view: Pakistan’s terrorist confrontation —Brain Cloughley

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view: Pakistan’s terrorist confrontation —Brain Cloughley

Pakistan is not to be blamed for the fact that brutal fanatics sought refuge in its western mountains, and it is absurd to hold Islamabad, and especially Pakistan’s army, responsible for the reaction of the tribes in supporting them

Can we possibly believe that the Chief of the Army Staff, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, is a traitor to his country? It’s a silly question, but that is what is implied by the commentators who announce that Pakistan “isn’t doing enough” to counter terrorism and that the Army and the Directorate of Inter Services Intelligence, headed by the able General Pasha, are actually supporting the Taliban and other loony extremists who seek the breakdown of Pakistan.

There was one particularly flatulent piece of windbaggery in Canada’s normally sane Globe and Mail newspaper on October 27. Insultingly titled “Pakistan’s so-called war on terrorism”, it had no by-line, so perhaps was written by a machine, but nonetheless was intriguing in its statement that “[Pakistan’s] leaders have claimed to be doing all they can to break up terrorist groups even as the military has provided them with safe haven and, in some cases, active support.”

It is claimed, without a shred of evidence, that the Pakistan army is giving “active support” to violent fanatics who are trying to kill the army’s own soldiers. In some weird way it is supposed that units on operation in the North West Frontier Province, who take casualties almost daily and have suffered over a thousand killed in the past five years, are being attacked by terrorists and criminals from “safe havens” arranged by their own comrades.

I state flatly: it is inconceivable that General Kayani would sanction any such behaviour on part of his officers and men — just as it is impossible that commanders in the field would for a moment permit their colleagues to assist in helping those who intend to kill fellow soldiers.

In the same piece, it was also claimed that “At the Red Mosque, a hard-core Islamist compound in the heart of Islamabad, and more recently in the Bajaur tribal district, the government chose to act only under considerable international pressure and after allowing militants to put down deep roots.”

What nonsense. There was no outside pressure to deal with the Lal Masjid loonies (which was done most effectively in an operation by the army’s Special Services Group that has not yet received the public tribute that is its due), and while some commentators have fulminated about Bajaur, it was entirely the initiative of the Islamabad government to order the army into the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in 2002-3.

Pakistan is up against more than just terrorists. It faces repeated propaganda attacks from those whose pronouncements vary from being mildly stupid to openly damaging. In the latter vein, the declaration last week by the head of the CIA, a retired air force general, Michael Hayden, that “Let me be very clear. Today, virtually every major terrorist threat that my agency is aware of has threads back to [Pakistan’s] tribal areas,” is mind-boggling in its fantasy.

“Major terrorist threats” to America that are listed by the US State Department include the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the Naxalite Maoists in India, Spain’s Basque Fatherland and Liberty movement (ETA), India’s Babbar Khalsa International, Japan’s Aum Shrinrikyo, the New People’s Army of the Philippines, and Israel’s Kahane Chai.

All of these are regarded, justifiably, as dangerous terrorist groups, for which designation the main criterion is that “the organisation’s terrorist activity or terrorism must threaten the security of US nationals or the national security...of the United States.” Every one of them is, in the words of the director of the CIA, a “major terrorist threat that my agency is aware of.” Therefore, by his definition, they all have “threads back to the tribal areas” of Pakistan. How fascinating.

So the wild men of the Tamil Tigers are giving high fives to the Naxalite nutters in FATA while the dedicated communists of the New People’s Army are sitting round camp fires with turbaned Taliban, chatting about old times. All, of course, nurtured by the omnipresent ISI, which no doubt is responsible, among other things, for global warming, Lehman Brothers’ collapse into bankruptcy, the death of Princess Diana, and Australia’s recent cricket defeat by India.

It is regrettable that the head of the CIA can be so ill-advised as to make such statements as he did last week. His comments help neither his government’s cause nor his personal credibility. I made inquiries about the speech and was told his intention was to be “supportive” of Pakistan. All that can be said is that if this was an example of being supportive, then it would be interesting to hear him being critical.

US policy as regards Pakistan is dismally disjointed to the point of being erratic and almost entirely counter-productive. The head of the CIA was joined in his ingenuous worldview by the new commander Central Command, the much-lauded General Petraeus, who observed that Pakistan was confronting “extremists who have turned what used to be fairly peaceful areas into strongholds for individuals who...believe that they have the right to blow up other people who do not see the world the way they do.”

Hayden and Petraeus ignore the fact that it was the US invasion of Afghanistan that caused the current chaos in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The situation was not ideal before the invasion, but it certainly wasn’t the mess it is now.

Pakistan is not to be blamed for the fact that brutal fanatics sought refuge in its western mountains, and it is absurd to hold Islamabad, and especially Pakistan’s army, responsible for the reaction of the tribes in supporting them.

And the really ironical thing, given the dozens of US missile strikes in the NWFP, is that Hayden and Petraeus themselves “believe they have the right to blow up other people who do not see the world the way they do.” It is that very attitude that contributes to Pakistan’s problems in confronting terrorism.

Brian Cloughley’s book about the Pakistan army, War, Coups and Terror, has just been published by Pen & Sword Books (UK) and is distributed in Pakistan by Saeed Book Bank