Cleric Says Fight Is Against India

By Amir Zia
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, Jan. 8, 2000; 11:36 a.m. EST

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan –– A prominent Muslim cleric whom India freed to end the Indian Airlines hijacking has backed off his threats against the United States, saying he is no Osama bin Laden.

Maulana Masood Azhar partially retreated Friday from comments he made in a fiery speech two days earlier in Karachi, where he told thousands of people that they should destroy the United States and India.

"I want Muslims to unite against Indian terrorism being inflicted on Kashmiri people," Azhar told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his hometown of Bawahalpur. "I am not Osama. I am just fighting for Kashmir."

He said India is the only target in his campaign to free Kashmir, the mountainous region that is the focus of a decades-long border dispute between India and Pakistan.

India freed Azhar along with Mushtaq Zargar, an Indian Kashmiri, and Ahmed Umar Saeed Sheikh, a Pakistani-born British citizen, on Dec. 31 in exchange for 155 passengers and crew members aboard the hijacked aircraft in Afghanistan. The plane was hijacked after it took off from Nepal on Dec. 24.

The freed prisoners came to Pakistan, while the five hijackers disappeared in Afghanistan. They were given a 10-hour deadline to leave Afghanistan, although their whereabouts are not known. India says they are in Pakistan, but Pakistan denies this.

Azhar said the comments in his earlier speech were taken out of context and that he had only warned the United States not to involve itself in the dispute over Kashmir.

The United States accuses bin Laden, a Saudi dissident, of running an international terrorist network and masterminding the bombings of its embassies in Africa in August 1998. Bin Laden, who is in Afghanistan, denies the charges.

Azhar said the United States "should not interfere in matters which do not concern it."

"Our struggle is against India," he said. "And fighting to liberate one's own country is not terrorism. Indians committed a crime by seizing the Muslim-majority state of Kashmir. We want it back because it is part of Pakistan. America should have no problem with that."

He chastised the United States, saying that it imposes a double standard on Kashmiris.

"India is indulging in massive human rights abuses in Kashmir," he said. "But United States is silent. When we fight back, they call it terrorism."

Pakistan and India have fought two wars over Kashmir since their independence from Britain in 1947. Both countries hold parts of Kashmir and claim the rest.

India accuses Pakistan of sending infiltrators to Indian-held Kashmir, a charge Pakistan denies. Muslim guerrillas in Kashmir are waging an uprising to gain independence or to join with Pakistan.

Meanwhile, India released the photographs of several clean-shaven men, saying they are the hijackers and members of the militant Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen group, to which Azhar belongs.

"Their pictures are fake because good Muslims never shave beards. And the hijackers were staunch Muslims, though they didn't remove their masks when I asked them to," Azhar said.

Azhar said none of the major Kashmiri militant groups was behind the hijacking. He speculated that the hijackers may have been members of one of several smaller groups that have emerged in recent months.