OMENS FROM ISLAMABAD, KANDAHAR & PANJSHIR
by B.Raman
(To be read in continuation of the earlier article
titled "The Omens From Muzaffarabad" at www.saag.org/papers3/paper286.html
)
One finds it difficult to avoid an apprehension that
Gen.Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's self-reinstated Chief of the Army Staff (COAS),
self-styled Chief Executive and self-promoted President, has been playing
a double game with regard to the activities of Pakistan's clandestine Army
of Islam, consisting of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, the
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the Jaish-e-Mohammad
(JEM) and the Al Badr, of which Lt.Gen.Mohammad Aziz, Corps Commander at
Lahore, is the Chief of Staff, as well as of the Taliban.
He has been giving an impression to the US and the rest
of the world as if he is trying hard to control the activities of
sectarian and jehadi organisations from Pakistani territory and claiming
that his efforts are being rendered ineffective by continuing Indian
atrocities against the Kashmiri Muslims in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K).
He uses this as an argument to convince the world that unless it
pressurises India to reach a negotiated settlement of this issue with
Pakistan and the Kashmiris (meaning the Hurriyat), his efforts to control
Islamic extremism would fail.
At the same time, he has been, through Maj.Gen. (retd)
Mohammad Anwar Khan, the recently "elected" President of
Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), motivating, instigating, training and
equipping the Army of Islam to further intensify its activities on the eve
of his forthcoming summit with the Indian Prime Minister, Mr.A.B.Vajpayee,
at New York in the hope of thereby again making it clear to the Indian PM
that India has no other alternative but to accommodate his demands.
The increase in the incidents involving landmines
directed at the Security Forces as well as the civilians in J&K is
part of this new escalation being carried out by Maj.Gen. Anwar Khan.
The
elements of the Army of Islam based in Pakistan as well as the leaders of
the so-called United Jehad Council (UJC) based in the POK have been
projecting the sudden spurt in landmine explosions as the final phase of
their "struggle" against the Government of India and calling for
attacks on sensitive establishments in the rest of India too in order to
weaken the Indian will to counter them. They have been talking of a
"new Kargil" and of their plans to establish and proclaim
"liberated zones" in Kashmiri territory, from which, they say,
they would conduct their future operations against the Indian Security
Forces.
The sudden emergence in the Kashmir Valley of a hitherto
unknown organisation called the Jaish-e-Jabbar, which has been trying to
intimidate women and force on them Taliban-like policies is a calculated
attempt by Maj.Gen.Anwar Khan to create fears in the minds of the Western
world and China of a possible Talibanisation of Kashmir if they do not
make India reach a solution with Pakistan.
Similarly, Musharraf has been giving an impression to
Washington as if he is trying hard to moderate the Taliban and persuade it
to collaborate with the US in the deportation and trial of bin Laden and
to release the American, German and Australian volunteers of the Shelter
Now International organisation, who are currently being tried in Kabul on
charges of indulging in Christian missionary work under the cover of
humanitarian relief.
He has been under tremendous pressure from Washington on
the Taliban issue. The US is more concerned over the threats to its
nationals emanating from the Taliban, bin Laden and his International
Islamic Front For Jehad against the US and Israel than over the escalation
in terrorism in J & K. Moderating, if not countering, the Taliban was
one of the main themes of the discussions during the feverish comings and
goings between Islamabad and Washington since June--the visits Mr.Abdul
Sattar, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, to the US in June, of
Mrs.Christina Rocca, the US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia,
to Pakistan July-end/beginning August, of a three-member team of the US
Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committees led by Mr.Bob Graham,
Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, to Pakistan in
August, of Mr.Inamul Haq, the Pakistani Foreign Secretary, to Washington
in August, of Gen.Charles F.Wald, chief of the US Air Force in the US
Central Command, to Pakistan in August and the current visit of
Lt.Gen.Mahmood Ahmed, the Director-General of the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI), to Washington. This subject was also expected to
figure prominently during the visit of Gen. Tommy Frank, CO, US Central
Command, to Pakistan.
During these meetings, Pakistan has been, as in the
past, claiming that it has very little influence over the Taliban and, at
the same time, promising that, despite this, it would try its best to
moderate the Taliban. One of the main purposes of the ISI chief's visit to
the US is also to plead with the US to delay the stationing of UN monitors
in Pakistani territory, which is strongly opposed by the religious
organisations.
Musharraf has also been attributing the unabated
activities of Islamic extremists from the Pakistan-Afghanistan region to
India's alleged atrocities in J&K, which, according to him, is acting
as fuel and oxygen to the religious extremist fire.
While thus projecting to the US the image of a
reasonable, co-operative man, who is as concerned as the US over the
activities of the Taliban, he and Lt.Gen. Aziz have covertly been egging
on the Taliban and bin Laden's forces to escalate their attacks on the
Northern Alliance and complete quickly their conquest of the areas now
under the control of the Alliance before the US pressure becomes
unresistable and Washington resorts to a more active response against the
Taliban.
The Taliban, at the urging of Musharraf, has stepped up
its offensive against the Northern Alliance, and the explosion triggered
off on September 9 by two Arab (Algerian?) suicide bombers of bin Laden,
who were interviewing Ahmed Shah Masood, the Commander of the Northern
Alliance, under the cover of TV journalists, should be disturbing to
India, the US, Russia and the Central Asian Republics (CARs). The
explosive device was concealed inside the TV camera.
The fate of Masood is not yet known. Spokesmen of the
Northern Alliance have refuted speculation in Pakistan that he is dead and
claim that he is undergoing treatment for injuries sustained in the
explosion. At the same time, one of the spokesmen of the Alliance has
said: "Masood is alive, but an explosion is an explosion",
thereby hinting that the injuries might be serious.
If the Taliban and the ISI manage to get rid of Masood,
it is doubtful whether the Northern Alliance, without his leadership,
would be able to resist the Taliban's attacks for long. The completion of
the Taliban's conquest of the remaining 10 per cent of Afghanistan, which
has till now been resisting it under the legendary leadership of Masood,
would enable the Taliban to divert its forces now engaged against the
Alliance to J&K and the CARs, thereby leading to a further escalation
of violence against India and particularly Uzbekistan.
The reports from the court in Kabul where the Western
volunteers are being tried and from Kandahar, where Mullah Mohammad Omer,
the Amir of the Taliban, and bin Laden are based bode ill for the Western
volunteers in the Taliban custody. Earlier reports had indicated that
Lt.Gen.Aziz had been advising the Taliban that even if it expelled the
Australian and Gernman volunteers from its territory after the trial and
conviction, it should hold on to the two American women and detain them in
Kandahar as an insurance against any US retaliatory strike against bin
Laden and the Amir.
Latest reports speak of his advising the Taliban that it
should use all the arrested Western volunteers to demand the release and
safe transport to Afghanistan by the US of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the
blind Egyptian Mulla, and Ramzi Yousef, of Pakistan, who are now
undergoing imprisonment in the US, after having been convicted for their
involvement in New York's World Trade Centre bombing in February, 1993.
Earlier reports on the post-Agra role of Lt.Gen.Aziz in
the escalation of terrorism in J & K and in the anti-US instigation of
the Taliban had indicated that he had been acting independently without
Musharraf being able to control him. Some well-informed observers in
Islamabad now believe that the two might actually be acting in tandem
according to a pre-arranged plan, with Musharraf projecting a reasonable
face of Pakistan to the rest of the world and of himself as a sincere man
who has been trying hard to control the extremists and Aziz, with Aziz
himself clandestinely continuing to assist and advise the Army of Islam
and the Taliban with the knowledge and concurrence of Musharraf. They
believe it is a carefully worked-out "good guy, bad guy" game
being played by the two to achieve Pakistan's strategic objectives in J
& K and Afghanistan.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet
Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For
Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: corde@vsnl.com
)
