US pressure on Pakistan off-target
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
ISLAMABAD - With United States General David Petraeus taking over command of
the war in Afghanistan and refining strategy there, the US is also fine-tuning
its approach across the border in Pakistan, where the government is being urged
to crack down on extremist groups in an effort to isolate al-Qaeda.
United States State Department counter-terrorism coordinator Daniel Benjamin,
who holds the rank of ambassador at large, headed a delegation of
counter-terrorism and intelligence officials for another round of strategic
dialogue in the capital Islamabad on Thursday.
The message he conveyed was that Pakistan needed to increase
pressure on extremists groups flourishing on its soil with al-Qaeda's
assistance to prevent terror attacks both within Pakistan and beyond.
In the years following Pakistan joining the US-led "war on terror" after
September 11, 2001, the authorities have formally banned many jihadi groups,
but these have continued to operate.
"The involvement of Lashkar-e-Taiba [LeT] in the Mumbai attacks shows the
organization's global ambitions," said Benjamin at a briefing at the US
Embassy. LeT is the banned Pakistani group that was implicated in the
devastating attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai in November 2008 by 10 gunmen.
More than 170 people were killed, including nine of the militants.
LeT "appears to have a very complex mix of indigenous and international
targets," Benjamin said. "We are working with Pakistan's civilian authorities
to investigate further into this organization, but definitely LeT maintains
some level of connections with al-Qaeda." He added that certain German and
Turkish nationals in the Pakistani tribal areas were a potential transnational
threat.
With Pakistan dragging its feet on starting a military offensive against
militants in the North Waziristan tribal area, Thursday's talks focused on
joint anti-terrorism measures and intelligence-sharing against groups operating
in Pakistan's urban centers.
The issue has taken on added urgency with the incidents involving David
Headley, Najibullah Zazi, Zarein Ahmedzay and Faisal Shahzad and the arrest of
suspected al-Qaeda-affiliated members in Norway this week. Oslo police arrested
a Uighur from China, an Iraqi and an Uzbek in connection with a plot to bomb
targets in Norway. The men were said to have ties to al-Qaeda.
Headley, a Chicago-based Pakistani, has pleaded guilty to conspiring with the
LeT over the Mumbai attacks. Zazi and Ahmedzay have pleaded guilty to planning
to conduct suicide bombings in New York using improvised explosive devices.
Pakistan-born Faisal Shahzad has pleaded guilty to receiving funds and training
from the Taliban in Pakistan to detonate a bomb in Times Square in New York in
May.
The various Pakistani jihadi outfits that were banned after September 11 - most
of them had been active in Indian-administered Kashmir - are the focus of the
crackdown that the US wants. These include several thousand people belonging to
the LeT, the Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Harkul Mujahideen in various Pakistani
cities.
It is understandable that the US would want to block off at the source
potential attackers on American or European cities, yet the real danger
emanating from Pakistan comes not as much from the city-based jihadis as from
al-Qaeda and its affiliates sitting in the Hindu Kush mountains, where, among
other things, recruits are trained.
From 2008 onwards, successive campaigns were launched in Kunar and Nuristan
provinces in Afghanistan and the Mohmand and Bajaur tribal areas across the
border in Pakistan, yet militants still control key regions in both Pakistan
and Afghanistan.
Similarly, while North Waziristan is recognized as the global headquarters of
al-Qaeda, parts of South Waziristan, under the command of Haji Nazeer - who is
referred to by Pakistan as "good Taliban" - are home to several Arab, al-Qaeda
and non-al-Qaeda groups.
Speaking at a public forum last week, US National Counter-terrorism Center
director Michael Leiter claimed that drone attacks and raids had devastated
al-Qaeda. "Now the organization is down to only 50 to a 100 card-carrying
members inside Afghanistan and roughly 300 operatives in Pakistan," Leiter
said.
However, this ignores the fact that more than 1,000 Arabic speakers live in the
tribal areas and al-Qaeda can make use of them as needed. The latest example is
Egyptian Sheikh Fateh al-Misri, the new al-Qaeda number three and chief of
operations in Afghanistan. He previously had no direct links to al-Qaeda.
These are the targets that the US would need to eliminate, yet it is putting
pressure on Pakistan to go after jihadis in the cities. This also places
Islamabad in an awkward position, as it has traditionally separated jihadi
groups (most of which it nurtured) from anti-state forces like al-Qaeda, and
even used them against al-Qaeda.
For example, the LeT now publicly calls al-Qaeda takfiri (declaring
Muslims as heretic) and is an effective ideological arm for state forces to
discredit al-Qaeda as a global Muslim resistance against the West.
If at this juncture Pakistan is forced to carry out action against formal
jihadi structures, it would alienate them, further isolating the Pakistani
establishment in its - and the US's - war against al-Qaeda.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can
be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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