Pakistan faces a lose-lose situation
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - After just a few weeks, the newly installed government in Islamabad has been placed in the unenviable position of having to choose between giving in to the demands of militants or waging all-out war on them. Either way, it's a losing proposition.

At the same time, the government's attempts to alienate hardcore al-Qaeda and other militants from tribesmen in Pakistan's tribal areas are in tatters. At risk too is a whopping US$7 billion in aid from the United States for Pakistan's continued commitment to the "war on terror".

At the weekend, al-Qaeda-linked militants released a video of Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, who was captured in Khyber Agency on February 11.

Tariq was on his way to Kabul when he was abducted by tribal

 
criminals for ransom. But after they realized they had kidnapped a very high profile person they knew they were out of their depth and handed him over to Baitullah Mehsud, a leader of the Pakistani Taliban with ties to al-Qaeda.

The government was aware of the capture, but it kept the matter quiet as it had begun back-channel negotiations with Baitullah for Tariq's release. The price was the release of high-profile militants in government custody, including Mullah Obaidullah (former Taliban defense minister in Afghanistan) and Maulana Abdul Aziz, the former chief prayer leader of the radical Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad that was stormed by security forces last year.

The negotiations were still in progress when the video of Tariq was released, backed by the public demand for the release of Aziz and Obaidullah and other militants - some of them linked to the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto last December, including Sher Zaman Mahsud, Aitzaz Shah and Noor Khan, all belonging to Mehsud's group. A sizeable ransom has also been demanded.

By going public, Mehsud, based in the South Waziristan tribal area, has in a calculated manner slammed the door shut on back-channel negotiations, and placed the government on the spot.

The release of the video comes ahead of a visit by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband to Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province to discuss the process of dialogue with local tribes to isolate them from al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

In this regard, the Pashtun sub-nationalist Awami National Party has promised local tribes implementation of the Islamic way of living in the tribal areas and in the Swat Valley, but in return the tribals must expel foreign elements. Negotiations were in their final stages for an agreement to expel Afghan Taliban commanders and Pakistani Punjabi jihadis from Khyber and Bajaur agencies.

The release of the video of the captured Tariq has all the hallmarks of al-Qaeda's strategic planners, indicating that they have taken over the Taliban-led tribal guerrilla war, particularly as it affects Pakistan.

They are also using suicide attacks and bomb blasts to prove their strength. When the new administration in Islamabad began to talk to pro-Taliban tribes about peaceful coexistence, Mehsud's camp stopped the attacks, but they can be resumed at any time.

Al-Qaeda clearly played the "Tariq" card to further exploit the tense situation following the assassination of the pro-Western Bhutto, who was to be Washington's anointed leader in the "war on terror". She and her Pakistan People's Party (PPP) were favorites to win Pakistan's February parliamentary elections.

As it turned out, the PPP is the dominant partner in a new coalition government, but while Asif Zardari, Bhutto's widower, has merit as the PPP's leader, he does not have Bhutto's charisma. And Washington had brokered a deal under a National Reconciliation Ordinance that led to all criminal charges against Bhutto and Asif being dropped - these stemmed from Bhutto's years in power in the 1990s. One of the understandings was that President Pervez Musharraf would then be protected from any charges stemming from his years as a military ruler.

However, Asif is now struggling to ward off pressure from his coalition partner the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz Sharif group), which wants to make Musharraf accountable for excesses undertaken in the name of the "war on terror".

"The matter will not be resolved with the stepping down of Musharraf. He has to be made accountable for the Waziristan operation, the Lal Masjid operation, the case of missing people and the Balochistan operation," said Irfan Siddiqui, a former advisor to ex-president Rafiq Tarrar and a close aide of Nawaz Sharif, on a local TV channel. He was referring to a string of military operations in the tribal areas and Balochistan province.

Retired squadron leader Khalid Khawaja has applied to register a case against Musharraf in relation to missing people, although many of them have already been handed over to the Americans. All that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani can say is that once parliament agrees with a two-thirds majority, the president will be made accountable.

This domestic issue is now overshadowed by the Tariq affair. The government has to consider whether it should abandon the dialogue process half way through and start highly unpopular military operations in the tribal areas. Yet to bow to the demands of the militants would also be unpopular, and would certainly anger the United States, which has already hinted strongly that it will take matters into its own hands to crack down on militants in Pakistan if Islamabad wavers.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

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