Riaz Rehan was not a member of any of the jihadist organizations with whom he worked, not the Umayyad Revolutionary Council, not Al-Qaeda, not Lashkar-e-Taiba, not Jaish-e-Mohammed. No, he was a freelancer, a contract employer, and he was the man who translated the general interests and goals of the Pakistani Islamist leadership into actions on the ground, in the trenches.
He worked with twenty-four different Islamist militant groups, all based in Pakistan. And to do this he adopted twenty-four different cover identities. To Lashkar-e-Taiba he was Abu Kashmiri, to Jaish-e-Mohammed he was Khalid Mir. He was, in effect, twenty-five people, including his given name, and this made him virtually impossible for Indian and Western intelligence agencies to track. His personal security was also helped along by the fact that he was neither fish nor fowclass="underline" not a member of a terror group, and not a member of the Pakistani intelligence services.
Terror cells acting under his patronage executed missions in Bali, Jakarta, Mumbai, New Delhi, Baghdad, Kabul, Tel Aviv, Tanzania, Mogadishu, Chittagong, and all over Pakistan itself.
In December 2007 in Rawalpindi, Riaz Rehan conducted his biggest operation, though no more than a handful of upper-level ISI and PDF generals knew about it. Rehan himself selected, trained, and handled the assassin of Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto on behalf of the Ministry of Defense and the ISI. And in true cold, calculating Rehan fashion, he also selected the man who stood behind the gunman, the man who blew the assassin up, along with a sizable portion of the crowd, with a suicide vest, right after the prime minister had been shot, to ensure that these dead men would indeed tell no tales.
It was crucial to the leaders in Pakistani intelligence who used the jihadist groups and criminal gangs as proxy fighters that they keep their hands clean, and Rehan was the cutout who helped them do just that. For Rehan himself to stay clean as the cutout, they put great resources into his personal and operational security. Rehan’s contacts in the Arab world, wealthy oil sheiks in Qatar and the UAE whom he had known since the war with Russia in Afghanistan, began to sponsor him to further insulate and protect him. He was bankrolled by these wealthy Wahhabis, and eventually, in 2010, he returned to the Pakistani Army at the rank of brigadier general simply because his powerful Arab friends demanded of the ISI that Rehan be given a senior operating role in the nation’s intelligence structure. The Islamist generals put him in charge of Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous, a role normally given to a higher-ranking major general. This handed over to Rehan the responsibility for all international espionage assets and operations.
His benefactors in the UAE, those who knew him (or more precisely knew of him) since his days as a teenager humping mule trains over the mountains solidified their special relationship with Rehan by giving him access to a walled compound on Dubai’s Palm Islands. This became, for all intents and purposes, his office. Yes, he had an office in Islamabad at the beautifully maintained headquarters of the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence in Aabpara, but as often as not he was in Dubai, away from those in the government of Pakistan who did not know he existed, or in the Army of Pakistan who did not support his goal for a caliphate.
And away from those few in the ISI who actively sought to bring him down.
General Rehan arrived at his compound a short time after his call with Colonel Khan, and a few minutes after that he sat across the table from Suleiman Murshidov, the venerable spiritual leader of Jamaat Shariat of Dagestan. The old man must have been eighty, Rehan thought, as he looked at eyes milky from cataracts and skin like beach sand blown into folds by the wind. He was of the mountains of the Caucasus, and Riaz assumed he had never been to Dubai, had never seen skyscrapers higher than the squat Soviet-era concrete monoliths in Makhachkala, and had never met with a person in power in a foreign intelligence organization.
A few of Rehan’s officers and guards stood around the dining room, and the old man was in the company of four others, all younger, some much more so. They didn’t look like security, more like sons and grandsons. They also appeared as if they were here under duress. Perspiration glistened on their foreheads, and they glanced around at the armed security walking the grounds and the house as if they might, at any moment, be taken prisoner by these dark-skinned men.
The Dagestani spiritual leader had asked for this meeting several days ago, and Rehan knew why. The general thought it was childish, really. Rehan had been traveling the world in the past few months, meeting with insurgent groups and international terror outfits in Egypt, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Chechnya, and Yemen.
But he had bypassed Dagestan. Jamaat Shariat, the main Dagestani Islamist group, took a backseat to the Chechens in the eyes of Rehan and his men. More so now that Jamaat Shariat had lost the commander of their armed wing, Israpil Nabiyev. But even before Nabiyev had been captured by the Russians, Riaz Rehan had not bothered to include the Dagestanis in his meetings. The Chechens worked with the Dagestanis, so he had met only with the Chechens.
And now, Rehan assumed, the Dagestanis were mad. Offended at the slight. They had sent their spiritual leader here to explain that they were still viable and only Jamaat Shariat spoke for Dagestan, blah, blah, blah.
Rehan looked at the old man across the table. The Pakistani general was sure he was about to be lectured by this holy man from the mountains.
Everyone in the room spoke Arabic. Rehan greeted the contingent from Dagestan, asked after their needs, and inquired about their journey.
With the niceties out of the way, Rehan was anxious to finish his morning meeting. “How may I be of service to you today?”
Murshidov said, “I am told by my friends in Chechnya that you are a man of God.”
Rehan smiled. “I am a humble follower.”
“My people have been dealt a painful blow with the capture of Israpil Nabiyev.”
“I have seen this. I know he was a valiant commander of your troops.” In truth, Rehan did not think much of the Dagestanis. He knew the Chechens better, had more respect for their abilities as fighters. Still, this Nabiyev fellow had impressed the Chechens. They said he was supposedly a cut above the other Dagestani fighters who’d been, by Rehan’s way of thinking, little more than cannon fodder for the Russians.
Murshidov nodded, appreciative of the kind words. “He was my great hope for the future of my people. But without him, I believe now we must look outward for assistance.”
Oh, so there is a pitch to be made today. Rehan was pleased. If this old man needed something, then maybe he wouldn’t have to sit through a tongue-lashing. “I am at your service. How can I help you?”
“The Chechens say you will soon lead Pakistan.”
Rehan’s face remained impassive, but inside him his blood began to boil. He had sworn all the attendees at his meetings to secrecy. “That is premature. Right now, the situation is difficult for—”
But the old man kept talking, almost as if he were talking to himself and did not know Rehan was in the room with him. “You have told the Chechens you will gain control of nuclear weapons, and you have offered these weapons to the Chechens. They have refused you, because they are afraid that if they possessed the nuclear weapons they would become a nuclear target themselves.”
Rehan did not speak. The muscles in his face flexed under his trim beard. He glanced up at Khan and the other colonels in the room with him. He gave them a look that he knew would indicate to them that they would never work with those Chechen fools again if they could not keep a conversation like that to themselves.