Warning shots for
Musharraf By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - As President General
Pervez Musharraf attempts to reform Pakistan to bring it
more in line with its status as a key United States ally
and a bulwark against Muslim extremism and militancy,
Thursday's assassination attempt on Lieutenant-General
Ahsan Saleem Hayat, commander V Corps (Karachi), serves
as a sharp reminder that there are those who resist such
change.
The attack on Hayat's convoy in Karachi,
which left at least 10 people dead, is widely seen as an
internal backlash to a new military operation in the
South Waziristan tribal area to root out insurgents, and
moves to clamp down on those with "Islamic tendencies"
in the armed forces. Hayat is also one of Musharraf's
most trusted aides, and is tipped to be promoted to full
general before the year is out.
"The immediate
response from Musharraf to Thursday's events will be to
roll back the reform program, whether it is in the ISI
[Inter-Services Intelligence], foreign policies, in the
army or in society," a retired army officer who is close
to Musharraf commented to Asia Times Online.
Musharraf has a history of sudden and dramatic
changes, of course, when under pressure, most notably
his overnight renunciation of the Taliban movement that
Pakistan had in essence created, soon after September
11, 2001.
One of the first rethinks could be on
the Afghan resistance, which has been left in the lurch
by the Pakistani army establishment.
In April
last year, at a convention in Peshawar of the
Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), led by veteran
mujahideen Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a plan was thrashed out
- with key Pakistani support pledged - to intensify the
jihad movement in Afghanistan by revamping training
camps for the Taliban. Subsequently, major attacks were
to be launched in urban Afghan centers.
However,
under US pressure, Pakistan was forced to withdraw all
support, and it shut down all HIA offices and militant
training camps. Then in April, it launched a major
military operation against the Taliban and al-Qaeda
suspects believed to be sheltering in Pakistan's tribal
areas. This proved unsuccessful, with few people rounded
up and the army sustaining high casualties at the hands
of tribals. A second operation is now under way.
With Thursday's attack in Karachi, a clear
message has been sent to all units in the Pakistani
armed forces that in future Musharraf's decisions will
not go unchallenged. This is not the news that high
command wants communicated, though, and all local
electronic channels as well as the print media have been
sent advice not to highlight the attack as one on the
corps commander, but rather to portray it as a simple
act of terror that his motorcade chanced upon.
The highly professional manner in which the
attack was undertaken, in a what should have been a
secure area, knowledge of the convoy's movements and the
ease with which the attackers escaped strongly suggest,
however, some form of complicity in the army.
Last month, Musharraf claimed that low-level
members of the army and air force were among dozens of
people arrested in connection with two assassination
attempts against him in December.
Guns and
Korans By the mid-1980s, President Zia ul-Haq's
"Islamization" of the country was under way. This
spilled over into the military. Musharraf was well aware
of this and banned such functions as millad (a
program in which the qualities of the Prophet Mohammed
are explained) in the cantonments. The purpose was to
curtail unnecessary interaction among the ranks, which
he believed undermined the general professional behavior
of officers.
However, many religious groups are
now well established in the armed forces, for instance
the al-Iqwan organization headed by Maulana Akram Awan
from Chakwal. Chakwal is near Rawalpindi, the twin
capital with Islamabad, and about 70% of the armed
forces have hailed from the Chakwal area since British
India days. Awan preaches radical Islam, and he has
thousands of followers among non-commissioned officers,
while dozens of commissioned officers are known to have
become his disciples. Similar other "circles" exist in
the army. All disciples of a pir (spiritual
master) become pir bhai or brother to the master.
In connection with this, in 2003 several
officers simply disappeared. Their families have filed a
petition for information on their whereabouts, but the
government has yet to respond. As a result, underground
pamphlets have started circulating, questioning these
matters (see Musharraf's moment draws near, June
9).
April's operation in South Waziristan raised
further questions about discipline in the army when
several officers and soldiers refused to attack on their
own people (tribal residents). Several officers were
arrested and moved to Rawalpindi and Islamabad to be
taken to the task.
A major army reshuffle is
expected soon, and with Musharraf expected to favor his
relatives and friends over those next in line, further
dissatisfaction is assured.
The selection of
Hayat as a target in Karachi's attack on Thursday has
raised several questions. He comes from a middle-class
Karachi family, like Musharraf. He is known to be a
down-to-earth but absolutely professional officer and he
has never indulged in activity other than his military
duties, and he has not dabbled in politics.
There was absolutely no ground to target Hayat
on personal grounds. He was simply chosen as a potential
sacrificial offering by the perpetrators to get their
message across to Musharraf that not everyone is
marching in time with him.
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Ahsan Saleem Hayat, commander V Corps (Karachi), serves
as a sharp reminder that there are those who resist such
change. 
