Extremists Fill Aid Chasm After Quake

The Jamaat ul-Dawa camp is one of the most visible relief operations in Muzaffarabad, a city of about 70,000 that was largely destroyed by the earthquake and is roughly 50 miles northeast of Islamabad. Situated on the edge of town, the camp is marked with a large hand-painted banner and consists of about 35 canvas tents -- many bearing the name of Jamaat ul-Dawa -- housing medical facilities and more than 100 patients. U.S. helicopters, carrying supplies and the injured, regularly fly over the area.

Equipment and medicine for the camp were salvaged from the group's wrecked hospital in Muzaffarabad and supplemented with donations from across the country, camp officials said.

Besides volunteer doctors and other medical staff, personnel at the camp Saturday included about 20 bearded young men, some wearing camouflage jackets and white headbands emblazoned with the group's name. Ammar Ahmad, an engineering student from Lahore who is volunteering at the camp, said the men were on hand as protection "against ruffians" and were armed with 9mm pistols.

Qazi Kashif, who edits Jamaat ul-Dawa's national magazine and was visiting the camp Saturday, said that the organization no longer had any connection to Lashkar-i-Taiba and that the insurgent group now operates purely on the Indian side of Kashmir. Jamaat ul-Dawa, he said, is "for preaching and public welfare."

But he added, in reference to the Kashmir insurgency, "We are in favor of jihad, no doubt."

Lashkar-i-Taiba operated for years with the blessing of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency, which provided the group with arms and training and helped launch its fighters across the cease-fire line separating Pakistani and Indian forces in Kashmir. It was founded by Hafiz Sayeed, a former Punjab University engineering professor who also started Jamaat ul-Dawa. The two groups shared the same headquarters in the town of Muridke near Lahore.

During the height of the insurgency in the 1990s, Lashkar-i-Taiba fighters assembled openly in Muzaffarabad and nearby training camps. In early 2002, under intense pressure from the United States, Musharraf banned the group and froze its assets. Sayeed was subsequently arrested, although a Pakistani court later ordered his release.

The State Department, in its annual terrorism report, asserts that a top al Qaeda lieutenant was captured at a Lashkar-i-Taiba safe house in March 2002.

Notwithstanding recent progress in peace negotiations with Pakistan, Indian officials have questioned the sincerity of Musharraf's ban and said that Pakistan has yet to dismantle the infrastructure used by insurgent groups on its territory.

Some Pakistani officials seemed to acknowledge as much in the days after the quake. Sikander Hayat Khan, the senior elected official in Pakistani Kashmir, told the private Geo television network that "jihadi organizations had to face massive destruction" near the town of Bagh because of the quake.

And a senior police official from Pakistani Kashmir said that Lashkar-i-Taiba and another prominent separatist group, Hizb-ul-Mujaheddin, "have lost significant assets both in men and material." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.

At the Jamaat ul-Dawa field hospital Saturday, Abdul Majid said he did not know whether the group was involved in violence, nor did he care. A 35-year-old construction worker, he was lying in a leaky tent with a broken leg and back injuries from the earthquake, which killed two of his children, ages 2 and 4.

"Every 10 minutes a doctor or medical attendant comes in to check on me," he said from beneath a heap of blankets. "I have a very high opinion about this organization."

Khan reported from Karachi.