US forced into 'Plan B' for
Pakistan By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - Beyond the horrific body count
of about 140 people dead and hundreds injured, the
major political casualty of last week's bomb
attack in Karachi is likely to be the United
States-brokered plan to unite President General
Pervez Musharraf and former premier Benazir Bhutto
in a marriage of convenience.
And while
debate swirls in Pakistan over the possible
perpetrators of the attack, the biggest winner
could be the powerful Maulana Fazlur Rehman,
leader of the opposition six-party religious
alliance, the Muttahida
Majlis-e-Amal (MMA).
The bomb attack
during a homecoming procession for Bhutto, who has
been in exile for seven years, has caused grave
doubts in Washington over Bhutto's ability to
deliver in the "war on terror" and to support
Musharraf's falling political fortunes.
The Musharraf-Bhutto "marriage" is part of
a complex arrangement brokered by Washington and
its allies to ensure that a pro-Western government
gains power after parliamentary elections in about
three months' time.
The New York Times,
quoting a US official, indicates Washington's
clear second thoughts over its master plan for
Pakistan. The paper writes: "Still, even now,
there is no great love in the Bush administration
for Ms Bhutto ... While American intelligence
officials have been frustrated at times with
General Musharraf's record in fighting the Islamic
militants in northern Pakistan, they have also
found a small level of comfort in dealing with
him."
The US is concerned that Bhutto's
re-entry into Pakistan's political landscape will
complicate rather than expedite efforts to pursue
insurgents from al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the
newspaper maintained.
"This backroom deal
I think is going to explode in our face," Bruce
Riedel, who advised three US presidents on South
Asian issues, told the newspaper in an interview.
"Ms Bhutto and Mr Musharraf detest each other, and
the concept that they can somehow work
collaboratively is a real stretch."
Washington's remarkably quick realization
of fault lines in its policy on Pakistan contrasts
with its approach to Afghanistan and Iraq, where
it has been slow to acknowledge mistakes, if at
all.
Key strategic circles in Pakistan now
believe that Washington will be forced to change
tack by dropping Bhutto and bringing in a
religious figure, such as Rehman, who recently
resigned as leader of the opposition but remains
head of the MMA.
Bhutto would be relegated
to a lesser role of just another ally of
Musharraf, not the most important one. She always
was going to have a difficult time in being
accepted in many circles in Pakistan, and could
conceivably be content with shuttling back and
forth between Pakistan and abroad as a political
intellectual rather than immersing herself in
full-time politics.
Rehman is already
helping the US in negotiations with the Taliban
and he is distancing himself from the hardline
anti-Musharraf and anti-Western Jamaat-i-Islami,
Pakistan, a religious party that forms a part of
the MMA. Analysts believe that Rehman, who has
already started publicly criticizing
Jamaat-i-Islami's policies, will soon part ways
with the MAA altogether.
The blast: Who
gained? The day after last week's blast,
this correspondent headed for the Anti-Violence
Crime Unit of the Crime Investigative Department
(CID) of the Sindh Police in Karachi.
The
superintendent of police, Farooq Awan, heads the
unit. About 90% of all arrests of al-Qaeda
members, anti-Shi'ite militants and local jihadi
members can be directly or indirectly attributed
to Awan's effective coordination with the
country's premier intelligence agency,
Inter-Services Intelligence. His services have
earned widespread recognition and he has been
feted by the US State Department.
Conversations with Awan's associates and
the CID confirmed that at least a week before
Bhutto's return, an attack had been feared.
Over the years, Senior Superintendent of
Police Raja Omar Khatab and Awan have interrogated
very high-profile jihadi leaders and their
knowledge is considered to be top notch. Before
Bhutto's arrival, both officers coordinated with
the Sindh Home Department, where the secretary is
retired Brigadier Ghulam Mohammed Mohtram. Mohtram
was the provincial chief of military intelligence
from 2003 to 2005 and also has a deep
understanding of the jihadi movement. This team
documented the following:
A group of jihadis from Karachi but living in
the Waziristan tribal areas would be assigned to
attack Bhutto's convoy;
Police informed the Home Department about the
arrival of suspected attackers in Karachi at least
two days before the attack;
Informers in jihadi circles and officers
believed their assessment to be 100% correct.
The information passed on to the Home
Department even included details of likely
explosives to be used (RDX - which proved to be
correct) and the stretch of road that could be
considered the danger zone (Karsaz crossing). Home
Department officials kept leaders of Bhutto's
Pakistan People's Party (PPP) informed about the
possible dangers.
But inexplicably, no
arrests were made. This is especially strang given
the intimate knowledge people such as Khatab and
Awan have of jihadi circles - they would surely
have been able to pinpoint likely hideouts and
possible collaborators and instigate pre-emptive
arrests.
Indeed, the intelligence
penetration in Karachi's jihadi circles is so deep
that although it is still al-Qaeda's largest
support base, al-Qaeda does not like to use its
local connections there. Even the Taliban only use
their Pashtun relatives in Karachi for financial
assistance and not renowned - and marked - centers
such as the al-Rashid Trust.
Pakistan's
intelligence agencies are seldom shy in rounding
up suspects, even on the most flimsy of pretexts,
and in this case they had advance warning of an
attack, yet they did nothing.
Hindsight
suggests that while the government appeared to be
very honest in its communication with the PPP
about the threat, the bombing was allowed to
happen.
After the attack, Bhutto
conveniently bailed out Musharraf and squarely
blamed elements within the government that she
labeled the legacy of former dictator General Zia
ul-Haq (her old political opponent), and she
demanded the sacking of the Intelligence Bureau
chief, retired Brigadier Ijaz Shah, a close
confidant of Musharraf.
This started the
blame game. Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain, the
president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League,
pointed the finger at Bhutto herself. He based his
assumption on the fact that Bhutto had managed to
retreat into her armored vehicle just moments
before the blast. In turn, Bhutto accused
Chaudhary of "protecting the killers". She
presented no evidence to back up her claim.
Cricketer-turn-politician Imran Khan and Bhutto's
niece, Fatima Bhutto, said that Bhutto knew her
procession would be bombed.
Within
Pakistan, such accusations and counter-accusations
will continue, but in Washington the writing is
already on the wall: a new and seemingly
impenetrable layer of distrust has been added to
relations between Bhutto and the government.
The chief beneficiary will be the person
chosen by Washington to take Bhutto's place in the
proposed union with Musharraf.
Syed
Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan
Bureau Chief. He can be reached at
saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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