Author: Subodh Atal
Publication: Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy
Date: October 9, 2006
URL: http://www.realisticforeignpolicy.org/archives/2006/10/pakistanas_russ_1.php
Foreign policy analyst Subodh Atal warns that
the West is playing a dangerous game in Pakistan.
Even as the Taliban regain strength in Afghanistan
and wage an insurgency nearly as fierce as in Iraq, the hub of terrorism in
the subcontinent has shifted to Pakistan. A series of international terrorism
plots uncovered in the U.S., U.K. and Australia has been hatched in, or linked
to Pakistan. In the most notorious such plot, British police arrested several
suspects planning to use liquid explosives aboard commercial airliners flying
from Britain to the United States.
The inability or unwillingness of Pakistani
authorities to clamp down on extremist Islam is evident in a recent deal signed
by the Pakistani authorities and local militias in Waziristan, which cedes
the key province bordering Pakistan to pro-Taliban forces. The deal creates
a two-pronged threat -- enabling freer passage to Taliban extremists across
the Afghan border, and creating potential sanctuaries for Al Qaeda-related
international terrorists. To the east, Pakistani extremist groups continue
to foster attacks in Indian Kashmir as well as major cities across the rest
of India. The links among the extremist groups, hard-line clerics and Pakistan's
military and intelligence services, in a nation infiltrated by Taliban and
Al Qaeda, imply that Pakistan could continue to serve as a nucleus for international
terrorism activity.
Among the most dangerous of the Pakistani
extremist groups are Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. Laskhar-e-Toiba,
was formed in 1986 as a brainchild of Abdullah Azzam, Osama Bin Laden's political
and religious mentor. The group's sprawling headquarters complex near Lahore
in eastern Pakistan is "a coordination center for its organizational,
jihadi and educational activities", as reported in the Jamestown Foundation
in 2005. Until 2001, the complex was the venue for immense annual gatherings
attended by hundreds of jihadi. Members of the group are reported to have
sheltered Al Qaeda operatives fleeing post-9/11 operations in Afghanistan
in late 2001 and early 2002. Lashkar imprints have been uncovered in terrorist
attacks in major cities across India, as well as a number of plots in countries
from Australia to the United States, where arrests and convictions in Virginia
and California confirm the group's intercontinental reach.
Pakistani journalist Amir Mir, in his book
The True Face of Jehadis: Inside Pakistan's Network of Terror, points out
that Laskhar-e-Toiba is a favorite of the ISI among all the terrorist groups
operating in Pakistan. Mir's book describes Lashkar activists "distributing
pamphlets and periodicals preaching the virtues of jehad in Kashmir, Palestine,
Chechnya, Kosovo and Eritrea, besides vowing to plant the flag of Islam in
Washington, Tel Aviv and New Delhi."
Jaish founder Masood Azhar, established the
group in 2002 after his release by India in return for passengers of a hijacked
Indian Airlines jet, vowing to destroy the United States and India. Azhar
is related by marriage to Rashid Rauf, a key suspect in the London airliner
bombing plot. Another notorious member of the group, Sheikh Saeed Omar, may
be a critical link tying together Pakistani extremist groups, Al Qaeda and
the Pakistani intelligence services. Credible reports suggests Omar's role
in the financing of the 9/11 hijackers. International counter-terrorism agencies
have been denied access to Omar, who was jailed in Pakistan after being tied
to the high profile killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
The infiltration of Pakistan's state by extremists
goes far beyond the presence of a few international terrorist groups, however.
Islamic radicals have co-opted political parties, including some allied to
Musharraf himself, as well as social networks, charities, and businesses.
Numerous reports point towards radical links of the nation's military and
intelligence services. Noted columnist Steve Coll described this infrastructure
as part of "what Pakistan has become as a state and society", in
a discussion on the PBS show NewsHour.
Compounding Pakistan's terrorism problem is
the nation's history of proliferation of nuclear weapons technology to a number
of unstable nations, including Iran, Libya and North Korea. Such activities,
which amount to the dangerous trading of the nation's strategic arsenal, must
have had at least tacit approval and knowledge of the establishment. Such
fears are reinforced by reports that Pakistani nuclear scientists have had
contacts with both Osama Bin Laden and Lashkar-e-Toiba.
While intense international counter-terrorism
efforts strive to track down and stop plots originating out of Pakistan, the
sheer number of such plots pose a significant threat. Given the nation's explosive
mix of Islamic extremism intertwined with state institutions, the Taliban,
Al Qaeda, and a pattern of nuclear proliferation, the game of Russian roulette
being played out in Pakistan is perhaps the most dangerous counter-terrorism
challenge in the world today.
Since 9/11, the United States has depended
on the Musharraf regime for tackling the terrorism problem originating from
Pakistan. However, under Musharraf's rule, the Pakistani military has continued
to hold sway over the nation's politics with Islamist support, and little
progress has been made towards moving the country away from its extremist
path. Husain Haqqani, Director of the Center of International Relations at
Boston University, and ex-advisor to several Pakistani prime ministers describes
the extent of the problem in his book, Pakistan, Between Mosque and Military.
According to Haqqani, "Under military leadership, Pakistan has defined
its national objective as wresting Kashmir from India and in recent years,
establishing a client regime in Afghanistan. Unless Islamabad's objectives
are redefined as focusing on economic prosperity and popular participation
in governance -- which the military as an institution remains reluctant to
do -- the state will continue to turn to Islam as a national unifier."
Unquestioning western support, including considerable
financial and military aid, has acted as an enabler for Musharraf and the
Pakistan military to continue to steer the nation down the same path. Many
critical long-term goals, such as rooting out of intolerance from Pakistani
madrassa and public school curricula, have not been realized five years after
9/11, even as extremist groups tied to the Al Qaeda and Taleban remain entrenched
in the country.
Without a transitioning back towards democracy,
and away from extremism and domination of the military, Pakistan will continue
to act as a hub of international terrorism and a destabilizing influence in
the region. As Haqqani points out in his book, "The United States has
sought short term gains from its relationship with Pakistan, inadvertently
accentuating that country's problems in the process." A sustained end
to the extremism and terrorism centered in Pakistan may require a significant
overhaul of policy. Specifically, the United States should move away from
its over-dependence on a general who has failed to deliver on many of his
promises, and instead support the nation's mainstream parties that have been
sidelined since Musharraf's coup in 1999. Washington and others should also
consider tying external aid to specific objectives such as the closing down
of terrorist camps and measurable action against Taliban militants.
Subodh Atal is an independent foreign policy
analyst based near Washington, D.C.