Author: Tunku Varadarajan
Publication: The Wall Street Journal
Date: November 28, 2001
Yes, Pakistan Evacuated Men From
Kunduz. Why'd The U.S. Let Them?
Last Thursday the Indian press carried
reports that two helicopters of the Pakistani air force had landed in the
heart of Kunduz--an Afghan town then under siege by the Northern Alliance,
but still under Taliban control--and "flew out soon after carrying two
chopper loads of personnel." These included two brigadiers of the Pakistani
army. Two days later, the Indian press again carried reports, based on
information supplied by Indian intelligence, that Pakistan's air force
had "flown several missions since Sunday to evacuate top Pakistani military
commanders."
When I read these stories, I asked
myself: What on earth is going on here?
Of course, it occurred to me that
the story could have been a bit of misinformation, perhaps a mischievous
"feed" to journalists by Indian intelligence officers keen to stir things
up against Pakistan. After all, the allegation was a serious one. Pakistan,
a much-vaunted U.S. ally in the war against terrorism, stood accused of
rescuing fighters who were on the side of the Taliban and al Qaeda, the
very groups against which the U.S. is waging war. And what is more, these
fighters were not freelance hotheads from Islamic seminaries in Pakistan--though,
goodness knows, there's no shortage of those--but actual members of the
Pakistani armed forces. In other words, these were men with ranks and commissions,
men in line for Pakistani state pensions, disciplined, professional men
who would be unlikely so much as to say "boo" to a goose without orders
from above.
If these reports were true, I was
entirely justified, was I not, in asking, What on earth is going on here?
On Saturday, the same day as the
second Indian report, the New York Times ran a story that caught my eye.
"Pakistanis Again Said to Evacuate Allies of Taliban," said the headline
over a report filed, from a place called Bangi, near Kunduz, by Dexter
Filkins and Carlotta Gall. They told of eyewitness accounts by Northern
Alliance soldiers "that Pakistani airplanes had once again flown into the
encircled city of Kunduz to evacuate Pakistanis who have been fighting
alongside Afghan Taliban forces trapped there." The Times reported that
earlier in the week, "alliance officials said they had been told by a Taliban
leader in Kunduz that at least three Pakistani Air Force planes had landed
in recent days on similar missions."
Yesterday, in a conversation with
a highly placed diplomat from the region, I learned enough to be able to
assert that all these reports are entirely correct. Pakistani air force
helicopters and transport craft did, indeed, ferry out nearly 200 regular
men and officers of the Pakistan army--including two brigadiers. A large
number of ex-servicemen were also evacuated in this manner. According to
the diplomat, "this could not have been done without the specific approval
and connivance of the Bush administration." The U.S. controls the skies
over Kunduz, and it is unlikely that Pakistani craft would have flown into
the zone without attracting U.S. attention.
This affair raises intriguing, and
worrying, questions. First: What were these Pakistani soldiers doing in
Kunduz? And second, why did the U.S. choose to turn a blind eye to their
rescue?
In answer to the first question
it should be pointed out that prior to the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan,
there were thousands of Pakistani troops in that country. Most were spirited
out in the days before the bombing began, days in which, one will recall,
Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan spent most of his time urging restraint,
delays, etc., all as a smokescreen for a complicated troop withdrawal from
Afghanistan.
They couldn't be flown out en masse,
for that would have looked ugly, and raised ugly questions about Pakistan's
role in the Taliban and al Qaeda networks; instead, they had to be siphoned
out overland, as it were, as unobtrusively as possible. Small garrisons
were left behind--at Mazar-e-Sharif and Kunduz--in the belief that the
war would end rather differently, and not with the kind of rout that we
have seen. Gen. Musharraf, you will also recall, spent much energy, earlier
in the campaign, urging the U.S. not to attack the Taliban frontline in
the country's north. Why? Because he had troops there, alongside the Taliban,
troops he hoped would hold the line for the Pakistan-Taliban axis in any
postbellum settlement.
Why did the U.S. let Gen. Musharraf
rescue his troops, only days after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had
rebuffed the general's pleas for safe passage out of Kunduz for Pakistani
fighters trapped there? There are no easy answers, only uncomfortable ones.
My guess is that Secretary of State Colin Powell, with whom the Pakistani
dictator has developed an unseemly and unctuous rapport, called in all
his chips on this one. The evasiveness of U.S. top brass on the subject
suggests they are embarrassed over the affair. How could they not be? Weren't
the men the Pakistanis rescued the very men this country is at war with?
And weren't these some of the very men Mr. Rumsfeld said had only two choices
before them at Kunduz, death or surrender?
One day, when the war in Afghanistan
is well and truly done, we will get answers to all these questions. In
the meantime, what we are beginning to learn is that if one enlists dubious
allies, one runs the high risk of treading knee-deep in--how shall I put
it?--foul-smelling organic waste matter.
And as allies go, Gen. Musharraf
is as dubious as they get.
(Mr. Varadarajan is deputy editorial
features editor of The Wall Street Journal. His column appears Tuesdays.)
