HPC The Two-Front War; Pakistan demands help to catch 'most wanted'

The Two-Front War Pakistan is finally doing its part. Now we need to do ours. by Frederick W. Kagan 11/09/2009, Volume 015, Issue 08 A network of militant Islamist groups stretches from India to the Iranian border, from the Hindu Kush to the Indian Ocean. These groups include Pashtuns and Punjabis, Arabs and Uzbeks and more. They have no common leader, vision, hierarchy, or goal. But they do agree on a few key points: Any government not based on their interpretation of Islam is illegitimate and apostate; anyone who participates in or obeys such a government is not a Muslim and is therefore liable to be killed; Muslims must be "liberated" from oppressive regimes such as Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan; and the United States and its allies are the principal sources of support for these unjust and apostate regimes and must be defeated or destroyed. Al Qaeda is the most infamous of these groups because it alone succeeded in attacking the American Satan on its own soil, but all of the Taliban groups and various other Pakistani organizations, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, support each other morally, financially, ideologically, tactically, and strategically. They see an attack on any one of them as an attack on all. The West benefits from no such clarity. We are constantly bemused by the constellation of names and initials by which these groups designate themselves. Is the Afghan Taliban related to the Pakistani Taliban? Is al Qaeda related to either? What is anyone to make of a group that calls itself "Tehreek-e Nafaz-e Shariat-e Mohammadi" (TNSM--Movement for the Enforcement of Sharia)? This confusion has bedeviled our discussions about strategy for the war in Afghanistan. It has distorted our relationship with Pakistan as well. In particular, resentment over the fact that elements of the Pakistani security services continue to shelter and support some of the Taliban groups fighting the United States in Afghanistan is blinding us to the importance of the current Pakistani offensive against internal enemies in Waziristan. That operation--Rah-e Nijat or "Path to Deliverance"--is striking a blow against one of the most important militant Islamist sanctuaries in the world. The reactions of the other members of the Islamist network to this operation show clearly the relationships among them and the real stakes of the American effort in Afghanistan. PAKISTAN AND ISLAMISM Pakistani governments and the Pakistani military have been supporting Islamism in one form or another since the days of President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in the 1970s. The Pakistani state defines itself as the haven for India's Muslims, a notion that lends itself to sympathy with Islamism. The main drivers of Pakistani support for Islamism, however, have been pragmatic (as Shuja Nawaz has shown in Crossed Swords and Pakistani ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani in Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military). Bhutto supported Islamism for domestic political reasons. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, his successors supported the Islamist groups that took the lead in fighting the Red Army. U.S. assistance to the mujahedeen was funneled through Pakistan, inadvertently strengthening the ties between Pakistan and the Islamists. Two mujahedeen who received much Pakistani assistance were Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar--both now prominent leaders of insurgent forces operating against the United States and its allies in Afghanistan (although Jalaluddin has largely handed over control of his group to his son, Sirajuddin). The Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in humiliation in 1989, and the United States lost interest. Pakistan did not. As a new government of sorts coalesced in Kabul around Tajik and Uzbek leaders of the mujahedeen in the early 1990s, Islamabad became concerned that it might face a hostile Afghan state, compounding its traditional tensions with India by threatening to open a new front in the event of renewed conflict. At first the Pakistani security services supported Hekmatyar, but he proved ineffective. When a small band of Pashtuns under the leadership of Mullah Mohammad Omar emerged to fight against the depredations of the "warlord government" of Kabul in 1994, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) seized the opportunity. The ISI provided organization, training, equipment, and advisers to the fledgling movement, which rapidly overran the fractious warlord state, rising to power as the Taliban regime in 1996. The withdrawal of American interest from Afghanistan coincided with a series of somewhat-related crises that turned Pakistan sharply away from the United States and much more toward the Islamist camp. Long-simmering discontent in Indian-controlled Kashmir erupted into open violence in 1989. Pakistan's support for the Kashmiri militants led to U.S. condemnation of Islamabad's support for terrorism. The Kashmir crisis, among many other things, led to the deposition of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (Zulfiqar's daughter) in August 1990, further fracturing the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. In October 1990, finally, President George H. W. Bush refused to make the annual certification that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear weapon required by the Pressler Amendment of 1985. As a result, all U.S. aid to Pakistan--including military exchange programs--was cut off. One important figure among the mujahedeen was a Palestinian Islamist named Abdullah Azzam. His fiery sermons to raise money and support in Saudi Arabia found an eager follower in Osama bin Laden, who migrated to the Afghan fight in the mid 1980s and continued to work with Azzam in Peshawar. In 1987, Azzam founded an organization in Pakistan called Markaz Dawat-ul Irshad (Center for Religious Learning and Propagation, also known as Jamaat ut-Dawa), together with Hafiz Mohammad Saeed. Azzam was assassinated in 1989, but his protégés did him proud--bin Laden by founding al Qaeda, Saeed by founding the Lashkar-e-Taiba, "Army of the Pure," to serve as the militant wing of the Markaz Dawat-ul Irshad. The purpose of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was to inspire jihadism among the world's Muslims. Saeed once said, "We believe in [Samuel P.] Huntington's clash of civilizations, and our jihad will continue until Islam becomes the dominant religion." Saeed established the movement's base at Muridke, a town near Lahore in the heart of Punjab, where he aimed to develop a model city to serve as an exemplar of the sort of Islamist government for which he was fighting. The outbreak of conflict in Kashmir led Saeed to focus his nascent organization on that conflict--thereby earning the support of the ISI in addition to the continued support of the Saudi backers who had helped him establish the group in the first place. Pakistan drifted generally away from the United States and toward the Islamists in the 1990s. Army chief of staff Mirza Aslam Beg called the 1991 Gulf war "a Western-Zionist game plan to neutralize the Muslim World," as Shuja Nawaz writes, adding that Beg also initiated negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran to ensure Pakistan's "strategic depth" in the event of a war with India. Pakistan recognized the Taliban government in Kabul in 1996 (virtually the only government to do so other than Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates). The revelation of a missile deal between North Korea and Pakistan led to further U.S. sanctions in 1998. Pakistan then tested six nuclear weapons in May 1998 following the testing of an Indian weapon, straining relations with Washington even more. Tensions rose still further when Pakistani forces entered Indian-controlled Kashmir in 1999. General Pervez Musharraf finally seized power in a military coup in 1999 and suspended the constitution. The 9/11 attacks thus found Pakistan locked in a close embrace with the Taliban in Afghanistan and with Islamist groups such as the LeT within Pakistan itself. That was the context in which Secretary of State Colin Powell delivered an ultimatum to Musharraf: Pakistan must be either with the United States or against it in the coming war on terror. Musharraf did not demur. He supported the U.S. military operation against the Afghan Taliban government he had helped bring to power, announced his opposition to al Qaeda, and outlawed the LeT. But the change was too sudden for members of the security services who had long-established relationships with the groups against which Musharraf had suddenly turned. With or without Musharraf's orders, the ISI helped resettle Mullah Omar and the Haqqanis in Pakistan and continued to support them. Failings in the American military strategy in 2001--notably the refusal by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to deploy ground forces to cut off the retreat of al Qaeda fighters from northern Afghanistan--allowed both Taliban and al Qaeda leaders and troops to escape. The United States responded by pressing the Pakistani government ever harder to take effective action against al Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan, especially within the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) where many had taken refuge. Musharraf responded with a series of grudging and incompetent military operations culminating in a 2004 offensive into Waziristan that ended in humiliating failure. That failure led to a series of weak "peace deals" with anti-American leaders in Waziristan, particularly Maulvi Nazir Ahmad and Hafiz Gul Bahadur. In the meantime, Musharraf's actions against some Islamist groups turned others against Islamabad. LeT, Mullah Omar's Taliban, Hekmatyar's group, and the Haqqani Network remained loyal to Pakistan in return for support and shelter. The TNSM, however, found new life in supporting the Afghan Taliban against the U.S. attack by sending thousands of fighters from its base in the Bajaur Agency of the FATA into Afghanistan. When that effort failed, the TNSM turned its attention back to the Pakistani government, which it considered illegitimate because of its failure to implement Islamic law. Pakistani operations in Waziristan generated a backlash among the Pashtun tribes there that coalesced in December 2007 with the formation of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan ("Pakistani Taliban Movement") under the leadership of Baitullah Mehsud. Maulvi Nazir, commander of the Wazir Taliban group in South Waziristan, described the phenomenon: Our companions used to go to different areas like Ghazni and Zabul, but the Pakistani government started hindering our path. In the beginning we had intended Jihad against America and had not meant to fight here, but when the Pakistani government became an obstacle for us and started hindering our passages, destroying our bases, martyring our brothers and ambushing and arresting them from their route .  .  . we were left no choice other than directing our weapons towards the Pakistani Government. [all translations by SITE Intel Group]. The TTP was meant to be an umbrella organization, and it soon claimed suzerainty over the TNSM, the Mehsud fighting groups in Waziristan, and branches in Punjab. Its objective is the overthrow of the apostate Pakistani government. Baitullah Mehsud described its aims in January 2008: The Pakistani forces came here by order from Bush, and the soldiers of the army are destroying our homes. Therefore, the goal of our alliance is the defense of the Muslim person. By the way, the ultimate result of this alliance, which we basically formed for defense, will be the implementation of Muhammadian Sharia law all throughout Pakistan. The philosophical underpinnings of both groups are identical with those of al Qaeda, and also with those of the LeT, as well as with those of all of the major Afghan Taliban groups. The TTP and the TNSM recognize Mullah Omar as the "Commander of the Faithful." Maulvi Nazir noted, "The Emir of the believers is Emir of the Jihad too. The Mujahideen all over the world accept him as their Emir." Baitullah Mehsud declared, "We did pledge allegiance to the Emir of the Believers before, and Allah willing, our allegiance to him will last forever. He is our legitimate emir [as per Islamicsharia], and our allegiance to him stems from our love and respect for him." By mid-2008 the Islamist groups appeared to have the Pakistani government on the ropes. The TTP effectively controlled Waziristan through a series of "cease-fire" agreements that amounted to surrenders by Islamabad to the Islamists. The TNSM/TTP controlled Bajaur Agency and much of neighboring Mohmand Agency. It had spread beyond the FATA into the Northwest Frontier Province as well, establishing a base in Dir District and even in Swat--a much more cosmopolitan area close to metropolitan Pakistan and generally not amenable to extremist Islamism. Musharraf had done nothing effective to check the expansion of these groups or the consolidation of their control in their areas of influence. He had not curtailed the support of the ISI for Afghan Taliban groups. And he had proved unwilling or unable to dismantle the network of al Qaeda senior leaders using Pakistan as its base. It seemed likely that Pakistan's long support for Islamist groups could well lead to its demise, an appearance strengthened by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007 purportedly at the orders of TTP leader Baitullah Mehsud. PAKISTAN'S COUNTERATTACK Musharraf resigned from the presidency on August 18, 2008. Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, won the post on September 6. On that day, the Pakistani military launched Operation Sherdil against a major TNSM/TTP base in Bajaur Agency. Chastened by the experiences of previous years in which ill-prepared assaults in difficult terrain had resulted in hundreds of dead, wounded, and captured Pakistani soldiers, the army proceeded with deliberate and overwhelming force up the four major river valleys in Bajaur. It relied heavily on airpower, leveling Islamist-held villages in the agency and generating tens of thousands of refugees. Loe Sam, a key village in the midst of the agency, was completely destroyed as Pakistani military operations continued for months. American forces in Afghanistan quietly assisted by deploying a battalion along the Afghan border with Bajaur on the east side of the Kunar River. Despite the violence of the operation, however, the Pakistanis could not capture or kill TTP leader Maulana Faqir Muhammad. Neither could they stop the spread of TNSM/TTP influence in Dir and Swat. The determination shown by the Pakistani government in the Bajaur fighting was undermined when Islamabad signed a cease-fire in Swat with Sufi Mohammad, the founder of the TNSM. In return for a halt in fighting, the government committed to enforce sharia law and only sharia law in Swat. This experiment in meeting the demands of the Islamists was revealing about their true aims. The Pakistani Constitution already contained provisions requiring the state to abide by and enforce sharia law and Muslim tradition. From the government's perspective, recommitting to that principle was not a significant concession. But Sufi Mohammad and Maulana Fazlullah interpreted it to mean that they could choose the religious judges who would interpret sharia as they desired. It is hard to say how this quasi-religious conflict would have proceeded had the TTP fighters in Swat kept their side of the bargain. Instead, puffed up with their success, they sent a raiding party into neighboring Buner in April, clearly violating the peace accord. Zardari and army chief of staff Ashfaq Kayani responded decisively, launching Operation Rah-e-Rast ("Path of Righteousness") in mid-April to liberate Swat from the control of the TNSM and TTP. The operation was largely successful, although it generated more than a million refugees. The refugee flow was not entirely negative for the government, however. Swat refugees took to the airwaves to describe the outrages of Islamist efforts to impose their extremist religion on a moderate population. For the first time, Pakistani public opinion began to turn against the Islamists. Zardari, sensing a political opportunity among other things, drove the fight further. The Pakistani military cleared Swat, and then worked to clear neighboring Dir District. More important, the military stayed in these areas after the initial clearing operations. Today, two Pakistani divisions drawn from the Indian border--the 19th Infantry Division and the 37th Mechanized Infantry Division--remain in Swat as part of what we would call the "hold" phase. The Islamists responded to the Swat operation with terrorist attacks across Pakistan, including a car-bomb in Lahore that a group called Tehrik-e-Taliban Punjab ("Punjab Taliban Movement") claimed. The Pakistani government then prepared an operation against the last remaining major Islamist sanctuary--South Waziristan. The preparations included moving significant regular military forces into both North and South Waziristan in order to isolate the Mehsud tribal area. They also included a protracted and difficult effort to persuade the surrounding Islamist leaders--particularly Maulvi Nazir to the south and Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan--to tolerate the army's operations and refrain from fighting alongside Baitullah Mehsud's TTP. Islamabad was able to conclude these agreements by playing up inter-tribal tensions; also, the radical Uzbek Islamists supported by Mehsud had a talent for antagonizing the locals. It is likely that Pakistani military operations in Swat and Bajaur and the large amount of military force they were bringing into the area persuaded Gul Bahadur and Nazir that they were in earnest and could seriously disrupt these leaders' power bases if they chose. An ostensible quid pro quo in this agreement was that Pakistan would put a stop to U.S. drone strikes in the areas controlled by Bahadur. In the meantime, the pressure on the Mehsud tribal area allowed the Pakistani military to obtain actionable intelligence about Baitullah Mehsud. A U.S. Predator drone killed him on August 5. Many analysts feared that the death of Mehsud would mean the end of the Pakistani operation, but slow preparations for an offensive in the Mehsud tribal area continued as the TTP struggled to select a new leader. It finally did so on August 22 with the announcement that Hakimullah Mehsud had succeeded Baitullah. The storm finally broke on October 17, when some 28,000 Pakistani troops drawn from the 7th and 9th Infantry divisions, supported by around 10,000 members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps, advanced along three axes toward the heart of the Mehsud resistance base. The ground operation was preceded by a week of targeted air attacks and was supported by airstrikes and helicopter gunships. It was not, however, as destructive as the Bajaur operation. Pakistani forces have labored to seize key terrain around important objectives first (to avoid ambushes), and to clear contested villages carefully rather than obliterating them. As of this writing, the operation has continued unabated for two weeks, and Pakistani military forces are advancing on the three most important TTP bases in the area methodically but unrelentingly. ISLAMIST REACTION Baitullah Mehsud was eulogized by no less a figure than Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's deputy. Zawahiri praised him as a figure who sought to unify all Islamists into a fight against their common enemies: Then he, may Allah have mercy on him, participated in unifying the ranks of the mujahideen in Pakistan, for he founded Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, which took over its emirate. He participated in founding the Shura of the mujahideen that included all the mujahideen in Pakistan in addition to their foreign brothers. Then this united force, with grace from Allah and His assistance, hears and obeys the Islamic Emirate and its emir, the Emir of the Believers, Mullah Omar, may Allah preserve him. Baitullah "demonstrated, may Allah have mercy on him, that the rulers of Pakistan and the leaders of its armies are merely a traitorous, bribe-seeking group that sold its religion, honor and the blood of the Muslims in Pakistan and Afghanistan to the new Crusader-dom in exchange for a few dollars and benefits." He also "demonstrated that he does not acknowledge the British Durand line that separates Afghanistan from Pakistan, and that he will do jihad to expel the Crusaders from Afghanistan and will do jihad as well against their agents that cooperate with them in Pakistan and Afghanistan." Other Islamist groups offered more practical assistance. TTP and allied movements have launched a wave of terrorist attacks across Pakistan in response to the Waziristan operation. Reports from Bajaur indicate that the TTP leadership there has been discussing pulling some of their fighters out of Kunar and Nuristan provinces in Afghanistan and sending them to support their comrades in Waziristan. A Pakistani paper reported on October 25: "Taliban sources said Maulana Faqir Muhammad had convened a meeting of local and foreign militants to devise a strategy for sending fighters to South Waziristan to fight alongside their fellow Mehsud Taliban militants against the Pakistan Army." It added that "They said some Arab commanders also attended the meeting and did not agree with Faqir Muhammad's proposal to go to Waziristan at a time when they were engaged in, what they termed, a 'crucial and decisive' battle against the U.S.-led forces across the border in Kunar and Nuristan provinces of Afghanistan." Arab commanders in this context very likely refer to al Qaeda leaders or their representatives. It is possible that the protests of these Arab commanders went unheeded. On October 29, Asia Times reported that "in a telephone conversation on Wednesday, a militant linked to [Qari Ziaur] Rahman [a Taliban commander in Nuristan] said that now that they had control of Nuristan, the militants are 'marching towards Mohmand and Bajaur to help their fellow Taliban fighting against Pakistani troops,' referring to two tribal agencies across the border." The report continued, "As the militant who spoke to Asia Times Online said, there is now the opportunity to open a new front, with Rahman's forces on the Afghan side and those of Moulvi Faqir Mohammad on the Bajaur and Mohmand side." The new TTP leaders, for their part, have restated their commitment to the ideological struggle: And the conclusion is for us to work according to the Islamic Shariah, make others follow this path as well, which is the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, show concern about educating and uprighting Muslims according to the Shariah law. As for the way to get rid of positive courts and their police that were established by the English regime, that is through implementation of Shariah, because there are Shariah judges and scholars. This is not impossible. The Emir of the Believers Mullah Muhammad Omar provides a vivid example for the entire world. Our brothers in Swat also established the same system that did not please those malicious ones. They started to incite people against them and distort their image in the media and launched a war against them after that. Was it not for this, Swat today would have become another example where Shariah is practiced. They made numerous sacrifices for that, as did all tribal children and Pakistanis. So we cannot abandon this matter. And so the battle continues. The Pakistani military has now deployed four regular army divisions and tens of thousands of Frontier Corps forces in a series of operations that have lasted for more than a year to defeat the Islamist groups that had taken control over large areas of Pakistan and threatened the survival of the Pakistani state. Still the United States is disappointed. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just last week twitted Islamabad for failing to eliminate al Qaeda. American analysts and officials regularly complain that Pakistan is not "doing its part" by halting its support for Mullah Omar, Haqqani, and Hekmatyar. At the same time, people seeking to downplay the importance of defeating the Afghan Taliban increasingly argue that Mullah Omar's group has separated from al Qaeda and from Pakistani Taliban groups and even that it would not support them or permit them to establish sanctuaries in Afghanistan should it return to power. Above all, conventional wisdom now goes, we must understand that the Taliban of all stripes are local movements concerned with local power struggles and not a threat to the United States. It is true that these groups do not have the capability or the intention at present to strike the American homeland directly. It does not follow, however, that they are not a threat to the United States except in this narrowest and most short-sighted sense. Their overall aims and ideologies are indistinguishable from al Qaeda's. They all--including al Qaeda--recognize Mullah Omar as "commander of the faithful" and an exemplar of right behavior both as an insurgent and as the leader of an Islamic state. They coordinate their activities at all levels and come to each other's assistance when attacked. They see the provision of sanctuary to their threatened comrades as a religious (as well as tribal) obligation. The network of Islamist groups in South Asia, in other words, really is a network. We must not imagine that we can decide that the success of key elements of that network--especially Mullah Omar's group--would not strengthen the elements that are most dangerous to America and to stability in a nuclear-armed region. We must recognize, finally, that Pakistan actually is making a major contribution to this struggle by taking on the elements of the Islamist network that--while closely aligned with al Qaeda--pose the greatest threat to its own stability. Defeating the Afghan Taliban is our job, working together with our Afghan partners. However desirable and helpful it would be for Pakistan to evict or capture the bases of Mullah Omar or Haqqani, the momentum of 30 years of support will be hard to reverse. Nor is it even necessarily wise for the United States to demand that the fragile Pakistani government, already engaged in an extremely difficult and controversial struggle against its own internal enemies, open two additional fronts. The war against Islamists in South Asia is now a two-front war. Pakistan has shown surprising determination and competence in its struggle against one part of the Islamist network. The United States must show similar determination and competence in our struggle against the other. <ι><π>Frederick W. Kagan is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD and director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. Pakistan demands help to catch 'most wanted' By Omar Waraich in Islamabad Tuesday, 3 November 2009 The black-and-white front page notices on Pakistan's newspapers looked like a throwback to America's own epoch of lawless violence, though in place of the words "Wanted Dead or Alive" there was a Koranic verse exhorting the faithful to "not make mischief on the earth". They featured Pakistan's most wanted, all 19 of them from the wild northwest. Public Enemy Number One, pictured with his trademark woollen cap, is Hakimullah Mehsud. The hot-headed young commander assumed the leadership of the Pakistani Taliban after his leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was struck down by a CIA-operated drone strike in August. Like all the best outlaws, Hakimullah's whereabouts are unknown. Some army officers believe that he may have found sanctuary in the Badr Valley, on South Waziristan's highest peak, the thick forest shielding him from the threat of a drone strike. Other observers suspect that he has ventured further north, into North Waziristan, and beyond the scope of the current operation. Hakimullah Mehsud, left, Pakistan's public enemy No 1, with members of his Taliban cohort Considered less experienced and less fearsome than his predecessor, Hakimullah commands a suitably smaller bounty on his head. Washington was offering $3m (£1.8m) for information leading to the capture of Baitullah, but for Hakimullah the Pakistani government is offering a mere £376,000 – just about enough to buy a comfortable house in Islamabad. Equal amounts are being offered for information leading to the capture of Hakimullah's two sidekicks. Wali-ur-Rehman, also from the Mehsud tribe of eastern South Waziristan, was a close aide to Baitullah and is considered a "shrewd, intelligent strategist". The whereabouts of Rehman are also unknown, but senior army officers suspect he is still hunkered down in South Waziristan's barren fastness. They have overheard him addressing his footsoldiers over a wireless device. Thanks to US assistance, they can now monitor the Taliban's communications closely. Despite these technological advances, however, militants like number three, Qari Hussain remain elusive. Earlier this month, the army said it seized control of Kotkai, the home village of the man they call the "godfather of suicide bombers". But although they claim to have seized some of the material he used to strike terror in Pakistan's major cities, Hussain himself was long gone. As the notices make clear, anyone who manages to collect the right information on Pakistan's most wanted, or even seize the suspects themselves, needs to contact their local administration to collect their reward. Ashraf M. Abbasi, PhD. Ambassador at Large    P Think before you print! Save energy and paper. President: 2003-2005 Chairman-Presidents Council: 2005-2007 Chairman Advisory Council: 2007-2009   The Pakistan American Congress (Washington, DC.) is an umbrella entity of Pakistani-Americans & Pakistani organizations in  America since 1990. It is incorporated as a non-profit, non-religious, and non- partisan premier community organization. It serves as a catalyst of social, educational, and political activities which promotes the interests and protects the civil rights & liberties of the Pakistani-Americans in the U.S. It is also vigorously involved in promoting good will, understanding, and friendship between the two countries & two people.

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Hillary Clinton A Liberal Fascist?

By HAMID MIR
The News International
WWW.AHMEDQURAISHI.COM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan-Jonah Goldberg is a columnist for The Los Angeles Times. He recently wrote a book on liberal fascism. He started his book with Mussolini who was the father of fascism in Italy. Jonah also discussed American liberalism as a new totalitarian political religion very close to fascism. Finally Jonah Goldberg declared Hillary Clinton as "The First Lady of Liberal Fascism." Jonah avoided using the term of liberal fascist for President Barack Obama but he feared that America was slowly becoming a fascist country.

It was difficult for me to believe that Hillary could be a fascist because she is a fascinating person. I read the book just a few days ago when I was travelling from the US to Pakistan. Luckily I got a chance to meet Hillary Clinton during her official visit to Pakistan on the evening of Oct 28 at the Islamabad residence of the US ambassador. I was one of the six TV anchors invited for a candid talk with the secretary of state. She was very much concerned about the bad image of her country in Pakistan and she said that "we must listen to each other and we must be honest with each other."

I put just three short questions to Hillary Clinton. My first question was about the rule of law. I referred to the Kerry-Lugar bill in which the US expressed desire for the rule of law in Pakistan and humbly asked why US officials were breaking Pakistani laws again and again in Islamabad. I informed her that four US marines were arrested at 3 a.m. on Oct 27 in Islamabad with illegal weapons in their hands. They were released within one hour of their arrest. I asked: "Who ordered them to patrol the roads of Islamabad? Will you allow Pakistani soldiers to patrol the roads of Washington DC with weapons in their hands?"

Hillary said that diplomats enjoyed immunity and they carried weapons. I again informed her that diplomats did not come out on the roads at three in the morning. She said: "I will look into this matter." I was not satisfied with her answer.

She told us that the US wanted a strong and vibrant democracy in Pakistan. I again asked her that if the US cared too much about democracy, then why it didn't care about the unanimous resolution of our new parliament against US drones attacks. I said, "Instead of listening to the voice of democracy coming through our parliament you have increased drone attacks which means that you have no respect for our democracy." Once again she just said, "We have to win the war against terror and we have to support democracy in Pakistan."

My third question was about the American desire for civilian control on the security establishment of Pakistan expressed in the Kerry-Lugar bill many times. I asked, "Do you want a civilian to head the ISI?" She never said no, but explained, "We can have a head of the CIA both from military and civilians and you can also have the head of the ISI from military and civilians." The answer clearly gave a message that the US wants a civilian to head the premier intelligence agency of Pakistan.

Hillary Clinton never said anything new to us. When I was coming back after meeting her I was thinking about Liberal Fascism written by Jonah Goldberg. Hillary Clinton must give clear and straight answers to the questions burning in the minds of common Pakistanis. Otherwise, we will be forced to believe that she is taking America into a new era of liberal fascism.

This op-ed was exclusively published by The News International. The writer is executive editor of Geo TV in Islamabad.

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New Evidence about Hindu Terrorism

Sajjad Shaukat

Last year, Indian Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Maharashtra arrested a serving Lt. Col. Srikant Purohit, a retired army Major Samir Kulkarniand and some other officials in connection with the bomb blasts in the Malegaon and some other Indian cities including explosion of Samjhota express which killed many Muslims and 68 Pakistani passengers. But latest reports suggest that after receiving directions from high level, an Indian team, consisting of police and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has compromised with the Hindu terrorists, especially of Indore regarding the incident of Smjhota Express.

New evidence has revealed that with the help of Indian secret agency, RAW, certain items such as suitcases, bottles and batteries used in theblasts were purchased by the Hindu extremists from Indore.

One of the most ruthless anti-Muslim extremist group, Ramji's links have been proved with a local leader BJP, which was involved in the Malegaon blasts, targeting Muslims. Apparently, probe in relation to Smajhota Express had met a dead end as New Delhi had decided to keep it pending because Indian army officers were involved. But for its own information, Indian government continuedinvestigation clandestinely, which has leaked out by some reliable sources. According to new revelations, the investigators have checked the records of phone calls which proved that members of the BJP-linked Ramji killed an extremist, Sunil, pertaining to the RSS-a member of their own affiliated organization so that unawarepolice officers could not reach all the network of the Hindu terrorists whom high officials of Indian RAW and the concerned army officials themselves want to conceal.

However, further details have indicated that before the recent elections in Maharashtra, blasts in Goa were carried out by a Hindu terrorist group, Sanatan Sanstha which was also involved in the communal riots in Miraj and Sangli. In this regard, those fundamentalists officials who are well-penetrated in Indianpolice and RAW, provoked violence with hateful anti-Muslim propaganda-its result was that Hindu mobs pelted stones and damaged mosques at more than seven places, hoisting saffron flags. This fact was also verified by various human rights activities which pointed out that the main aim of the communal riots during election times was to lead to massive votes forHindu right-wing parties, especially BJP.

Nevertheless, in Margao, Thane and Kanpur, Hindu terrorists had carried out the bombs, which also went up accidentally, killing them at some places where they were engaged in bomb-making.

Notably, on October 19, this year, The Times of India quoted Goa Home Minister Ravi Naik stating that the police would probe links of the state transport minister's wife with Sanathan Sanstha. In this respect, reliable sources have also disclosed that his wife has close ties with the members of this extremist group. Under the cover of family terms with some of its fundamentalists, she has provided the latter with secret information in order to conduct subversive acts against Muslims and their premises. On the same day, Indian Zee News TV channel also cited the statement of Naik as saying thatpolice is also probing foreign connections of Sanathan Sanstha because some foreigners often visited its ashram (temple) without registering their particulars in thepolice office as required under Indian law. As a matter of fact, Naik avoided mentioning thousands of Israeli tourists who frequently visit Goa. New secret inquiry has also shown that Col.Purohit with the backing of RAW and Indian fundamentalists had prepared a plan for displacing the Indian government, and setting up a government in exile in Israel. Some anti-Muslim Indo-Israeli lobbies were also supporting the plan.

It is notable that Indian Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) which had arrested Col. Purohit and other army officials including a Hindu Sadhu (holy man) and a Sadhvi (holy woman) had already disclosed the confession of Purohit in respect of Smajhota Express and bombing at various Muslim places. ATS had also revealed after a thorough inquiry that Col Purohit and some other army officers were helping in training the Hindu terrorists, providing them with the military-grade explosive RDX, used in the Malegaon bombings and terrorist attacks in other Indian cities.

It is of particular attention that last year, prominent politicians of the Hindu extremist parties having close ties with the arrested officials have been pressurizing the Congress regime to release the culprits. In this respect,last year, the prosecutor told an Indian court about the confession of Purohit, but next day, he backed out of his statement due to threats of Hindu fundamentalists.

In this context, during simultaneous attacks in Mumbai on November 26, 2008, the death of Anti-Terrorism Squad Chief Hemant Karkare exposed that Indian intelligence agencies in coordination withHindu extremists had planned the scheme to pressurize Pakistan and to take political advantage over the latter especially on Kashmir issue as the US President Obama and UK seemed serious to resolve this dispute.New Delhi not only wanted to divert their attention from this issue, but also desired to abandon peace process with Pakistan, which it had suspended under the pretext of Mumbai carnage.

As regards the assassination of Karkare, in the Indian Mail Today, Narayan Rane, an Indian-Hindu leader of the Congress had remarked on December 16, 2008 that Hindu politicians of India provided logistical and financial support to Hindutva terrorists for killing Karkare.

While, Indian Minority Affairs Minister Abdul Rahman Antulay who had changed his statement after duress from Congress had clearly revealed in the Lok Sabha that the killing of Karkare in Mumbai was a conspiracy, saying that he was assassinated owing to his leading role in theinvestigation against Hindus regarding the Malegaon bombings which had killed eight people outside a mosque. He further elaborated, "Anyone trying to go to the roots of terror has always been a target", calling for a separate inquiry into Karkare's death.

It is mentionable that concrete evidene had emerged about the existence of Hindu terrorism which was exposed on April 6, 2008 when in the house of Bajrang Dal fundamentalists in Nanded, a bomb went off. The police seized the Muslim clothing, fake beards, names and addresses which showed the location of mosques and houses of the prominent Muslims. The investigations proved that the militants belonging to the Bajrang Dal were found in the bomb-making and attack on a mosque in Parbhani in 2003. They were also involved in bombblasts in Purna and Jalna in August 2004. It was also proved that Hindu extremists with the help of fundamentalist parties, Shiv Sena, BJP, VHP and RSS were responsible for bombings of Malegaon, Modasa, Ajmar and Hyderabad including some other cities.

Before these revelations about Hindu terrorism, Indian government has been accusing Pakistan-based Islamic organizations in contacts with its intelligence agencies for carrying out bombblasts in Malegaon and other Indian places.

It is interesting to note that quite contrary to the real facts which are now on record, in the meetings of Joint Anti Terror Mechanism (JATM), Indian side has even handed over a folder, alleging that the attack on Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad and explosion in the Samjhota Express were identical-and their perpetrator, Shahid Bilal has been hiding in Karachi.

The fact of the matter is that in the aftermath of Mumbai catastrophe, Islamabad had repeatedly asked New Delhi to send exact information regarding the investigation of Col. Purohit including other accused in relation to the bombing of Samjhota Express. Although India has promised to share its findings with Pakistan, yet little has been shared in this regard. In fact, by concealing the details of the incident,New Delhi has been trying to hide Hindu terrorism. But amazingly, it had already been exposed by the evidence as witnessed during the anti-Muslim terror events of the last couple of years. But such developments as role of Indian extremist group, Sanatan Sanstha behindblasts in Goa and communal riots in Miraj and Sangli before elections in Maharashtra including the revelations of Naik in relation to the activities of fundamentalists-especially in connection with the state transport minister's wife's secret relationship with the group have shown new evidence aboutHindu terrorism.

Interestingly, regarding Hindu terrorism, BBC had indicated on November 21, 2008, "a new phrase has entered the sometimes cliche-riddled Indian press: "Hindu terrorism", calling it the latest addition to the media lexicon. But now latest evidence has endorsed the fact.

Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations.

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Pakistan seeks US trade, not aid, says minister

The Dawn Media Group

DUBAI: Pakistanplans to send an official delegation to the United Statesin mid-November to attract investment in a bid to revive its economy following a series of militant attacks, a senior official said on Sunday.
 
Waqar Ahmed Khan, Pakistan's minister of investment addresses the media.- Photo from APP/File

Last month, suicide bomb blasts targeted the United Nations, army headquarters, police and general public, killing more than 150 people.

'The recent attacks did have a negative impact on the perception (of the country), but at the same time Pakistan is a growing country and investors have to be in it for the long term,' Waqar Ahmed Khan, Pakistan's minister of investment, told Reuters during a visit to Dubai.

A delegation headed by Khan, along with businessmen from Pakistan, will head to Washington on Nov. 18, he said.

'From the United States we are seeking trade, not aid, because that's what's going to really help stimulate our economy,' he said, adding that opening up trade between the two countries would support political stability.

'The growth of the economy and fighting terrorism go hand-in-hand and the government is committed to protecting investors' interests.' US President Barack Obama has also said increased aid and trade will be tools to fight Islamic extremism both in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan.

Congress has just approved a bill tripling aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year for the next five years, but with conditions attached that have unleashed a storm of protest from Pakistanis who say the country is being humiliated.

Investment interest

Last month, a delegation headed by the Turkish prime minister was in Islamabad to discuss investment opportunities, said Khan.

'The Turkish investors are now in talks to establish textile factories, lease land for agriculture projects and are also looking at the livestock and dairy industries,' he said.

Pakistan's GDP growth is expected to be between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent in the fiscalyear 2009/10, up from 2.0 per cent in the previous year, the central bank said in its annual report released on Thursday.

'Despite all the recent attacks I think that the GDP will remain on the positive side this year, and I also expect foreign investment to increase during the forth quarter,' said Khan, without giving further details.

Net foreign investment in Pakistan fell 28.9 per cent to $671.1 million in the first three months of the 2009/10 fiscal year, beginning on July 1, compared with $943.4 million in the same period a year earlier.- Reuters

Waziristan operation may achieve objectives by mid-December: FM

Daily Times

* Qureshi says Taliban leadership on the run
* Pakistan seeks role in new US strategy on Afghanistan
* Poorly-planned troop surge could push militants into Pakistan

KUALA LUMPUR: The army hopes to rout the Taliban in South Waziristan before a bitter cold sets in, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on Sunday.

"The operation so far has been very successful. The resistance that we were expecting initially did not come with the same swiftness we were expecting," Qureshi - who is in Kuala Lumpur to attend a meeting of Islamic countries starting Monday - told reporters.

"South Waziristan is an area which is very important in order to check terrorist activity in Pakistan. Not just Pakistan, but beyond," said Qureshi.

He said the armed forces had surrounded the area and choked supply lines to the Taliban. "They are on the run. They are in retreat and there is disarray over there," he said.

Qureshi said it would be difficult to give a timeframe for total military success, but "we would want to achieve our objectives as much as possible before the winter sets in".

"And it seems, as things are going on, that we might be able to do so ... I can't give you a date, but that area becomes very cold (by late December). We want to operate and establish our foothold before that."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during a visit to Pakistan, said it was hard to believe that no one in Pakistan's government knew where the Al Qaeda leadership was hiding.

Qureshi dismissed suggestions that Clinton's rebuke was an embarrassment. He said Clinton was not being "negative or sarcastic", but "objective" because she was speaking as a partner in the war on terror.

Qureshi urged the US to coordinate with Pakistan as it fights Al Qaeda in Afghanistan's border area.

"We feel a troop surge which is well-coordinated with us would produce results ... Pakistan's point of view is that it is not only the numbers that will count in Afghanistan. It's how you use those numbers." He said he told Hillary that the US could benefit from Pakistan's input.

Qureshi said he put the request for closer involvement in the US deliberations to Hillary Clinton during her visit to Pakistan.

Qureshi said that a well-coordinated surge in troop numbers would have a good chance of success, but a poorly planned escalation could merely push militants across the border into Pakistan. agencies

No justice for India's Sikhs

India must reveal the true scale of the 1984 Sikh massacre and bring its architects to account

Schona Jolly

Twenty five years ago, on the morning of 1 November 1984, I woke up in London to get ready for school. My parents, of Indian Sikh origin, sat staring at the television screen. Nobody told us to brush our teeth, or to stop messing around with our Ready Brek. Shocked phone calls replaced our daily routine. The massacre of 4,000 innocent Sikhs in Delhi, and beyond, had begun. Much of the world's media has allowed the Indian government to portray what happened as an "explosion of grief" in response to Indira Gandhi's assassination by her two Sikh bodyguards following her orders on Operation Bluestar. The truth, however, is far more chilling.

The 10 days that followed Gandhi's assassination are documented extensively in eyewitness testimony. Unsubstantiated rumours began to spread on the night of 31 October that Sikhs were celebrating Gandhi's murder. By early the following morning, gangs of young men were setting alight parts of south Delhi that today are among the most elite residential neighbourhoods of the city. In Delhi, in Kanpur and in Calcutta, the police and political forces stood by while the fury of part of the population was unleashed in burnings, killings and horror. Women were gang-raped - a tactic later employed in Gujarat - and gurdwaras, homes and Sikh businesses were destroyed. There is evidence that Delhi's public buses were used to transport the gangs from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. The army was not called on to the streets on the morning of 1 November. No curfew was imposed until most of the damage was done. No credible explanation for this has ever been provided.

Two and a half decades later, the language used to describe that night remains as blurry as ever. Was it a genocide? Who drew up lists of identification? Why did the police disappear or intervene to protect the mobs rather than the victims? Did Rajiv Gandhi, the incumbent prime minister, encourage the murders through his statements on the radio? Did members of Congress incite the killings? Why did ministers fail to act when they had been warned by the army that a "holocaust" might be unleashed that very night? Who kept the army at bay? In short, was this state-sponsored violence of the order that led to another decade of brutality in which some 10,000 Punjabi Sikhs, mostly men, were "disappeared" by the state?

India is right to trumpet its many achievements over the last decade. They are well documented. But the country's progress is littered with reminders of a dangerous past which its own government has planted and then tried to bury. Unfortunately, the secular credentials of prime minister Manmohan Singh's Congress government are not all that they appear to be.

The Nanavati Commission was set up in 2000 to investigate the events with broad terms of reference. Four years later it reported back that the state had been involved. Politicians were implicated heavily, but no action taken against them. International organisations have heavily criticised the state's actions and the impunity with which the police have proceeded in Punjab and Delhi over this period, and the subsequent episode of so-called counter-insurgency operations in Punjab. In 2007, India's CBI finally announced that it was closing the case on 1984 for lack of evidence, in spite of extensive eyewitness testimony both to the violence, as well as to the involvement of police and politicians. In the 1994 report Dead Silence: Legacy of Abuses in Punjab, Human Rights Watch Asia and Physicians for Human Rights described the government operations in Punjab during the 1980s as "the most extreme example of a policy in which the end appeared to justify any and all means, including torture and murder". Still the Congress government of India stays quiet. Indeed, Manmohan Singh even described the torture, killings and disappearances as "aberrations" in the fight against terrorism.

Insaaf means justice in many Indian languages. No justice has been done for India's Sikhs, who represent just 2% of the population but whose culture, language and music now form the background to hit after Bollywood hit.

The Indian government, even with a Sikh at its head, has studiously refused to contemplate the truth of what has happened. For many of India's political and social elite, it is more convenient to forget than to confront. Why dredge up memories that are painful, and which threaten a peaceful coexistence between ethnic and religious communities, they say. The danger in that path is that what has happened before can happen again. It happened in Godhra in Gujarat in 1992, and still Narendra Modi - who is said to be the chief architect of that genocide against the Gujarati Muslim population - retains power.

International law and principles demand that states conduct effective investigations and hold perpetrators accountable. In country after country where a population has brutalised its minority, and in the case of South Africa its majority, there has needed to be an open reconciliation with the truth. It can take the form of truth commissions, like those in South Africa or in Salvador or Guatemala, or it can take the form of court actions like in Rwanda, Argentina and Chile, where the most powerful members of society, including army generals or even Pinochet himself, have been successfully prosecuted for their pivotal role in the disappearances of so many thousands of men.

It is not enough that the Delhi courts very recently convicted local small fry for their complicity in murder and criticised the Indian police for their role in the 1984 killings. The Indian government needs both to bring accountability and to be accountable in order to ensure that the architects and orchestrators are not allowed to get away with their actions .

Last week, Human Rights Watch urged India, as the world's largest democracy, to take a global role in influencing Burma, Sri Lanka and Nepal. But until the truth of the extent of state-sponsored murder on ethnic lines, both in the 1984 pogroms and the subsequent disappearances that ripped through Punjab's male population, is revealed, the country's reputation will remain besmirched.

University blasts in Pakistan and the future of Islam

The International Islamic University is carving out a much-needed space in Muslim intellectual, and through it, political, life.

By Mark LeVine
 
European astronaut Christer Fuglesang does repair work on the space station. NASA/AP

Lund, Sweden - When the Taliban attacked the International Islamic University in Pakistan this week, many were shocked that militants were targeting an Islamic school. In fact, the double suicide bombers were going after a university that is at the forefront of changing the way Islamic and Western knowledge are brought together in the Muslim world.

I also had some misconceptions before I had lectured in the very building where the second bombing took place. But the encounters I had there in 2007 utterly changed my understanding of Pakistan, as well as the future of Islam.

I had only landed in Islamabad just a few hours before I was scheduled to give my first talk at the university, and whether it was the 13-hour time difference with Los Angeles, two nights flying in coach, or walking through an arrivals lounge that had recently been attacked by terrorists, I felt more uneasy about being in Pakistan than Baghdad or Gaza during their own periods of intense violence.

Matters weren't helped when I was introduced to a group of male religious studies students by my host as someone who'd lived in Israel and speaks Hebrew. In fact, my stomach sank a bit - especially as their long beards and traditional dress reminded me a lot more of the Taliban than the graduate students I normally spend time with.

But as with most things in Pakistan, appearances were deceiving, and the situation was far more complex, and inspiring, than I'd imagined.

It turned out that the students with whom I was meeting weren't merely studying Islam, they were PhD students in comparative religion. They were situating Islam, its history, and its religious dynamics within the broader study of religious experience worldwide.

Moreover, the recently established program in which they were studying was a model for the International Islamic University's drive to develop a new curriculum, one that would combine 1,000 years of Islamic learning with the latest developments in American and European humanities and social studies scholarship.

The students explained they were all learning Hebrew, as well as biblical criticism and contemporary approaches to religious studies as part of their course work. As we began to talk it became clear that neither students nor faculty had much time or desire to engage in spirited critiques of the United States or the West.

They were much more interested in discussing how to better integrate "Western" and Islamic methodologies for studying history and religion. And more telling, they were trying to figure out how to criticize the government without "disappearing" into the dark hole of the Pakistani prison system for five or 10 years, or worse.

Colleagues in the history and political science departments were just as eager to develop the most up-to-date curriculums possible, and in so doing lay a benchmark for the development of their fields, not just in Pakistan, but globally.

This is not to say that the members of the University community supported US policies in the Muslim world. Far from it. But as good social scientists (or social scientists in training), they understood the importance of the interplay of local and global dynamics, and of the problems in their own societies that contributed to the violent relationship between the US and many Muslim groups around the world.

Indeed, when I delivered my second lecture on globalization early on a Saturday morning, the room was filled with students, more women than men (upward of half the student body at the University are women), who grilled me about the assumptions underlying my research and methodologies. Would that most of my students back home were as interested in what I was teaching as were they.

As I walked around the campus, and met faculty and students who'd come from all over the Muslim world to study there, the role of the IIU in the larger context of Islam globally became evident.

The University was carving out a much-needed space in Muslim intellectual, and through it political, life through its bringing Muslim and Western traditions into dialogue.

Yet it was receiving, and continues to receive far less attention from scholars, commentators, or policymakers than the fully American-style universities being opened across the Persian Gulf. This is most recently evidenced by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, or KAUST, just established with great fanfare and a $10 billion endowment from the king in Jeddah.

Such a venture is surely important, not just for having one of the world's fastest supercomputers or giving every newly hired professor $400,000 in research money - I got $3,000 when I was hired at University of California, Irvine, and that was when the university was flush with cash.

Yet the singular focus of KAUST on hard sciences is ultimately myopic and will likely produce little in the way of the larger societal change in Saudi Arabia predicted by the new university's boosters. Such changes come only with a robust public sphere where citizens who are educated broadly and humanistically are equipped with the social knowledge and skills to challenge the dominant political and social-religious discourses.

Building such an active Pakistani citizenry was and - I imagine despite the bombing - remains a major goal of the IIU.

Sadly, it's just such a goal that probably made it a "legitimate" target for the Taliban, for whom a healthy public sphere populated by educated citizens willing and able to challenge, potentially democratize, and clean up their government would pose at least as big threat to its position in the country as the army they are now fighting in the country's northwest.

Not surprisingly, the core mission of the IIU would also not win it many friends among the country's corrupt economic and political elite, who, as many of the senior education and religious officials I met confided to me, share the Taliban's desire to silence any kind of critical scholarship or societal debate.

With this attack, the Taliban has struck what until now was a sanctuary, however fragile and inchoate, where the emerging generation of Pakistanis and Muslims could determine on their own terms how best to bring together their cultures and traditions to grapple with the profound challenges faced by their societies.

I hope it doesn't weaken the spirit and resolve of the thousands of students who've come to the IIU from across the Muslim world to help build a better future. They are not just the future of Pakistan, or of Islam; they are the future as well.

Mark LeVine is a history professor at University of California, Irvine and currently a visiting professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University, Sweden. He is the author most recently of "Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam" and "Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989"