Is Pakistan a friend or foe of the US?
Daily Times Monitor
ISLAMABAD: The arrest of three Pakistan Army officers alongside Taliban fighters in Afghanistan underscored a persistent issue in Washington and Kabul, claims a TIME magazine report: Whose side, exactly, is Pakistan on?
TIME magazine says, “The longer the war on terrorism continues, the more questions the US seems to have about Pakistan. Just how devoted is President Pervez Musharraf to fighting terrorism? Is Pakistan undermining stability in neighbouring Afghanistan? Is it flirting with the potential disaster of a new war on the subcontinent by harbouring militants fighting India in the disputed region of Kashmir? What role does Islamabad play in the proliferation of nuclear weapons worldwide?”
The magazine goes on to say, “In his scheduled meeting with George W Bush in New York City this week, the fifth session Musharraf has had with the president since 9/11, the Pakistan president will feel an urgency in the air. It’s sparked by Washington’s concern that it needs better results from Islamabad at a time when a resurgent Taliban is using Pakistan as a base for strikes against US and government forces in Afghanistan, threatening the stability of the US-backed government in Kabul.” One reason the Pakistan Army has failed to stop militants is geographical. The border area where Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants are supposed to be hiding is made up of semi-autonomous tribal lands where the central government’s authority is limited and where pro-militant sentiments run high. Islamabad fears an armed tribal uprising if it allows US forces to mount their own search parties inside the tribal territories.
Another reason, the report suggests, is the momentum of pre-9/11 policies. Being abrupt, it says, the change was not well understood. “A strong anti-US feeling pervades the army. After Musharraf’s government turned against the Taliban at Washington’s prodding and failed to condemn the civilian casualties in the war in Afghanistan, there was a sense of betrayal inside the armed forces. Weeding out extremists in the military may not be easy. For years, the top brass drummed into mid-ranking officers a sense of Islamic mission. A beard helped an officer’s promotion, as did praying five times a day. Now the army is taking measures against officers who are too religious minded. Those deemed overly fanatic are discreetly steered into non-sensitive or dead-end jobs, he says, and a soldier needs permission from his commanding officer before he is permitted to grow a beard,” the report quoted Talat Masood, a retired lieutenant general and a writer on security issues, as saying.
The report quotes a Western diplomat in Islamabad as saying, “The ISI’s top brass carries out Musharraf’s bidding, but some of the lower-echelon officers seem to retain ties—ideological and financial—with their former Taliban proteges. At some level, these guys see the Taliban as an insurance policy for what happens next in Afghanistan.” The TIME report says army investigators in early September arrested three officers, all “below the rank of lieutenant colonel,” for suspected ties to Al Qaeda. Two of the officers were based in the Tribal Areas. All three were fingered by Al Qaeda’s top planner, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. They are in Pakistani military custody.
In January 2002, at the insistence of the US, Musharraf had banned five militant groups. But these groups have resurfaced under new names. According to his staff members, says TIME report, Maulana Masood Azhar, the chief of outlawed Jaish-e- Muhammad, under house arrest at his ornate mansion in Bahawalpur, is free to travel, give incendiary sermons against the US and collect donations.
Citing Musharraf’s frustrations with Washington, the report quotes an excerpt from a Pakistani general’s conversation with a Western diplomat, “Here we are, fighting and dying in Bush’s war. And we’re not getting anything in return.”
Ahead of this week’s meeting, US officials anticipated that Musharraf would arrive with a “wish list” of military, economic and trade concessions and a rundown of what he would do on the counter-terrorism front if granted those benefits.
“Then people will decide what the pain thresholds are. Those limits will be determined in part by the ache of the intolerable status quo,” the report concludes. |
