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All Terror Roads Lead To Pakistan

All Terror Roads Lead To Pakistan

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.


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