ISLAMABAD – Suleman spent years targeting minority Shiite Muslims in his home country of Pakistan as a member of one of the country’s most feared militant groups. Now he is on his way to a new sectarian battleground, Syria, where he plans to join Sunni rebels battling President Bashar Assad’s regime.
It is a fight he believes will boost his reward in heaven.
The short and stocky Pakistani, who identified himself using only his first name for fear of being targeted by authorities, is one of an increasing number of militants who have left Pakistan for Syria in recent months. The fighters have contributed to a growing presence of Islamic extremists and complicated U.S. efforts to help the rebels.
Many fighters such as Suleman believe they must help Syria’s Sunni majority defeat Assad’s Alawite regime – an offshoot of the Shiite sect. Radical Sunnis view Shiites as heretics.
The presence of Islamic extremists in Syria looms large over U.S. efforts to help the rebels, especially when it comes to providing weapons that could end up in the hands of America’s enemies. The extremists also have sparked infighting with more secular rebels concerned about the increasing power of the Islamists.
Most of the foreign fighters in Syria are from Arab countries, including al-Qaida militants from Iraq on the rebel side and Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon on the regime’s side. The flow of militants from Pakistan adds a new element to that mix.
Pakistani Interior Ministry spokesman Omar Hamid Khan said provincial authorities throughout Pakistan deny that militants have left the country for Syria.
But three Pakistani intelligence officials based in the tribal region that borders Afghanistan, as well as militants themselves, say the fighters leaving Pakistan for Syria include members of al-Qaida, the Pakistani Taliban and Suleman’s group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
The fighters include foreign combatants from places such as Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and likely the Middle East who came to Pakistan’s tribal region to fight U.S.-led forces in neighboring Afghanistan and are now heading to Syria because they view it as the most pressing battle, said the Pakistani intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
