RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — A barrage of U.S. cruise missiles several years ago didn't sap Fazlur Rehman Khalil's devotion to holy war, and two subsequent bans issued by Pakistan's government haven't silenced his invective against Jews and Americans.
But Khalil, who co-signed Osama bin Laden's 1998 edict that declared it a Muslim's duty to kill Americans and Jews, is not leading his holy warriors from inside a secret mountain cave. He lives comfortably with his family in this city adjacent to Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, next to his Koranic girls' school and bookshop, just down the street from a police checkpoint.
And he still is urging his followers to fight the United States.
President Pervez Musharraf has been promising to dismantle militant groups since early 2002, shortly after he allied Pakistan with President Bush's campaign against Bin Laden's Al Qaeda and other terrorist networks. He went a rhetorical step further on Jan. 19, calling for "a jihad against extremism."
Bin Laden is presumed to be hiding along the mountainous Afghan border, but several militant groups remain active in Pakistan. None of their leaders has been prosecuted, and some may be under the protection of senior government officials.
Afrasiab Khattak, former head of Pakistan's human rights commission, said he believed Musharraf was more determined to fight militants after surviving two assassination attempts in December. But the general faces opposition in his own government, Khattak said.
"Certainly, there are elements in the state system that still have relations with, and support for, militant groups," Khattak said from Peshawar. "Musharraf has taken a stance. But a stance is one thing. Action is something else.
"There has to be a comprehensive strategy. There is no strategy to demobilize these militant groups, to disarm them, to rehabilitate their members into some new profession, some new way of life."
When Al Qaeda bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, killing 224 people, the United States retaliated by firing cruise missiles at two terrorist training camps run by Khalil in Afghanistan. Khalil vowed revenge. After the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, he re-established himself in Pakistan. Islamabad has banned his militant groups twice in the last three years, but it left him free to regroup. He renamed his organization and continued to preach hatred.
Khalil and his organization's latest incarnation, Jamiat ul Ansar, or Group of Helpers, openly defy the most recent ban, imposed in November. One of the platforms for his message is a stridently anti-American monthly magazine, Al Hilal, which identifies Khalil as its "chief patron." Khalil uses it to raise funds, notify supporters of meetings and activities and urge volunteers to fight U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The back cover of November's issue was an ad for the "All-Pakistan Training Convention of Jamiat ul Ansar Activists" at Khalil's headquarters, the Jamia Khalid bin Waleed Mosque, across from an army base on the edge of Islamabad. Last month's cover showed a giant fist holding a sword, rising from flames in the desert to slash the U.S. flag.
The issue features a call to arms in which Khalil says Muslims should be united into one nation, or caliphate, that would replicate the Khilafat-i-Rashida, the model governance of the four caliphs who ruled immediately after Muhammad -- an often-stated goal of Bin Laden.
A headline says that "moujahedeen attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan have bankrupted America politically, economically and mentally," and adds: "Due to the blessings of jihad, America's countdown has begun. It will declare defeat soon."
"Eagles of Jamiat ul Ansar: Our motto is to impose Khilafat-i-Rashida on the whole world to get rid of the cruel and powerful," Khalil writes. "We have to retire the debt of our martyrs. We should promise to sacrifice our life, property and heart for the mission of the people who have sacrificed their lives.
"This is your moral and religious obligation -- to help financially those few people who are sacrificing their lives so that they can concentrate on their battlefront and ultimately de- feat non-Muslims."
The magazine's December and January issues were on newsstands despite the ban. They carried a notice that the national training convention scheduled for December had been postponed and that new dates would be announced later.
The announcement also said the organization's provincial and district programs would continue, and a smaller notice called for Jamiat ul Ansar's district officers to submit reports on "jihadi activities" so the magazine could publicize them. The notice didn't define "jihadi activities," but the expression is commonly understood to include the militants' fight against Indian rule in Kashmir, recruitment of guerrillas and fundraising.
'Very Small Fry'
