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Pak crackdown on Al-Qaeda

	August 23, 2004

Pakistan has launched a man-hunt for a man who is said to know the whereabouts of the Al-Qaeda chief, Osama bin Laden. He is a Libyan national, Abu Faraj al-Libbi alias Dr. Taufeeq. Abu Faraj is among the six militants closely linked to the Al-Qaeda whose photographs were published in prominent newspapers in Pakistan on Aug 18 offering awards for any information about their whereabouts. The information about the presence of Abu Faraj and his close connections with bin Laden is believed to have been culled from the interrogation of Muhammed Naeem Noor Khan, an Al-Qaeda computer operator who was arrested last week. The Libyan national is thought to have trained Pakistani militants as suicide bombers at an Al-Qaeda camp in the lawless tribal area of South Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan.

In its massive sweep since July, Pakistan has caught about 30 foreign and local militants, revealing growing evidence of links between Al-Qaeda and local militant groups.

It is reported that the suspected masterminds of a plot to attack US financial institutions attended a secret meeting last March in the remote and lawless mountains of Pakistan. The mountain-top conclave of senior Al-Qaeda allegedly included Abu Musa al-Hindi, arrested in north-west London earlier this month, and Adnan el-Shukrijumah, who is described by counter-terrorism officials as the next Muhammad Atta - the lead hijacker in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Also at the summit was Muhammed Junaid Babar, a Pakistani American who apparently arrived with waterproof socks and other supplies for his comrades. Pakistan President Musharraf told TIME magazine that “the personalities involved in the operations confirm the fact that a major explosives expert came here [Pakistan] and went back, all this was extremely significant.” Musharraf said the meeting allowed US and Pakistani counter-terrorism officials their first glimpse of an emerging generation of Al-Qaeda leaders. It also gave them strong indications that the Al-Qaeda was planning to strike again and deepen anticipation of attacks on US soil before November’s elections, he said.

Authorities in Pakistan believe the Waziristan gathering could have played a similar function to the gathering in Kuala Lumpur in 2000 which served as a crucial planning session for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. “This was a meeting of a bunch of cold-blooded killers who are very skilled at what they do and have an intense desire to inflict an awful lot of pain and suffering on America”, an official familiar with the summit told TIME.

In Britain too, based on the information from the interrogation of Noor Khan, as many as eight terrorist suspects have been arrested and charged with conspiring to commit murders and launch radioactive dirty bombs. Four others were freed after questioning. A key figure among the eight charged men, all of Asian origin, is a Hindu-turned-Muslim extremist. The 32-year-old Diren Barot, and born in India, changed his name to Abu Musa al-Hindi. He is one of the principal terror suspects charged with plotting to attack US financial institutions. US officials believe al-Hindi was centrally involved in an effort to case possible targets in the US for Al-Qaeda attacks which led to the decision by officials two weeks ago to raise the alert level at financial institutions in the US. He is accused by the British police of gathering surveillance plans of financial institutions in New York and Washington, with a view to attacking them. He was reportedly sent to the US several times in 2000 and 2001 by 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. The institutions were identified from the computer discs of the captured Al-Qaeda man in Pakistan, Naeem Noor Khan. They included the Prudential building, the New York Stock Exchange, the Citigroup headquarters and the World Bank and IMF buildings in New York, New Jersey and Washington. Al-Hindi took part in terrorist campaigns against Indian forces in Kashmir and is said to have been the main casing agent for Al-Qaeda.

Besides al-Hindi, the others booked by the British Police on terror charges are: Mohammed Naveed Bhatti, Abdul Aziz Jalil, Omar Abdul Rehman, Junade Feroze, Ziaul Haq, Qaisar Shaffi and Nadeem Tarmohammed, all between the age of 24 and 31. Their arrests were the result of close cooperation between the CIA, Pakistani intelligence service and the British intelligence services, MI5 and MI6. The US authorities may seek extradition of some of those charged.

The Islamic leaders in Britain are warning the nearly two million Muslims in the country to be prepared for a backlash of revenge attacks if terrorists strike on UK soil. The warning is contained in a booklet to be distributed nationwide by the Muslim Council of Britain. The booklet advises all Muslims to resist retaliating to any attacks on their faith. At an emergency “Mashwarah” [consultations] meeting in London recently, 13 Imams concluded that some sections of the Muslim community in the UK had become more sympathetic to terrorism because of the continuing war on Iraq.

The US is all praise for the recent Pakistani crackdown on the Al-Qaeda and the overall role in fighting terrorism. Addressing a function in Lahore on Aug 20, the US Ambassador to Pakistan, Ms Nancy Powell, who in the past has been openly critical of Pakistan’s role to fight terrorism, said that “significant information” gathered from the recent capture of several Al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan has hampered the terror outfit’s operations. She said with regard to the US war on terrorism, Pakistan had, since September 2001, become one of the US’s “most important partners.”

In Washington, the Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Ms Christina Rocca, has said the US’s relations with Islamabad are for the long haul and recognized the fears of many in Pakistan that once the immediate crisis had blown over, America would lose interest in them as had happened in the past. In this context, she called for the passage of President Bush’s five-year $3 billion assistance package to Pakistan which is given in rough annual instalments of $600 million, evenly divided between economic and military aid. Ms Rocca was speaking at a debate on “Democracy in the Age of Terrorism : What is the State Department’s Strategy?” organized by the House International Relations Committee on August 20. She said, “Our implementation of this commitment will be the most effective evidence that we will be a reliable partner in Pakistan’s struggle to defeat terrorism that threatens both it and us”.

President Musharraf is, however, cynically being referred to within Pakistan’s senior political circles as “Busharraf” who say all that he is recently doing in the name of a campaign against the Al-Qaeda is to ensure that President Bush wins the November election. This effort of Musharraf is increasingly projecting him as a US lackey, according to analysts in Washington. US analysts say at a time when cooperation between Islamabad and Washington against Al-Qaeda is at its peak, Musharraf’s popularity is rapidly on the wane. This, they say, has prompted the Bush Administration to allow Pakistani officials to voice some criticism of the US to bail out the General. They point to Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan’s recent criticism of the US sting operation which used the country’s UN envoy, Munir Khan, to arrest two mosque leaders in New York. Other US analysts say, Pakistan’s domestic situation like the Government’s dependence on the largest alliance of religious parties, MMA, in the National Assembly and the provincial assemblies in Baluchistan and NWFP, the impending reshuffling of the military brass and the approaching deadline for Musharraf to step down as Chief of the Army Staff prevents Musharraf from taking any fresh initiatives of such magnitude.



Washington’s geography compulsions to befriend Pakistan

The 9/11 attacks changed the US perception of Pakistan President Musharraf from a pariah and an usurper of power through military force to that of “best hope”. The latest arrests have won him “thank you Musharraf” accolade. Despite the 9/11 Commission report’s appraisal of the Pakistani State’s deep involvement with the Taliban and some connections with the Al-Qaeda, the commission again turned to Gen Musharraf as “the best hope” for the United States. The latest arrests have prompted the Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz to remark that in the past the US made a big mistake to abandon Pakistan in 1992.

Commenting on this love-hate relationship between Pakistan and the US, Sumit Ganguly, a scholar at the Indiana University in Bloomington, says since the US-Pak defence agreement of 1954, a range of regimes, both Democratic and Republican, have suggested that a number of military regimes offered the “best hope” for pursuing the resolution of regional as well as global problems. During a significant part of the Cold War, a number of American Presidents embraced the self-styled Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s regime as a bastion against communist expansion.

No wonder, between Pakistani duplicity and Indian hostility, American policy towards the region was often quite skewed in favour of Pakistan. The Cold War’s end did for a while, devalue Pakistan in the calculus of American foreign policy interests. That, however, came to an end with the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001. Even in an age of intercontinental bombers, missiles and precision guided munitions, geography still matters. Accordingly, Pakistan’s physical proximity to Afghanistan [not to mention its close links with the Al-Qaeda] once again contributed to its revaluation. India’s ardent efforts to court the US yielded little. Gen. Musharraf’s dodgy regime, almost on the verge of economic collapse, was rapidly rescued through a range of multilateral loans and infusions of new capital.

Since that time, the Musharraf regime has managed to not only avoid censure on a plethora of issues, but has also succeeded in obtaining the coveted status of a “major non-NATO ally.” Its complicity in supporting the Taliban even after Sept. 11, 2001, largely overlooked, its continuing involvement in Kashmir drawing only mild disapprobation and its deep involvement in proliferating nuclear weapons technology mostly forgiven. Its strategic location, its possession of nuclear weapon and its feeble and fitful cooperation in American attempts to eviscerate the remnants of the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are the principal reasons for its ability to remain in Washington’s good books.

The 9/11 Commission’s flawed recommendations should sound a tocsin in New Delhi. Indian foreign policy decision-makers can hardly afford to be complacent especially because the independent commission has not simply endorsed but provided an intellectual rationale and a further policy justification for the Bush Administration’s existing policy towards Pakistan. Observers say even if a Kerry administration emerges in November, three factors may still see a continuation of current policies. First, the Kerry administration will be loath to ignore the strong recommendations of the 9/11 commission. Secondly, it will be extremely difficult for the new administration to abruptly reverse course in Pakistan and end American military involvement before seriously denting the Al-Qaeda. Finally, Pakistan, quite expectedly, will step up its diplomatic efforts through its extensive array of well-tended contacts in Washington.

India, observers say, can ill-afford to turn its back on America in a moment of pique over US-Pak relations. Far too much is at stake. Significant economic ties have been forged and are expanding, military-to-military cooperation is expanding and overall diplomatic relations are markedly improved. Observers say despite a profoundly questionable American effort to prop up an unpopular and disingenuous regime in Pakistan, India should doggedly focus on the pursuit of its own interests. Regardless of which party is victorious in Washington, Indian diplomacy has much to accomplish.