Sajid Mir

At one level, the Pakistani government is desperately trying to pass new laws that ostensibly seek to tighten the anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) framework, but which in fact is going to be used less against terror financiers and money launderers and more against politicians in the opposition. At another level, Pakistan is trying to show that it is taking action on ground by not only giving data on the number of cases it has booked against money launderers and accounts of terror groups and individuals it has frozen, but also the convictions it has secured against some leaders of one of the deadliest terror groups – Lashkar-e-Taiba / Jamaatud Dawa (LeT /JuD).

All the above action is supposed to convince the international community that Pakistan is indeed draining its terrorist swamps. But scratch the surface and it becomes clear that Pakistan is protecting the “real” bad guys – the ones who are closely linked with the Pakistani State, who function as auxiliaries and hit-men of the Pakistani “deep state”, who have gained international notoriety because of their involvement in planning and executing spectacular terror attacks in other countries.

Among the most notorious of these terrorists is a shadowy figure who is wanted in more than half a dozen countries for his involvement in terrorism but who remains under the protection of the ISI – Sajid Mir. What is shocking is not so much that Sajid Mir is being protected by the ISI as is the fact that none of the countries against whom he has practiced his craft of terrorism seem to be pressing for his trial and punishment. What is even more perplexing is that fact that some of these countries were in the forefront of holding Pakistan accountable for its acts of omission and commission before the FATF, and yet are soft-peddling on Pakistan’s refusal/denial to bring Sajid Mir to justice.

Sajid Mir gained infamy not only as the man who planned and executed the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai and who manages LeT’s overseas assets (terrorists), but even more as the chilling voice which sitting in his control room in Karachi instructed the Lashkar terrorists in Mumbai to shoot one of the hostages in the Chabad House in the back of her head. The 26/11 terror strike is not the only terrorist outrage that Mir is responsible for, though it is certainly his most spectacular attack. He has planned and nearly carried out attacks in about half a dozen other countries – US, Australia, France, Denmark, and the UK. He is on FBI’s most wanted list. A French Court has convicted him in absentia. India has demanded his extradition from Pakistan. Despite his mugshots being available, none of the intelligence agencies have been able to locate him. As is their wont, the Pakistanis feign complete ignorance about Sajid Mir; a standard Pakistani response when confronted with an inconvenient demand. This is precisely the tack they have adopted with the Americans on the Taliban. According to the author Shuja Nawaz, every time US officials presented evidence of Taliban and Haqqani Network sanctuaries inside Pakistan, they were met with “blank stare”.

Sajid Mir remains a shadowy figure about whom not much is known. Even his antecedents are fuzzy. Some reports claim that he joined the LeT at a young age of 16 and then rose up the ranks. But other reports, which might be circumstantially more credible, claim that he is a Pakistan Army/ISI member/officer who has been working very closely with the LeT. The fact that he speaks English fluently, the influence he wielded within the LeT which was manifest by his ability to not bother too much about the Lashkar hierarchy in deciding what he wanted to do, the extent to which the Pakistanis have gone to protect him from any kind of prosecution (he, along with a Major Iqbal (an ISI official), are the only two 26/11 terror attack planners who haven’t been arrested by the Pakistanis), the sort of security that has been provided to him (head of state level), all suggest that he is someone special and not just another LeT commander. He might have been deputed to the LeT, or he might have quit the army and joined the LeT full time.

There are many other terrorists who have followed this trajectory – Ilyas Kashmir for example. But unlike others, Sajid Mir seems to have not allowed his addiction to jihad come in the way of his loyalty to the Pakistan Army, which in turn has protected him ever since his face became public. Not surprisingly, like another globally designated terrorist Dawood Ibrahim who is another ISI favourite, Sajid Mir too has managed to avoid the dragnet. Part of the reason for this is that the focus of the international law enforcement and intelligence agencies has remained fixated on the LeT/JuD chief Hafiz Saeed and some of his other lieutenants like Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi (who has been released on bail by the Pakistani courts) or Abdul Rehman Makki.

As a result, the lack of Pakistani action against Sajid Mir just doesn’t figure on the radar screen; despite the fact that operational commanders like Sajid Mir are far more dangerous and destructive than the ideologues. He has remained elusive partly owing to Western diffidence. In the words of an unnamed senior US law enforcement official “Sajid Mir is too powerful and too well connected for them to go after. We need the Pakistanis to go after the Taliban and Al Qaeda.” With Pakistan facing crunch time at FATF, it is perhaps time for Western countries to push Pakistan to stop the deflection, deception and denial on Sajid Mir and bring him to justice. To not doing this would tantamount to allowing a free pass to a terrorist who has the blood of hundreds of people, including Westerners, on his hands.