Author:
Publication: Investor's Business Daily
Date: August 14, 2006
URL: http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=240447349210730
Islamabad was quick to trumpet its help in
foiling the sky terror plot. And by all accounts, it deserves some praise.
But such cooperation seems to occur only when the West gets wind of another
Pakistan-based plot.
This time we were lucky. Last year, Pakistani
Britons trained and funded in Pakistan bombed the heart of London. As eyes
fell on ally Pakistan, its government vowed to dismantle the infrastructure
that gave the terrorists support in Lahore and Karachi. It never happened.
Meanwhile, some of the Pakistani Britons accused
in the latest plot traveled to the same Pakistani cities where they again
received terrorism training and funding. Reports say at least two of the suspects
visited the same madrassas in Lahore as one of the London bombers.
The religious school is run by an al-Qaida
charitable front called Jamaat al-Dawat, which allegedly has funneled money
to al-Qaida in Karachi and Peshawar, and also directly to London. The charity
was declared a terror group by the U.S. earlier this year.
But Islamabad never followed suit. It never outlawed the group, never froze
its assets or even blacklisted it. The front has been free to operate legally
in Pakistan, even though the government knew it was connected to the London
bombings and other terrorism.
Islamabad has let several other militant groups,
many of them al-Qaida subcontractors, operate with virtual impunity inside
Pakistan. In all, they make up a farm system for al-Qaida, providing it with
tens of thousands of recruits who can be trained in explosives.
They also offer spiritual guidance for martyrs,
which is a highly complicated affair. Suicide bombers have to be vetted for
reliability and then walked through their oath of death and final testimony,
which is often videotaped for al-Qaida propaganda purposes, a process managed
by al-Qaida's inner circle. All this is done in Pakistan.
In fact, Pakistan may be the new Afghanistan.
Al-Qaida and its subcontractors are training, funding and exporting terrorists
to the West from inside Pakistan, and Islamabad plainly can't keep up with
them. They're coming off the assembly lines in Peshawar, Karachi and Lahore
at a faster and faster clip, and no one in the government can seem to find
the OFF switch.
Last week's London case marks the sixth terror
plot or attack to be linked to Pakistan over the last three years. That's
two a year.
Yet all the while Pakistani President Pervez
Musharraf has dismissed ties between his nation and global terrorists. And
he continues to suggest al-Qaida is based in neighboring Afghanistan, which
Kabul flatly denies, calling Pakistan's claim "diversionary."
After the London bombings, Musharraf declared
he had "completely shattered al-Qaida's vertical and horizontal links
and smashed its communication and propaganda setup. Therefore, it is absolutely
baseless to say that al-Qaida has its headquarters in Pakistan and that terror
attacks in other parts of the world in any way originate from our country."
All due respect to our ally, the evidence
says otherwise. John McLaughlin, the Bush administration's former acting CIA
chief, says there's little doubt Pakistan is the new jihad training circuit
for al-Qaida and that the group's leaders have found sanctuary there.
He's persuaded by recent evidence that two
of the four London train bombers got more than basic training at jihad camps
in Pakistan. Martyrdom videos capturing the last wishes of two of the bombers
were released by al-Qaida in July to coincide with the one-year anniversary
of the attack.
They strongly suggested to McLaughlin "some
role of central leadership for al-Qaida" in the plot. He figures they
were in touch with someone in Pakistan who helped them carry out the plot.
That someone remains at large, never captured by Pakistani authorities.
Of course, the job we've subcontracted out
to Musharraf is not an easy one. He points out, reasonably, that it's impossible
to keep tabs on the thousands of Islamic militants within his border, many
of them in the lawless tribal areas to the north and in teeming cities like
Karachi. Also, his country is twice the size of California and covers mountainous
terrain.
As a military dictator unrestrained by civil-rights
laws, Musharraf could easily roll up Islamic militant groups and round up
al-Qaida suspects. But if he cracks down too hard, he risks being seen by
the Muslim masses as a poodle of Bush or Blair. (Some already call him Busharraf.)
And he has survived two assassination attempts.
But it's plain that our ally needs to do more
and needs outside help. He's not doing the job we need him to do, as al-Qaida
appears to be flourishing there.
As for accepting our help, Musharraf will
not let us send troops to his country to help him ferret out the bad guys.
U.S. troops, he argues, would only incite a revolt among the masses who would
view them as infidel occupiers.
Indeed, such a revolt could risk throwing
control of Islamabad and its nuclear weapons into the hands of radicals. We've
already sent Islamabad more aid and military gear, and that hasn't worked.
However, Islamabad might be amenable to third-party
Muslim forces aiding its own military and security forces. Egypt and Jordan,
for example, have had success cracking down on radicals and terrorists inside
their countries.
Whatever the answer, the White House needs
to approach the Pakistan problem from a different angle - before a terror
plot is exported to our own shores.
