Pakistan is today in a tailspin. Extremists and terrorists have captured significant portions of the country's western border areas. Political brinkmanship is pushing the rest of the country into turmoil. Streets of Punjab are witnessing the return of unrest and violence. Pakistan is seething, simmering and slowly disintegrating from its edges. A reluctant and bruised Army is waiting at the doorsteps. There are strong apprehensions of a coup, barely a year after the last military regime exited.
With events overtaking hopes with such a dizzying speed, predicting the immediate future of Pakistan will be like writing on sand. Few assumptions can, however, be made, both for the short and long term, without being swept away by the turbulent events which are likely to intensify in the days ahead.
One thing is sure: President Asif Ali Zardari's days are numbered. An outsider in Pakistan's politics, the February 2008 elections offered him the unique chance of turning the country's face towards a democratic future after nine years of military rule. He blew it within six months of his election. As President he chose confrontation over reconciliation with his political opponents. Though there are attempts to persuade Zardari to compromise with his political opponents, the Sharif brothers, and some kind of rapprochement might be brokered, it will be of the most temporary kind. Both the opponents have gone too far down the road to turn the clock back to March 2008 when they decided to jettison their traditional rivalries and form a coalition in Islamabad.
Zardari, by his sheer dumb-ass attitude, has created enemies within his own party. The most vocal has been the man he picked up from obscurity to be the Prime Minister, Yousaf Raza Gillani. An anti-Zardari feeling within the party had been gathering storm ever since the President brusquely sidelined all the Benazir Bhutto loyalists, relying more on his friends and associates to run the party and the government. With Zardari committing hara-kiri, the anti-Zardari group has rallied behind Gillani, giving this political lightweight enough scope to speak out against the President in public.
If events turn out in favour of Gillani against Zardari, it would be the second blow for the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), the only political party in Pakistan with support bases across all provinces which has stood up, despite its feudal hierarchy and functioning, against the complete military takeover of the country's political process. The first was the brutal assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the mantle of leadership falling in the laps of Zardari, a corrupt manipulator whose survival instincts have so far been a shade better than a cockroach.
PPP has far remained a vanguard of democracy in Pakistan. Zardari has rendered the party its fatal wound and irrespective of events, the party would witness a break-up in the months ahead. It is today rudderless; Gillani is not a charismatic leader and most important he is not a Bhutto. Zardari, a victim of his own cunning, has shown no commitment or ability to keep his party united and strong. There are other leaders in the party, some with the capability, and character, to lead the party but most of them are provincial leaders and do not have the charisma of a Benazir to gather the demoralised flock to present a unified front against the party opponents, and the Army.
Another certainty is the street power of the middle-class in Pakistan. This is a new phenomenon and is likely to gather momentum as the country struggles with its past follies. In 2007, when lawyers and others came out on the streets after President Pervez Musharraf sacked the Supreme Court Chief Justice, many thought it to be a short-lived phenomenon. When the street protests brought down the once-powerful Musharraf to his knees within months, it was quite clear that people had won over the military. The present round of street protests has naturally raised the spectre of a repeat of 2007, which is not exactly against Zardari alone but, must remember, is built on the demand for the restoration of the judiciary. This has far too deeper ramifications than merely political.
For one, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary was sacked in March 2007 because he was trying to put the Army on the defensive about several people, many of them strong opponents of Musharraf and his policies, who were made to disappear in the guise of War on Terror. Chaudhary was browbeaten and sacked in the presence of the present Army Chief, General Ashfaq Kayani. The street protests that ran like wild fire ended in the resignation of Musharraf. It was one of the most serious blows to the supremacy of the Army in Pakistan's history. Kayani is well aware that street protests this time around would only make the Army's position more unstable in a country where at least some sections of the people are showing signs of `military fatigue`. This does not augur well for the Army which has ruled the country on and off during the past six decades.
Therefore, it has made the Army's proclivity to remove civilian leaders and take over the reigns quite a difficult task under the present circumstances. Kayani knows that a coup at this time would invite a massive public wrath, and this time not only would the lawyers be out on the streets but others too. So a coup in the immediate future is not in sight.
What is therefore likely to happen in Pakistan is to somehow keep the present civilian government in place with or without Zardari (he has already been given a deadline to clean up the act or get out), to restore Punjab to the Sharif brothers or at least to their party and return to the western frontier where the Taliban and its allies have been knocking at the gates for the last two years. Gillani has cleverly positioned himself to take over from Zardari and the Army sees no threat from Gillani as the head of the State. The Sharif brothers too have declared that they would support Gillani. There are, however, several `buts and ifs` to such a proposition. An anonymous bullet, for instance, can unsettle this equation.
What should be more worrying to India is that peace and stability in Pakistan can never be taken for granted. There are too many negatives at work in the country. Ironically, the street protests, which many consider a sign of the unravelling of Pakistan, indicate a glimmer of possibility of people's voice finally getting heard. This is bad for the Army, but good for the country. It is too early to be optimistic. There are too many vested interests within and outside the country which, unlike India, would rather see Pakistan in turmoil.
Awatansh Tripathi
Showing posts with label military. Show all posts
Showing posts with label military. Show all posts
Sunday, May 17, 2009
ISI & The role of Pakistan in "war on terror"
Much is now being made of the 'indigenisation' of Islamist extremism and terrorism in India as purportedly opposed to the earlier Pakistan-backed terrorist activities. It is crucial, at this juncture, to scotch emerging misconceptions on this count. Islamist terrorism in India has always had an Indian face -- but has overwhelmingly been engineered and directed from Pakistan, and nothing has changed in this scenario. Going back to the March 1993 serial explosions in Mumbai, which killed 257 people and left 713 injured, and were executed by the Dawood Ibrahim gang, for instance, it is useful to recall that nearly 1,800 kg of RDX and a large number of detonators and small arms had been smuggled from Pakistan through India's west coast prior to the bombings. The operation was coordinated by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, and Ibrahim and a number of his gang members have since lived under state protection in Karachi.
Similarly, Al Ummah, which was responsible for a series of 19 explosions in February 1998, which left 50 people dead in the Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu, and which had established a wide network of extremist organisations across south India, was also aided by Pakistan, with a considerable flow of funds from Pakistan-based terror groups, often through the Gulf. The Deendar Anjuman, headed by Zia-ul-Hassan, which orchestrated a series of 13 explosions in churches in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Goa between May and July 2000, was, again, bankrolled by the ISI.
The then Union Minister for Home Affairs had stated in Parliament that investigators had established linkages between the Deendar Anjuman and Pakistan's covert intelligence agency. Hassan himself was based at Peshawar in Pakistan, where the sect was established under the name of Anjuman Hizbullah, and he is said to have floated a militant group, the Jamaat-e-Hizb-ul-Mujahiddeen in Pakistan, in order to 'capture India and spread Islam'.
It is entirely within this paradigm that the evolution of Students Islamic Movement of India as a terrorist group is located. Absent the support and involvement of Pakistan's covert agencies and an enduring partnership with a range of Pakistan-based or backed terrorist groups, SIMI may have had an amateur flirtation with terrorism, an impulse that would quickly have been exhausted with a handful of low-grade and at least occasionally accidental bomb blasts. Instead, its leadership and cadre have had a long apprenticeship alongside Pakistani terrorist groups operating in Jammu & Kashmir, and several of the more promising candidates have crossed the border to secure 'advanced training' on Pakistani soil or in Bangladesh.
The control centre of SIMI has, for some time now, been based in Pakistan. Operational command in a number of major attacks, including the Samjhauta Express bombing of February 18, 2007, and the two serial attacks in Hyderabad in May and August 2007, was known to have been exercised by Mohammed Shahid aka Bilal. Bilal was reported to have been shot in Karachi in September 2007, and, while Indian intelligence sources remain sceptical, no confirmed sighting has subsequently been reported. Operational control thereafter has shifted to the Lahore-based second-in-command, Mohammad Amjad.
I have repeatedly emphasised the fact that Pakistan's ISI -- as an organ of the country's military and political establishment -- has been, and remains, the principal source of the impetus, the infrastructure and the organisational networks of what is inaccurately called 'Islamist' terrorism across the world. An overwhelming proportion of so-called 'Islamist' terrorism is, in fact, simply 'ISI terrorism'.
While the Indian establishment remains unusually coy about this reality -- with fitful and often quickly qualified exception -- some measure of satisfaction may now be derived from a growing American recognition of Pakistan's pernicious role as an abiding source of Islamist terrorism. Had this recognition come in the first weeks after 9/11, that could have saved thousands of lives, most significantly in Afghanistan and India, but also in Europe and across Asia.
Nevertheless, Western commentators and Governments are now increasingly acknowledging Pakistan's duplicity in the 'global war on terror', the proclivity to act as an 'on-and-off ally of Washington'. While providing fitful cooperation in US anti-terrorism efforts, The Washington Times notes, "in other ways, Pakistan aids and abets terror. US officials say that Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence... was behind the recent bombing of India's Embassy in Kabul. And the Pakistani Government's refusal to confront Al Qaeda has helped create a de facto safe haven for the group and its allies in locations like the Federally Administered Tribal Areas region of Pakistan".
US Intelligence officials, The Washington Times notes further, compare "Al Qaeda's operational and organisational advantages in the FATA to those it enjoyed in Afghanistan prior to September 11", and warn that "Al Qaeda was training and positioning its operatives to carry out attacks in the West, probably including the United States".
These disclosures coincide with reports that President George W Bush had secretly approved orders in July 2008, allowing American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani Government. US Forces have executed numerous missile attacks from unmanned Predator drones on Pakistani soil in the past, but the September 3, 2008, attack by NATO and US ground troops at a Taliban-Al Qaeda stronghold in South Waziristan was the first instance in which troops had participated. The incident has already been followed by drone attacks on September 9 on a seminary run by Jalaluddin Haqqani, in which 20 people, including some senior Al Qaeda operatives, were killed; and on September 12 at Tul Khel in North Waziristan, in which an Al Badr Mujahideen commander was targeted. Haqqani, it is significant, was known to have engineered the attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul, using a LeT suicide cadre Hamza Shakoor, a Pakistani from Gujranwala district, on behalf of the ISI.
The increasing frequency of US-NATO attacks -- manned or unmanned -- into Pakistani territory, and the Bush Administration's approval of Special Operations into Pakistan without prior sanction from Islamabad, has reconfirmed the country's status as a safe haven for Islamist terrorists and an area of growing anxiety for the world. There is, however, still very little understanding of how heavy and sustained the Pakistani footprint has been in Islamist terrorist activities across the globe. The enormity of this 'footprint' is, for instance, reflected in the long succession of terrorist incidents, arrests and seizures, separately, in India, the US and Europe, in which a Pakistani link has been suspected or confirmed.
Awatansh Tripathi
Similarly, Al Ummah, which was responsible for a series of 19 explosions in February 1998, which left 50 people dead in the Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu, and which had established a wide network of extremist organisations across south India, was also aided by Pakistan, with a considerable flow of funds from Pakistan-based terror groups, often through the Gulf. The Deendar Anjuman, headed by Zia-ul-Hassan, which orchestrated a series of 13 explosions in churches in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Goa between May and July 2000, was, again, bankrolled by the ISI.
The then Union Minister for Home Affairs had stated in Parliament that investigators had established linkages between the Deendar Anjuman and Pakistan's covert intelligence agency. Hassan himself was based at Peshawar in Pakistan, where the sect was established under the name of Anjuman Hizbullah, and he is said to have floated a militant group, the Jamaat-e-Hizb-ul-Mujahiddeen in Pakistan, in order to 'capture India and spread Islam'.
It is entirely within this paradigm that the evolution of Students Islamic Movement of India as a terrorist group is located. Absent the support and involvement of Pakistan's covert agencies and an enduring partnership with a range of Pakistan-based or backed terrorist groups, SIMI may have had an amateur flirtation with terrorism, an impulse that would quickly have been exhausted with a handful of low-grade and at least occasionally accidental bomb blasts. Instead, its leadership and cadre have had a long apprenticeship alongside Pakistani terrorist groups operating in Jammu & Kashmir, and several of the more promising candidates have crossed the border to secure 'advanced training' on Pakistani soil or in Bangladesh.
The control centre of SIMI has, for some time now, been based in Pakistan. Operational command in a number of major attacks, including the Samjhauta Express bombing of February 18, 2007, and the two serial attacks in Hyderabad in May and August 2007, was known to have been exercised by Mohammed Shahid aka Bilal. Bilal was reported to have been shot in Karachi in September 2007, and, while Indian intelligence sources remain sceptical, no confirmed sighting has subsequently been reported. Operational control thereafter has shifted to the Lahore-based second-in-command, Mohammad Amjad.
I have repeatedly emphasised the fact that Pakistan's ISI -- as an organ of the country's military and political establishment -- has been, and remains, the principal source of the impetus, the infrastructure and the organisational networks of what is inaccurately called 'Islamist' terrorism across the world. An overwhelming proportion of so-called 'Islamist' terrorism is, in fact, simply 'ISI terrorism'.
While the Indian establishment remains unusually coy about this reality -- with fitful and often quickly qualified exception -- some measure of satisfaction may now be derived from a growing American recognition of Pakistan's pernicious role as an abiding source of Islamist terrorism. Had this recognition come in the first weeks after 9/11, that could have saved thousands of lives, most significantly in Afghanistan and India, but also in Europe and across Asia.
Nevertheless, Western commentators and Governments are now increasingly acknowledging Pakistan's duplicity in the 'global war on terror', the proclivity to act as an 'on-and-off ally of Washington'. While providing fitful cooperation in US anti-terrorism efforts, The Washington Times notes, "in other ways, Pakistan aids and abets terror. US officials say that Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence... was behind the recent bombing of India's Embassy in Kabul. And the Pakistani Government's refusal to confront Al Qaeda has helped create a de facto safe haven for the group and its allies in locations like the Federally Administered Tribal Areas region of Pakistan".
US Intelligence officials, The Washington Times notes further, compare "Al Qaeda's operational and organisational advantages in the FATA to those it enjoyed in Afghanistan prior to September 11", and warn that "Al Qaeda was training and positioning its operatives to carry out attacks in the West, probably including the United States".
These disclosures coincide with reports that President George W Bush had secretly approved orders in July 2008, allowing American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani Government. US Forces have executed numerous missile attacks from unmanned Predator drones on Pakistani soil in the past, but the September 3, 2008, attack by NATO and US ground troops at a Taliban-Al Qaeda stronghold in South Waziristan was the first instance in which troops had participated. The incident has already been followed by drone attacks on September 9 on a seminary run by Jalaluddin Haqqani, in which 20 people, including some senior Al Qaeda operatives, were killed; and on September 12 at Tul Khel in North Waziristan, in which an Al Badr Mujahideen commander was targeted. Haqqani, it is significant, was known to have engineered the attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul, using a LeT suicide cadre Hamza Shakoor, a Pakistani from Gujranwala district, on behalf of the ISI.
The increasing frequency of US-NATO attacks -- manned or unmanned -- into Pakistani territory, and the Bush Administration's approval of Special Operations into Pakistan without prior sanction from Islamabad, has reconfirmed the country's status as a safe haven for Islamist terrorists and an area of growing anxiety for the world. There is, however, still very little understanding of how heavy and sustained the Pakistani footprint has been in Islamist terrorist activities across the globe. The enormity of this 'footprint' is, for instance, reflected in the long succession of terrorist incidents, arrests and seizures, separately, in India, the US and Europe, in which a Pakistani link has been suspected or confirmed.
Awatansh Tripathi
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