Musharraf's choices: Damned or damned
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

"We shall see who will die first, me or the authorities who have arranged the death sentence for me."
- Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh in a statement read by a defense lawyer after being sentenced to hang over the killing of US journalist Daniel Pearl

KARACHI - The trial over the Karachi kidnapping and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl has served as a focal point for Pakistan's Islamic militants, who consider that President General Pervez Musharraf has betrayed the country by backing the United States in the war against terrorism.

The million-dollar question, though, is whether the militant organizations are capable of destabilizing Musharraf's military government, as they have in the past derailed political governments.

The answer is inextricably linked with how Musharraf will deal with the Kashmir issue in coming months. At present he stands at a crossroad, torn between following the US demand that he clamp down on cross-border terrorism from Pakistan into Indian-administered Kashmir, or falling in line with his own army, which overwhelmingly wants militancy in Kashmir to continue.

Quite clearly, the militant struggle in Kashmir did not evolve in isolation. It was from the outset fully sponsored and encouraged by Pakistan. The militant groups were given a free hand to operate in Pakistan, which they turned into their recruiting field, and among their recruits and fundraisers many were drawn from the ranks of the Pakistani army.

Many senior army officers have strong links with the militant groups, such as General Aziz Khan, now the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, who as a brigadier headed the Kashmir desk of the Inter-Services Intelligence. Similarly, many other officers gained exposure to the militant groups at some stage in their careers, and these links they maintained regardless of where they were subsequently posted. This applies to more junior officers, too, to such an extent that it could be said that the militant groups are entrenched in the army, virtually a reserve force.

To suddenly slap bans on the militant groups, as Musharraf has done at the insistence of the US, can be expected to cause a backlash as their ties go deep into Pakistan's security apparatus itself.

Three years ago a top religious scholar, Maulana Yusuf Ludhyanvi was shot dead in Karachi. He was a leading scholar of the Deobandi school of thought and the chief patron of the Jaish-i-Mohammed, which was extremely active in Indian-administered Kashmir. Immediately, militants overran Karachi, blocking the main arteries of the city and setting a newspaper office on fire (the Daily Business Recorder). Paramilitary troops were deployed, but they were under strict orders not to take action against the militants. The then inspector-general of police went to the Binori mosque to pass on his condolences, but he was besieged by students and barely managed to escape.

Three days after Ludhyanvi's killing, the then commissioner of Karachi, along with other top city officials, including the deputy inspector-general of police, also went to express their condolences.

Shafiqur Rehman Paracha, the then commissioner of Karachi, remembers, "When we approached the gate of the mosque [where people were saying prayers for the peace of Ludhyanvi's soul) to enter, we found it closed. We found a violent mob of people who raised slogans against the government. The gestures showed that they wanted to harm us. The hands of our guards holding their guns were shaking. I suddenly turned to the guards and asked them in a low voice not to fire under any circumstances. We then reached a nearby police station. The senior superintendent of police (special branch) was there and he told me that if we went there [to the mosque] again he could not be responsible if anyone came to harm as the mob had three times more ammunition than the police force in the district.

"When we went back to the office I found the Rangers commander standing with a mobile. I stopped my car and said hello to him. He said to me, 'Please, sir, inform the high-ups that if these militants are not controlled today, in the next three years they will be impossible to control'," Paracha said.

In January this year, just under three years since the warning in Karachi, the military regime came down hard on militants and banned their organizations. A few groups of dissidents within the militant organizations voiced their opposition to the bans, and most of them have been arrested. However, the mainstream militant groups remained silent, as did the religious-political parties.

The Sunni Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is the country's most violent sectarian group, dedicated to killing prominent Shi'ite Muslims, including doctors and police officials, as well as Iranian diplomats. The Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is believed to have threatened the former chief minister of Punjab, Shehbaz Sharif (the brother of of former premier Nawaz Sharif). But despite its activities, the group's killers have seldom been brought to justice.

However, after the Taliban were routed in Afghanistan, the US moved against the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and its chief, Riaz Basra, was arrested on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, but he is reported to have died a few weeks ago while in police custody.

But now it is emerging that it is in fact "ordinary" criminals who have been behind a number of terrorist activities, including the car bomb attack in Karachi in May in which 11 French workers were killed and last month's attack on the US consulate in the same city in which 13 Pakistani citizens died.

Pakistani intelligence agencies believe that more than 600,000 people in the country have been to Afghanistan since 1979 to receive military training, and that at present the number of active members of different militant groups is about 50,000.

To date, except for a few dissident groups, such as the Harkatul Mujahadeen-Alami, a tiny group named behind a conspiracy to kill Musharraf and the attack on the US consulate, the militant groups have been pro-establishment and have not gone against the will of the military establishment. Whenever they have initiated agitation, it has been with the tacit consent of the military apparatus.

But over the past few months these organizations have been banned and suppressed. To date, they have accepted this lying down, but well placed security sources suggest that their networks will likely be reactivated in the coming weeks - both within Pakistan and in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

The choice for Musharraf is simple. Either he stand alone against them - with the external support and encouragement of the US - or he rejoins the militant camps, which are decidedly anti-US.

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