WHO KILLED KHALID KHAWAJA? ADRIAN MORGAN
Who Killed Khalid Khawaja?
On Friday April 30, it was reported that the body of man in his fifties had been discovered at a roadside in North Waziristan, one of the “Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)” of northern Pakistan. The body belonged to Khalid Khawaja, a controversial figure in Pakistani Islamism, a former intelligence officer who had praised bin Laden. He had been shot in the head and chest and then dumped at Karam Kot in the vicinity of Mir Ali.
On March 26, Khalid Khawaja had been kidnapped with two other individuals in Mir Ali. The BBC report on Khawaja’s death described him as a “campaigner”: “In recent years Mr Khawaja had campaigned for the release of dozens of people who have allegedly been taken into unofficial custody in Pakistan.“The BBC acknowledged that Khawaja was a former intelligence agent. It neglected to mention that the agency he once worked for – Inter-Services Intelligence or “ISI” – has been regarded, over a period of at least three decades, as integrally involved in many of the “disappearances” and extra-judicial killings that happen within Pakistan. The BBC report also failed to mention Khawaja’s long-standing support for Osama bin Laden.
Khawaja had been arrested and imprisoned on January 26, 2007 in Islamabad. He had been charged with distributing “hate material” outside the controversial Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) complex in the city, where a Taliban-inspired rebellion was developing. The hate material was a book called “Fatwa Rasheedia” written by Rasheed Ahmed Gangohi, a founder of the Deobandi strand of Islam followed by Taliban leaders. The book had been amongst several Islamist texts banned in September 2006.
Khawaja was due to be released from jail in April 2007 but was re-arrested on April 26. He was free again at the time that the Red Mosque erupted into three days of violence, starting on July 3, 2007. 100 people had died, with many of the dead being male and female students at the madrassas within the complex.
The mosque had strong connections to the ISI, the agency that had once employed Khawaja. The headquarters of the ISI and the mosque complex were both situated in the Aapara area of the capital. Many ISI leading members had earlier worshipped at the Lal Masjid. Khawaja’s involvement as a “negotiator” at the time the situation deteriorated into open violence may have contributed to his murder.
After his experiences in jail under the Musharraf regime, Khawaja carved a role for himself as a defender of the “oppressed”, through a group that calls itself “Defence of Human Rights”. He has defended individuals accused of terrorism, such as American citizens Ahmad Abdullah Mani (Minni), Waqar Husain Khan, Ramy Zaman (Zamzam), Aman Hassan Yemer (Yamar), Omar Farooq, who were arrested in Sargodha, Pakistan in December 2009. These had left in America a disturbing “farewell video”. On March 16, the five pleaded “not guilty” to terrorism charges.
On December 23, 2009 in a court in Lahore, Khawaja had hardly helped the case of the five men when he argued that they had entered Pakistan to commit “Jihad” and urged the court to agree that Jihad against “anti-Muslim forces” could not be considered as “terrorism”. In Virginia, a representative of a center connected to the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) claimed that “As far as I know they were wholesome kids. Very goofy. You know, talked about girls. Very wholesome.” ICNA has historic connections with the radical Islamist “Jamaat-e-Islami” party of Pakistan.
Once a squadron leader in the Pakistan air force, Khawaja had been recruited to become a leading figure in the ISI. This happened in 1984,uring the Islamist military dictatorship of General Zia ul-Haq. In 1987, shortly before the dictator was killed in a plane crash (August 1988), ul-Haq ordered that Khawaja be dismissed from the ISI. The reasons stemmed from Khawaja’s open criticism of the dictator for not fully implementing sharia law in Pakistan.
Even though he had been officially dismissed from the ISI, there are circumstantial associations that suggest that Khawaja maintained links with leading players within the secretive organization right up until his death. It is possible that these links led to his death.
KidnappingWhen Khawaja was kidnapped on March 26, the reason for his presence in North Waziristan was never made plain. He was accompanied by another controversial former member of the ISI, Colonel Amin Sultan Tarar, and also a British-based freelance journalist called Asad Qureshi. Tarar’s commitment to jihad gave rise to his alternate and better-known name: “Colonel Imam”.
Qureshi was apparently working on a documentary film for Britain’s Channel 4 TV station. Qureshi’s website has been suspended, and I cannot find any cache that could give clues to his mission. Channel 4’s website produces no results on a search for his name. Even a search of its news site yields no results.
The news of the kidnap did not become public until nine days later. Relatives of Tarar and Khawaja stated that the former ISI officials had been helping Asad Qureshi to make a documentary on the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The kidnap had apparently taken place after they had had a meeting with Sirajuddin Haqqani and Waliur Rahman Mehsud, leaders of the Pakistan Taliban, and had been returning home. They were last reported as being near Khowat.
Sirajuddin Haqqani (pictured) an Afghan Pashtun, is an avowed enemy of the USA and the Pakistani military, and is directly linked to Al Qaeda. He was the target of two Predator drone airstrikes this February. Waliur Rahman Mehsud was an assistant to Hakimullah Mehsud who led the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistan Taliban) from a base in South Waziristan. In January this year Hakimullah was severely injured in a drone strike, and Waliur Rahman took over his role, adopting Hakimullah’s family name.
On April 21, about three weeks after the kidnap, a video clip was presented to media outlets. This featured the captives. The kidnappers called themselves the “Asian Tigers” and demanded a ransom of $10 million for the release of Asad Qureshi. They claimed that Khawaja and “Colonel Imam” would be freed only if leaders of the Pakistan Taliban were freed. These were named as Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Mullah Mansoor Dadullah and Maulvi Kabir.
Mullah Mansoor was a Taliban commander of Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, who was captured in February 2008 in Balochistan, about six weeks after Mullah Omar, head of the Afghan Taliban, had sacked him.
Maulvi Kabir had been a Taliban governor of Nangahar Province in Afghanistan. He was captured in February 22, 2010, in Nowshera near the Khyber Pass.
Baradar was one of the four men who founded the original Taliban. The original leaders of the Afghan Taliban had been educated at the Haqqania madrassa in Pakistan, run by Sami ul-Haq (Mullah Omar had not failed to complete his course). Baradar also had links to the ISI, according to the BBC. Baradar was believed to be the deputy of Mullah Omar. He was captured in a madrassa in Karachi, Sindh Province, in late January this year. On April 22, the day after the video and ransom terms were released, Pakistan’s ISI announced that American investigators were allowed access to Baradar.
The sort video clips apparently did not feature the British journalist Asad Qureshi. Colonel Imam was heard claiming that he had worked for the ISI for 11 years, saying: “I had consulted with Gen Aslam Beg (former army chief) about coming here.” Khawaja said “I came here on the prodding of Lt Gen Hameed Gul, General Aslam Beg and ISI’s Colonel Sajjad.”
Little is known of Colonel Sajjad as he is a serving ISI official, but Hameed Gul (Hamid Gul) is widely reputed to have engaged in secretive deals between the Taliban and the ISI, discussed below.
Confessions
Shortly after this, on April 24, Asia Times Online released a series of video clips it had received, apparently from the captors. These clips featured Khalid Khawaja, looking frail and tired, and making a confession. At one point in the recordings, a rooster can be heard crowing, suggesting Khawaja had been kept awake all night. Speaking in Urdu, he “confesses” to crimes. Though probably gained by duress and therefore not “reliable”, the revelations made by Khawaja are startling.
He claimed that he had been involved in the events that saw the Red Mosque (Lal Masjid) in Islamabad being overthrown by the Pakistani military. To understand how “shocking” these revelations are, one must look at the mosque history.
During the dictatorship of General Zia ul-Haq (1977 – 1988), Pakistan underwent a process of Islamization. Draconian sharia laws against blasphemy and “zina” (illegal intercourse) were introduced. The notorious “Hudood Ordinances” ensured that any woman who reported that she had been raped was herself accused of zina. Unless she could produce four male Muslim witnesses to the event, she could face death by stoning (“haad”). Many were sentenced but none were officially stoned. The Hudood laws were revoked in 2006, but the divisive blasphemy laws remain.
While Zia ul-Haq was in charge, the Lal Masjid was run by Maulana Abdullah, a fundamentalist preacher. Many senior ISI figures were already visiting this mosque when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. The CIA then supported the “mujahideen” and funds and fighters were brought from Pakistan by the ISI. During the 1980s in Afghanistan, Khalid Khawaja had met and befriended Osama bin Laden. Maulana Abdullah supported the jihad and gained the patronage of Zia ul-Haq. He developed close links with the Pakistani military and ISI at this time.
The Red Mosque was a center for the ideological movement for armed jihad. Maulana Abdullah forged close links with Mujahideen who acted with the ISI such as Jalaluddin Haqqani (who would later be a Taliban leader in North Waziristan), and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf. It was Sayyyaf who brought many Arabs into the Afghan Muhajideen, including Osama bin Laden. Jalaluddin Haqqani is the father of SIrajuddin Haqqani, whom Khawaja had gone to meet before being kidnapped.
In 1998 Maulana Abdullah was shot dead outside the Lal Masjid. His two sons then took over the running of the mosque. Its jihadist mission continued. The sons – Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid Gazi – forged close links with the Afghan Taliban and after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 they created an alliance of anti-Western religious leaders. Many of the students at the Lal Masjid’s two madrassas came from the FATA regions bordering Afghanistan. In 2003 the mosque had organized Taliban-style riots against “Western” interests in Islamabad. The mosque leaders demanded that Pakistan implement full sharia law. In January 2007 the students became more active, occupying the only children’s library in Islamabad, wielding sticks and threatening suicide bombings.
In the July 2007 violence at the Lal Masjid complex, which began after madrassa students attacked government buildings in the capital, the two brothers who ran the mosque were inside the complex. On July 4, 2007, Abdul Aziz put on a burka and tried to escape with some of the female students. He was arrested. His younger brother Rashid Gazi was killed during the siege.
In Khalid Khawaja’s “confession” on the video clips sent to Asia Times, he stated: “I am known as a thoroughbred gentleman, but in fact I was an ISI and CIA mole… I remember the burnt bodies of the innocent boys and girls of Lal Masjid… I called Abdul Aziz and forced him to come out of the mosque wearing a burka, and that’s how I got him arrested.”
Khawaja said that he had conspired to bring about the demise of the Lal Masjid movement in Islamabad. He claimed his co-conspirators included the Islamist politician Fazlur Rahman of the JUI-F party and Mufti Rafi Usmani (above) the “Grand Mufti of Pakistan”, who leads a Deobandi madrassa, the Darul Uloom in Karachi.
On the reasons for his mission to meet Pakistan Taliban leaders Sirajuddin Haqqani and Waliur Rahman Mehsud, Khawaja said: “I was sent by the Pakistan Army in North Waziristan because it was badly caught in the middle of a conflict. I was sent to get reconciliation between the army and the Taliban so that the terrorists would give safe passage to the military to leave the area.”
Khawaja claimed that some leading jihadists were proxies of the ISI, who were given a “free pass” to collect funds for jihad. These figures included Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, the founder of Harkatul Muhajideen, and Maulana Masood Azhar, who is the secretary of Harkatul Mujahideen and leads his own terror group, Jaish-e-Mohammad. According to Khawaja’s “confession”, Abdullah Shah Mazhar (a former leader of Jaish-e-Mohammad) was also working with the ISI.
Khawaja  said: “I brought here a list of 14 commanders and was aiming to malign them among militant circles … Abdullah Shah Mazhar, Fazlur Rahman Khalil, Masood Azhar and jihadi organizations like Laskhar-e-Taiba, al-Badr, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Harkatul Mujahideen, Jamiatul Mujahideen etc. operate with the financial cooperation of the Pakistani secret services and they are allowed collect their funds inside Pakistan.”
ISI Links to Taliban – Truth behind the Allegations?
In 2005, Khalid Khawaja had given an interview to AsiaTimes Online. In this, he mentioned that his letter to General Zia ul-Haq, complaining that full sharia had not been introduced, led to his being sacked from the air force and the ISI in 1986 or 87: “I went to Afghanistan and fought side-by-side with the Afghan mujahideen against Soviet troops. There I developed a friendship with Dr Abdullah Azzam [a mentor of bin Laden], Osama bin Laden and Sheikh Abdul Majeed Zindani [another mentor of bin Laden’s]. At the same time, I was still in touch with my former organization, the ISI, and its then DG [director general], retired Lieutenant General Hamid Gul.”
There have long been rumors that the Taliban has been assisted by at least some leading members of the ISI. For example, in 2006 such allegations were openly discussed. It was believed by some that certain retired ISI members were still involved in assisting the Taliban. At that time, Hamid Gul, who had been director of the ISI from 1987-1989 dismissed the allegations as “bunkum” stating “Nobody from the ISI is involved, retired or not, and to say so is nonsense.”
Hamid Gul had declared his hatred for America in 2003. A that time he was “strategic adviser” for the MMA, a coalition of six Islamist parties that had 65 members sitting in Pakistan’s National Assembly. He said: “God will destroy the US in Iraq and Afghanistan and wherever it will try to go from there.”
In January 2007 a captured spokesman for the Afghan Taliban claimed that Mullah Omar was in hiding in Quetta, and was protected by the ISI. The spokesman, Abdul Haq Haji Gulroz, aka Muhammad Hanif, also claimed that Hamid Gul was funding and supporting the Taliban. According to the Daily Telegraph of January 19, 2007, Gulroz additionally claimed that the ISI “funds and equips Taliban suicide bombings.”
In 2004 Gul had told an interviewer that “I didn’t create the Taliban… I am not shy of accepting my link with the Taliban, but it is not true that I created it.” In November 2001 Hamid Gul had said: “The Taliban have a policy to engage the US and the allied ground forces for a long time in Afghanistan. This will have an enduring impact on the US economy and it will force it to cut its military budget and pull out its forces from the Middle East, which is their main goal.”
Similar views were recently expressed by Colonel Imam (Brig. Sultan Tarar Amir) whose location is still unknown following the March 26 kidnap. He told the New York Times: “The Taliban cannot be forced out, you cannot subjugate them. But they can tire the Americans. In another three to four years, the Americans will be tired.”
Colonel Imam had been trained at Fort Bragg in 1974 and in the 1980s he had worked with the CIA to train people to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. He also had close ties to Mullah Omar. It is widely reported that Colonel Imam was a “founder of the Taliban”. In Ahmed Rashid’s book on the Taliban (p. 28) it is suggested that in late 1994 Colonel Imam was involved in both funding the emerging Taliban with ISI money and also strategic negotiations to assert Taliban control of Afghanistan.
The rumors of ISI’s continued involvement in Taliban activities have persisted. In July 2008 Stephen R. Kappes, a leading CIA official, confronted the civilian government of Pakistan with the suggestions (emanating from Afghanistan) that the ISI was assisting the Taliban. In March 2009, American government officials suggested that the S Wing of the ISI was directly involved in Taliban insurgent actions.
In October 2009 an adviser to Afghan’s foreign minister claimed that the ISI were leading Taliban attacks against Western targets. Davood Moradian also claimed that NATO official Gen. Stanley McChrystal had openly affirmed the ISI role in a report published in August 2009.
On May 26, 2010 the Times of India reported further Afghanistan claims that the ISI was linked to Taliban terrorist attacks within its borders. Saeed Ansari of Afghan intelligence claimed: “All the explosions and terrorist attacks by these people were plotted from the other side of the border and most of the explosives and materials were also brought from the other side to Afghanistan. The intelligence service of our neighbouring country [ISI] has definitely had its role in equipping and training of this group [the Taliban].”
In November 2009 US intelligence officials informed the Washington Times that the Pakistani ISI had assisted the Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, to relocate from his Pakistani borderland hideout in Quetta to a safer location in Karachi.
Khawaja – an Enigma
Khawaja himself has had his fair share of dubious dealings. According to a South Asia Analysis Group report from 2007:
“Khawaja was also in the ISI and used to be in touch with the Taliban after it came into being in 1994 and Osma bin Laden after he shifted to Afghanistan in 1996. After leaving the ISI, he joined the Jamaat-ul-Furqa (JUF)Â of Sheikh Syed Mubarik Ali Shah Jilani, which has many followers in the Muslim communities of the US and the West Indies. Daniel Pearl had sought his help for arranging a meeting with Jilani. Pearl wanted to enquire about any links between the JUF and Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. It was Khawaja, who had tipped off the kidnappers of Pearl about his Jewish background and created a suspicion in their mind that Pearl had links with the CIA and Mossad.”
In September 2009, Khalid Khawaja had been claiming that Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister, had met Osama bin Laden on at least five occasions. According to journalist Simon Reeve, author of the book The New Jackals, an informant had claimed “I met Osama bin Laden with Nawaz Sharif in discussing plots to get rid of you [Benazir Bhuto].” Khawaja was confirming this account. Hamid Gul – who in 1989 was director of ISI allegedly arranged these meetings.
In March 2006, Khawaja had made the same claims. He had said:
“I still remember that Osama bin Laden provided me with funds, which I handed over to Nawaz Sharif, then the chief minister of Punjab [and later premier], to dislodge Benazir Bhutto. Nawaz Sharif insisted that I arrange a direct meeting with the “Sheikh”, which I did in Saudi Arabia. Nawaz met thrice with Osama in Saudi Arabia. The most historic was the meeting in the Green Palace Hotel in Medina between Nawaz Sharif, Osama and myself, Khayyam Qaiser is the witness for that meeting in which Khayyem, the personal staff officer tried to take a photograph but Osama’s friends there stopped him.”
Khawaja was a maverick – who appeared to play off varying factions for his own ends. He even met a leading member of Al-Muhajiroun, a British Islamist group that had set up a base in Lahore, Pakistan in 1999. Khawaja said of this man: “Mr Sajil Shahid was promoting jihad, so it is not only Mr Sajil Shahid, any true Muslim has to promote jihad.  If he doesn’t, he should not call himself a Muslim; he is a hypocrite.”
Khawaja has blamed the “Jewish lobby” for 9/11, claiming it was a pretext to take over Afghanistan. He openly supported Osama bin Laden and once referred to him as “an angel”. He has supported the
There were many false reports connected with the kidnapping of Khawaja and his two companions. It was reported on April 9, 2010 by a Taliban source that the three men were safe and were in South Waziristan. On May 6 it was reported in several news outlets that Colonel Imam and journalist Asad Qureshi had been freed. Eight days later, a correction was published. The whereabouts and condition of the two men were still unknown. Captives in the FATA tribal regions do not generally last for long. If their captors fail to gain any ransom or political leverage, the victims are disposed of. It is increasingly likely that the two captives could already be dead.
Shortly after the kidnap, the sons of Colonel Imam and Khalid Khawaja made their own efforts to negotiate with Taliban contacts, to secure their release. This has led to the most bizarre issue to arise from this situation. Hamid Mir is a TV anchor man. Khalid Khawaja’s son Osama had maintained that an audio of the TV anchor man talking to “Usman”, one of the alleged kidnappers, was authentic. Osama Khalid believed that the Indian intelligence agency (RAW) had carried out the kidnapping, calling themselves the “Asian Tigers”. Khawaja’s son believed that the CIA had paid RAW to carry out the act. Hamid Mir is denying the allegation, and is threatening to sue the Daily Times which published the account. Mir states that his voice has been sampled. Others have called for an independent investigation. On May 18, the Daily Times published a message which purportedly came from the “Asian Tigers” which dismissed the audio tape as a “fake”.
There are no easy conclusions to be made from this series of events. The killing of Khawaja appears to signal that the jihadists of the Pakistan Taliban are no longer prepared to deal with the ISI. If the ISI is genuinely urging Pakistan’s military to fight the Taliban on one hand, while encouraging the Taliban in other areas, it is inevitable that tolerance of the group will fail.
Khalid Khawaja may or may not be guilty of tricking Abdul Aziz to leave the Red Mosque and get arrested. If Abdul Aziz had remained within the mosque he would certainly have died like his brother, either at the hands of the military or the suicide bomber who detonated explosives inside the complex. Abdul Aziz is still alive. He was released from prison in April 2009.
When Khalid Khawaja, Asad Qureshi and Colonel Imam were kidnapped, there had been a period of intense targeting of the Taliban. Drone strikes had hit the leadership of the Pakistan Taliban hard, and military offensives had made gains. After Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar had been captured, he and his comrades had – according to Pakistani officials – given information about Taliban activities and operatives. The kidnappers’ request for Baradar’s release may have been for punitive reasons.
The offensives against the Taliban have been severe. Last week, unconfirmed reports stated that Maulana Fazlullah (above), a Taliban leader who had operated a reign of tyranny in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, had been killed in Nuristan Province, Afghanistan, by border police. Pakistan’s military had driven Fazlullah from the Swat Valley in November last year.
It seems that the kidnap and killing of Khalid Khawaja, someone who had been respected by many of Pakistan’s jihadists, was a statement  aimed directly to Pakistan’s ISI. The message seems to be that the period in which the Taliban could work with the agency is now over. For the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the ISI must come to a decision: either support jihad against Western influences, or become another enemy.
Pakistan already seems to be infected with conspiracy theories. It would be better for all sides in this situation if the ISI stopped playing for both sides and adding to the climate of distrust and suspicion. If any members of the ISI can be proved to have assisted the Taliban, then the civilian government of Pakistan must prove its commitment to honesty and demand punishments. Failure to purge the ISI of its jihadist members will further weaken a government that is already weak.
Relatives of the two other men who were kidnapped still wait and hope. The longer they wait, it seems that the chances of a pleasant outcome grow slimmer.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Adrian Morgan is a British-based writer and artist who has previously written for the Guardian, New Scientist and other publications. He is a former Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society.
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