Pakistan is infamous for having a history cramped with assorted Islamist and sectarian organisations that have been unleashing havoc on its people and the state for over a decade.
But long before violent terror groups like Sipah-e-Shaba, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and the Tehrik-e-Taliban-Pakistan started using unprecedented violence and coercion to turn their idea of a mythical Sunni Islamic utopia into reality, there was Al-Zulfikar, – a leftwing terror group formed by the sons of former Pakistani prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and the brothers of late Benazir Bhutto.
The son rises
Al-Zulfikar Organisation, or AZO, came into being some months after the execution of Z.A. Bhutto (April 4, 1979). The execution was sectioned by the Ziaul Haq dictatorship through a sham trial .
Although AZO lasted for over a decade, its history has remained shrouded in mystery.
The most complete document available on the subject is in the shape of an invigorating book by former Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) member and (later) AZO operative, Raja Anwar.
The book was first published in 1997. Called the ‘The Terrorist Prince’, it is an insightful look at the nature of the organisation as well as of its originator, Mir Murtaza Bhutto.
Raja Anwar, one of AZO’s earliest members, after escaping Zia’s tyranny travelled to Soviet-held Afghanistan to join AZO operations in Kabul.
Other sources I have used for this article are newspaper interviews of some of AZO’s leading operatives (many of whom are now dead), and private interviews with the family and cousins of AZO’s most notorious henchman, Salamullah Tipu (who died in 1984).
Recently, Murtaza Bhutto’s daughter, Fatima Bhutto, too has discussed the AZO in her book, ‘Songs of Blood and Sword.’ Unfortunately, Fatima betrays her obvious talents as a writer by sounding cringingly naïve on the matter. In fact, she allows emotionalism and her extreme dislike of anyone even slightly critical of Murtaza to override any worthy hint of objectivity.
Consequently, Fatima completely ignores the telling evidence and information available on the AZO in shape of books such as ‘The Terrorist Prince,’ and ‘The Politics of Terrorism’ (Michael Stohl), and interviews given by Murtaza to the BBC and the Indian media between 1981 and 1986.
Also, Fatima (unlike Raja Anwar), did not find it important to talk to the families of the young, idealistic AZO operatives who were jailed, hanged, or killed between 1980 and 1989.
AZO was formed by Murtaza Bhutto (who was 25 years old at the time) and his younger brother, Shahnawaz Bhutto, in late 1979 after their diplomatic efforts (in London) failed to stop Zia from executing their father who was also the country’s first-ever popularly elected prime minister.
Frustrated and angry, Murtaza got in touch with sympathetic Muslim leaders such as Libya’s Colonel Qaddafi, Syria’s Hafizul Asad, and the PLO’s Yasser Arafat and told them about his plans to overthrow the Zia regime through an armed struggle. After bagging some funds (from Libya and Syria) and a huge arms cache (from the PLO), Murtaza arrived in Kabul, Afghanistan, which was under a pro-Soviet communist government at the time.
The AZO’s early recruits were a handful of fiery PPP members who had escaped Pakistan to avoid being arrested by Zia’s police. These men then helped Murtaza get a number of passionate activists from the PPP’s student-wing, the Peoples Students Federation (PSF), who crossed the Pak-Afghan border on foot to enter Kabul. However, almost all of them were either killed or arrested during AZO’s first few actions on Pakistani soil.
The AZO managed to survive the blow and began receiving its second batch of recruits in late 1980. This batch, though smaller in size, had some of the most militant elements from the PSF. One of them was the 25-year-old Salamullah Tipu, who already had blood on his hands, having previously shot dead a member of the Islami-Jamiat-Taleba (IJT), the violent student-wing of the pro-Zia Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), at the University of Karachi.
Murtaza put Tipu in charge of a plane hijacking plan he’d been contemplating. In early 1981, Tipu, along with a cousin and another PSF militant (Nasser Jamal) in Karachi, pulled off a dramatic hijacking, taking a Peshawar-bound PIA plane at gunpoint to Kabul and then to Damascus in Syria.
He shot dead a Pakistani official on board when Zia refused to accept Murtaza and Tipu’s demands for releasing over 50 activists from the PPP and PSF who had been languishing in Zia’s cramped jails. Zia finally relented, but only when Tipu threatened to kill the six American passengers who were also on the plane.
The successful hijacking not only saw many of the released men join AZO, but the organisation also welcomed a whole new batch of recruits who travelled across Pakistan’s tribal areas and entered Afghanistan, dodging bullets fired by the roaming bands of anti-Soviet jihad gangs that Zia had started to gather on the Pak-Afghan border.
AZO described itself as a socialist guerrilla outfit, but its main purpose was avenging Bhutto’s death. The organisation was mostly made up of young PSF militants, and members of small left-wing groups such as the Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party. Almost all of these men belonged to the lower-middle-class and working-class strata of society and had faced stiff jail sentences, torture, and lashes of Zia’s Islamist tyranny.
AZO was successful in making an “international impact” with the hijacking. Bolstered by fresh funds and support by the Afghan, Libyan, and Syrian governments, AZO soon made at least two serious assassination attempts against Zia. One was a missile attack at Zia’s special plane (Falcon) in Rawalpindi in 1982.
The Russian-made, heat-seeking missile whizzed pass the plane and just missed smashing into it, thanks to an astute last minute maneuver by the pilot who’d somehow seen the missile approaching. The attack was engineered and undertaken by two PSF brothers from Rawalpindi.
The rot sets in
Instead of further strengthening the urban guerrilla outfit, AZO’s sudden success and the fear that it sparked in the country’s brutal military regime, ironically left the organisation in the vicious grip of reckless infighting, mainly due to Murtaza Bhutto’s growing paranoia. He became convinced that the AZO had been infiltrated by Zia’s agents.
Murtaza began to jail and eliminate his own men (with the help of the Afghan intelligence agency, KHAD), accusing them of being traitors, or worse, men ‘planted by the Zia regime.’ A number of murders were committed on Murtaza’s suspicious whims, as he now pitched one group of AZO men against the other.
Murtaza’s increasingly paranoid disposition saw him moving some of his men to Libya while he left some behind in Kabul as he himself moved to Damascus.
In 1983, at the height of infighting within the AZO, Murtaza once again decided to use his main weapon, Tipu, this time to assassinate Zia during the dictator’s trip to India. The plan came to a naught, and Murtaza ordered Tipu to go back to Kabul and assassinate some ‘traitors’ that he blamed for the botched assassination attempt. But after Tipu eliminated the ‘traitor’, Murtaza now decided to get rid of Tipu as well. He asked KHAD to arrest him.
Conscious of Tipu’s worth and daring, KHAD hesitated, leaving enough room for Tipu to take over AZO’s Kabul operations. Murtaza, by now firmly in the clutches of mistrust and irrational suspicions, faced the first major challenge to his leadership in the AZO.
From Damascus he again asked KHAD to put Tipu on trial for a murder Murtaza himself had ordered. It was Tipu’s bad luck that though he was able to charm both KHAD and the Soviet KGB with his declaration of being a communist revolutionary who was ready to undertake another hijacking, Tipu’s hot-headed and violent nature soon got him into trouble with the Afghan government as well.
By late 1983, Tipu began to be seen as a security threat by the Afghan government, and this time KHAD obliged Murtaza by arresting Tipu. He was then executed by a firing squad in early 1984.
By 1985, AZO had crumbled. Most of its operatives had lost their lives. Many surviving AZO men escaped to Libya and Syria (never allowed back into Pakistan); some got asylum in European countries, while a huge number either rotted away in war-torn Kabul, or came back to Pakistan only to be arrested and given long jail sentences.
Benazir Bhutto, who had languished in Zia’s jails, was sent into exile in 1984, and she (while talking to BBC) at once denounced AZO and Murtaza’s tactics.
Murtaza and Shahanawaz (along with their Afghan wives) moved to Cannes in France, where Shahnawaz was allegedly poisoned to death by Zia’s agents.
The second coming and demise
The gulf between Murtaza and Benazir continued to grow. Benazir plunged back into the mainstream politics of the country when she returned to the country in 1986.
The same year, Murtaza began changing the ideological nature of AZO. He began turning it into an exclusively Sindhi nationalist organization.
The first version of the AZO (1979-84), had a number of ideologically-charged young Punjabi, Mohajir, Pushtun and Baloch men (along with Sindhis) in its fold.
The second version of the organization (that shifted its base from Kabul to India), however, was exclusively made up of Sindhi nationalist youth who (between 1986 and 1992), took part in various cases of sabotage and murder in Karachi and the interior of Sindh.
Murtaza’s return to Pakistan (in 1993) was made possible only when the first government of Nawaz Sharif agreed to implement a plan hatched by former PPP big-wig, Jam Sadiq Ali (earlier chucked out by Benazir from the party) and some ISI sleuths. They were to make way for Murtaza’s return because they saw him capable of wresting the control of the PPP from Benazir and factionalize the party.
Murtaza arrived back to Pakistan in 1993 (after 17 years). After failing to get a prominent position in the PPP, he formed his own faction, PPP (Shaheed Bhutto).
Nonetheless, his party faced heavy defeats in the 1993 elections (which Benazir’s PPP won).
Till the day he was tragically killed, Murtaza spent all his efforts in trying to undermine Banazir’s second government, but the truth was, his short stint as the agency’s trump card came to an end as soon as it was realized that the majority of the PPP voters had rejected his claim of being the party’s ‘true heir.’
He was finally killed in 1996 during a police ambush on his convoy near his house in Karachi. The ambush was unconvincingly described as an ‘encounter’ by the police.
Murtaza’s widow, Ghinwa Bhutto (his second wife) accused the Benazir government and Asif Ali Zardari for the murder, whereas Benazir blamed the agencies which she claimed used the episode to topple her elected government.
Along with Murtaza also died whatever was left of Al-Zulfikar, whose last known operative was killed (by unknown assailants) in 2000.
Of the two hundred or so young, hot-headed and passionate (albeit naïve) operatives of the organization (between 1979 and 1993), only a few have survived to tell the tale. Most of them died young (aged between 17 and 27), and were buried either in Kabul or Libya, mostly in unmarked graves.
Nadeem F. Paracha is a cultural critic and senior columnist for Dawn Newspaper and Dawn.com.
The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.
I was a child when all these events took place. But I remember reading about Shanawaz Bhutto’s death due to a drug overdose. Also later on I was in USA when USSR was unraveling and remember a small NEWS in western media where a KGB agent defected to USA and claiming Zia’s plane shooting was a KGB operation. Motive USSR pulled out of Afghanistan but wanted to finish off the elements that caused their humiliating withdrawal. I believe KGB used AZO to make a second attempt on Zia’s life using American provided Stinger Missiles, a successful operation this time.
A well written piece but needed more references.
Kudos to NFP. However, he did not mention contribution of Ameer Haider Kazmi and Abdul Bari Khan to PPP’s saga.
I would like to see if NFP can shed some lights on ZA political circles (cronies) who turned their back and did not support him during crisis especially former AG.
ZA made a worst decision in his life by ignoring Karachites. Karachi had played a major role in his downfall, at that time JI had the strongest hold in Karachi and now the same strong support IJ had, MQM is enjoying it.
Shoaib, what do bari and kazmi have to do with AZO?
kazmi and Bari were active as student militants in the 1960s and were part of the leftwing NSF. But they never went on to join AZO which, as Paracha rightly mentions, was mostly made up of leftist militants from PPP’s studentwing, PSF.
So what really is ur point?
A Very good article but a very sad story. How sad to hear that how our youth were used for the sake of personal goals and revenge. But in the end neither Zia nor Murtaza are remembered today in better words.
NFP has not mentioned some incidents related to the killing of Murtaza. A few days before the police encounter with Murtaza, it was reported that Zardari had been gheraoed at Karachi airport by AZO jialas who forcibly shaved half of his moustache. Naturally Zardari had to shave the other half also and it was reported in the press. Begum Nusrat Bhutto was out of the country when Murtaza was kiilled. She immediately rushed back. When she came across Benazir at the Karachi airport, she reportedly retorted, “Yeh tum ne kia kardia?” (What have you done?), implying that she or her husband was involved in the killing. These incidents carried by rumours and partly reported in the press as well form the basis for the assumption that Zardari was involved in the killing of Fatima’s father.
This is the version given by Nusrat Bhutto and Ghinwa Bhutto side of the story. That’s also the problem with Fatima’s book. She failed to air the other side of the story whose roots can be found in Paracha’s article where he rightly mentions how Jam Sadiq and some ISI men tried to break PPP through Murtaza. But when Murtaza failed, he became useless to them.
i just hope its the truth..not many people tell un-biased stories. good effort.
paracha,you are a great and fearless journalist.i admire you brilliant work.do not ever stop telling the truth in the land of liars
It is interesting article by Mr Piracha but there are discrepancies also. He probably does not read DAWN otherwise he would have been more sure of causes of Shahnawaz’s death in Cannes. In its issue of 7th March, 2010, DAWN published an interview of Mr Jemshaid Marker with Ms: Anjum Niaz that clearly outlined the cause of Shahnawaz’s suicide. Mr Marker at that time was our Ambassador to France and had made personal inquiries into the case.
The adventures of Bhutto youngsters needs a detailed inquiry and report.
Mehmud Ahmed (Brampton – Canada)
9th April, 10
Bhai, that is Mr. Marker’s side of the story. That does not mean it is the only truth. Relax.
Dear Nadeem,
what a artical on history of azo.
congratulations on job well done.
keep it up.we are all with you.
An eye opener of an article. Sometimes it is good to refresh the memory and revisit the history with a very objective analysis and that is good to read amidst all the publicity that Fatima has garnered in her successful attempt to write a book and get noticed. It is hard to call a spade a spade when your own father is being ruthlessly murdered so I wont really blame Fatima too much in wanting to show the other side of his father, however kudos to Nadeem for a very unpassionate piece and seemingly factual part of the history.
Haris
Can we call second left wing armed group history? If we give some credit to Faiz Ahmad Faiz and General Akbar Khan alleged attempt to overthrow the government. The funny thing is that MB could not get his father’s party from his sister nor could he get popular votes by his new party. It is also strange that Fatima Bhutto is passionate about her father and lacks objectivity in her book about her father.
I am impressed by Mr Paracha’s quest for truth and also of so many Pakistani respondents’ desire to know why their nation has suffered so much bloodshed for so long. It appears that deceit, mistrust and lust for revenge were the main motivators for the ruling. Now the nation is awaking due mainly to brave people like Mr Paracha. This sort of self analysis is good for Pakistan and also for its much maligned neighbour, in Pakistani eyes, India.
Great work NFP! I hope that one day we make documentaries regarding such orgs so that we as nation could learn some lessons.
It has a lesson: as you sow so shall you reap. This is not meant to support what Zia did. I am thinking of so many innocent people who lost their lives or limbs due to terrorist activities of so called AZO.
Its really interesting but my father once old me that in the 70′s Murtaza Bhutto used to frequently visit Army Aviation Mess on Peshawar Road, Rawalpindi…where he had many friends in the young officer community.
I asked dad about his impressions of Murtaza B…and the first comment was that he was very soft spoken, not overly-friendly but soft spoken. He also had an aura of sophistication about him and drank only moderately.
It’s heart-breaking what execution of a father can do to his son!
Mr Nadeem Paracha you have written a good article, but you did not describe the detail of Murtaza’s murder in Karachi. Please try to open the murder mystery of Murtaza. Also write an article on the murder of Benazir.
Writer has done noting but tried to kill two birds with one stone. On one hand he states that sons of Bhutto were terrorist on the other hand he tries to implicate always loyal Muslim brother countries to be involved in anti Pakistan activities. Bhutto brothers were not anti Pakistan, their father died for the sake of Pakistan. They were just young grief stricken, naturally vengeful, as any of us could be, people. Who took the wrong path in anger. But writer has no right to implicate friendly countries to appease the enemies of Pakistan by usual disinformation and respectable family a bad name.
A very good job and reminder of our past. It would have been been of some interest to throw light on relationship between Mr AA Zardari and his sons in law- brothers of BB
Military has been cause of all evil in pakistan. Well done.
Seems like everyone likes to hear the truth, that’s a very good development. I’ll request the writer to start researching about other such groups also.
Well, all Bhuttoes are shaheeds and living in jannat for ever.
These kind of statements gets sympathy votes and is incorrect and this creates dynasties…Fatima Bhutto is against that!!
“The tribunal held later in 1997 ruled that Murtaza could not have been killed without approval from the highest echelons of government.” [Justice Retd Nasir Aslam Zahid] Please tell which echelon of the government is highest? Have you seen the movie ‘JFK’ by Oliver Stone if not then please watch it again and again, it will solve many of your puzzles.”Quote”As per Ghazali Book The Fourth Republic Chapter IX While the people speculated about the motives behind the killing of Mir Murtaza Bhutto, Dr. Mubashir Hasan, a former Finance Minister and a founder member of the PPP, was very blunt in his remarks: “For those who have removed Murtaza from our midst, the real problem has been and is Prime Minister Benazir. As long as Murtaza was alive, removing Benazir carried unacceptable risks. Murtaza could take over the mantle of the elder Bhutto’s legend. Else Murtaza and Benazir would be striving for a common cause, separately or jointly. That would have presented formidable political problems. Murtaza gone, the way is clear. Benazir stands perilously weakened. She is the next to go. Such are the brutal pathways of realpolitik.” [Dawn 25.9.1996.]” [For Further Reading UNHCR REPORT ON PAKISTAN OF 1996]
Thank you for the concise inisght into the history of AZO. indeed, people see no bans and rules in love and war.
Someone smells power and does everything to have it and another one does everything possible for “love” (?) / revenge.
Kamran Khan [The Correspondent of The News International/Washington Post] was the one who met with Murtaza in Damascus (Syria) [at the behest of Brigadier (r) Imtiaz] several times and insist him to come back to Pakistan, Kamran used to fly to Syria every month at that time. Read observation of Mr Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid on Kamran Khan.
Excerpts are from a book, Kamran Khan was then a Correspondent for The News International/Jang Group of Newspapers’s News Intelligence Unit. I wonder why our Esteemed Journalist Kamran Khan suffer from acute Inferiority Complex to name his feature as if its a section of US Central Intelligence Agency, he should have been proud of just quoting the story as Special Report.??? What is News Intelligence Unit? There must be a difference between Special Branch Report and Newspapers..
“QUOTE”
Murtaza Bhutto; Events after his murder
Kamran Khan, a correspondent of The News, appeared with a written request that he should be heard as a witness to reply to the statement made by the former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, to clear his name, to which the tribunal said it was not holding a defamation trial. The tribunal said it was not concerned with who had said what and that the former prime minister had named 50 people in her statement and there was no time to allow all those who had been named in her statement the opportunity to hear them. “We have limited time and by March 17 the report has to be submitted to the government and we will not allow you to examine Ms Benazir Bhutto and if we allow that there will be no end to it,” the chairman observed. The chairman asked him to submit a written statement before March 17. He also observed that he (Kamran Khan) should have come forward earlier, when the messages were being sent to him. He was reminded by the tribunal that one of the reporters of The News, Maqbool Ahmed, was given the message to convey to him for his appearance when his name was mentioned in the list submitted by the PPP (SB) party counsel, Manzoor Bhutta. “You kept quiet when you knew about it through the newspapers. You did not wake up until she came and named you by saying ‘if he could be used by me others can also use him.’ “Kamran Khan said he did not know who Maqbool Ahmed was. He said Ms Bhutto had used the tribunal’s platform to say things against him and, therefore, he wanted to reply to her from the same platform, to which the chairman said she had a locus standii, because her brother had been killed and her husband had been arrested in the case.
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Very interesting comment, I am sure many folks, like me, would have been educated by this discourse.
Here is more for satisfaction
“QUOTE”
Former interior minister Naseerullah Babar paid glowing tributes to Shoaib Suddle for restoring peace in Karachi when in 1994 the Army was withdrawn from the metropolitan city. He said the ISI was involved in the murder of Murtaza Bhutto. He said he had formed a commission to probe against the ISI but pressure was mounted on him and afterwards the inquiry was givenup. He criticized the MQM decision to join forces with the opposition. He said the MQM should join the government for the sake of peace in Karachi. REFERENCE: ‘Bill to cut president down to size this week’ News Desk Monday, April 14, 2008 News Desk http://thenews.jang.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=14093
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BB told and warned Mir because she knew much ahead as to what is going to happen. BB had the foresight which neither Mir Murtaza and nor Shahnawaz had. Tragedy is this that BB was assassinated too despited having so much experience and foresight. Because there wasn’t anybody to warn BB.
Mr. Mughal,
You have brought up some interesting facts/points. I think it would be useful for students of Pakistan Politics of post East pakistan era, for you to write a separate blog to open this discussion about Murtaza’s murder. Perhaps we all get some idea what happened in his and other hugh profile cases.
Thanks,
Zakir
“QUOTE”
Benazir showed respect when addressing her interior minister. She and the General Sahib liked to engage in intellectual dialogue. Unlike other cabinet ministers, I never saw Babar cringe before his young prime minister. He was in the centre of investigations when Benazirs two brothers were killed. I went to South of France when Shahnawaz died in July 1985. I know exactly what happened and who killed him.
Why, then, has he not revealed the identity of Shahnawaz’s killers?
Because I was advised not to go beyond the drawn line, he says. The substance that killed Shahnawaz was used by very few countries. The FBI and the French authorities investigated independently but kept their findings secret because of certain international sensitivities.
Was dictator Zia behind the act? Perhaps he wanted the Bhuttos wiped out altogether?
How ironical that 22 years down the road, ZAB’s daughter Benazir should wag a finger at Zia’s remnants who tried killing her in the early hours of October 19! When Ejazul Haq was asked whether he was a suspect in the eyes of Benazir, he merely grinned (just the way his dad used to) and dismissed the allegation as a farce.
Whodunnit? By Anjum Niaz October 28, 2007 [Dawn Magazine]
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Sir,
Thanks for the compliment and I would request the Dawn Blog to accept your advice to discuss the post Fall of Dhaka period threadbare.
Best Regards.
Mr. Piracha,
You have taken the initiative of bringing to life AZO. Thanks for that. Pakistan’s politics had totally ignored the courage of those young Pakistanis, who were ready to sacrifice their lives for a cause. Unfortunately, even today they are labelled not as those who fought against a ruthless dictator but as “terrorists.”
MAV
Thanks to Nadeem Paracha for the research and record of a part of the sad history. Unfortunately Ziaul Haq dictatorship left behind a lot of bad baggage which still haunts Pakistani politics. The introduction of violence in Pakistani politics was and is one of unfortunate legacy of Ziaul Haq’s dictatorship. There were military coups before and after Ziaul Haq but none as violent. Pakistanis are more civilized and forgiving when it comes to resolving political issues peacefully. We hope and pray that the execution of Z.A. Bhutto (April 4, 1979) would be the last “political execution” in Pakistan’s history. Forgiveness is a virtue.
Thank you NFP for writing something which was really worth reading.
Cheers
I remember those days when I was student in Lahore. Thanks to Ahsanullah Khan Bobby (Chairman of Black Eagle Students Organization) who saved hundreds of student to join AZO.
Your article is an almost chilling revelation of Pakistan’s convoluted political history. Scary to say the least.
Way to go NFP! And kudos to Dawn for being the only sensible news agency in an otherwise plethora of sensationalized nonsense…
Why on earth do people expect Fatima to talk ‘honestly’ about her own father, when we as a nation rarely assess any leader impartially. It will be decades before we can honestly assess the role all our leaders have played in our demise. I look forward to a future politics without any Zadaris, Bhuttos, Sharifs, Chaudaries et al.
We need a clean break with the past.
Perhaps you are dreaming of Utopia, ma’m. Wake Up, its Pakistan.
According to the french version, the death of Shanawaz is attributed more to an infighting between the brothers than an assassination attempt by Zia. Just thought i mention that.
Great article!