Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan

Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) is a militant Sunni Deobandi organization, and a formerly registered Pakistani political party, established in the early 1980s in Jhang by Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi its stated goal is to primarily to deter major Shia influence in Pakistan in the wake of the Iranian Revolution.. Although its critics accuse it of being a anti Shia anti Barelvi hate group Formerly known as Anjuman-e-Sipah-e-Sahaba and the Army of the Friends of Sahaba, the organization was banned by President Pervez Musharraf in 2002 as a terrorist organization under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997. Many accuse it of being a hate group. However, it is widely accepted that SSP conducts its activities with significant freedom, and no major attempt has been made to shut it down.

History

Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, Maulana Zia-ur-Rehman Farooqi, Maulana Eesar-ul-Haq Qasmi and Maulana Azam Tariq formed the SSP in 1985 originally under the name of Anjuman Sipah-e-Sahaba.

When Jhangvi was assassinated in 1990, Maulana Azam Tariq assumed leadership of the group. Tariq led the group until October 2003 when he was killed by gunmen.

An SSP leader was a minister in the Coalition Government in Punjab in 1993 and the group had actively contested elections. The group supported a proclamation to establish Pakistan as a Deobandi republic. In 2003, the organization was reestablished under the Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan but was again banned in November of that year. Sipah-e-Sahaba currently operates openly under the newly adopted name of "Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat".

In April 2006 a grand Barelvi congregation celebrating the birthday of Muhammad on Eid Milad un Nabi was suicide-bombed . Out of the 1,500 that had gathered, 57 died and over 100 were injured. The attackers were identified as members of the hardline Sunni sectarian group, Sipah-e-Sahaba. They believe celebration of the prophet's birthday is a sin .

According to Shahbaz Bhatti, the federal minister for minorities in Pakistan, the August 2009 Gojra riots against Pakistan's Christian minority were organized and perpetrated by Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan. Police arrested more than 65 people for their alleged involvement in the violence. The arrested men include Qari Abdul Khaliq Kashmiri, a leader of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan.

In August 2009 Maulana Ali Sher Hyderi, the fourth chief of SSP, was killed while traveling by car through Khairpur district in Sindh province en route to Hyderabad.

Another leader Abdul Rauf was killed by security officials in February or March 2010.

In June 2010, Sipah-e-Sahaba was linked to sectarian violence in Karachi, where clashes followed a rally held by organizers of the banned group. According to Shiite cleric Allama Abbas Komaili, at least nine Shias were killed within two weeks of unrest, while a local leader of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat was also gunned down.

Links to other groups

• In 1996 elements within the SSP who did not believe the organization violent enough left to form the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ). In February 2003, Azam Tariq denied accusations that LJ was its armed militant branch and emphasized that the SSP "had nothing to do" with the LJ.
• In October 2000 Maulana Masood Azhar, founder of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), was quoted as saying that "Sipah-e-Sahaba stands shoulder to shoulder with Jaish-e-Muhammad in Jehad." A leaked U.S. diplomatic cable described JeM as "another SSP breakaway Deobandi organization."
• A diplomatic cable, originally dated October 23, 2009 and later leaked to the media, from the U.S. embassy in Islamabad indicated that Qari Hussain, a leading militant of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), had roots in the SSP and that "many of the TTP’s foot soldiers are from SSP ranks."

See also

• Terrorism in Pakistan
• Sipah-e-Muhammad Pakistan

Further reading

• Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan: Terrorist Group as described at the Southeast Asian Terrorism Portal