Pakistan: singed by its own terror tactics
The Pakistani military and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the state within a state as it has been called, must have realized after the suicide attack on an army camp how dangerous it is to play with fire. Yet, for decades, starting from the time of another dictator, Zia ul-Huq, Pakistan has been encouraging the fundamentalists to marginalize the mainstream political parties and to needle India with jehadi attacks.
The Afghan war gave an added impetus to these retrogressive forces by lending a spurious legitimacy to the battle against the Soviets, the atheistic infidels. Unwisely, the US went along with the Islamic radicals and was an ally of Osama bin Laden at the time.
After the Pakistani "conquest" of Afghanistan via the Taliban following the eviction of the Soviets, Islamabad turned its full attention to organising terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere in India, secure in the knowledge that Afghanistan gave it "strategic depth" in the event of a war with India.
As is known, these endeavours to bleed India with a thousands cuts went swimmingly till 9/11. After that, a reluctant Pakistan pretended to join the US war against terror on being threatened by Washington that, otherwise, it would be bombed into the stone age.
But while Pakistan's mind told it that it would be prudent to distance itself from terrorism, its heart wouldn't listen.
Since the country remained a "nursery" of terrorism, in the words of India's External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee - a charge which would be endorsed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai - it was inevitable the US would have no option but to carry out bombing raids itself on the hideouts and training camps or ask Pakistan to do so.
The attack on a madrassa (religious school) in Bajaur near the Afghanistan border might have been carried out by the Pakistani Air Force, but the militants believe that it was the Americans. In any event, they suspect America's hand behind the incident in which more than 80 people, mainly children, were killed.
The retaliatory attack by a suicide bomber on a Pakistan Army camp in Dargai, in which nearly 50 soldiers were killed, was an event waiting to happen. In the "eye for an eye" and "tooth for a tooth" world inhabited by the fundamentalists, the attack on the madrassa could not go unpunished.
Nor could it have been too difficult for the terrorists to carry out the attack because the Taliban has perceptively grown stronger in recent months, as Hamid Karzai would vouchsafe. And their success in bouncing back cannot be unrelated to the truce Islamabad concluded with the tribal leaders of Waziristan, which is Taliban country.
Arguably, the Dargai episode is the first serious terrorist attack on a Pakistani target. True, there have been several attempts on the life of President Pervez Musharraf. But he escaped unhurt, a fortunate reprieve which may have convinced him that the terrorists did not pose as much of a danger to Pakistan as they did to the rest of the world. After all, they could not afford to burn down their own "nursery", especially when US and NATO presence has made them lose their earlier sanctuary in Afghanistan.
However, the Waziristan truce must have convinced them that Islamabad can be made to yield ground because of two reasons. First, it cannot court the risk of antagonizing the religious parties, which are a force to reckon with in the northwest of the country. Secondly, Pakistan hasn't yet abandoned the use of its terrorist option against India lest the world should forget about the Kashmir "problem" if genuine peace and friendship prevail between the two countries.
The fidayeen attack in Dargai is therefore a reminder to Pakistan that it has to go much further than merely reach an agreement in Waziristan, about which the US is known to be uneasy. It has also to refrain from carrying out the kind of attack in Bajaur, where an American Predator drone is said to have detected the presence of Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda's No. 2 man.
The delicately balanced double game which Pakistan has been playing, therefore, by doing little to control the anti-Indian jehadis while assuring the US that it is with it in the war against terror, is obviously running into troubled waters.
Not surprisingly, voices of reason have begun to be heard inside Pakistan as well.
Writing in Dawn, well known commentator Ayaz Amir has said that "encouraging or assisting the Taliban is not in our interest ... We should curb the cross-border movement of militant elements ... If there are training camps of any sort on our soil, we should do what we can to uproot them".
But if this wise advice falls on deaf ears in the Pakistani military and ISI, the reason is not only the adherence to fundamentalism which Zia ul-Haq encouraged among officials in these organisations but also the belief that in a nuclear age where a war is out of the question terrorism is Pakistan's only weapon against India.
If the Dargai incident sends the message about the double-edged consequences such dangerous tactics, it will have served a purpose.
h..ttp://www.teluguportal.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=21030
The Pakistani military and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the state within a state as it has been called, must have realized after the suicide attack on an army camp how dangerous it is to play with fire. Yet, for decades, starting from the time of another dictator, Zia ul-Huq, Pakistan has been encouraging the fundamentalists to marginalize the mainstream political parties and to needle India with jehadi attacks.
The Afghan war gave an added impetus to these retrogressive forces by lending a spurious legitimacy to the battle against the Soviets, the atheistic infidels. Unwisely, the US went along with the Islamic radicals and was an ally of Osama bin Laden at the time.
After the Pakistani "conquest" of Afghanistan via the Taliban following the eviction of the Soviets, Islamabad turned its full attention to organising terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere in India, secure in the knowledge that Afghanistan gave it "strategic depth" in the event of a war with India.
As is known, these endeavours to bleed India with a thousands cuts went swimmingly till 9/11. After that, a reluctant Pakistan pretended to join the US war against terror on being threatened by Washington that, otherwise, it would be bombed into the stone age.
But while Pakistan's mind told it that it would be prudent to distance itself from terrorism, its heart wouldn't listen.
Since the country remained a "nursery" of terrorism, in the words of India's External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee - a charge which would be endorsed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai - it was inevitable the US would have no option but to carry out bombing raids itself on the hideouts and training camps or ask Pakistan to do so.
The attack on a madrassa (religious school) in Bajaur near the Afghanistan border might have been carried out by the Pakistani Air Force, but the militants believe that it was the Americans. In any event, they suspect America's hand behind the incident in which more than 80 people, mainly children, were killed.
The retaliatory attack by a suicide bomber on a Pakistan Army camp in Dargai, in which nearly 50 soldiers were killed, was an event waiting to happen. In the "eye for an eye" and "tooth for a tooth" world inhabited by the fundamentalists, the attack on the madrassa could not go unpunished.
Nor could it have been too difficult for the terrorists to carry out the attack because the Taliban has perceptively grown stronger in recent months, as Hamid Karzai would vouchsafe. And their success in bouncing back cannot be unrelated to the truce Islamabad concluded with the tribal leaders of Waziristan, which is Taliban country.
Arguably, the Dargai episode is the first serious terrorist attack on a Pakistani target. True, there have been several attempts on the life of President Pervez Musharraf. But he escaped unhurt, a fortunate reprieve which may have convinced him that the terrorists did not pose as much of a danger to Pakistan as they did to the rest of the world. After all, they could not afford to burn down their own "nursery", especially when US and NATO presence has made them lose their earlier sanctuary in Afghanistan.
However, the Waziristan truce must have convinced them that Islamabad can be made to yield ground because of two reasons. First, it cannot court the risk of antagonizing the religious parties, which are a force to reckon with in the northwest of the country. Secondly, Pakistan hasn't yet abandoned the use of its terrorist option against India lest the world should forget about the Kashmir "problem" if genuine peace and friendship prevail between the two countries.
The fidayeen attack in Dargai is therefore a reminder to Pakistan that it has to go much further than merely reach an agreement in Waziristan, about which the US is known to be uneasy. It has also to refrain from carrying out the kind of attack in Bajaur, where an American Predator drone is said to have detected the presence of Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda's No. 2 man.
The delicately balanced double game which Pakistan has been playing, therefore, by doing little to control the anti-Indian jehadis while assuring the US that it is with it in the war against terror, is obviously running into troubled waters.
Not surprisingly, voices of reason have begun to be heard inside Pakistan as well.
Writing in Dawn, well known commentator Ayaz Amir has said that "encouraging or assisting the Taliban is not in our interest ... We should curb the cross-border movement of militant elements ... If there are training camps of any sort on our soil, we should do what we can to uproot them".
But if this wise advice falls on deaf ears in the Pakistani military and ISI, the reason is not only the adherence to fundamentalism which Zia ul-Haq encouraged among officials in these organisations but also the belief that in a nuclear age where a war is out of the question terrorism is Pakistan's only weapon against India.
If the Dargai incident sends the message about the double-edged consequences such dangerous tactics, it will have served a purpose.
h..ttp://www.teluguportal.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=21030
