Hafiz Saeed, leader of the Jamaat-ut-Dawa terror network has a $10 million bounty on his head issued by the U.S. government.
BY RYAN MAURO:
The Clarion Project has learned from a first-hand source in Pakistan that the leader of Jamaat-ut-Dawa, a major terrorist group harbored by the Pakistani government, expressed support for the Islamic State in a recent sermon.
The story breaks as Pakistani embassy is condemning the television show Homeland for depicting Pakistani government officials as complicit in terrorism.
The Clarion Project’s source, whose identity has been verified and will be referred to as “Aamir,” recently attended a public sermon by Jamaat-ut-Dawa (JUD) leader Hafiz Muhammad Saeed at the group’s Jamia Markaz al-Qadsi headquarters in Lahore. JUD is a rebranding of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET). The group is best known for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India that killed over 150 innocents.
The U.S. State Department lists JUD/LET as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and says it has links to Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami in Bangladesh, the Indian Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammed. The U.S. Treasury Department says it works with Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the Haqqani Network and targets U.S. and Afghan forces.
The event was heavily guarded with Saeed’s own security team equipped with assault rifles. The bulk of the sermon was dedicated to promoting jihad against the U.S. and India in order to “save Islam.” Saeed explicitly told attendees to donate to jihad and even recommended registering at a website to fight. Other reports have confirmed the placement of donation boxes for jihad at his events.
Saeed said that the current jihad against America is the same one that was waged against the Soviet Union and that the U.S. is already showing it will suffer the same fate. He boasted that America is so intimidated by him that it is even afraid of his name. Attendees responded with chants of jihad.
Aamir’s report matches Saeed’s bravado. After the U.S. announced a $10 million award for his information leading to his arrest, he held a public rally next to a Pakistani base that is only 40 minutes from the U.S. embassy.
“America should give that reward money to me,” Saeed joked. “I am here. I am visible.”
According to Aamir, Saeed explicitly endorsed jihad against the U.S. in Afghanistan, against India in Kashmir and against the U.S. in Iraq, where American forces are battling the Islamic State.
Saeed’s group is taking a similar stance as other Al-Qaeda-linked groups in endorsing the Islamic State as a group but stopping short of granting legitimacy to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as a caliph.
However, Saeed is also on record as criticizing the Islamic State for massacring Muslims as “apostates” and suggested it should focus on destroying Israel. Earlier this month, he said he’d say to the Islamic State, “I invite you, you are sitting near the Israel boarder, go and destroy the Israeli Jewish [sic].”
What Saeed said to an attendee indicates he is privately more supportive of the Islamic State than his public speeches reveal. Someone from the audience approached Saeed about his implied declaration of the Islamic State as an ally and asked about the group’s presence in Pakistan.
The source was shocked at Saeed’s answer. He said that the Islamic State represents pure Islam and predicted that it would take over Pakistan and seize its nuclear weapons. Saeed emphasized that the Islamic State means no harm towards Sunnis and so it should not be feared.
Read more at Clarion Project
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