Pakistan - News and Discussion -7

[Naresh]

<b>Taking credit, raising questions - Hussain Haqqani</b> <!--emo&:liar liar--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/liar.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='liar.gif' /><!--endemo-->

Pakistani officials hastened to take credit for the role of Pakistan’s intelligence services in helping uncover the alleged terrorist plot that recently led to several arrests in London and Pakistan and resulted in heightened security at British and American airports. These officials were probably seeking praise for Pakistan’s cooperation in the U.S.-led global war against terrorism and attempting to silence critics who claim that Pakistan is not doing enough to combat terrorism. There was also a concerted Pakistani effort to link the alleged plotters to Al-Qaeda, to point out that the ringleaders were British citizens albeit of Pakistani descent and to suggest that Al-Qaeda’s activities are still centered in Afghanistan.

Judging by international media coverage, <b>the objectives of Pakistani officials were not fulfilled. In fact, the Pakistani rush to take credit seemed to have backfired.</b> There was, undoubtedly, the usual diplomatic acknowledgement from the British Foreign Office and the U.S. State Department of Pakistan’s help in counter-terrorism efforts. <b>But in the court of public opinion, Pakistan’s role was questioned more than appreciated.</b> Within days of the London arrests, major international papers ran headlines critical of Pakistan. “Pakistan’s Arrests Leave U.S. Uneasy,” declared the Los Angeles Times, adding “Detentions in the alleged British plot provide a reminder that a key Asian ally is home to many of America’s foes in the war on terrorism.”

The Wall Street Journal report appeared with the title, “Pakistan Stays a Terrorism Source: Extremist Islamic Groups Rooted in Kashmir Dispute Join Attacks against West.” A headline in the New York Times read, “Accounts After 2005 London Bombings Point to Al Qaeda Role from Pakistan.” London’s Sunday Times minced few words, wondering out loud, “Just whose side is Pakistan really on?” In Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald proclaimed, “Pakistan missing link in extremist battle”

Pakistan’s predicament was explained in another New York Times headline, which read, “Pakistan’s Help in Averting a Terror Attack Is a Double-Edged Sword.” <b>In their effort to claim credit for their efforts in cracking this particular case, Pakistani officials had ended up drawing attention to the critical question: Why, after five years since 9/11 and General Musharraf’s alliance with the U.S., do terrorists still converge in or operate out of Pakistan?</b> No one is denying that Pakistan’s intelligence agencies helped catch the alleged plotters in the recent London conspiracy.

But Al-Qaeda operatives are still being found in Pakistan. New recruits from the Pakistani diaspora, including those with British citizenship, keep coming to or emerging from Pakistan to undertake or plot terrorist acts, Al-Qaeda and its ilk still seem to think of Pakistan as a possible safe haven, notwithstanding the arrest of many individual terrorists there. The New York Times pointed out, “It is not the first time that Pakistan has proved to be fertile soil for the cultivation of terrorist activity. This week’s London case is the sixth major terrorist attack, either consummated or attempted over the last three years, to be linked to Pakistan in some fashion. It has again raised the question of whether Pakistan is doing enough to rein in terrorist groups operating on its soil.”

The same NYT report cited Christine Fair of the United States Institute of Peace to point out that it may not be fair to blame Pakistan for a plot in which most of those arrested were born in Britain.<b> “But Pakistan remains a place where you can find the ideology of terrorism and get the training to carry it out, and that’s a huge problem,”</b> she said. According to the paper, <b>“Pakistan has long used extremist Islamist groups as tools to expert pressure on its neighbors, India and Afghanistan, and that strategy has come with a high price,</b> said Stephen P. Cohen of the Brookings Institution... Much for that reason, for the Bush administration Pakistan remains a crucial but sometimes disappointing partner in the campaign against terrorism. General Musharraf’s vocal support for American counterterrorist efforts has not always been matched by action... While the arrests this week clearly showed some Pakistani cooperation, <b>they also seemed to indicate that terrorist training camps remain active.”</b>

The Wall Street Journal reported, “Over the past year alone, the U.S., Lebanon, Afghanistan and the United Kingdom have arrested suspected militants who either had trained in Pakistan, or were preparing to do so.” The Los Angeles Times ominously wondered allowed, “The trail of evidence in the British terrorism investigation is leading to an uncomfortable question for the Bush administration: Is Pakistan — and not Iraq, Afghanistan or some other country — the central front in the war on terrorism?”

<b>Those raised within Pakistan’s simple-minded cantonment culture will immediately attribute these queries and comments as the work of an “Indo-Zionist lobby” in the Western media</b>. But the Musharraf regime’s problem stems from its policy of distinguishing between Pakistani Jihadi groups working against India or Afghanistan and international terrorists such as Al-Qaeda. Many Pakistani Jihadi groups have started serving as intermediaries and facilitators for potential recruits to new “baby al-Qaedas” –groups linked ideologically but not structurally to the movement led by Osama bin Laden.’

Pakistan remains the center of ideological extremism and the home of a growing Muslim culture of grievance and anger against western domination or real and perceived injustices against Muslims. Musharraf has done little to change the overall environment of hatred towards Jews, Christians and Hindus and the view that Muslims are victims of a global conspiracy, which can best be fought with unconventional war or terrorism. It is important to note that Bin Laden added Hindus to Jews and Crusaders as enemies of Islam in his last recorded statement. Bin Laden obviously knows the value of using the anti-Hindu feeling of Pakistanis in his global Jihad.

Pakistan’s home-grown Jihadi groups, raised to fight in Jammu and Kashmir, have been active in Britain and other parts of the world for many years, raising funds and seeking recruits from the Pakistani diaspora. Young Muslims resentful over a range of issues have gravitated to Pakistan-based groups as much as Al-Qaeda and its affiliates. Omar Saeed Shaikh -- convicted of involvement in the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl -- spent part of his youth in England and went to the London School of Economics before volunteering for Jihad in Bosnia and Kashmir. He was imprisoned in India and was sprung from an Indian prison as a result of the hijacking of an Indian plane to Kandahar in December 1999. Two British citizens of Pakistani descent were involved in terrorist acts in Israel in 2004.

There is, therefore, an established pattern of recruitment by international and Pakistani Jihadi groups from among Muslims in Britain. What seems to have changed now is that British Jihad recruits are not content with fighting in localized conflicts like Chechnya, Palestine Bosnia or Kashmir. They are thinking of ways to bring the Jihad to Britain and the United States, considering these major powers responsible for the misery of the world’s Muslims.

Instead of focusing their energies on media spin and trying to take credit, it is time Pakistan’s rulers recognized the deep roots of the Jihadist ideology and networks within Pakistan. The state apparatus must acknowledge its error in tolerating and encouraging extremism in the past and then set about methodically dismantling the infrastructure of extremism. If that is not done, Pakistan will continue to remain in the eye of the terrorist storm.

E-mail: hhaqqani@nation.com.pk

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