PAKISTAN: CRACKDOWN..IS IT REAL...?

How Many Needles Can The Voodoo Doll Take?
Under pressure, Pakistan moves to crack down on terror outfits. But on the ground, is there enough support for such an action?

MARIANA BAABAR

It was early on December 8, Monday morning, a little over 24 hours before the country was to celebrate Id, and villagers on the outskirts of Muzaffarabad, Kashmir, were waking from their sleep to the clatter of gunship helicopters. On the ground, in freezing temperatures, heavily armed security personnel had begun their raids, swooping down on madrassas and relief camps of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), a charity organisation headed by Prof Hafiz Saeed, better known as founder of the banned militant organisation, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). Sporadic shots were heard, but there were no major reports of a prolonged gunbattle, normally associated with such military operations.

As the day rolled on, rumours flew thick and fast.




"Weren't we informed earlier that all these 'patriotic' warriors were murdering our people and soldiers?" Ayesha Siddiqa, Pak army historian


One reason was the reluctance of officials to confirm the raids. It was said the ambit of the crackdown had been widened beyond Muzaffarabad to include JuD offices in Manshera and Chakdara in the Frontier province, as also in other towns of Punjab. Only when TV channels began to flash that LeT's Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi (who India accuses of masterminding the Mumbai carnage) had been detained did Maj Gen Athar Abbas, D-G, Inter

Service Press Relations, confirm the news: "This is an intelligence-led operation against banned militant outfits and organisations." The JuD, as is commonly known, is the front organisation for the LeT, which was banned in 2002.

A day later, there was yet another 'breaking news' event—Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Maulana Masood Azhar had been confined to his multi-storeyed residence-cum-office complex in the Model Town area of Bahawalpur, Punjab. Released by the Indian government in the prisoners-for-hostages swap during the IC-814 hijack in 1999, the man had not been seen in public for long, not even at the Model Town complex.

This is the same Azhar who was openly escorted by his ISI handlers around Karachi, in the days following his release in 1999. Not for nothing do Pakistanis view Azhar's Jaish and Saeed's Lashkar as the Pakistan army's proxies. Intermittently accused in India of fomenting terrorism on its soil, the two outfits were last heard of during the 2005 quake. They were commended widely for their relief operations in a devastated 'Azad' Kashmir; even


"If the ISI has been foolish enough to have participated in the Mumbai blasts, they must be punished too." Lt Gen Asad Durrani, Ex-DG, Military Intelligence



a few international NGOs applauded their efforts.

So it's no surprise that many are now asking: did the army really have to do a chopper raid on offices of organisations earlier touted to have been engaged only in social welfare? Have Islamabad and the army effected a U-turn on the Lashkar and Jaish, as they had done on the Taliban in the days following 9/11? Did pressure from the United States, acting at India's behest, prove to be too much for Islamabad? To these questions is linked a most important one: has the establishment finally decided to reverse its policy of nurturing proxies to promote its interests in India? The jury is out, but the initial verdict is that the crackdown would have been a bit more credible had it been taken before Mumbai began to groan from wounds inflicted on November 26.

President Asif Ali Zardari may have gained a few brownie points through his New York Times article, 'The terrorists want to destroy Pakistan too', but it still won't make up for the snowballing resentment his government set off with its botched decision to send the ISI chief to Delhi. Ex-ISI chief Lt Col Hamid Gul, who's himself under the US scanner (see here), bristled to Outlook, "Pakistan is not India's colony that (you can say) they have summoned our D-G ISI. And to think Prime Minister Yusuf Gilani, without a second thought, announced he was going to send him.
India has simply no proof of Pakistan's involvement in the Mumbai attacks... and their response to the attacks was very immature." Throwing the ball back in India's court, Gul continued, "The Indian Lt Col involved in the Samjhauta attack should be tried publicly and the Pakistani media should travel to India to cover his trial. "

In the week following the reversal of the ISI chief decision, the government took to belatedly arresting leaders of militant outfits. This measure sparked off a blame game, with many accusing ex-president Pervez Musharraf and his US handlers of bolstering groups like the Lashkar.
"We already have enough trouble on our western borders. There is no need for more trouble on the east."


As the English daily Dawn wrote, "If it has grown to a position of such strength that it could execute the Mumbai attacks with consummate ease, it hasn't done so in a vacuum. The Lashkar's capabilities grew on the watch of Gen Musharraf. The US has remained a silent

spectator, keen not to upset a fading dictator. So militancy is a problem in the region not only because of Pakistan's numerous sins of commission but also because of the sins of the US, whose interests in Afghanistan led it to back a ruler who made neither Pakistan nor the region safer."

Blaming Musharraf is perhaps the easiest way out for most Pakistanis. His exit from the President's House hasn't brought about a dramatic change in the situation. As tensions over an impending conflict on the Pak-Indo border mounted (because of the 'hoax' call from Delhi), the army organised a background briefing to tell journalists that Baitullah Mehsud, Mulla Fazlullah and Jalaluddin Haqqani—militant leaders fighting the army in the tribal areas—were patriots who won't hesitate to rush to the country's eastern border to constitute the frontline against India. Earlier, these same militants were said to be on India's payroll; Mehsud was even accused of assassinating Benazir Bhutto. When these facts were pointed out at the briefing, the military spokesman ascribed such accusations to a misunderstanding.

Writer Ayesha Siddiqa, an authority on the Pakistan military, was livid about the briefing: "Had the official concerned studied international politics in any depth, he'd have realised that such a statement could be interpreted in numerous ways. Furthermore, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan's statement swearing allegiance to the Pakistani state that followed the official's observation is likely to raise greater suspicion in the international community. And hadn't we been informed earlier that all these 'patriotic' warriors were in fact murdering Pakistan's people and its brave soldiers?"

The winds blowing in Pakistan, it seems, have changed direction. Here's what former DG, military intelligence, Lt Gen Asad Durrani, considered as shrewd an army strategist as any, told Outlook, "I really do not know if these organisations are involved in the Mumbai attacks. If any links are established, then whether they belong to the government or are non-state actors, they should be arrested and prosecuted. We already have enough trouble on our western borders. There's no point having trouble on the eastern borders as well. Even if for argument's sake these proxies were involved, then we shouldn't only punish them but also eliminate them. There are plenty of examples in history where proxies have been used and eliminated."

Durrani has little patience with even the ISI, should there be solid evidence about its involvement in Mumbai. "If the ISI is foolish enough to have participated, then it too should be punished. It is the state of Pakistan that has suffered most after Mumbai," he argues. He dismisses suggestions that action against the Lashkar and Jaish will push them to direct their wrath against the government (a blowback similar to what happened once the army began its operations in the tribal areas).As he puts it, "The only guts they have shown in the last eight years is to attack their own people. People will not come out on the streets to support them. If you can't handle this situation, then you will have to pay a price," he warns.

It's still too early to tell whether action against the militants will take a permanent turn. Will the proxies return to business once the threat from India subsides? Columnist Dr Faruukh Salim says every nation employs proxies to further its interests—Reagan harnessed jehadis to defeat Russia, Bush the Northern Alliance to undermine the Taliban, and India uses the Balochistan Liberation Army to undermine Pakistan. Claiming that these proxies could have acted on their own, Salim said, "There's no precedent of handing them over and they have not committed any crime in Pakistan for us to put them on trial. In realpolitik, countries use non-state actors to bolster their foreign policy aims. So does Pakistan." In other words, the Indians cannot seriously be expecting Islamabad to hand over the proxies to them.