Pakistan follows its own path
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - Visiting United States officials Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week
presented Pakistan with "difficult to deny" proof of the involvement of
officials of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Pakistani
militant groups in last week's Mumbai attack.
They have demanded direct action, such as the arrest of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed,
the chief of the Jamaatut Dawa, formerly the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), the group
with which the 10 attackers of Mumbai were connected. They also want the LET's
Zakiur
Rahman apprehended, as well as the ISI officers involved in plotting the Mumbai
attack.
But the Pakistani military command, the Corps Commanders Conference, agreed on
a principled stand on Thursday that Pakistan will confront the threat of
militancy through its own course of action, not at the dictates of anybody
else. This position has been relayed to Washington, Asia Times Online contacts
familiar with the security apparatus say.
The danger is that the US will see the Pakistani stance as a stalling move and
take matters into its own hands. Already over the past few months, the US has
stepped up unmanned Predator drone attacks on militant targets inside Pakistan
in its frustration with Islamabad for not doing enough in clamping down on
militancy.
There is no immediate indication of how Pakistan will react, although it
clearly has to do something, given the evidence of communication intercepted
between Rahman and the Mumbai militants and the confessions of the only
militant to have survived - Ajmal Amir Kesab. He is reportedly said to have
detailed how the militants were trained in Pakistan.
In an excerpt from his interrogation handed to Pakistan by Indian authorities,
Kesab is reported to have said, "I thought, why should I die when I have a
chance to kill more people. Then I was surrounded and captured, but no problem.
I will spend some time in prison and then some of my comrades will hijack an
[Indian] plane and get me released."
Despite this, there is skepticism among the general masses, the military cadre
and Pakistani media over the authenticity of anything coming from Delhi. This
is a major hurdle preventing Islamabad from taking "direct" action.
Asia Times Online described on November 19 how high-level meetings between US
intelligence and the ISI at different levels devised plans to cripple the
support systems of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Pakistan. (See
Taliban, US wrestle for the upper hand.) Two prominent names came up
for discussion - retired Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul and a former ISI
official, retired Squadron Leader Khalid Khawaja. Tightening the noose around
people such as Gul and Khawaja and the like is one way to cut off support for
the Taliban.
Now the US has given the names of four former ISI officials, including Gul, to
the United Nations Security Council to put them on a list of international
terrorists.
Gul, who once headed the ISI, has confirmed this, saying that if Pakistan does
not protect him he will contact different international forums. "This is
because I am vocal about American imperialist designs in the region. I can read
their mind and have the capability to expose them. And this is because they
want to malign the Inter-Services Intelligence," Gul told Asia Times Online.
Khawaja, a middle-level former ISI official, also confirmed to Asia Times
Online that his and Gul's names "had been put on the ECL", Pakistan's Exit
Control List. This could not be independently confirmed with the Federal
Investigation Agency Airport immigration desk.
This could be the beginning of the tightening of the noose around the ISI and
elements in the armed forces, possibly even leading to the ISI being declared a
a rogue organization.
Already, under US pressure, the government has taken some steps to clip the
wings of the ISI. Several months ago, it was placed under the Ministry of
Interior, rather than the military. However, due to a fierce reaction from the
army and from then-president and retired General Pervez Musharraf, the decision
was reversed.
Recently, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced the closure of the ISI’s
political cell. Nevertheless, the ISI has a deep-rooted history as a secret
service with successful operations against the Soviet Union, India, Israel and
in Eastern Europe and its structure makes such steps superficial.
Further, the political government is weaker than the military institution,
which makes it difficult for it to take telling action against the ISI.
The Americans realize this, so they will adopt their way of doing things, while
the Pakistan army will decide on how to deal with Pakistan's jihadi outfits.
These approaches won't necessarily be in harmony, and there is always the
possibility of another attack on India that could set the region on fire.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can
be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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