Pakistan sharpens its focus on militants
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
ISLAMABAD - While al-Qaeda-led militants are making powerful statements with
attacks such as those last Friday in the Pakistani city of Lahore and in Swat
in North-West Frontier Province the next day, Washington is preparing a large
canvas for a war in which the Pakistan military will play a leading role.
The end game is seen as the elimination of al-Qaeda and its associated
Pakistani militant groups, the arrest of Afghan Taliban commanders and the
subsequent isolation of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, which it is hoped will
force Mullah Omar into reconciliation talks with Washington leading to
America's exit from Afghanistan.
In this plan, the chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani, will be
Washington's point man and the stage is set for him to
become one of the most powerful people in the history of the Pakistani armed
forces as well as in the political structure of the country, without derailing
the existing democratic setup in Islamabad.
In Lahore, the capital of the largest province of Punjab and the iconic city of
the ruling establishment, two suicide bombers attacked army vehicles, killing
45 people and injuring nearly 100, including 10 soldiers. The next day in
Mingora, the main city in Swat, 14 people were killed, including two soldiers,
two policemen and a child, when a man detonated a bomb near a check point
outside the district court. More than 30 people were injured.
This is a stark reminder to the Pakistani establishment that the next phase of
the US-led war in Afghanistan will be fiercely contested across the border in
Pakistan to counter the Pakistan army's new operational role in assisting the
Americans. Over the past few weeks, Pakistan has rounded up several key Afghan
Taliban leaders and commanders while at the same time stepping up military
operations in the tribal areas of Bajaur and Mohmand and most recently,
starting last weekend, in Orakzai. In Orakzai, the Pakistan Air Force attacked
militant hideouts as a prelude to a ground operation.
The next phase will be to step up operations in the North Waziristan tribal
area, the headquarters of al-Qaeda's global network and the home of one of the
most dangerous Afghan Taliban commanders, Sirajuddin Haqqani.
The US is itching to escalate action against militants inside Pakistan as they
feed directly into the conflict in Afghanistan. Pakistan, a sovereign nuclear
state, will not allow direct American intervention beyond US drone attacks,
which is already a highly sensitive issue.
What Washington can do, though, is back efforts to empower its most trusted
Pakistani, Kiani, with a new role to command the war against militants inside
Pakistan.
Kiani as a new iron man
Kiani is due to retire on November 27 and he has already taken steps to keep
his team in place. In an extraordinary development he extended the terms of
four lieutenant generals who were due to retire, the most important being the
director general of Inter-Services Intelligence, Ahmad Shuja Pasha.
(Asia Times Online has reported that before Pakistan started a new round of
support for the American war in Afghanistan the army attached several
conditions, including setting aside any Indian role and the extension of
Pasha's service. See
Pakistan's military sets Afghan terms February 9, 2010.)
At the same time, Kiani and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff
committee, General Tariq Majid, are resisting moves by President Asif Ali
Zardari to select his own man to replace Kiani, even though Zardari, as
president, is the supreme commander of the armed forces. Zardari's connections
with the military are not strong and he relies on advisors, notably two
aviation pilots, Captain Nadeem Yousufzai and Captain Obaid Jatoi.
However, this is not the real issue: Washington does not want to have to deal
with a new army chief or even see Kiani's term extended. Instead, it is backing
the idea of elevating Kiani to chairman of the joint chiefs of staff committee.
At present this is a ceremonial position at the head of the three branches of
the military - army, air force and navy. The chairman does not command any
authority except during war. It is now envisaged that with a constitutional
amendment the chairman (Kiani) would command the three branches, using them as
he saw fit in the fight against militants without fear of any one branch
objecting.
One reason for empowering the position of chairman of the joint chiefs of the
staff committee is a possible serious security downturn in the region that
would require the US to use Pakistan's bases for air sorties, as well as its
naval facilities for logistical purposes. After September 11, 2001, the
then-chief of air staff, Mushaf Ali Mir, opposed a decision to allow Pakistan's
bases to be used by the Americans, but General Pervez Musharraf, then
president, forced the decision.
Welfare (salaries and benefits), transfers and postings and promotions in all
three forces would also be under the chairman, leaving each of the three branch
commanders with the responsibility of conducting operations and training.
There is a consensus in London and Washington that Kiani is the right person to
hold this all-powerful new position in the next phase of the war and the
political leadership, already under pressure from the military chief, would de
facto be subservient to the chairman.
Kiani is to date a success story. He has succeeded in negotiating the
military's central role in the "war on terror" and in sidelining Indian's role
in Afghanistan. He has mounted military operations in the tribal areas and in
Swat, where he has to a large degree rolled back the militants' advances.
Under his command, the army has surprised much of the world with the arrests of
top Taliban commanders, yet he has allowed the Americans only limited
interrogation of important captures such as Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Moulvi
Abdul Kabeer, Mullah Mir Mohammad and Mullah Abdul Salam - they are in safe
houses in Islamabad. These men will be kept as bargaining chips to guarantee
Pakistan's strategic interests in Afghanistan now as well as after the US exit.
Kiani has been chosen as the man to make all of this happen. His record is
good, but as the attacks in the past few days indicate, the militants have
ideas of their own that could derail the best-laid of plans.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can
be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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