Author: B. Muralidhar Reddy
Publication: The Hindu
Date: September 27, 2001
Have differences arisen between
the United States and the military establishment in Pakistan over the former's
strategy in getting at Osama and the Taliban regime? Yes, if the leading
Pakistani English daily, The News, is to be believed.
In a front page report, the daily
said that as the visiting U.S. defence officials and their Pakistani counterparts
explored possibilities of co-operation for a possible military action in
Afghanistan, the Musharraf Government is getting ``uncomfortable'' on the
latest U.S. ``posturing'' on at least four issues.
These are, U.S. military assistance
to the Northern Alliance, its insistence on action against jehadi groups
within Pakistan, U.S. hesitation in getting a fresh U.N. endorsement for
its military action and non-inclusion of Muslim states in the military
coalition to fight against Afghanistan.
The Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman,
Mr. Riaz Mohammad Khan, refused to answer a question on the subject saying
he would not react to speculative reports. In the last few days, as a matter
of policy, the U.S. Embassy here has been avoiding any reaction to press
reports.
``While the specifics of Pakistani
defence co-operation to the U.S. forces are being debated, the military
leadership in Rawalpindi is being forced to reconsider its options following
credible reports that the India-backed Northern Alliance was getting extensive
military support from an international coalition headed by the U.S.,''
the paper said.
``It is unnatural to expect the
Pakistan Army to support a military action that may drive the Northern
Alliance from their present hideouts in Panjshir Valley to the seat of
power in Kabul,'' it quoted a high-ranking military official as saying.
The newspaper said Pakistan, instead
of propping up Afghan groups, wants the U.S. to focus its military action
on training camps in Afghanistan. It said differences between the U.S.
and Pakistan also developed over the former naming a Pakistani religious
trust along with a jehad group in the list of 26 organisations to be targeted
for financial crackdown.
The naming of the two ``multiplied
doubts'' in Pakistan officials' minds about the ultimate objectives of
the U.S. mission, it said. Pakistani officials fear that if the U.S. anti-
terrorist campaign ultimately demanded that Pakistan enforce an effective
ban on all Pakistan-based jehadi organisations, it would lead to a grave
law and order situation in Pakistan and deal a major blow to the Kashmiri
freedom struggle.
It said the Al-Rashid Trust, a charitable
organisation which supplied daily bread to 125,000 people inside Afghanistan,
is believed to be associated with the Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the major
jehadi organisations fighting Indian troops in Kashmir.
The Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, the second
Pakistani organisation to figure in the U.S. list of targets, is a four-year-old
organisation that had been founded after the U.S. had declared its parent
organisation, Harkat-ul-Ansar, as a terrorist outfit.
Summing up the situation, the newspaper
quoted a high-ranking official of the Presidential Secretariat as saying
that ``It is now a question of providing assistance to almost an exclusive
American operation that lacks a firm U.N. support. There is a likelihood
that this military action may end up in installing a staunchly anti-Pakistan
Northern Alliance-dominated set-up in Afghanistan. The situation becomes
more difficult for Pakistan when in the second phase of this operation,
Pakistan is asked to pack up jehadi organisations from its soil.''
