U.S. Concludes Pakistan-Backed Group Played Role in Hijacking

By JANE PERLEZ appeared in "The New Times" on January 25, 2000

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 -- The United States now believes that a terrorist group supported by the Pakistani military was responsible for the hijacking of an Indian Airlines jet last month, a judgment that puts Pakistan at risk of being placed on Washington's list of nations that support terrorism, Clinton administration officials said.

The new military leader of Pakistan, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, was asked in a meeting with three administration officials in Islamabad last week to ban the group, Harkat ul-Mujahedeen, but the request was rebuffed, senior officials here said.

General Musharraf was also asked to exert pressure on the Taliban government in Afghanistan, with whom Pakistan has friendly relations, to expel Osama bin Laden, implicated in the bombings of two American Embassies in Africa, but no progress was made with that request either, the officials said.

The conclusion that a terrorist group supported by Pakistan carried out the hijacking comes as the White House must make a decision in coming weeks about whether President Clinton should visit Pakistan as part of his planned visit to India and Bangladesh at the end of March.

The visit to India is expected to be announced this week, with the option of a stop in Pakistan still open, pending some gestures of cooperation by Pakistan, officials said. Rejecting a presidential visit to Pakistan during a trip that includes a visit to India would be one of the severest snubs the White House could make, especially during the first presidential trip to the region in 21 years.

Administration officials said that they received information that Harkat ul-Mujahedeen was responsible for the hijacking after it became clearer who made arrangements for the escape of the hijackers.

Harkat ul-Mujahedeen is the new name for Harkat ul-Ansar, a radical Kashmiri nationalist group, which was put on the State Department's list of terrorist groups in 1997, officials said. After being put on the list, the group changed its name.

Administration officials declined to give details of precisely what they knew about the group's role in the hijacking that ended with 155 hostages freed in exchange for the release from prison of three members of Harkat ul-Mujahedeen by the Indian government.

"Indications came through intelligence channels, and I don't know anybody around here, including the skeptics, who don't find that credible," an official said of Harkat ul-Mujahedeen's involvement in the hijacking.

Karl F. Inderfurth, the assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs, who was one of the three officials who met with General Musharraf, told the general that the United States was concerned about the links between Harkat ul-Mujahedeen and his military and intelligence services, officials said.

The general was told that the United States believed that Harkat ul-Mujahedeen "was responsible for the hijacking and that United States believed the group operated openly and clandestinely" with the support of the Pakistani military and intelligence services, a senior official said.

In response, General Musharraf said he would consider the administration's request to shut down the group, but he left the impression that no action would be taken soon, the official said. The question of Pakistan's role in the hijacking has already inflamed relations between India and Pakistan, which both possess the nuclear bomb. Shortly after the hijacking, India accused Pakistan of masterminding the plot and said it had evidence to back up its claims. But the Indian government has not yet produced the evidence.

Relations between the two countries have plummeted to their lowest point in decades, and the activities of the terrorist groups in Pakistan have heightened tensions. How to deal with Pakistan since a coup on Oct. 12 ousted a civilian government has been the subject of a debate within the administration. After the hijacking, the Indian government urged the Clinton administration to put Pakistan on the State Department's list of countries that sponsor terrorism. Among the nations currently on the list are Iran, Iraq and Syria. Such a designation would effectively end all loans to Pakistan from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which some in the administration have argued would push already impoverished Pakistan into near collapse.

Even though Pakistan is believed by the Clinton administration to be harboring and supporting terrorist groups, there was substantial resistance from the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency to putting Pakistan on the list, in part because of past help that Pakistan gave the United States during the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan, administration officials said.

The officials said that Harkat ul-Mujahedeen and another group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, were used by the Pakistani military during conflicts at the so-called Line of Control in Kashmir, which divides the areas held by India and Pakistan. Members of the groups would cross over one point along the line while the Pakistani army would create a disturbance at another, officials said, thus diverting the attention of the Indian army from the infiltrators.

The United States has known about the Harkat ul-Mujahedeen since, under its previous name, it claimed responsibility for kidnapping five Western tourists, including one American, in Kashmir in 1995.

The militant whose freedom was most determinedly sought by the hijackers of the Indian Airlines jet, Masood Azhar, had been a leader of Harkat ul-Ansar until India jailed him in 1994. The visit to Pakistan by Mr. Inderfurth, Michael Sheehan, the State Department's coordinator for counter-terrorism, and Donald Camp, the director for South Asian affairs at the National Security Council, was intended to lay out the administration's concerns about Pakistan on terrorism, the restoration of democracy and nuclear nonproliferation, and to hear the response, Mr. Inderfurth said.

Mr. Inderfurth went out of his way to say that he had not "warned" the Pakistanis about what kind of punishment would come if the military government did not heed the administration's concerns.

Rather, he appeared to hold out the possibility of a March stopover by President Clinton if the Pakistani government decided to take some steps against terrorism.

"We have said we cannot do business as usual with a military government in Pakistan," Mr. Inderfurth said. "Yet to influence Pakistan on democracy, terrorism and nonproliferation, we have to engage them. Our president is our best engager." Last month, Mr. Clinton suggested that he wanted to try personally to solve the Kashmir conflict, which is the prime source of tension between India and Pakistan. And in another gesture to the Pakistani government, Mr. Inderfurth disputed its contention that the United States had "tilted" toward India. "Both countries are important for the United States in their own right," he said. "We are not going to choose one over the other. In our view 'tilt' is a four-letter word that should be banned in any discussion of the south continent." The new military leader of Pakistan, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, was asked in a meeting with three administration officials in Islamabad last week to ban the group, Harkat ul-Mujahedeen, but the request was rebuffed, senior officials here said.