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 . . .)

A Comparison of Today's Pakistan and Certain Events in Seventh Century Islam

Pakistan never tires of two things these days, the only country created on the basis of Islam and the only Islamic nuclear country. Pakistani political leaders and Army Generals have frequently exhorted their armed forces to not only protect the physical boundaries of the country but also the 'ideological frontiers of Islam'. The motto of the Pakistani Army (PA) itself conveys where the Pakistani nation stands: Iman, Taqwah, Jihad fi Sabilillah (Faith, Fear of Allah, Jihad in the way of Allah). Pakistan has never been shy of depicting its wars against India as religion-based. Later, when it acquired missiles from China and North Korea, it named them after some of the most savage Islamist raiders of India from Central Asia and Afghanistan. The names reflect not only India-specificity but also the aggressiveness of Pakistani mindset in Islamist terms. Its military operations against India have been named such that it will swell a Muslim bosom with pride. For example, during the 1965 war, Pakistan Navy decided to bombard the decrepit and non-strategic town of Dwarka on the Gujarat coast since it was associated with the Hindu mythology of Mahabharat and the operation was therefore aptly code-named “Operation Somnath” symbolizing the dozens of times the marauder Mahmud of Ghazni pillaged the nearby and the famous Somnath temple. The Pakistan Army’s invasion in the same war was code-named ‘Operation Gibraltar’, referring to the Rock of Gibraltar which was named as ‘Jebel al Tariq’ by the Muslim invader Tariq bin Ziad. Similarly, the various units of the invading Pakistani guerilla army forces in 1965 were named as Tariq, Ghaznavi, Salahuddin, Qasim and Khalid, all thus named after Muslim war heroes. It was this same hatred that drove Daoud Gilani alias David Coleman Headley to include Somnath temple as one of his four terror targets apart from Mumbai.

There are plenty of other examples where Pakistan displays its deep attachment to jihadi Muslim war heroes, some of them even quite savage. It is no wonder therefore that the Pakistani Chief of Army, Gen. Kayani, openly described the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud and Fazlullah as 'patriots'. Another Corps Commander of the PA said that the TTP would fight the Indians 'shoulder-to-shoulder' with the Pakistani Army. Several Army officers such as General (r) Mirza Aslam Baig, General (r) Faiz Ali Chishti, General (r) Hameed Gul, General (r) Jamshaid Gulzar Kiyani, General (r) Asad Durrani, General (r) Sardar Anwar Khan, General (r) Abdul Qayyum and General (r) Ali Quli Khan have openly said that jihad was the only way to wrest Kashmir from India or supported such a proposition. The likes of Professor Hafeez Saeed saheb, Maulana Masood Azhar Alvi, Fazlur Rehman Khalil et al froth at the mouth corners at the very mention of kafir India. The chief of Lashkar-e-Tayeba (LeT), Prof. Hafeez Saeed, said in November 1999, ‘The Jihad is not about Kashmir only. It encompasses all of India. Today I announce the break-up of India, Inshallah. We will not rest until the whole of India is dissolved into Pakistan’.

It is a common belief among Pakistanis that it is their duty to retrieve the oppressed Muslims of India from the land of jahliyyah (the dark period of ignorance before Islam was born) in a Ghazwa-e-Hind (Conquest of Hindustan by the Believers) based on a hadith of doubtful authenticity. This is a reference to a hadith that purportedly says that “A Muslim Army (probably Pakistan Army) would Conquer India, after that Hazrat Isa will return and this army would join him in the Middle East to fight the Jews.” The Pakistani Army probably wants to believe that Ghazwa-e-Hind refers to them and would want the Pakistani society-at-large to believe likewise too. It was so convenient to propagate this myth and garner support from all sections of the Pakistani State and the society until the TTP came along and the Punjabi Taliban joined hands with them and started attacking the very institutions that created and nurtured them. Who would have thought, in circa 2000 for example, of attacks against the ISI or the Pakistani Army or the Frontier Corps or the Corps Commanders of the PA ? Who could have imagined the brutal killing of Col. Imam, the father-figure of the mujahideen and later the Taliban ? Who could have foretold that Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman, the patron-saint of the Taliban would be repeatedly attempted to be assassinated ? Who could have foreseen the attacks on the General Headquarters (GHQ) at Rawalpindi or PNS Mehran ? The situation for the PA changed when the more pious (the high church or the Wahhabi/Deobandi/Salafi/Takfiri components of the Al Qaeda and Allied Movement, AQAM) began to brutally and successfully challenge the less pious (the low church which is the corrupt Pakistani State organs such as the politicians, the armed forces, intelligence services or the law-enforcement agencies etc. or the Shi'a or the Ahmedis et al)

How do these developments compare with the situation in early Islam ? There is a startlingly close resemblance. As we shall see, from these similarities we can deduce a certain trajectory of events in Pakistan by comparing and contrasting the two situations.

When Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) died on June 8, 632 A.D., there was no clear succession plan, a bane that has afflicted the Islamic community ever since. Since he had no male child, a rivalry ensued between his favourite and youngest wife Ayesha's father, Abu Bakr, and Prophet Mohammed's (PBUH) son-in-law Ali (who was also his cousin) married to his daughter Fatima. Eventually, Abu Bakr assumed the role of a Caliph. Upon his death, his nominee, Omar ibn Khattab assumed that role still denying Ali any role. Upon Omar's assassination, Ali was conditionally offered the Caliphate which he rejected because one of the conditions namely that he should rule not only based on the Koran and the Sunnah, but also on the practices set by Abu Bakr and Omar was unacceptable to him. He was unwilling to the latter condition because he had been critical of some of the actions of the later two Caliphs. The Caliphate went therefore to Uthman, another member of the Quraish tribe like Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) or Abu Bakr or Omar. Uthman was eventually assassinated too. The assassins claimed that since he did not rule according to the Koran and the Sunnah, he was a legitimate target for killing, a concept known as wajib-ul-qitl. Like the confusion with choosing a qualified successor to a Caliph, this idea of killing somebody after branding that person as not Islamic enough and hence wajib-ul-qitl has also become the bane of Islamist societies. Anyway, this time, Ali was chosen as the Caliph by community elders, unlike the previous two occassions. However, Uthman's murder resulted in a severe split within the ummah (community), those who welcomed it and those who opposed it. Muwaiya, the Governor of Iraq under the Ummayads was the chief opposition leader. Ali's and Muwaiya's forces perforce clashed but eventually a ceasefire resulted.

This is when more problems started and the ummah soon split vertically into Sunnis and Shi'a. All the sectarian ills that so violently wrack the Islamic world, most especially Pakistan, stem from the fateful decision of Ali and Muwaiya to go for arbitration of their dispute settlement following the ceasefire. Several seemingly irreconcilable problems that have dogged the Islamic world, again, especially Pakistan, flowed from this.

Firstly, some of the aggressive followers of Ali opposed the arbitration process itself claiming that was not an option at all. Soon enough, they deserted the Ali camp and set up their own base. They were known as Kharajis (Seccessionists). They characterized Ali's arbitration decision as shirq (associating partners with Allah) which called for death and a Kharaji promptly carried that out. The idea of Kharajis would come to haunt the ummah several times later. Thus, his very ardent supporters turned suddenly the bitterest enemy of Ali. We will see how similar situations developed in Pakistan as well. Secondly, the sectarian divide that split the ummah into 'Partisans of Ali' (Shi'at Ali) and 'Others' (Sunnis) and that bedevilled the ummah ever since has also had great repercussions within Pakistan. Thirdly, the unrest. It was not as though there was no unrest during the time of these early Caliphs. One way they dealt with the unrest was to go on a territorial expansionist mode promising lucrative booty to the jihadi fighters of Islam. The fighting jihadis were entitled to four-fifths of the booty with the remaining one-fifth going to the Caliphate. Thus, religion was thought of as a uniting factor as well as a diversion from other contentious issues. Pakistan has done exactly the same thing since its inception. Let's see these one by one.

Most people think of the Muslim ummah as just divided into Sunnis and Shi'a. However, there is another recognized sect too, the Kharajis. In fact, Kharaji Islam is the state religion of nearby Oman. Just like the four madhhabs (Schools of Islamic Jurisprudence) of the Sunnis (namely, Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki, and Shafii), the Kharajis have the Ibadi madhhab or fiqh. Though it closely resembles the the Al Maliki madhhab, there are overlaps among these various Sunni schools. They all believe in Dar-ul-Islam or Dar-ul-Aman(domain of Islam and hence peace) and the rest, Dar-ul-Harb or Dar-ul-Kafir(domain of war because they are infidel). This, for example, gives a justification for Pakistan to repeatedly attack or harass India. In c. 1920, when the Khilafat Movement in India was at its peak, several thousand Indian Muslims wanted to emigrate from the British-ruled Dar-ul-Harb to Muslim-ruled Afghanistan of Dar-ul-Aman. Similarly, Saiyyid Ahmed Berelvi took his men to the Afghanistan-Pakistan borders, the Dar-ul-Islam, to fight the Sikhs and the British kafir, in the nineteenth century. The Af-Pak badlands were forever changed by him.

The Kharajites also believe that any Muslim ruler (or even the Caliph) who does not correctly apply the Koran and the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH) is liable for killing by those who diligently follow Islam. This is very dicey because who is to determine who is a 'good Muslim' and who is a 'bad Muslim'. We can immediately draw parallels to what is happening in present-day Pakistan. The various groups comprising the TTP kill people and claim that these were 'bad Muslims' and liable to elimination in the hands of the 'good Muslims'. Such a thought process has permeated everywhere within Pakistan and the killing of the Punjab Governor Salman Taseer is a good example of how far this Kharaji virus has spread. The various Islamist organizations (Deobandi, Sufi, Ahl-e-Hadith, Shi'a etc.) led by the Berelvis banned their clerics from leading the janaaza (funeral prayer) of the blasphemer Taseer while the killer was praised in glowing Islamic terms for his action. No lawyer came forward to prosecute him. In the aftermath of this assassination and the huge support the killer received in Pakistan, the Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, went as far as to say he would shoot any blasphemer himself. Another cleric in Karachi declared Ms. Sherry Rehman, a member of the National Assembly (MNA), as ‘wajib-ul-qitl’ for having sponsored a bill to modify the Blasphemy Law to make it more reasonable and less susceptible to abuse, even as the Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, advised her to leave the country for her own safety. The Punjabi Taliban killed one of the greatest heroes of the Afghan mujahideen and later the Taliban, Col. Imam. They have also attempted several times to kill Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman, head of the Jama'at-Ulema-e-Islami (JUI), the biggest supporter of the mujahideen and the Taliban. They faced the wrath of the 'good Muslims' because they have now become 'bad Muslims' in the eyes of the 'good Muslims'. The Pakistani state itself characterizes some of the Taliban terrorists as 'Good Taliban' and hence eligible for support while the rest as 'Bad Taliban' and eligible for elimination. The Islamic State of Pakistan even urges the infidel Americans to send more drones to attack these 'bad Muslims' as the latest WikiLeaks discloses. The Kharaji thought process is thus deeply entrenched in various sections of Pakistan. It is no wonder therefore that the biggest Kharajites are the Pakistani Army themselves. They brought in Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, a civilian, as the Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA) and later as President of Pakistan, after their massive defeat by India in the 1971 Bangladesh war. They needed somebody to protect them and help them climb out of the deep hole they had fallen into and Z.A. Bhutto came handy. The same Pakistani Army turned against him and sided with the more religious Islamist groups in deposing him and eventually hanging him to death. Since then, the entire Bhutto clan have become arch enemies of the Pakistani Army leading to the murders of Mir Murtaza Bhutto and recently Ms. Benazir Bhutto.

(To Be Continued . . .)

Myths Propagated by Pakistan to Maintain an Enduring Conflict with India - Part I

Pakistan has been historically ruled by multiple power centres. Even when Jinnah was alive, he handed over the task of grabbing the state of Jammu and Kashmir to a group of Muslim Leaguers and pretended to be unaware of what was happening so as to maintain a semblance of ‘plausible deniability’. See my earlier blog piece, The Fraudulent Theory of 'Non-State Actors' - Part II, for more details. This virus of ‘plausible deniability’ then plagued Pakistan permanently. The acts of terrorism in J&K since 1947, the war of 1965 and then Kargil, the hundreds of terrorist attacks in India since 1989, the support for the Khalistani separatists in the Indian Punjab in early and mid 1980s, the support for separatism in J&K, the support for economic sabotage of India etc. have all carried this hallmark of ‘plausible deniability’. In recent years though, the ISI has seemingly decided to be careless about ‘plausible deniability’ because now everybody knows how terrorism and ISI are joined at the hips. Once somebody begins to engage in sexual commerce, otherwise known as prostitution, it may no longer be needed to hide that fact and in fact, publicizing that fact could help attract customers and hence money and even power. However crude it may sound, Pakistan has been precisely in that stage for many years now and hence more charitably, equally devastatingly nevertheless, described as a ‘rentier state’ even by its admirers. In any case, there are five power centres in Pakistan today, namely, the military (mostly the Pakistani Army), the political class, the bureaucracy, the elite (especially the 44 powerful families, the zamindars, pirs, vaderas, sardars and the Khans) and the ulema.

These five pillars of Pakistan have varying tasks, varying stakes and varying spheres of influence in shaping the trajectory of Pakistan, with the Pakistani Army (PA) having the ultimate power to overrule any of the other four. The PA generally co-opts the ulema so that it does not have to get into a confrontational mode with them. This has been also a legacy since the days of Gen. Ayub Khan, who though abhorrent of the ways and means of the ulema had to ultimately seek their help in running the government, facing the war of 1965 and winning the Presidential election against a spirited and powerful Ms. Fatima Jinnah, the Quaid-e-Azam’s sister. All these led to Islamists gaining credibility and traction not only with the Government but also with the armed forces.

When one listens to or reads the various discourses enunciated by political and military leaders, strategic analysts, diplomats, newspaper editors, and fiery speeches by the chiefs of terrorist organizations and the ulema, one can discern the following reasons for the continuation of this seemingly enduring conflict. Let us discuss each one of these perceptions.

In my opinion, the first and foremost is the Pakistani perception that 'India never reconciled itself to the creation of Pakistan and is awaiting a chance to undo the Partition, re-absorb the lost territories and form an Akhand Bharat (Greater India)’ This then leads to an impression that India creates problems for Pakistan by building a huge conventional armed forces, by building nuclear weapons, by resorting to coercive diplomacy, by various attempts to weaken Pakistan and by being hegemonic with respect to Pakistan. The 1971 secession of East Pakistan is cited always as an attempt by India to cut Pakistan down to size. In recent years, Pakistan has added its fears of India using the Indus waters to make Pakistan a desert by impounding waters. This is viewed as another tactic by the treacherous and cunning Hindus to weaken the state and cause disharmony among the four Pakistani provinces as the quantum of water decreases. Pakistan calls Indian military and its doctrines such as the Cold Start as Pakistan-centric.

In Pakistani minds, the above have become axiomatic and hence escape an objective scrutiny. Let us see therefore how far these fears are true. Let us consider the issue of ‘Akhand Bharat’. Though such a concept of ‘Akhand Bharat’ was spoken of by a few sporadically, especially the right-wing Hindu groups, it never gained currency in India. In fact, it is usually a practice among the so-called centrists and the leftists of Indian intelligentsia to accuse these Hindu right-wing leaders of demanding the creation of Pakistan in the first place because of their animosity towards the Muslims ! The closest that these right-wing Hindus came to power was when the BJP came to power in 1998 . Even then, it was a coalition government of various hues and colours though the BJP was the most dominant among them. For five decades after the Indian independence, the supposedly more secular and centrist Indian National Congress (INC) ruled the country almost with an iron grip. Of course many Indian leaders during the nascent and intoxicating days of independence, felt that Pakistan may not be able to survive as an entity for too long. In fact, Indian Prime Minister Pandit Nehru said so. He wrote, "I doubt very much if it (Pakistan) can survive at all. Financially it will be completely bankrupt. Kashmir's future is of the utmost intimate personal significance. On no account do I want Kashmir to become a kind of colony of foreign interests. I fear Pakistan is likely to become that if it survives at all."

Moreover, there was no clear idea, at the time of Partition, of the future relationship between these two newly created countries. People had relatives and assets across the borders, including the founder of Pakistan and the Governor General, Mohammed Ali Jinnah. The noted Pakistani columnist and commentator, Khaled Ahmed, says that “Jinnah never thought that India and Pakistan would be hostile neighbours. The fact that three institutions in India - including the Aligarh Muslim University - were named beneficiaries in Jinnah's will clearly goes against the state-sponsored version of his life.” Pakistani litteretaeurs of great fame like Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Saadat Hasan Manto or Mohammad Saeed have captured the confusion of division and the ambiguity thereon. One of the prominent Muslim League politicians of that time, Ghulam Hussain was not only completely against Pakistan but also said that Jinnah himself was not completely convinced about that. Individual families also were confused to such an extent that some in the family migrated to Pakistan while others remained in India. For example, later day Indian President Dr. Zakir Hussain decided to stay in India while his brother moved over to Pakistan and ended up as a federal minister later on. Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary in the early 60s was M.Ikramullah who was the brother of the then Chief Justice (later Vice President) of India, Justice M.Hidayatullah. Such examples, not only among elite sections of the Muslim society but also among ordinary folks, are plenty. It is because of this division of families that we have today such a great demand for visas for travelling to each other’s country.

Opinions and assessments expressed, therefore, during this time of great confusion could not be taken as deterministic foreign policies of a nation. No doubt, some leaders, including Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, thought that the partition was only temporary and Pakistan would be re-united with India. In c. 1960, Prime Minister Nehru recalling those days said, “We were tired men, and we were getting on in years too. Few of us could stand the prospect of going to prison again—and if we had stood out for a united India as we wished it, prison obviously awaited us. We saw the fires burning in the Punjab and heard of the killings. The plan of Partition offered a way out and we took it. We expected that Partition would be temporary, that Pakistan was bound to come back to us.”

It was natural for most Indians who were born and raised in a united India and who would have never imagined a partition, to have held such a view in c. 1947. One can be sure that in Pakistan too there were people holding on to similar thoughts. The Hindu, wrote in its editorial dated August 15, 1947, thus: “We have achieved freedom; But at what cost! A country and a people that by every test are a unity have been arbitrarily divided. And the wound will take long to heal; for, as Mr. Nehru has sadly remarked, "division has taken place in the hearts of the people of India". But it is idle to brood over what has happened and foolish to get angry and cast about for scapegoats. Many think that there is bound to be a reunion when there has been time enough for people to reflect coolly on the disastrous consequences of this unnatural partition. That is as it may be. But those who are perpetually harping on it, whether from genuine distress or in a fractious spirit, will not be hastening that consummation.”

However, Pakistani leaders mischievously propagated the idea that India was actively working to destabilize their nation and re-absorb it. In the history of Pakistan, one can see clearly the Pakistani State propagating such alarming assessments about India frequently or whenever attention of the people needed to be diverted away from pressing domestic issues. For example, India’s supposed ‘stealing’ of waters from the Indus system of rivers or India’s conspiracy to dismember Pakistan through the separation of East Pakistan. In the early years after Partition, the various disastrous events within Pakistan itself lent credence to the Indian assessment that Pakistan may not survive as an independent entity for long. The paranoia about India in the minds of the Pakistanis was a deliberate creation of the State of Pakistan. Allama Iqbal and Mohammed Ali Jinnah along with his Muslim League leaders were able to create a sense of paranoia about Hindu domination and Muslim subjugation before Independence thus paving the way for a violent separation. In the final stages of this policy, extraordinary violence was employed to achieve their goal. Similar policies of paranoia and aggression were thus carried forward into the newly created state of Pakistan. The well known Pakistani historian, Ms. Ayesha Jalal speaks of Pakistan as ‘Paranoidistan’ caught in a mindset ‘heavily influenced by fear of India’ and consequently ‘conspiracy theories’. These conspiracy theories have been used to justify atrocities within their own country by claiming, for example, that attacks on Shia’s or suicide bombing in mosques, could have been carried out only by kafir Indians because no Muslim would kill another Muslim.

Precisely to allay such imaginary fears and put them to rest forever, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee visited Minar-e- Pakistan, and the Mausoleum of Allama Iqbal in c. 1999 (February 20-21, 1999). By visiting the Minar-e-Pakistan, considered a symbol of Pakistani identity, Prime Minister Vajpayee implicitly assured Pakistanis that India considered Pakistan as a separate state. In June, 2005, the BJP President Lal Krishna Advani visited Jinnah’s Mausoleum in Karachi and declared Pakistan as an ‘unalterable reality of history’.

(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 . . . )

On Why India Should Not Hold Talks with Gen. Kayani

Last week, The Times of London reported startlingly that the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Man Mohan Singh had opened a back channel dialogue with the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) of the Pakistani Army (PA), Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in June 2010. It also reported that the US and the UK were 'encouraged' by the talks which they hoped will lead to a smoother peace process in Afghanistan and reduce tension between the two countries. The Indian Prime Minister's Office has denied the report. We do know however that the Indian embassy in Islamabad has been in touch with the PA and the ISI for sometime now. It is difficult to authenticate the latest report now but we will explore the implications assuming that the report was true.

At this point, it is not clear what is the structure of the talks between Government of India (GoI) and Gen. Kayani or what are the issues that are being discussed. From the pointed reference to Afghanistan in the report, one may assume that the talks are more focussed on the Afghan theatre as well as the demarcation of the Sir Creek and the demilitarization of the Siachen glacier. But, one never knows what else are being discussed because the current ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) dispensation acts more mysteriously and inexplicably in matters pertaining to Pakistan, than even God. The spate of overtures made by the current Indian prime Minister to Pakistan and even more, the many self-goals scored from Havana, to Thimphu, to Yekaterinburg to Sharm-el-Sheikh and latest at Mohali stare us at our face.

In Havana on September 19, 2006, Prime Minister Dr. Man Mohan Singh conceded to Pakistani President Gen. Musharraf, that terrorism was a common threat to India and Pakistan forgetting that terror attacks on India are carried out by Pakistani jihadis with the support of the Government of Pakistan (GoP), the ISI and the PA while terror attacks on Pakistan were by their own citizens on religious sectarian issues of who was a better Muslim over whom. This concession by India at Havana came barely within three months after one of the most devastating and coordinated terror attacks on seven commuter trains in Mumbai on July 11, 2006 which killed 207 people and injured and maimed 700 more. It still remains a mystery as to why an Indian Prime Minister should equate the two and agree to a Joint Anti Terrorism Mecahanism. Explaining this anti-terrorism mechanism to the bewildered Indian people, Dr. Singh said "It is a trial, we have to experiment, since we are not going to war with Pakistan,".

And, pray, what has this anti-terrorism mechanism achieved since then ? Zilch. This "trial" failed when the Samjhota Express was bombed in February 2007, it failed once again when there were coordinated bomb attacks in Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Surat in July 2008 when 55 bombs were planted in a matter of 5 days and later in New Delhi in September 2008 on the eve of Diwali celebrations. The 'trial' also failed overseas when the Taliban, ISI and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) jointly attacked the Indian Embassy in Kabul on July 7, 2008 killing 58 people including the Indian military attaché and a diplomat. On October 8, 2009, there was a second attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul killing 12 more people. This time too, the 'trial' failed as the joint anti-terrorism mechanism neither forewarned India nor investigated the incident later. The 'trial' failed most miserably on 26/11 when the PA, the ISI and the Islamist jihadists supported by them unleashed urban warfare for three days in Mumbai on November 26, 2008. After 26/11, Pakistan denied vehemently that their nationals were at all involved and finally when such denials no longer could be sustained in the face of mounting evidence especially as one of the terrorists was caught alive, it resorted to time wasting tactics by declaring every dossier of evidence given by India as worthless and ultimately launching a farce of a court process where after two years, the case is still in a pre-trial stage (and that too after chargesheets were framed and one witness was examined) and there is no hope of any progress amidst pious protestations from Yousuf Raza Gilani, Rehman Malik and others. See here for the on-going court drama at Rawalpindi. New evidences later surfaced in the form of a certain David Coleman Headley (also known as Daoud Gilani) and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, both Pakistanis, who have directly linked the PA and the ISI with the 26/11 Mumbai attack. Now, we know that 26/11 was approved by none other than the current Pakistani COAS, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani who was then the ISI chief. It is with this person that India has opened a back channel dialogue. The 'trial' part therefore continues unabated even as the 'errors' by the Indian prime Minister are accumulating thick and fast. No wonder, Gen. Musharraf described Dr. Man Mohan Singh about a week back as a 'nice man for Pakistan'.

There was a period of low activity after the Havana somersault by India, as Pakistan slipped into serious domestic troubles with the imposition of Martial Law within Martial Law as Pakistan faced general elections and Gen. Musharraf faced Presidetial elections after resigning as the COAS of the PA. The Judges were dismissed, Ms. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated and eventually Gen. Musharraf was exiled to the UK in circa 2008. After some political stability was achieved in Pakistan, India picked up the peace process yet again with Pakistan. The first meeting after the November 26, 2008 Pakistani carnage, came when Prime Minister Dr. Man Mohan Singh met Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting on June 16, 2009 at the Russian city of Yekaterinburg. Here, Dr. Singh spoke candidly of his 'limited mandate to tell Mr. Zardari that the territory of Pakistan must not be used for terrorism'. This (false ?) bravado was to change dramatically within a month. This time the Indian Prime Minister and his Pakistani counterpart, Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, met at the Egyptian coastal resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh on the Red Sea on July 16, 2009. Here, Dr. Singh conceded a lot more to Pakistan through self goals. Two important concessions were that India de-linked terror from peace dialogue and also allowed Pakistan to mention terror in Balochistan in the joint statement. The de-linking of terror came within nine months after the most horrendous terror attack ever faced by India until then from Pakistan and in the face of stubborn refusal by Pakistan to acknowledge that the attacks were planned, manned and executed by Pakistanis, leave alone prosecute the terrorist masterminds roaming freely in Pakistan. The reference to Balochistan in the joint statement elevated Pakistan's frequent accusations without proof of Indian involvement in the insurgency of Balochistan, to the same level as Pakistan's involvement in Indian terror. The fact that Dr. Man Mohan Singh simply dictated the contents of the joint-statement to his Foreign Secretary, holds the Prime Minister alone responsible for this bungling. No wonder, Gen. Musharraf described Dr. Man Mohan Singh about a week back as a 'nice man for Pakistan'.

Then came the April 29, 2010 meeting at Thimphu between Dr. Man Mohan Singh and the Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani. It was an hour-long one-on-one meeting held without official note-takers from either side, just as it was at Sharm-el-Sheikh too. It was agreed by our Prime Minister Dr. Singh that it was needed to "build trust and confidence in the relationship and pave the way for substantive dialogue on all issues of mutual interest". It was Dr. Man Mohan Singh's assessment that Prime Minister Gilani had the mandate from all stakeholders within Pakistan (read PA and the ISI) to hold 'peace talks' and that Pakistan would 'deliver' on the 26/11 trial. From the report in The Times of London last week, it is clear that within a few weeks after the Thimphu meeting, Dr. Man Mohan Singh had to talk to Gen. Kayani to reinstate the dialogue. So much for his assessment that Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani had all the mandate. No wonder, Gen. Musharraf described Dr. Man Mohan Singh about a week back as a 'nice man for Pakistan'.

All that bonhomie of Thimphu evaporated into thin air in mid-July 2010, barely two months later when the Indian Foreign Minister, the soft-spoken S.M.Krishna visited Islamabad to meet his Pakistani counterpart Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Quershi. Even before Mr. S.M. Krishna left Islamabad, Qureshi accused India of being 'inflexible' and the Indian Foreign Minister 'being directed during the talks by calls from Delhi'. It has since been revealed that after the first session, Gen. Kayani interfered with Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani and that changed the complexion of the talks in the second session. Qureshi's well-known proximity to Gen. Kayani as well as the inability of any Pakistani Prime Minister to resist the diktats of the COAS, are the only possible explanations for the rude behaviour and discourtesy extended to the Indian Foreign Minister by the hosts, as well as for the failure of the talks. After S.M. Krishna's return to India, we continued to invite Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi for talks in New Delhi, even as he deferred and demurred. No wonder, Gen. Musharraf described Dr. Man Mohan Singh about a week back as a 'nice man for Pakistan'.

Most recently came the meeting at Mohali, India when the Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers met at the venue of the Semi Finals of the World Cup Cricket match between India and Pakistan. The invitation to witness the match at Mohali, it was said, was extended directly by Dr. Man Mohan Singh to both Mr. Zardari and Mr. Gilani, without consulting the Indian Foreign Ministry. In this respect, Dr. Man Mohan Singh has been behaving like India's first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who ran the Indian foreign policy as his personal fiefdom. At the Mohali meeting, it has been decided that the Composite Dialogue would be re-started forthwith and would be made 'uninterrupted and uninterruptible', thus completely divesting India of the leverage of using 'withdrawal from talks' as a threat against Pakistan's use of terror as a state policy, a demand that Pakistan has been making for a long time. Now, India should await the next terrorist attack with bated breath to know as to what would be GoI's reaction in such an unfortunate event. No wonder, Gen. Musharraf described Dr. Man Mohan Singh about a week back as a 'nice man for Pakistan'.

That the Pakistani Army has been a significant source of all evil emanating from Pakistan against India, is a no-brainer. It has been so since 1947 when it tried to grab J&K. After a series of defeats culminating in the massive and swift defeat of 1971, its hostility against India has assumed gargantuan proportions. The Pakistani Army therefore decided to bleed India to death with a thousand cuts. One of these 'cuts' was to redirect Afghanistan's Islamist jihadis towards India after c. 1989 though internecine war was still continuing there. While the Pashtuns - mainly the Ghilzais, and the Durranis - the Tajiks, the Uzbeks and the Hazaaras were fighting for supremacy, Pakistan let loose in J&K the Pakistani mujahideen initially and later the foreign jihadis like the Arabs as they were now unemployed. Starting with the Indian Punjab in the 80s and later J&K, Pakistan-inspired terrorism has spread today to far nooks and corners of India. The 26/11 urban warfare was directed by the Pakistani Army and approved directly by Gen. Kayani when he was the Chief of the ISI.

Since the days of Z.A. Bhutto as the Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA) first and then as Prime Minister, the Pakistani society has been radicalized to a large extent with official support by the State through laws, directives, textbooks and sustained state propaganda. Similar fate has befallen the Pakistani Army too as the Army is nothing but the microcosm of the society as in any other country. Apart from this, the PA has come under Islamist influence due to the deliberate policies of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq. The puritanical wahhabi and salafi strains are overwhelming the largely Berelvi Pakistan today which is wilting under their onslaught. Gen. Kayani described these evil forces as 'strategic assets' in c. 2009. He is of the view that these evil forces do not pose a threat unlike India, which he describes as an 'existential threat' when in fact all wars and skirmishes between the two countries were started by a revisionist Pakistan, not a status-quoist India. By his own admission, he is the most India-centric of all Army Chiefs Pakistan had produced, which to say the least is something worrying because all of them from Ayub Khan downwards have always been hardened India haters. Today, the Pakistani Army has allowed the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) to occupy Line of Control (LoC) with India and also large parts of Gilgit Baltistan (GB). The Pakistani Army is furiously accumulating nuclear bombs and could possess the fourth largest arsenal in the world in the next few years. The reason why the Pakistani Army is not taking any action against Waziristan-based Taliban is because it is still hoping to re-establish its 'strategic depth' after the US & NATO forces leave that country soon. It is also for this reason they are vehemently opposing Indian presence in that country. The strategic depth is directed against India. Gen. Kayani therefore believes that he has all the aces and can negotiate with India from a position of strength. In 1972, with India holding 93,000 Pakistani Prisoners-of-War (PoWs) after the PA signed the surrender document at Dhaka, Pakistani Army's delusional demands, sent through Z.A. Bhutto to the Shimla talks, were nothing short of conditions normally imposed by the victors against the vanquished !

Lately, the Americans, who think world's problems will disappear if only India talks to Pakistan, have been saying that they understood Pakistan's paranoia vis-a-vis India. The US has also respected the Pakistani redlines against India. The US has been suggesting to India for sometime now to have talks with the PA, as it does itself. What it clearly fails to recognize is that the equation between it and Pakistan is vastly different from that between India and Pakistan. Pakistani Army feels emboldened by these American actions. One can therefore easily visualize how the talks with Gen. Kayani will proceed now. It is very clear therefore that Gen. Kayani is not looking to ease tensions with India and encourage peace. He is willing to talk to give an ultimatum to India in the same way Adolf Hitler did in his talks. After the talks, which will certainly end in failure, India would have burnt all the bridges with Pakistan.

No wonder, Gen. Musharraf described Dr. Man Mohan Singh about a week back as a 'nice man for Pakistan'.

A Perspective of the American and Chinese Presence in Pakistan

A couple of days back, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States of America, accused the notorious ISI of Pakistan of being complicit with the Haqqani Network of Afghanistan who were after all fighting, killing and maiming American soldiers. The accusation was not surprising at all for anybody who had followed Pakistani policies. In another blog, I will possibly write about the nexus between the ISI and the Haqqani Shura. Various US officials and field-level Army officers have time and again vented their frustration with Pakistan ever since the launch of Global War on Terror (GWoT) in c. 2002. But, what was surprising was the direct accusation coming from the highest ranking American General. There have been ups and downs in the US-Pakistani relationship ever since they firmed up one in the 1950s. But, this downslide has come at a particularly interesting time when the drawdown of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is about to start in a couple of months' time. What went wrong ? Why is China compensating for this down turn by increasing its presence within Pakistan ? The two are interlinked as we shall see.

Since the time of its violent birth in c. 1947, Pakistan has been driven by an obsession of India. This all-consuming obsession has led her to several problems, including the threat to its very existence today. Among other disastrous consequences of this obsession has been its quest to seek an unattainable parity with or even superiority to its much larger Eastern neighbour in military matters. One of the ways it chose to achieve this goal was to identify itself as part of the Western alliances such as SEATO and CENTO in the 50s. In those heady early days, Pakistan was even willing to antagonize important members of the Islamic world such as Egypt and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. By identifying itself so closely with one party to the Cold War, Pakistan put itself in harm’s way in the U2 episode when the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev threatened to obliterate Pakistan. Later, it again helped the US in its geopolitical and geostrategic goal of defeating the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics(USSR) even though it entailed the greatest cost to itself due to the spawning of sectarianism, terrorism, illicit drugs and small arms. After c. 1962, when India and China clashed in the Himalayas, Pakistan sought friendship with the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) while still being a member of the anti-Communist Western alliances. Again, the only motivating factor was the unbridled obsession with India which drove it to establish friendship with the enemy of its enemy. Pakistan concluded a border agreement in c. 1963 with the PRC, ceded the Shaksgam Valley which belonged to the State of Jammu & Kashmir. The two countries have not looked back since then in their relationship. Similarly, it created various jihadi outfits to inflict a ‘thousand cuts to bleed India to death’. Pakistan thought that by micromanaging these groups, and by splitting them whenever they became too large, it could successfully keep them under tight control. However, today, these very same evil groups have turned back on their creator and are overrunning them. Thus, Pakistan has had to pay a very heavy price in its unprincipled and cavalier policies blinded as it has been by India.

Pakistan’s founder leaders had no idea about governance of the new state they were about to create in the name of religion. They felt that the munificence of the British who helped bisecting India for their geostrategic reasons, would not let them down even though they knew that Great Britain was on the decline. Propelled by the British notion of Pakistan being at the core of geostrategic calculations of the Western world due to its proximity to the new found ‘wells of power’ in West Asia, as a buffer state against expansion of Russian communism and as a refueling station for military transport in their long haul across the Indian subcontinent to East Asia, the Far East and Australia, Pakistan concluded that the Americans needed Pakistan more than they needed the Americans. In its calculation however was the hidden agenda that such a relationship would help them offset the natural superiority enjoyed by India economically, militarily and diplomatically. A country that prided itself as the only Muslim state created exclusively on the basis of religion, was even willing to forego its ambition of assuming the mantle of the Caliphate left vacant by the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire by Mustapha Kemal Ataturk. Pakistan perforce had to side with the Western powers against powerful Muslim countries in such issues as the abrogation of the Anglo-Egyptian treaty on the Suez Canal, in the British-French-Israeli attack on Egypt in 1956, and even in the creation of Israel.

No less opportunistic has been Pakistan’s friendship with China. The Pakistanis began to show interest in China after the Tibet uprising and the eventual asylum of the Dalai Lama in India in c. 1959. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, a then rising star in Pakistani political firmament, advised President Ayub Khan to develop a closer relationship with China. His anti-Americanism and his belief in socialism shaped in his mind the contours of a relationship with China even as Pakistan was furiously going ahead with its Western alliance. The 1962 Indo-China War was a watershed for Pakistan too. An already smouldering Pakistan-US military relationship, mainly on account of squabbles over equipping the newly created divisions of the Pakistani Army, was exacerbated by the American arms assistance to India, prompting angry Pakistani leaders to look up to China. They quickly concluded the border agreement which had not made any progress for several years, even conceding about 5000 Sq. Kms of the Shaksgam Valley contravening international norms. More dangerous transgressions were to follow. Ayub Khan and the young Foreign Minister Z.A. Bhutto began a series of manoueveres with the Chinese to get nuclear know-how as soon as China exploded a device in October, 1964. In his manuscript "If I am Assassinated" written from his death cell, Z.A.Bhutto has clearly said that the negotiations with the Chinese started in c. 1965 and Foreign Secretary Late Agha Shahi has since confirmed that. Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission’s (PAEC) chief Dr. Munir Akram recalls FM Ayub Khan saying in late 1965 that ‘ . . . if needed, Pakistan could get it from China’, referring to the nuclear weapons. This arrangement eventually culminated in China transferring actual nuclear weapons, missiles, enriched Uranium, and other components for enrichment in exchange for the more advanced URENCO process of enrichment that A.Q. Khan spirited away from the Dutch facility and in helping the clandestine purchase of components and machinery for setting up the enrichment facility in PRC. Much earlier, Pakistan had also helped China break out of its isolation by normalizing its relationship with the USA, even as Pakistan itself was being violently divided due to genocide in East Pakistan. The economic powerhouse of China, which today it is, thus owes a lot of gratitude to Pakistan. The China-Pakistan relationship has scaled heights ‘taller than the tallest mountains’ and depths ‘deeper than the deepest oceans’ as the two sides never fail to mention frequently.

Thus, Pakistan's foreign policies have never been founded on any sound principles of 'national interest' other than those of sheer expediency and opportunism in order to destroy India. Pakistan has had to pay an unacceptable price for its tactically brilliant but strategically stupid and unattainable policies, but neither the Pakistani society nor its leaders have felt any remorse for their actions which have pushed their nation today into a deep abyss. Today, Pakistan is buffeted by a serious threat from the Al Qaeda and Allied Movements (AQAM) for its very survival as a nation-state, sectarian violence, intolerance not just for non-Muslims but even among the various Muslim sects, a dismal economy which is surviving on the doles of the IMF and about four friendly nations (the US, Saudi Arabia, Japan and the UK), an increasingly shrinking space where the writ of the State runs, entrenched sub-nationalism, and a label of being the migraine and a central hub of worldwide terrorism. All these can be directly attributed to the fateful decision to cede sovereignty to the US, China and Saudi Arabia. Such a cession was necessitated, in turn, by the ambition to attain its goals vis-à-vis India, goals etched in concrete by the early leaders and assiduously followed by the successors.

The tragic events of 9/11 thrust Pakistan into limelight once again for all the wrong reasons. As is its wont, Pakistan saw an opportunity even amidst the gloom of being reduced to a rubble and being taken back to stone-age. It offered its unstinted services to the USA and hoped to resurrect its relationship with that country which was at its nadir then. More importantly, it also wished to stem the growing India-US engagement which was being interpreted as a threat for itself. Thus, it hoped to correct the perceived tilt in US policies favouring India. It also saw a window of opportunity to acquire American arms and ammunition apart from getting large funds just as in the decade of the 50s and 80s. It was also Pakistan’s calculation that with the US once again dependent on it due to its geographical advantages, it will get a free hand in pressurizing India on Kashmir and other issues through not only diplomacy but terrorism as well, just as it happened in the 80s when terrorism in the Indian Punjab was instigated. This is where it differed from a host of other countries which also demanded and got various favours from the US for their support for the US prosecution of war on Al Qaeda.

Pakistan therefore gave the US permission to use its airbases at Jacobabad, Dalbandin, Shamsi, Pasni, naval base at Ormara and several unmarked airstrips in Balochistan to operate drones. It allowed it unhindered airspace during the initial stages of the war on terror. It allowed logistics to support troops in Afghanistan through the Karachi Port and the Indus Highway to Khyber pass in FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Agencies) and Chaman pass in Balochistan It allowed the CIA to operate freely within the country, setup electronic listening posts, capture Al Qaeda suspects including Pakistanis and deport them secretively elsewhere. These Pakistani policies were to result in a severe blowback later, but, for the moment Pakistan was benefitting from its surrender of sovereignty. Apart from the write-off of some debts and the postponement in repayments of most others by over two decades, Pakistan was getting sophisticated arms ostensibly to fight terrorists in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, like F-16s, AMRAAM, naval ships, Harpoon missiles etc !!

Pakistan also extracted other tangible benefits as well from such unstinted support. One such famous benefit was the Kunduz airlift which was authorized at the Presidential level within the US to allow Gen. Musharraf to save his face and possibly his skin by airlifting over a thousand Pakistanis including ISI officers, regular Pakistani soldiers of the Frontier Corps and possibly some members of Pakistani terrorist outfits, from Kunduz in north-east Afghanistan in mid November, 2001. For the location of Kunduz, see map below.

Map Courtesy: The United Nations

To send hundreds of Pakistani Army regulars and ISI officers as far away as Kunduz to fight the Northern Alliance of Ahmed Shah Masoud, demonstrates how much Pakistan values the 'Strategic Depth' of Afghanistan. When they were finally airlifted to the safety of Pakistan, they were simply let go. Several of those charged with many assassination attempts on Gen. Musharraf later in c. 2003 were former soldiers who were airlifted out of Kunduz. Many of them later also joined Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) set up by Maulana Masood Azhar (with the help of the ISI) who was released from an Indian prison in December, 1999 in exchange for the release of the hijacked IC-814 flight. It is these Punjabi Taliban (mostly from Punjab and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir,POK) who are wreaking extensive havoc within Pakistan today. Thus, the Kunduz airlift not only helped Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders to escape, but also deeply affected personally the man who requested that, Gen. Musharraf and far more importantly has brought Pakistan to its knees today by rehabilitating hundreds of battle-hardened and vengeful jihadists. Pakistan’s tactical decisions, while looking impressive at that moment, have thus brought that nation only strategic misery.

As the Al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban groups escaped into Pakistan’s unruly FATA with the support of Pashtun tribal leaders on either side of the Durand Line and also the Pakistani Army at the border checkposts, they later re-grouped to take on the NATO and Afghan forces. One strategy employed by the Al Qaeda and Taliban was to bring under a common umbrella the various other jihadi outfits and warlords operating within Pakistan and in FATA. Thus, the Islamic International Front (IIF) of Osama bin Laden truly morphed into what is today known as AQAM with the merging of the various Pakistani terrorist tanzeems. Thus, Tehrik-e-Taliban, Pakistan (TTP) was formed (officially in c. 2007) to coordinate efforts within Pakistan given the fact that the Taliban needed to marshal the meagre and battered resources well against the mighty forces of the US, NATO and Pakistan arrayed against them. This was a tough task because of the oftentimes conflicting clannish loyalties, inter-tribal rivalries and independent warlords. The effort of unification took a long time and has not been a complete success either but it survived and has been fairly successful over the years. Though the AQAM leadership knew that Pakistan would not get too close to the Americans for AQAM’s comfort, they still needed to ensure that, by creating the TTP which maintained enough pressure on the Government and the Army of Pakistan. With Islamist-military leaders like Gen. Aslam Beg, Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul and Col. Imam guiding them, the AQAM knew only too well what perfidy Pakistan was capable of. Therefore, they needed to establish the Caliphate in FATA and TTP was the force to capture space, establish the rule there and maintain it. This is the first of the twin objectives of TTP.

Already the Pakistani terrorist tanzeem, Harkat-ul-Ansar (later renamed as Harkat-ul-Jihadi-al-Islami or HuJI and the original bearer of the tag, Punjabi Taliban) occupied an important place in the governing structure of Afghanistan during the heady days of the Taliban there. Later, Jaish-e-Mohammed also threw its weight behind Al Qaeda and Taliban. Others like the anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), the Ahl-e-Hadith Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Wahhabi Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) of Maulana Sufi Mohammed of Malakand, Brigade 313 of Ilyas Kashmiri, the Karachi-based Jandullah of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the Berelvi terrorist organization Sunni Tehrik and the mother of all Pakistani terrorist organizations Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) coalesced with them making the AQAM a formidable group at least within Af-Pak. Collectively these Pakistani terrorist organizations are referred to as the Punjabi Taliban.

The latter have carried their 'Hanud' component to the 'Yahud-Nasara' conspiracy theory of Al Qaeda. The collective wisdom now seems to be that Pakistan must also be turned into Taliban-style rule so that in future the Taliban regime of Afghanistan would be secure and a worldwide assault on the kafir can be sustained. The Afghan Taliban, while still needing the support of the Pakistani Army and the Government of Pakistan, has therefore outsourced that effort to TTP. They give the appearance of keeping the TTP at an arm's distance. The Pakistani Taliban thus seek to overthrow the Pakistani government. This is the second of the twin objectives of TTP. The Pakistani Army and the Government of Pakistan have no option but to continue with their support for the Afghan Taliban as they blindly continue to chase the mirage of 'strategic depth'. Like a monkey whose hand is trapped in the honey jar, the Pakistani Army and the Government of Pakistan are thus caught in a cleft, from which they can come out only if they let go of their Indian obsession, an impossibility. Thus the Afghan Taliban is the cleverest of them all as it gets support from Pakistan while at the same time bringing it under its sphere of influence (a reverse strategic depth). While the Pakistani Army and the Government of Pakistan believe that by supporting the Haqqani Shura and the Hizb-e-Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, another old friend of the ISI, they are preparing themselves for the day after the American departure, the AQAM also believes that it has also prepared well for the same day. Pakistan therefore could be in for a rude shock when the reinstated Taliban might fall foul of their creators and mentors, the Pakistani Army and the Government of Pakistan, because it has grown an independent mind and strategy. The assassination of Khalid Khwaja and the mujahideen and Taliban creator Col. Imam are pointers in that direction.

Today, Chinese troops are swarming all over Gilgit-Baltistan (part of the State of J&K). In circa 2009, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) entered the then ‘Northern Areas’ of POK under the guise of repairing the Karakoram Highway. See below the map of Jammu & Kashmir.

Map Courtesy: The United Nations


Later, PLA soldiers, estimated at about 11000, occupied portions of Balwaristan though the Pakistanis have denied that and said that they were merely helping the 27,000 families of Baltits who are caught on the northern side of the Attabad lake formed due to landslide in March, 2010. The Indian Army confirmed that a battalion of PLA soldiers was deployed at the Khunjerab Pass that straddles the border between Tibet and Balawaristan as part of construction of a railroad to Gwadar, Ormara & Pasni on the Pakistani Arabian Sea coast. As such construction are usually done by the PLA especially in the strategically important Karakoram areas, one can be reasonably be certain that the PLA is present in these areas in large numbers under the garb of construction activities. Satellite pictures later showed several tunnels, estimated to be 22 in number, at various places, along with convoys of trucks (likely to be PLA) and activities at road construction in these glaciated places of Balawaristan.

Amidst all this, suddenly the Chinese denied visa to the Indian Army General commanding the Northern Command under a new pretext that he was commanding troops in a ‘disputed territory’. This new formulation clearly showed that China was probably building up a case for the future. In the meanwhile, Pakistan hurriedly changed the tag, ‘Northern Areas’ to ‘Giligit Baltistan’ in c. 2010 possibly in an attempt to make it appear as a province within Pakistan and not as part of J&K. Though Pakistan occupied illegally the Gilgit-Baltistan area of the State of Jammu & Kashmir with British help, it has thus far been treating this province independent of J&K falsely claiming that the Amir and people of this region willingly acceded to Pakistan in c. 1947. The speed with which Pakistan renamed the ‘Northern Areas’ and setup an administrative structure there can be seen in a new light now in view of the presence of the PLA in these areas. This is ostensibly to thwart any Indian objections. The Officer Commanding the Northern Area of the Indian Army, Lt. Gen. K.T.Parnaik has recently said that Chinese troops were now seen stationed along the Line of Control (LoC) between India and Pakistan. A few days later, American Intelligence agencies independently confirmed, through technical intelligence, the presence of PLA along the LoC in POK. We also know that the Chinese Air Force (PLAAF) has complete access to the most important Jacobabad airbase of the Pakistani Air Force (PAF).

The presence of China in POK is another one of those 'tactically brilliant but strategically stupid' moves. The Pakistanis may be doing this for several reasons. One, they may want to put pressure on the Americans by bringing in the Chinese so that the increasing strains between the US and Pakistan may be somewhat contained. Two, the Pakistani Army may conclude that with the significant drawdown of allied forces in Afghanistan, more Pakistani troops may need to be deployed in Af-Pak border in time to come, thus weakening the eastern border with India. They also know that it was the physical presence of the US armed forces in the region that stopped India from going to war after the 13/12 Parliament attack or even employing the Cold Start Doctrine after the 26/11 Mumbai urban warfare. With the US troops gone, India may not have any constraints in punishing Pakistan. The Pakistanis may hope the PLA's presence could act as a deterrent to India. Three, after the withdrawal of the US forces, US will not need Pakistan. From past experience, Pakistan knows that the US would not care for Pakistan after that and in the present circumstances (unlike in the Cold war era of 1989 or in 1965 or in 1972) of its close relationship with India, Pakistan would feel completely naked once that happens, in spite of nukes and missiles. The PLA boots on the ground at the border is therefore a hedge against any possible combined operation by the Yahud, Hunud and the Nasara. Four, Pakistan has concluded perhaps that the days of taking utilitarian advantage of the US are coming to an end and it would be better to jump completely on the Chinese bandwagon now.

Thus, we can clearly see the compounding of mistakes by Pakistan since c. 1947 that has brought the region and the world to the dangerous situation that it today is. Pakistan continues to pursue the same policies that were essentially to take advantage of the Cold War era equations and tactics, with certain refinements here and there. It has had mostly unstinting support from its several friends, but in the process lost a large part of its sovereignty. This has brought Pakistan to the stage today where it has to seek the help of the Chinese Army to protect its borders while it is being ravaged mercilessly from within by the very evil forces it created.