What is cooking between the US and the Pakistani Army ? - Part III

In the earlier installment of this series, I discussed the North Waziristan (NW)issue and how important it was for Pakistan to have a normal relationship with the US. But, a slew of recent incidents do not bode well for the Pakistan-US relationship to recover soon. At least once a week these days, there is an incident that sets back the US-Pakistan relationship by a few notches. Suddenly, one finds that the US Administration that used to be so mindful of Pakistani sensitivities is no longer so and it is causing a lot of discomfort in Pakistan, especially the Pakistani Army. One feature of the on-going spat between the two countries is that while the entire administration, the CIA and the US Armed forces are involved from the US side, it is only the ISI and the PA who are involved from the Pakistani side, not the civilian government.

Let us see some of the recent incidents that are indicators of the worsening situation.

The revelations of Daoud Sayed Gilani alias David Coleman Headley and his buddy-turned-baddie Tahawwur Hussain Rana in a US Court under oath have nailed the nexus between the Pakistani Army (PA), Lashkar-e-Tayba, the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISID) and the Mumbai 26/11 terror attack. There were nothing new in these revelations that those who follow Pakistan did not know, but they have now acquired legality. In the same genre is the recent arrest of Ghulam Nabi Fai, the Director of Kashmir American Council (KAC), who was arrested in Virgina over attempts to influence politicians and opinion-makers on the Kashmir issue. The US Justice Department said the KAC had received up to $4 million in illegal contributions from the ISI. Ghulam Nabi Fai was arrested on the charge of having violated laws (Foreign Agents Registration Act, FARA) which prohibit work for foreign governments without registering with the Attorney General. The Justice Department also charged a second man, Zaheer Ahmad, with recruiting dummy donors for the KAC, through whom the ISI routed the funds. The chargesheet said that Dr. Fai reported to several ISI officials, identified as Brigadier Javed Aziz Khan, Brigadier Sohail Mehmood, Lieutenant-Colonel Tauqeer Mehmood Butt and the former head of the organisation's security directorate, Major-General Mumtaz Bajwa. Pakistan reacted sharply to the news by charcterizing it as a 'campaign of slander'. The fact that the arrest has taken place now while the US was aware for decades of KAC's connections back to Pakistan and the fact that names and ranks of ISI handlers of Ghulam Nabi Fai were also revealed in contrast to the way similar ISI handlers of David Coleman Headley were studiously kept secret for a long while, and that action came so swiftly after a hurried one-and-a-half-day trip to Washington by the ISI chief Lt. Gen. Shuja Ahmed Pasha, go to prove yet again that the US-Pakistan relationship is steadily moving towards a breaking point. It can be speculated that the ISID did not meet all the demands of the US and therefore the US decided to turn the screw a little bit more. As if on cue (most probably under prompting from the US), the Scotland Yard also initiated a probe into the activities and financing of London-based Kashmir lobby group, Justice Foundation, suspected to be another ISI-front like the KAC. A Scotland Yard spokesman told Times of India, "We can confirm we are liaising with US authorities."

The May 2 operations in eliminating Osama bin Laden at the Pakistani garrison town of Abbotabad in a house at a stone's throw away from the premier Pakistani Military Academy (PMA) have indeed been the most major proof of Pakistan's perfidy even as it claimed itself to be fighting to eliminate global terrorism and as one of the worst sufferers of terror. After the incident, Pakistan has been on an arrest spree arresting those who were suspected to have helped the US in executing the daring raid. Though this is understandable, Pakistan has not made much efforts in finding out anything about how Osama bin Laden came to reside in a garrison town for six years. The appointment of commissions to inquire into Abbottabad and journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad's death seem to be half-hearted. On May 31, the Government of Pakistan (GoP) announced a commission under a serving Supreme Court judge , Justice Javed Iqbal, only for the judge to take exception to it because neither he nor the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) was consulted before announcing his name. The same mistake was repeated in the Shahzad commission of enquiry as well a few weeks later. It was finally on June 20 that a letter was sent to the CJP asking him to suggest a name for the commission into the Abbottabad incident. So, after more than a month after a commission of enquiry was announced, the Head of the Commission was finalized. If past experience with commissions in Pakistan is any indication, these commissions are also doomed to end without revealing anything. The Commissions of Enquiry into Liaquat Ali Khan's death (the commission members along with all documents were lost when the plane they were travelling blew up mysteriously), Zia-ul-Haq's death, Ms. Benazir Bhutto's assassination are some examples which come to mind immediately. The deep nexus between the PA/ISI and the LeT revealed by another participant in the Mumbai 26/11 attacks (Ajmal Amir Kasab, one of the terrorists caught alive in the middle of the act) and the reluctance of the Government of Pakistan to proceed meaningfully in the investigation and prosecution of 26/11-associated terrorists prove that all sections of the Pakistani state are complicit in terror.

The attack on PNS Mehran that led to a pitched battle between the members of Brigade 313 (a part of Harkat-ul-Jihadi-Islami or HuJI) that lasted 12 hours and led to the gutting down of two P3-C Maritime Patrol aircraft in a well protected naval facility in the heart of Karachi show the clout of the Punjabi Taliban (a part of Al Qaeda and Allied Movements or AQAM) within the armed forces. The Pakistani Navy (PN) sources accepted that there had been considerable inside help for the attack. The intrepid Pakistani journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad exposed the reasons for the attack alluding to the wheeling and dealing between the PN and the AQAM that went sour. He paid the price with his life immediately thereafter. The fact that the US decided to indict the Pakistani government (not directly the ISI though everybody in Pakistan believes that it is the 'angels' who did this) at the highest levels for Shahzad's murder is another indication of the US administration's determination to embarrass the Honour & Dignity (H&D) of the Pakistani Army and the ISI. It was unmistakable though whom the US was targetting because the indictment came from Joint Chiefs' of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, not from Secretary of State, Ms. Clinton. Adm. Mullen said that Shahzad's death was 'barbaric and unacceptable'.

The US has also demanded Pakistan target the new Al Qaeda chief, Ayman al Zawahiri. In his first trip to Afghanistan in the new role as the US Defence Secretary, Leon Panetta who successfully executed the Abbottabad operation, has said that Zawahiri was located in FATA. He also said some of the top 20 Al Qaeda leaders that the US was targetting were in Pakistan. Reacting to this, the PA asked the US to share intelligence with them, knowing fully well that such a sharing will not occur. The US vice admiral William McRaven, who oversaw the Bin Laden raid, said "the US military believes that Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar is in Pakistan and had asked the Pakistani army to locate him". As usual, the Pakistanis demand proof. This is the cat-and-mouse game that the Pakistanis play demanding other countries to show proof of what was happening well within their very own borders and with their patronage and full knowledge. When in frustration the US acts either by sending in UACVs (Unmanned Aerial Combat Vehicle) or sending in US Navy SEALs, Pakistan cries foul of having its sovereignty being violated.

One more irritant in the relationship is the Shamsi airbase. Apparently, this airstrip was ceded to the Sheikhs of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for them to come hunting the endangered houbara bustards to enhance their virility. While every country takes steps to protect endangered species, here is Pakistan which allows Arab Kings and Sheikhs to hunt down the bustard. The Pakistani Air Force (PAF) Chief openly admitted to the cession of the airstrip, in the National Assembly (or Parliament). The Arabs, in turn, handed the strip over to the Americans who have been operating the UACVs from there. The Pakistanis knew about the arrangement. As the relationship soured, they demanded the Americans to vacate the airbase a few months back. Pakistani defence minister Chaudhry Mukhtar Ahmed who is known for his foot-in-the-mouth disease said that the US had been asked to vacate the Shamsi airbase. But, the US simply refused to vacate the base. Said an US official, "US personnel have not left the remote military installation known as Shamsi Air Base and there is no plan for them to do so. That base is neither vacated nor being vacated". Pakistan's information minister and a member of the Defence Committee, Dr. Ms. Firdous Ashiq Awan told reporters later that no demand had been made for U.S. personnel to leave the base. So much for Pakistani cries of sovereignty !

The radicalization of the Pakistani armed forces has reached an unprecedented and high proportion. This is not surprising since a very significant section of the Pakistani society - in spite of pious denials by the Rich Anglophille Pakistani Elite in media, Internet and diplomatic circles - has been radicalized and the troops coming from such a religiously surcharged and radicalized environment cannot be expected to be any different. Besides, the Pakistani armed forces were never secular themselves as secularism is widely and mistakenly perceived within this Islamic republic as being anti-God. On the other hand, they had always used Islam as their proud badge. Going one step further, the Pakistani Army redefined its ethos as 'Iman, Taqwah, Jihad-fi-Sabilillah' (or, Faith, Fear of Allah and Jihad in the way of Allah) during the Zia-era. This is a far cry from the slogan given to Pakistan by Jinnah which was “Unity, Faith and Discipline(Ittehad, Yaqeen aur Tanzeem)”. It was no wonder therefore when a PA officer lamented, when deployed to fight the Taliban, that he joined the Army to kill the Indians and not his own Muslim brothers. A milestone at the end of the obstacle course in the SSG (or, Special Service Group) training centre in Cherat once listed the distances to Jerusalem, Delhi and, of course, Kabul. While Kabul and India are understandable, the reference to Jerusalem betrays the ambitions of the Pakistani Army which considers itself as the 'Defenders of the Islamic Ideology' in addition to defending the geographical boundaries of Pakistan. Thus, the noted Pakistani historian and commentator Ms. Farzana Shaikh says, the Pakistani Army has been transitioned from being a ‘colonial Army’ to a ‘national Army’ and now to a ‘transnational Army’. It is an entirely different matter though that the fiercely fundamentalist Taliban described the Pakistani Army as ‘napak fauj’ (impure Army) working at the behest of CIA and FBI, in pamphlets distributed in the mosques of certain FATA agencies in March 2010. No wonder they are angry with the PA because an army that prides itself to be defenders of Islamic ideology could not have sided with the infidels and attacked the purer variety of Muslims such as the Taliban. The Army has always prided itself in being seen in the company of hardcore jihadi Islamist Taliban and also in identifying with their line of thinking. Leaders of various political parties, including Prime Ministers, have echoed such a sentiment. The accommodation between Ms. Bhutto and the Sipah-e-Saheba-Pakistan (SSP) in c. 1993 or between Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N and SSP in c. 2008 and later in c. 2010 are cases in point. The 'bad Taliban' are therefore angry that suddenly the PA has started distinguishing between the 'good' and the 'bad' Taliban. The nexus between the Army and the Taliban, which was the Army’s own creation, came unstuck in c. 2008 when the PA was forced to fight the Taliban under US pressure and the Taliban called the Pakistani Army ‘anti-Islamic’. The considerable anger against the PA for its action against the Ghazi brothers of Lal Masjid in central Islamabad added fuel to the fire. There was considerable radicalization within the society after this event. And, the PA, being drawn from the same society naturally reflects that religious extremism. A US Embassy cable from Islamabad in March 2006, leaked by the WikiLeaks in c. 2011, reports a conversation in which Pakistan's then Deputy Chief of Air Staff for Operations, Air Vice Marshal (AVM) Khalid Chaudhry, saying that the airmen, most of whom came from rural villages, were being radicalised by extremist Islamic clerics. The cable quotes AVM Chaudhry as saying, "You can't imagine what a hard time we have trying to get to trim their beards." Not that the PA were secular in the three decades after the 60s. The Islamization project launched by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and carried forward ruthlessly to very high levels by his successor Gen. Zia-ul-Haq ensured that the PA would become Islamist rapidly. By his own admission, the then DG, ISI, Lt. Gen Mahmoud Ahmed admitted to a RAND Corp. analyst as far back as circa 2000, that 15 to 16% of the army officer corps were religious extremists. It has progressed to such dangerous levels now that in February 2011, when the Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was assassinated by his own police bodyguard for his stand on the Blasphemy Law, the COAS Gen. Kiyani refused to condemn it or even issue any condolence to the Taseer family. He confided to Western diplomats that there were too many religious fundamentalists in the Pakistani Army that such an overt sympathy might lead to disunity within the Army ranks.

This 'awareness' about the PA therefore leads us to conclude that the PA is split vertically between two camps. It is axiomatic that the PA wants to avenge the various defeats it suffered in the hands of the Indian Army, most notably the 13-day Bangladesh war in c. 1971 which saw the Indian Army (IA) slice through the PA in the east, make gains on the western front, and led to the humiliating surrender at Dhaka of 93000 soldiers. This was too much of a shock for a society brought up on honour and dignity, on the myths of invincibility of Muslim soldiers in wars, on the cowardliness of the Indian soldiers and the mythical ratio of how one PA soldier equals 10 IA soldiers. Since then, it is generally accepted that the Pakistani Military Academy (PMA) cadets trained at Abbottabad, where Osama bin Laden was eventually found comfortably ensconced, always take an oath to avenge the 1971 defeat. In order to carry out this impossible task, the PA generals drew up an exotic plan of 'Strategic Depth' (SD) within Afghanistan especially as the liberation war started in c. 1979. The various Pakistani terrorist groups created for Afghan jihad were then let loose on India, the original purpose for which they were created in the first instance. Unfortunately, the AQAM went too far with its 9/11 attacks forcing an unwilling Pakistani President, Gen. Musharraf, to temporarily align with the Americans and pronounce his opposition to terror against India even if for tactical reasons only. The AQAM, driven out of Afghanistan, redefined its strategy in the wake of its betrayal by the Pakistani state. It viewed Gen. Musharraf as the head of an impious Muslim Army that needed to be delivered from the clutches of munafiq Generals. Military actions by the PA under pressure from the US caused more anger among the followers of the more pious brand of Islam. The AQAM therefore decided to reclaim the Pakistani state for itself. Thus, AQAM devised the Reverse Strategic Depth (RSD) doctrine as an answer to the SD doctrine of the PA that caused them so much grief. Today, therefore, it is a jihad between the proponents of the RSD (whose numbers are increasing by the day) and those of the SD (whose numbers are decreasing by the day). The proponents of the SD are under immense pressure from the US to do certain things that cause more bitterness among the RSD elements. It is for this reason that the PA arrested Brigadier Ali Khan, posted at the Army Headquarters, for maintaining contacts with the Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT). It was simply a case of trying to impress American masters that GoP and the PA were serious about purging the armed forces of such fundamentalist elements. Later, PA announced four more army officers were under interrogation for similar links with HuT. But, these arrests also prove how much the RSD Islamist extremists have infiltrated the PA. The leader of the RSD-supporting AQAM, Ayman al Zawahiri, continues to reside in Pakistan and continues to issue frequent exhortations to the Pakistani masses to rise in revolt against the PA. Still, the PA is demanding intelligence information from the Americans as to his whereabouts. That also demonstrates the dominance of the RSD-group within the PA. The SD Generals do not want to go overboard with their support to the Americans as they are caught between a rock and a hard place. They fear a mutiny within the rank-and-file of the PA. They are therefore unable to give up two of their remaining assets, the LeT (Lashkar-e-Tayba) and the Haqqani Shura located in North Waziristan along with other warlords such as Gul Bahadur et al.

Unfortunately for the SD Generals, their remaining friends have caused much harm to American interests and are declared as 'bad Taliban' by them. So, the 'good Taliban' of the PA are termed otherwise in the books of the US. These SD-pasand good Taliban, who are also slayers of Shi'a muslims otherwise just like the 'bad' Taliban, suddenly entered into a peace agreement with the Shi'a in the Kurram province of FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Agency) in February 2011. For several years now, the Taliban had cutoff road access for the Shi'a in this region. The sudden change was prompted by the need to have an escape route in case of PA action in North Waziristan (NW). {See this for incidents in NW} The peace deal would help the Taliban escape in such an eventuality from NW into either other FATA areas such as Orakzai or into Afghanistan provinces such as Logar or Paktya or Khost as Kurram is strategically located with a panhandle-like extension into Afghanistan. The recent spat between the CIA and the ISI has therefore been used by the PA to delay, if not altogether scuttle, the operation in North Waziristan. The Americans are not amused.

On July 20, 2011, the powerful U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs passed the Defence Authorisation bill which prohibits further security aid to Pakistan until the Secretary of State provides certification affirming various aspects of Pakistani cooperation in the war on terror. It also prohibits further civilian assistance until the effectiveness of such programmes is certified by the Secretary of State, in addition to a certification on Pakistan’s cooperation in the war on terror. The Chairman of the Committee, Congresswoman Ms. Ros-Lehtinen said “The language in this bill puts that (Pakistan) government on notice that it is no longer business as usual and that they will be held to account if they continue to refuse to cooperate with our efforts to eliminate the nuclear black market, destroy the remaining elements of Osama Bin Laden’s network and vigorously pursue our counter-terrorism objectives. I think the prospect of a cut-off of assistance will get their attention and that the games being played with our security will finally stop.” This is another big slap on the Pakistani face. The relationship may eventually recover between these two countries but it would never be the same again with mutual distrust and suspicion writ all over it. Even if it recovers, it might be for a short duration only as Pakistan seems to have decided, under Islamist influence, that the US is as great, if not a greater, threat as the Indians. And, the rise of the particular strain of virulent Islamism is an unstoppable and irreversible phenomenon in Pakistan.

(To Be Continued . . .)

What is cooking between the US and the Pakistani Army ?

The uncovering of the residency of Osama bin Laden close to the Pakistani Military Academy in the garrison town of Abbottabad and his subsequent elimination by the US Navy SEALs in a stealth operation have created many ripples, some within Pakistan and some between Pakistan and the US.

The close bonding between the US and Pakistan had existed at multiple levels, the most important of which had been the ties between the US and Pakistani armed forces. This relationship started in the early 1950s and bloomed quite rapidly. The US made it a consistent policy to support Pakistani military dictators, whether it was FM Ayub Khan or Gen. Yahya Khan or Gen. Zia-ul-Haq or more recently Gen. Pervez Musharraf. The US Presidents and the State Department stood solidly behind these usurpers of power even as the US preached virtues of democracy to the rest of the world. In the 1970s, another important relationship also developed between the US and its client state Pakistan. The turmoil in the region meant that the US sought close partners. The bitterness after the 1962 arms-supply to India and the arms embargo of 1965 had already been overcome by 1971 when Pakistan helped the US normalize relationship with an isolated China and in return, the US condoned Pakistani genocide in East Pakistan and later sent a carrier task force of the US Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal threatening India as an act of solidarity with Pakistan. As the trusted US ally, the Shah of Iran was deposed by Shi'a fundamentalists who also held Americans as hostage in Teheran, as the Communists assumed power in Afghanistan who later invited the armed forces of the USSR into the country and as an insurgency developed in Yemen in the late 1970s, a worried US forged close intelligence tie-up between the CIA of the US and the notorious ISID of Pakistan. The relationship reached its pinnacle during the decade of the 80s when the CIA worked in extremely close proximity with the ISID in avenging the American defeat in Vietnam a decade earlier and pave the way for the unravelling of the Soviet Union in particular and Communism in general.

As the general usefulness of Pakistan waned upon the termination of the Afghan jihad, the US-Pakistan transactional relationship cooled off. That was probably also what the Pakistanis themselves wanted. A US that was so far helping the Pakistani nuclear programme both actively and passively, was suddenly becoming apoplectic with Pakistan's frenzied activities on the nuclear front. Since their clandestine nuclear and missile dealings with China, North Korea, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Iran were on an upswing, the Pakistanis would have been rather uncomfortable with the presence of the born-again Americans. The terrorism and violence against India from ISI and PA-sponsored terrorist groups were also growing exponentially and it was prudent to keep it away from the prying eyes of the USA which probably was not so amenable as it was during the decade of the 80s when it even helped the Khalistani terrorism. Things were going smooth for Pakistan in the 90s, until fate intervened in the form of Osama bin Laden and 9/11 as the US and its Army got entrenched in Af-Pak once again.

The US Army on the ground in Afghanistan as part of NATO forces had never been comfortable with the Pakistani Army (PA). The CIA has been wary of ISI's double cross. The Pentagon voiced its consternation frequently. American Presidents have been forthright at times regarding their mistrust of Pakistan. Secretaries of State of US administration of various dispensations have been frustrated by the games played by the PA. There are very sound reasons why they all felt so. New York Times of June 15, 2011 reports that the CIA Deputy Director rates ISI's co-operation at 3 on a scale of 1 to 10.

For those who watch Pakistan closely, this perfidious behaviour is not surprising at all. Let's go back to the start of operations on the Pakistani side after Operation Enduring Freedom was launched by the US and allied forces. The Pakistani approach can be slotted into two different time periods, one BD or Before Democracy and the other AD, After Democracy. Initially, during BD, the PA refused to commit its forces in the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Agencies) area of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. Instead, it entered into a series of 'Peace Treaties' with the Taliban and various warlords in order to avoid fighting them. No Peace Treaty lasted more than a few weeks. From the very beginning, the PA was not interested in COIN (Counter Insurgency) operations in FATA and was leaving that to the local Frontier Corps (FC), Levies and Khasadar forces that are both ill-equipped and ill-trained as well as reluctant to fight their own tribes.

The first time, the PA decided to take on the Al Qaeda and Allied Movements (AQAM) was in c. 2004 when it proudly announced that PA will complete the operation in a few weeks. But, the drubbing the PA received from the AQAM was such that Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain, Corps Commander, Peshawar, had to personally meet Taliban commander Nek Mohammed to sign the peace deal (at Shakai in South Waziristan in April 2004) and even give him USD 540,000 {a fact he admitted in the press meet}. Thus, PA's casualties were not only its men but also its prestige. Again, in February 2005, another deal was signed and this time with with Baitullah Mehsud after he took over power following Nek Mohammed’s assassination in a US drone attack near Wana. The six-point deal, mediated by Maulana Fazlur Rehman of JUI-F, while specifically forbidding him from sheltering foreign terrorists or attacking Pakistani government installations, did not stop him from attacking the US forces. Even as he signed the deal, he openly declared that under Mullah Omar, Islam will spread all over the world even as he derived satisfaction from the jihad. Similarly, in February 2008, the Pakistani Army struck another peace deal with Baitullah Mehsud after another unsuccessful army operation in late 2007. The operations by the Pakistani military in Waziristan were dubbed as “Operation Enduring Failure’ following a severe mauling of the Pakistani Army. All three Army operations - 2004, 2005 and 2007 – resulted ultimately in the Army suing for peace after suffering heavy casualties.

In the AD period, reports appeared that Gen. Kiyani had told the US that the PA would have the focus only on the Eastern borders with India. After his meeting with Pakistan, in a series of back-to-back trips to that country, Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agreed in June, 2008 with the Pakistani request to train the FC in COIN operations. Three months earlier, in March, 2008, when the contours of the peace deals were not yet clear and when the new government had not yet taken over power, New York Times reported the Pakistan Army’s strategy of concentrating on the India border leaving the Afghanistan border to ill-equipped and ill-trained local forces. It spoke of the kind of equipment in Pakistani shopping list with the US that could possibly not have been used against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. This approach of focussing on India had multiple benefits for Pakistan. For one, the Army’s withdrawal gave a free hand to the Taliban and the NATO-ISAF forces could not hold the Pakistani Army responsible anymore. This also met the Taliban request of non-interference from Pakistan in their activities. Secondly, it took enormous resources and time to train the undisciplined local forces and that gave sufficient lead time for the Taliban to consolidate their hold in these areas. Thirdly, Pakistan demanded and got sophisticated equipment from the US under the guise of providing support and equipping the FC. Moreover, the Pakistani Army which had earned a lot of ill-will from the tribesmen because under “operation Tri-star and Earthquake”, (Op. Zalzala, meaning Earthquake, in the Mehsud area between January and April 2008) it had razed down villages as part of ‘collective punishment’. The Army’s use of artillery and Cobra gunship and even tanks, rather than effective COIN operations, had added to the resentment of the people. In the August, 2008 operations in Bajaur (Op. Sherdil or Lionheart), around Khar, in the area that the Inspector General of Frontier Corps, Maj Gen Tariq Khan called as the ‘centre of the battle’, the gunship helicopters targetted mosques and flattened houses turning people against the Government. The Pakistani masses also saw this as "Muslim Vs. Muslim" in which the PA could not be involved. With fatwas on the non-martyrdom of the Pakistani soldiers in a fight with the Taliban, the Pakistani Army was surrendering rather than fighting. The refusal to engage the PA in the COIN operation was a ploy therefore making a virtue out of necessity and was a fourth reason for the decision to pull out. Fifthly, and most significantly, what appeared to be a decision to increase infiltration across the Indian border in c. 2008 after relative lull for sometime, demanded a concentration of troops in the eastern border especially in view of the ‘Cold Start’ doctrine of India. In hindsight, the Pakistani COAS, Gen. Kayani's insistence on keeping the PA focussed on the Indian border in c. 2008 was because he was aware of the imminent terrorist attacks on Indian interests on the anvil. The July 7, 2008 bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul and the urban warfare in Mumbai on November 26, 2008 were jointly organized by the ISI, the PA, the Pakistani Navy and the LeT and so one can safely conclude that Gen. Kayani, under whose watch these terror events had been planned when he was the ISI Chief, wanted to be able to meet any fall-out arising from these events. Gen. Kayani called the Taliban his 'strategic assets', a communication that was intercepted by the Americans in May 2008, a few months before the Indian embassy attack in Kabul, and which confirmed the long-held suspicion that the PA was running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. Later, the newly-elected Pakistani Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, used exactly the same idiom to own up Pakistani duplicity.

The above malicious behaviour of Pakistan brings out two Pakistani traits. One, Pakistan's obsession with India and two, its ability to turn that obsession into an advantage vis-a-vis the gullible Americans.

Back to the Af-Pak badlands in c. 2008. The US State Department’s annual “Country Reports on Terrorism” released in May 2008, spoke of Al Qaeda having regrouped effectively within Pakistan and posing the gravest threat to Western interests. The loss of control of its own territory by Pakistan prompted the ex-National Security Advisor of India, Brajesh Mishra, to propose a multinational force to tackle terrorism in Pakistan. NATO expressed concern in mid-May, 2008 that the so called peace pacts “struck by the Pakistan government and extremist groups in the Tribal Areas may be allowing them to have a safe haven”. It also said in April 2008, after the peace talks gained momentum, that the incidents of cross-border attacks had increased by 52% from the same period the previous year. NATO also expressed its annoyance that Pakistan was entering into pacts without taking it into confidence, an oblique reference to the MNNA (Major Non-NATO Ally) status of Pakistan. NATO correctly interpreted the peace deals as ‘transfer of troubles from one side of the border to the other’. On the same day NATO issued this warning, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South Asia said that “Insurgents in Pakistan’s frontier region continue to pose a serious threat to the regional stability of the United States and the rest of the world”. In another testimony to the US Congress at the same time, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, said that the next attack on US in near-term would come from Al Qaeda regrouping in the FATA regions of Pakistan. Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta called “such [Pakistani] appeasement [of the Taliban] dangerous for Afghanistan” and it was "extremely and infinitely concerned" about Islamabad's moves. Then, on June 11, 2008, the US Air Force attacked inside Pakistani border in Mohmand agency in which several Pakistani Frontier Corps (FC) men were killed. What gave the game away was that several Taliban terrorists were also killed in the attack, as accepted by TTP spokesperson Maulvi Umar, thereby suggesting some nexus between Pakistan’s FC and the Taliban. A few days later, the outgoing US Commander in Afghanistan, Gen Dan K McNeill, questioned the loyalty of the Pakistani forces, especially the FC. The Guardian newspaper later reported, citing classified US reports, that the FC had been heavily infiltrated into by the Taliban and was influenced by it. The displeasure with which the US looked at the peace deals with the Taliban was evident when an hour-long ‘candid, frank, realistic and honest’ discussion between Condoleeza Rice and the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, ended on June 11, 2008 without any positive developments for Pakistan. Admiral Mullen had repeatedly said that the Pakistani Army was not fighting the Taliban in a sustained fashion. For his part, President Obama made it clear on more than one occasion that the Pakistanis were barking a wrong tree by considering the Indians as the most major threat and that there was no need to station so many troops on the eastern borders with India.

For his part, Afghan President Karzai said that most fighters in Helmand province had come from Pakistan, a concern also echoed by NATO forces. He then followed it up with the threat of attacking the Taliban terrorists inside Pakistan. In anger, it announced pulling out of bilateral talks. India also pulled out of scheduled anti terrorism talks between its CBI and the FIA of Pakistan, after the attack on its Kabul embassy. The Pakistani Defence Minister Mukhtar said that the US President George Bush admitted to him that the US was reluctant to share intelligence information with Pakistan because elements within ISI were leaking them to the Taliban and thwarting US actions. He was even reported to have asked Prime Minister Gilani when he visited the White House in late August, 2008 as to who was in charge of the ISI. On Sep. 16, 2008. US Asst. Secretary Richard Boucher said that the reform of the ISI was a must and it was not happening yet. This led to the removal of Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj as the Head of the ISI on Sep. 29, 2008. Even the Deputy Chief of ISI was replaced. Finally, with mounting losses of US & other NATO forces approaching the levels of Iraq at its peak, about two dozen US Navy SEALs raided inside Pakistan on Sep. 3, 2008, for the first time and killed 20 people in Angoor Adda, South Waziristan. The US Navy Seals were dropped on ground within FATA and they remained there for a couple of hours destroying targets. There has been speculation that Gen. Kiyani, along with his DGMO (Director General of Military Operations), were told of American intentions of more serious ground operations in a meeting they had with Adm. Mullen held on Aug. 27, 2008 unusually on board an an aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, in the Persian Gulf. The very next day, Pakistani COAS Gen. Kayani strongly lashed out at the US proposal to mount cross-border attacks inside Pakistan. The New York Times reported the same day that Bush had authorized in July cross-border attacks into Pakistan with ‘boots on the ground’ within Pakistani territory. It followed the American assessment of Pakistani Army ‘lacking will and ability’. American officials concluded, as per the report in New York Times article dated Sep. 24, 2009, that the ISID was helping the Taliban. The US Ambassador to Pakistan, Ms. Anne Patterson, voiced the disappointment that Pakistan was “certainly reluctant to take action” against the leadership of the Afghan insurgency. Simultaneously, there was a talk of extending the drone attacks to Quetta where the Taliban Shura was supposed to be holed up. Western intelligence sources (Times, Sep. 27, 2009) also reported that the Pakistani intelligence agencies, fearing such an attack, had shifted some members of the Quetta Shura to the much safer Karachi. Pakistan strongly denied the existence of anything called a Quetta Shura at all. However, On Dec. 14, 2009, the Pakistani Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, said that the Quetta Shura has been significantly damaged by the armed forces and was no longer a threat, thus conceding that the Quetta Shura after all existed.

(To be continued . . .)

On Why Osama bin Laden's Presence in Pakistan does not Surprise - Part II

Let me digress briefly from the OBL narrative to see how Pakistan is reacting to the stunning 'Op. Geronimo'.

Osama bin Laden's assassination at Abbottabad while Pakistan, its Army (PA) and its powerful Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISID) slept peacefully on the night between May 1 & 2, has predictably created a huge furore in that country, steeped as it is in Honour, Dignity and nowadays in selective Sovereignty too. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani 'warned' the US against public opinion in his country turning against the US and he not being able to do anything about that. The National Assembly passed a unanimous resolution recommending revisiting the country’s military cooperation with the US. It also asked the Government of Pakistan (GoP) to stop NATO supplies from passing through Pakistani territory into Afghanistan if drone attacks did not stop. The Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), the mouthpiece of the Pakistani armed forces, said, quoting Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, that "any similar action in future violating the sovereignty of Pakistan will warrant a review on the level of military/intelligence co-operation with the United States". The Pakistani Air Force(PAF) Chief said that the PAF could shoot down American drones.

Such assertion of selective sovereignty appeared out-of-place for Pakistan. I say selective sovereignty because that country thinks nothing of giving away hundreds of square Kilometres of sovereign Pakistani land to the princes of various Arab emirates and Kingdoms for hunting down the endangered species of houbara bustards for enhancing the virility of these gentlemen, if one may indeed call them so. Pakistan does not think anything of asking People's Republic of China to represent her in negotiating with India after 26/11. It does not think anything at all about inviting Chinese troops into the lands that it has forcibly occupied from India. It does not want to dismantle the Caliphate that the Haqqani and anti-GoP Tehrik-e-Taliban, Pakistan (TTP) elemets have established and been successfully running since c. 2002 in Waziristan. It thinks next to nothing about its inability to control, contain and prosecute the scores of terrorist organizations operating openly from its soil putting not only India and the immediate region but the whole world in grave danger. What about the secret authorization from Gen. Musharraf allowing the CIA to operate Unmanned Aerial Combat Vehicles (UACVs) from the Shamsi airbase that regularly violate the sovereignty while the PA and the GoP hypocritically condemn these attacks ? Even the PAF chief has recently admitted that the Shamsi airbase was no longer under Pakistan sovereignty as it belonged to the Emir of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) who had in turn handed it over to the US now ! 'Foreign Hands' are freely trading in Pakistani sovereign land and there is not even a murmur !! And yet, Pakistan raises a hue and cry when its most allied ally from Eisenhower's days, the USA, takes out the most wanted and most sanctioned 'world terrorist' from his villa near Islamabad after Pakistan had allowed that terrorist to abuse its sovereignty with impunity for almost a six years, if not more. What a perversion !

The ISI Chief, Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha, while presenting the PA/ISI case before the members of the Pakistani National Assembly (PNA), suddenly put on a pretense of being subservient to people's power of the Parliament and offered to resign, if newspaper reports are to be believed. He is also reported to have admitted to 'failure', though it is not clear which failure he spoke about. Was it the failure to detect the clandestine visit by the USN SEALs ? Or, was it the failure not to have known about the presence of the world's most wanted terrorist happily living in their midst with his wives, children and baggage for at least six years ? Or, more importantly, was he implying a failure on the part of the ISI not to have given more fail-proof protection to Osama bin Laden that eventually led to a loss of Honour & Dignity (H&D) ? What was in your mind, Lt. Gen. Pasha ? However, we may never know what happened in that briefing because the session was held in-camera. In Pakistan, everything is 'in-camra', whether it is a briefing by the ISI or the PA to the Parliamentarians, or the 26/11 case proceedings in the court etc. because the State is afraid that otherwise uncomfortable truths would come tumbling out jeopardizing the very integrity of the nation which is founded only on fraud, perfidy and mendacity. That is how much deeply the State, the Army and the ISI are involved in one murky activity after another for the past six decades. It is no wonder therefore that many Pakistanis are themselves referring to their country as 'Deep State'.

Lt. Gen. Pasha also did an encore like the Prime Minister of his country, Yousuf Raza Gilani who said in Paris that the failure of Pakistan was indeed the failure of the whole world. No less, mind you. But, he took all the credit (not sharing it with the rest of the world unlike the blame) for arresting so many Al Qaeda terrorists and handing them over to the US, since c. 2002. Along the same lines as his Prime Minister, Lt. Gen. Pasha also blamed others like "the provincial government, local police and related agencies" for their failure to obtain information about Osama bin Laden. Like PM Gilani, as well as his immediate boss Gen. Kayani, he also claimed credit that the "ISI had in fact rendered al Qaeda paralysed and broken its back".

Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha immediately went back to the theory of how criticizing the PA and the ISI would be against 'national interests' as though the national interests revolved only around the PA/ISI. Thus, one does not know whether the PML-N's Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, Chaudhry Nissar Ali Khan's warning that the Army and the ISI Chiefs should remember thet they were "answerable to parliament instead of presuming that parliament was answerable to them" had any effect. By all appearances, it did not because the briefing was a monologue by the ISI and sang the same tune that they knew the best about security than anybody else and were beyond questioning. Lt. Gen. Pasha also warned of the attempts by 'foreign hands' at sowing discord between the people and the armed forces. This attitude is reinforced by the fact that the Government of Pakistan (GoP) could not even order a public enquiry, by being made to accede only to an internal inquiry by the PA's Adjutant General against its own failure ! It was only PML-N's forceful demand that lead to the inclusion in the 12-point unanimous recommendation by the National Assemly to constitute a Commission. One can easily conclude what will come out of the Adjutant General's enquiry in the backdrop of other enquiries like Liaquat Ali Khan's assassination, Zia-ul-Haq's death, Hamoodur Rehman report on the 1971 seccession, Kargil debacle, Ms. Benazir Bhuto's assassination etc. In any case, at the end of the presentation by Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha and the subsequent discussion among the Parliamentarians, the elected representatives unanimously expressed their full confidence in the armed forces and the intelligence agencies.

That's it. Evereything has now been explained away to the nation through the people's representatives, the existence of democracy in Pakistan has been resoundingly proven once again, no 'guilt' sticks to the armed forces or the intelligence services who anyway simply follow civilian government's orders, the Yahud-Hanud-Nasara (Jew-Hindu-Christian) conspiracy is exposed and everybody is back to 'business as usual'. Thus, the French proverb Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose (The more it changes, the more it remains the same) fits the Pakistani situation to a 'T'.

What we can be sure of, though, is that Lt. Gen. Shuja Ahmed Pasha's personality will become known after some time as it has happened in the case of almost every Director General (DG), ISI for sometime now. The list of such ISI Chiefs with gross 'personality flaws' is long, for example, Hamid Gul, Javid Nasser, Assad Durrani, Ziauddin Butt, Mehmood Ahmed, Kayani et al. We should not be surprised to learn later that he was indeed a fundamentalist sharing the jihadi mentality with a thin and fake veneer of a liberal especially when interacting with the Western friends and allies. It is axiomatic that one cannot become the DG of ISI without such 'personality flaw'.

So, the Pakistani Army's sudden pretense about its love for oversight by the Parliament is reminiscent of what happened after a series of defeats by the TTP in c. 2007. Again, the PA took refuge under the protection of people's power through the instrument of National Assembly and Gen. Kayani gave another similar in-camera briefing to the Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) about why the TTP came menacingly close to the capital, Islamabad. The whole world was alarmed at the stunning successes of the beards as they threatened a nuclear power. It is very obvious that when inconvenient situations develop, the PA finds the virtues of parliamentary democracy. In the present case too, it appears that Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha 'offered' to resign if Parliament so wished (Should it not be the preogative of the Prime Minister ? Why does he involve the National Assembly in this ?).

On earlier occassions too, the PA had resorted to a similar tactics of suddenly developing a love for democracy and people's power. As recently as c. 2007, the PA decided to retrieve its lost image and installed a democratic government, decided to remain unobtrusive and conduct only back-seat driving. In c. 1972, after the massive defeat, it decided similarly to install the most popular civilian leader in the saddle until the situation recovered sufficiently when it decided to usurp the rule once again.

Anyway, back to our narrative on why Osama bin Laden's presence in a Pakistani garrison town, along with his wives and chidren, does not come as a surprise. Reacting to the crescendo of anger and shame against the ruling dispensation, the Interior Minister, Rehman Malik said: “It was the PML-N that received Rs 130 million from Osama to contest elections against Benazir Bhutto. It was the PML-N that brought Osama to Pakistan from Sudan. It was the PML-N that sent Osama on a C-130 from Peshawar to Afghanistan.” Thus, he let the cat out of the bag. Need one say anything more ? In Pakistan such revelations are common practice because the whole State and its apparatus are so steeply involved in lying, in being cunning and terrorizing India and increasingly the rest of the World too, that it is diffiult to contain the truth from tumbling out sometime or another. One needs to be a little patient, that's all.

It comes as no surprise therefore when 'The 9/11 Commission Report', while referring to the discussion about various options for an operation against Osama bin Laden, repeatedly alludes to the fear expressed by the Army Generals and the CIA about the PA and the ISI being 'in bed' with Osama.

In early 2007, a Pakistani agent, Syed Akbar was captured by the Afghan Intelligence (under their famous intelligence chief Amarullah Saleh, a Tajik, the Afghan intelligence notched quite a few impressive successes) who confessed to having escorted Osama bin Laden, under ISI instructions, from Nuristan through Kunar into Chitral and handed him over to an ISI officer in October, 2005. He said that Osama bin Laden was staying in the house of a commander of Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami when the ISI decided to move him into Pakistan.

(To be continued . . .)

On Why Osama bin Laden's Presence in Pakistan does not Surprise - Part I

The world's most sought-after terrorist mastermind has been finally eliminated early morning on May 2 at Abbottabad, Pakistan. It should come as absolutely no surprise to even those who only cursorily follow events in Pakistan that Osama bin Laden was finally found safely ensconced, along with his family, in a Pakistani military town. For those who are still unconvinced, we will presently see the reasons as to why this is no surprise.

But, predictably, Pakistan is deliberately trying to weave a story, give a spin, obfuscate, confuse and generally muddy the affair. Gen. Kayani, whose previous assignement was to head the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISID) has claimed that it would be 'unjust to cricize Pakistan for not locating Osama and his cohorts'. The Pakistani High Commissioner to the UK, His Excellencey Wajid Shams-ul Hasan claimed that the Pakistani armed forces were involved in the operation even as the Pakistani President Zardari admitted that it was a completetely US operation while CIA Chief, Leon Panetta said that Pakistan was not informed "because of fears that the details would leak and the mission could be compromised". The Pakistani Foreign Office hit out at the 'unauthorized and unilateral' US operation and rejected the theory that the US helicopters flew from the Ghazi Airbase at Tarbela. Prime Minister Gilani conveniently dismissed the 'hiding-in-plainsight theory' as "the failure of intelligence in the world, not just in Pakistan but in the United States as well". A senior military official briefing pressmen said, "We had been looking for him in no-go areas, unaware that he was living so close to an installation of ours. Yes, it is an intelligence failure". However, Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir, appearing in a BBC interview said that Pakistan played a vital role in the elimination of Osama bin Laden by sharing intelligence, contradicting his own Foreign Office's assertion a few hours earlier. A senior ISI official was quoted by BBC admitting to embarrassment owing to intelligence failure. All these are contradictory statements emanating from the very high offices of what constitute the Pakistani Government. Don't they show dysfunctionality or obfuscation or both ? There seems to be different answers to different audience from different people of the Government of Pakistan completely befuddling the whole world.

The Americans, for their part, have also got to answer many questions. Each passing day, new revelations add twist to 'Operation Geronimo'. The US Administration takes increasingly defensive tone on certain aspects of the operation as new pieces of information come to light. Even if one does not subscribe to the different conspiracy theories, there are many glaring gaps in what the US seems to be carefully releasing in installments about the entire operation.

The dust will take quite some time to settle down for a clearer picture to emerge. However, one thing is quite obvious even for those diehard apologists of Pakistan and that is that Osama bin Laden was simply a state guest of Pakistan at Abbottabad for a considerable period of time.

John Brennan, Assistant to the US President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, said that "it's inconceivable that bin Laden did not have a support system in the country that allowed him to remain there for an extended period of time". That 'support system' was nothing but the ISI. The ties between the ISI of Pakistan and Osama bin Laden go a long way back.

Apart from Osama bin Laden's involvement in the Afghan jihad due to his personal conviction, he was also a representative of the Saudi monarchy overseeing the recruitment, funding and generally acting as their eyes and ears. As a member of Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen), he naturally reposed faith in and closely interacted with Jama'at-e-Islami (JI) of Pakistan. It was not until early 1986 that Osama bin Laden permanently moved into the upmarket Hyatabad suburb of Peshawar in North Western Pakistan. By end of that year, he was collaborating closely with the ISI in building fortifications and underground structures at Tora Bora, an effort in which his Saudi Bin Laden company was completely involved. Later in April 1987, the Jaji battles erupted and this was the time Osama bin Laden and his mentor from his Jeddah days, Abdullah Azzam, began to drift apart over Osama's preferential treatment of the Arab fighters. Al Qaeda al Askariya (The Military Base) itself was born in Peshawar in August, 1988 though it remained dormant subsequently for a long time. Soon, other differences led to a break in Osama's relationships with Abdullah Azzam and by extension the Muslim Brotherhood, along with some other Egyptians. Osama and Azzam also favoured different Afghan mujahideen factions too, with the former supporting Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami (an ISI favourite) and the latter supporting 'The Lion of Panjshir' Ahmed Shah Masoud (an ISI enemy). Soon enough, Abdullah Azzam was branded as a takfir (an apostate) and was finally eliminated on November 24, 1989 in a car bomb explosion in Peshawar.

Soon, Osama returned to KSA but became a dissident Islamist when King Fahd ibn Abdul Aziz invited the Americans to defend the borders of the Kingdom against a rampaging Saddam Hussain and also evict him from occupied Kuwait. Osama bin Laden was one of those dissidents who saw anachronism in the King inviting infidel Crusader troops setting foot in the Holy land trying to defend the Sons and Daughters of Prophet Mohammed. To cut a long story short, the bin Laden family was eventually forced to disown Osama, he was stripped of his Saudi citizenship and was exiled to the Sudan where Osama had already developed some interests with the Islamist rular Hasan-al-Turabi. The dormant Al Qaeda of Peshawar was revived in Khartoum.

From Khartoum, Osama orchstrated bomb attacks on Saudi Arabia, targetting the Americans. The first was the bomb attack on the National Guard training centre in capital Riyadh that killed five Americans. In an effort to get rid of the 'Terrorist State' tag that the US had slapped on the Sudan, that country was now prepared to tackle Osama bin Laden. It was thus, Osama was made to flee Khartoum and land in Afghanistan, the only country that was willing to take him. It is inconceivable that Mullah Omar took this decision unilaterally without consulting the ISI whose officers were stationed at Kandahar advising the ragtag Taliban who were not well-versed with the nuances of international relationship or geopolitical or geostrategic implications of their actions. Let us remember that Sultan Amir Tarar (more popularly known as Col. Imam) was the Pakistani Consul in Herat and earlier Mazar-i-Sharif. Ever since Mullah Omar was asked by the ISI to release the truck convoy led by Col. Imam that had been held hostage by a warlord and which finally led to the seizure of Kandahar itself by the Taliban, the two of them had developed excellent and close relationship. Thus it was in May, 1996 that Osama bin Laden arrived in Jalalabad. Within a month, there was a huge truck bomb attack on American servicemen living in Khobar Towers complex at Al Khobar on the East Coast of KSA where a huge airforce base is located at nearby Dhahran. It killed 19 Americans and injured over 400 persons. Osama's hand had also been suspected in the Mogadishu killing of 18 American soldiers who were part of the UN Peacekeeping team in October, 1993.

Later, in October 1996, Mullah Omar invited Osama bin Laden to Kandahar. It was in August 1998 that Osama bin Laden bombed the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. In retaliation, President Clinton authorized cruise missile attacks on Osama's hideout in Afghanistan on August 20. But, Osama bin Laden escaped just in time. The '9/11 Commission Report', the official US report of the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks, says the following, "Since the missiles headed for Afghanistan had had to cross Pakistan, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was sent to meet with Pakistan’s army chief of staff to assure him the missiles were not coming from India. Officials in Washington speculated that one or another Pakistani official might have sent a warning to the Taliban or Bin Ladin."

Osama did not restrict himself to Afghanistan, but interfered in the internal affairs of Pakistan through the ISI. A former director of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) of Pakistan, Malik Mumtaz, has charged Osama with funding the ISI to destabilize Ms. Benazir Bhutto's government in what is usually referred to as 'Operation Midnight Jackal'. He pointed to a conspiracy by COAS Aslam Beg, former ISI chief General (r) Asad Durrani, Brigadier (r) Imtiaz and Major (r) Amir. Gen. Aslam Beg, the Army Chief, decided to dislodge the Prime Minister, Ms. Benazir Bhutto, because he felt that the government’s policies did not synchronize with the objectives of the military. This was later reinforced by the then former Intelligence Bureau (IB)chief, Brig (Retd.) Imtiaz who admitted in a TV interview on August 27, 2009 that Gen. Aslam Beg launched Op. Midnight Jackal because he did not like the Afghan policies of Ms. Benazir Bhutto. Ms. Benazir Bhutto too has referred to Gen. Aslam Beg's dislike of her Afghan policies in her memoirs. For his part, the wahhabi Osama bin Laden could not countenance a woman leading an Islamic country such as Pakistan. Apart from funding the ISI, Osama bin Laden also funded political parties in Pakistan. A former ISI official, Sq. Ldr. Khalid Khwaja (recently assasinated by the Taliban) has said that he personally arranged several meetings between Osama and Pakistan Muslim League's (PML) Chief (now, PML-N) Nawaz Sharif where the latter demanded money from Osama. Khwaja also claimed that he acted as a courier carrying money from Osama bin Laden to Nawaz Sharif. JI Chief, Qazi Hussein Ahmed, later corroborated the story saying that Nawaz Sharif met Osama bin Laden several times and got money from him to topple Ms. Bhutto's government. Ms. Bhutto also revealed in her memoirs that during her tenure (1988-1990), some Arab militant leaders and Pakistani Generals had planned to start a war against the US in association with Osama bin Laden but she vetoed it. The reference to Generals could not have been to anybody other than Gen. Aslam Beg, COAS and Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, ISI Chief. So, one can conclude easily that the contacts between the ISI and Osama were deep and long.

Osama maintained close cooperation with the royalty of the UAE even much later when he had been driven away from the Sudan due to pressure from the USA and the Saudi monarchy after he was stripped of the Saudi citizenship. He arranged the houbara bustard hunting trips for the UAE royalty in the deserts of Balochistan and adjoining Afghan areas. Under this garb, he received arms, vehicles, communication equipment etc. while he exported heroin on behalf of the narcotics gang of Afghanistan and Pakistan using the planes of the royalty.

The ISI did everything to strengthen Osama's hands within Pakistan. The context here should be understood. The Pakistan-US relationship, never rollicking to start with, came under much strain in the decade of the 90s, leading to the usual criticism of how the US always treated them as a condom. This is normal in a transaction-based relationship as it always existed between these two countries. But, by claiming so, Pakistan tries to hide its major contribution to such a situation. After the US withdrawal from the Afghan theatre with the successful conclusion of the Geneva Accord, the US woke up to two of the three horrors it had created in Pakistan. The first was the total support to Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, the second was the the question of drug proliferation and the third was the jihadi terrorism. Thus, suddenly the US imposed sanctions on Pakistan invoking the Pressler Amendment of 1985 leading to bitterness among Pakistanis. With the drying up of huge funds after c. 1989, the Pakistani Army tied up with its proteģe Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and other warlords to grow opium, refine heroin and smuggle it from Helmand through Balochistan and Iran to Turkey and beyond. It was therefore no wonder when the ISI refused to help the US in recollecting the Stinger man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS) which it loaned to the mujahideen in c. 1986 from them , who were now using them to protect the heroin convoys against attacks. The ISI was using its NLC (National Logistics Cell), created to transport arms and ammunition to the mujahideen during the Afghan jihad, to transport the heroin out of Afghanistan and Pakistan thus defeating the US efforts to curb the drug menace and that too after receiving millions of dollars for opium poppy eradication. A 1993 CIA report came to the conclusion that Pakistan itself was a narco-state. Thus, in c. 1993, Pakistan came close to being branded as a narco-terrorist-state.

In an interview to The Washington Post on September 12, 1994, ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif admitted that the then COAS Gen. Aslam Beg and ISI Chief Lt. Gen. Asad Durrani had suggested using drugs to support covert ISI operations. Nawaz Sharif said, "Both Beg and Durrani insisted that Pakistan's name would not be cited at any place because the whole operation would be carried out by trustworthy third parties". Durrani then went on to list "a series of covert military operations in desperate need of money," recalled Nawaz Sharif. Such reckless behaviour by Pakistan's top Army officers is quite possible when we recall what the same Gen. Aslam Beg told Nawaz Sharif in the presence of an Iranian military official that Pakistan must sell nuclear weapons technology to Iran for USD 12 Billion. Ms. Benazir Bhutto has recalled how she was promised Srinagar if only she authorized the Kargil plan. A similar promise was given to Mohammed Ali Jinnah way back in 1947 of being able to be in Srinagar for the Eid on October 26. One can therefore easily deduce how Osama and the ISI would have collaborated on the narcotics trade.

After the military coup of October 12, 1999, Pakistan became even more isolated in the world. The country was expelled from the Commonwealth. The US-Pakistan relationship had already nosedived after the betrayal by Pakistan in the issue of the cruise missile attacks against Osama bin Laden for the 1998 bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. More embarrassing to Pakistan was that those who were killed in the cruise missile attack turned out to be Pakistanis belonging to Fazlur Rehman Khalil's Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM). Fazlur Rehman Khalil is currently under the protection of the ISI and was even used by the Government in negotiating a truce with the Ghazi brothers of Lal Masjid during the 2007 incidents.

The US used the military coup against a democratically elected Nawaz Sharif government as a ruse to pile up pressure on Pakistan. By this time, Pakistan was the only country to support the Taliban effectively as Saudi Arabia, and at its instigation the UAE, had become cold to them following the refuge given to Osama bin Laden in Kandahar. In the IC-814 hijacking episode, the US came close to branding Pakistan as a 'State Sponsor of Terrorism'. It was therefore only with great difficulty and a lot of humiliation that Gen. Musharraf could make Pres. Clinton visit Pakistan for five hours while he stayed in arch-rival India for five days in March 2000. The US was issuing periodical warnings to the Pakistanis about its support to the Taliban, but Gen. Musharraf and his Corps Commanders, blinded by their hatred for India and therefore not willing to lose the 'strategic depth' of Afghanistan remained immune. It was in this context that in order to retaliate against enormous US pressure, the ISI sponsored the Deobandi conference in Peshawar in April 2001 where support was pledged to the Taliban. The Dar-ul-Uloom Haqqania madrassah in Peshawar organized a meeting which was attended, among others, by Gen. Hamid Gul, former Director General (DG) of ISI and Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, former COAS, wherein a declaration was made to defend Osama bin Laden and attack the Western countries as a sacred duty of Muslims. Just to balance its support for various factions, the ISI allowed the LeT to hold similar rally in Lahore a couple of weeks later.

(To Be Continued . . . )