thankful to Anirban Ghosh for performing the statistical analysis in this section.
37. 37Rassler et al., ‘The Fighters of Lashkar-e-Taiba’.
38. 38Mujallah al-Dawah (renamed Al-Haramain) has been Lashkar-e-Taiba’s and Jamaat ud-Dawah’s most important publication. The first issue of the magazine was published in March 1989, and it is currently edited by Maulana Amir Hamza, the founding ideologue of the JuD. Qazi Kashif Niaz is also believed to have been an editor of al-Dawah for a period of time. Typically, every issue carries articles on what being a Muslim should mean to every Muslim, drawing especially on the Ahl-e-Hadith school of Islamic jurisprudence. Al-Dawah also usually carries reports of jihad (particularly in Indian-administered Kashmir), information about fallen militants, and updates about the workings of all JuD departments. Al-Dawah reportedly has a circulation of 140,000. Other LeT linked magazines include: Ghazwa Times (renamed Jarrar), Tayyabat (a bi-monthly magazine for women, which has been renamed Al-Saffat), Voice of Islam (an English language magazine, which has been discontinued), Nanhe Mujahid (a monthly now released under the name Rozatul Atfal) and Al-Ribat (a monthly magazine in Arabic, which is now titled Al-Anfal). Umm-e Hammad is the compiler of the three volume series Ham Ma’en Lashkar-e Taiba Ki, and is the editor of Tayyabiat, LeT’s magazine for women, the head of LeT’s Women Wing, and a mother of two LeT militants. For background see C.M. Naim, ‘The Mothers of the Lashkar’, Outlook India, 15 Dec. 2008, <www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?239238> and Humeira Iqtidar, Secularizing Islamists: Jama’at-e-Islami and Jamat’at-ud-Da’wa in Urban Pakistan (Univ. of Chicago 2011), 106–7.
39. 39For example, Benmelech, Berrebi, and Klor analyze 157 suicide bombers, and Krueger and Maleckova had less than 300 suicide bombers in their sample. Efraim Benmelech, Claude Berrebi, and Esteban F. Klor, ‘The Economic Cost of Harboring Terrorism’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 54/2 (April 2010), 331–53; Alan B. Krueger and Jitka Maleckova, ‘The Economics and the Education of Suicide Bombers’, New Republic (June 2002), 27–33; Alan B. Krueger and Jitka Maleckova, ‘Education, Poverty, and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?’ Journal of Economic Perspectives 17/4 (2003), 119–44.
40. 40For an extensive critique of the database of suicide bombers employed in Robert A. Pape, ‘The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism’, American Political Science Review 97/3 (2003), 1–19, see Scott Ashworth, Joshua D. Clinton, Adam Meirowitz, and Kristopher W. Ramsay, ‘Design, Inference, and the Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism’, American Political Science Review 102/2 (2008), 269–73.
41. 41Robustly subjecting Bueno de Mesquita’s model to empirical testing would require an appropriately fielded census that includes: persons who have no interest in militant groups, those who had an interest but were not selected, those who applied and were admitted but ultimately did not deploy on a mission (e.g. lost due to attrition), as well as those who successfully deployed on a mission (including some measure of the outcome of that mission). In addition, I would need a thorough assembly of individual-level data on the person’s attributes as well as group-level data on the same. Needless to say, it would be virtually impossible to assemble such a data set. Thus Bueno de Mesquita’s model can at best be understood as a framework that can explain why on the one hand actual terrorists are often not poor or uneducated relative to the populations from which they come, while, at the same time, recessionary economies and diminished economic opportunities tend to be correlated with terrorism. Also see discussion of this in Alexander Lee, ‘Who Becomes A Terrorist?’
42. 42Both of the fighters from Afghanistan were from Nuristan province. One of the two LeT militants from Saudi Arabia was from Mecca. The other militant’s hometown in Saudi Arabia was not disclosed. The country or hometown of the fighter from Europe was also not given.
43. 43Social Policy and Development Center, Social Development in Pakistan, 2009–2010 (Karachi: SPDC 2010), 148.
44. 44Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, ‘Percentage Distribution of Population by 10 Years Age and over by Level of Education Sex and Nature of Activities 2008–09’, nd, <www.pbs.gov.pk/sites/default/files/Labour%20Force/publications/lfs2008_09/t09.pdf>.
45. 45Mehtabul Azam and Andreas Blom, ‘Progress in Participation in Tertiary Education in India from 1983 to 2004’, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 2008, <http://ddp-ext.worldbank.org/EdStats/INDprwp08.pdf>.
46. 46Sonalde B. Desai et al., Human Development in India: Challenges for a Society in Transition (New Delhi: OUP 2010), 88.
47. 47Claude Berrebi, ‘Evidence About the Link Between Education, Poverty and Terrorism Among Palestinians’, Princeton University Industrial Relations Sections Working Paper No.477 (2003); Krueger and Maleckova, ‘Education, Poverty, and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?’; Charles Russell and Bowman Miller, ‘Profile of a Terrorist’, Terrorism: An International Journal 1/1 (1977), 17–34.
48. 48E.g., Ted Robert Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton UP 1970); Mark Irving Lichbach, ‘An Evaluation of “Does Economic Inequality Breed Political Conflict?” Studies’, World Politics 41/4 (1989), 431–70; Edward N. Muller and Mitchell A. Seligson, ‘Inequality and Insurgency’, American Political Science Review 81/2 (1987), 425–52.
49. 49His model also endogenizes the effects of government counter-terrorism efforts on the mobilization of potential recruits. Counter-terrorism efforts make terrorist volunteering more costly, thus diminishing the pool of attractive candidates and reducing the quality of terror the group can produce. But these efforts may at the same time exacerbate violent opposition to the government. Both counter-terror efforts as well as ensuing violence may impose negative economic externalities. (For example, in areas where troops are deployed and security regimes – among other measures – are imposed, investment is suppressed, people can less easily get to work, employers may relocate elsewhere, markets are closed and so forth.) These negative economic shocks also increase the availability of higher quality recruits. The net impact of these countervailing effects is not a priori obvious.
50. 50US Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2010.
51. 51Russell and Miller, ‘Profile of a Terrorist’; Krueger and Maleckova, ‘Education, Poverty, and Terrorism’; Berrebi, ‘Evidence About the Link Between Education, Poverty and Terrorism Among Palestinians’.
52. 52S. Brock Blomberg, Gregory D. Hess and Akila Weerapana, ‘Economic Conditions and Terrorism’, European Journal of Political Economy 20/2 (2004), 463–78; Kostas Drakos and Andreas Gofas, ‘The Determinants of Terrorist Activity: A Simple Model for Attack Occurrence across Space and Time’, presented at the Conference on the Political Economy of Terrorism, University of Southern California, 2004; James Honaker, ‘Unemployment and Violence in Northern Ireland: A Missing Data Model for Ecological Inference’, Presented at the Annual Meetings of the Midwest Political Science Association, 2004.
53. 53Blair et al., ‘Poverty and Support for Militant Politics: Evidence from Pakistan’; Jacob N. Shapiro and C. Christine Fair, ‘Why Support Islamist Militancy? Evidence from Pakistan’, International Security 34/3 (2009/2010), 79–118.
54. 54C. Christine Fair, The Madrassah Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan (Washington DC: USIP 2008).
55. 55Haqqani, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military; Hussain, Pakistan and the Emergence of Islamic Militancy in Afghanistan.
56. 56Shafqat, ‘From Official Islam to Islamism’, 142.
57. 57C. Christine Fair, ‘In a World of Our Own’, The Herald (Feb. 2013), 70-80.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
C. Christine Fair
C. Christine Fair is an Assistant Professor in the Center for Peace and Security Studies (CPASS) within Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Her research focuses on political and military affairs in South Asia. She has authored, co-authored and co-edited several books, including From the Jaws of Defeat: The Pakistan Army’s Strategic Culture (OUP 2014); Treading Softly on Sacred Ground: Counterinsurgency Operations on Sacred Space (OUP 2008); The Madrassah Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan (USIP 2008); Fortifying Pakistan: The Role of US Internal Security Assistance (USIP 2006); and The Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States (Globe Pequot 2008), among others; and has written numerous peer-reviewed articles covering a range of security issues in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
