حزب مردم بلوچستان Balochistan People’s Party بلوچستانءِ اُستمانءِ گــَل
Pakistan's
secret war in Baluchistan
President Musharraf is resorting to mass arrests, torture and assassinations to crush the Baluch people
By Peter Tatchell ; 21-12-2007
Pakistan launched a renewed military offensive against the people of Baluchistan on December 6, with the aim of crushing the nationalist movement and suppressing protests against Islamabad's recent murder of the Baluch national leader, Mir Balach Marri.
The often indiscriminate attacks on civilian settlements are taking place mostly in the Kahan and Dera Bugti regions, and involve the deployment of heavy artillery, fighter aircraft and helicopter gunships.
Pakistan's attacks have reportedly, so far, resulted in deaths of at least 100 men, women and children. More than 200 houses and other buildings, including schools and clinics, have been bombed and burned to the ground. Many farm animals were also killed in the attacks, depriving already poor people of their livelihood.
Faced with this state terrorism by the dictatorship of President Pervez Musharraf, thousands of Baluch people have fled into the mountains to escape the military onslaught.
Baluchistan was granted independence by Britain in 1947. Less than a year later, in 1948, Pakistan invaded and annexed the country. Ever since, Islamabad has suppressed (pdf) the nationalist movement and ripped-off Baluchistan's gas, oil, coal, copper and gold resources; leaving most of the population impoverished and living under the tyranny of military occupation.
The current onslaught by Pakistani forces is just the latest of many violent assaults and human rights violations in Baluchistan by the Musharraf dictatorship, as documented by the Asian Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Pakistan has sealed off the regions where the military operations are taking place and is blocking phone lines. But according to a message smuggled to me by Baluch rights campaigner Anjuman Ithehad Marri, who said:
"The Pakistani army used helicopter gunships and carpet-bombed innocent Baluchs in the Kahan, Taratani and Kamalan Kech areas. Dozens of innocent Baluchs, most of them shepherds and farmers, were shot dead by Pakistan's terrorist army. In addition, hundreds of houses were burnt and livestock killed.
Pakistan's terrorist army arrested over 400 innocent Marri Baluch people in Kohistan Marri, including women and children, and took them to unknown places. No one knows about their whereabouts. Twenty-five of those arrested were tied to trees and shot dead.
We appeal to international peace-loving communities and organisations, including the Red Cross, United Nations and Amnesty International, to send a fact-finding team to Baluchistan to see Pakistan's barbarism with their own eyes."
Another report bought out of Baluchistan by human rights campaigners states:
"The Pakistan army is operating a shoot-to-kill policy. Around 500 innocent civilians, mostly women and children, were kidnapped by the Pakistan army and transferred to detention camps, where they are being treated inhumanely. Over 2,000 people from these areas have had to abandon their homes to take shelter in mountains and caves to save themselves from the firepower of the Pakistani military. Currently most of the affected areas remain encircled and closed off by the military.
Nobody from the outside world is allowed into the region to witness the atrocities. The operation is ongoing and continues unabated, bringing more suffering and further loss of innocent Baluch life. This new intense military operation is an attempt to silence and demoralise the rightful struggle of the Baluch people for their freedom. It comes in the aftermath of the killing of Baluch national hero, Mir Balach Marri, and the arrest of Mir Hyrbyair Marri (the exiled Baluch nationalist) in the UK."
On my Talking With Tatchell online TV programme, I recently interviewed Mehran Baluch, the Baluch representative to the UN human rights council, about Pakistan's neo-colonial occupation of Baluchistan. He has asked me to circulate this appeal to the international community about the latest military offensive:
"These brutal, indiscriminate military tactics violate the ethics of warfare; involving despicable and atrocious war crimes. The condemnation of these crimes against humanity is a duty of the civilised world ...
We request human rights organisations to visit the region and witness the slaughter for themselves. We also strongly urge the UN human rights council to send a fact-finding mission to Baluchistan to investigate these attacks.
Pakistan is determined to kill the Baluch people and has deployed its entire state machinery to crush and eliminate the Baluch nation. This is state terrorism and is in contravention of international human rights laws.
We hope the international community will not ignore the situation in Baluchistan in the way that it stood back and allowed the genocide in Rwanda.
Under the regime of Musharraf and his military chief, General Kiyani, the people of Baluchistan will always be abused as the enemy. The right to self-determination is the only solution for Baluchistan.
The escalated military offensive is no coincidence, but part of a pre-planned strategy to crush the Baluch people. It coincides with the killing of the legendary Baluch patriot, Balach Marri, in the Sarlat area of Naushki in a military operation on November 21 2007, and in the arrest of his younger brother Hyrbyair Marri and fellow Baluch patriot Faiz Baluch in London on December 4 2007."
Last weekend saw protests in London by Baluch refugees against the military assault on their country. They feel a sense of immense frustration, demoralisation and anger at Britain's failure to press the Pakistani regime to halt its abuses in Baluchistan.
The foreign secretary, David Miliband, appears to take the view that we need Pakistan as an ally in the so-called "war of terror" and therefore we should look the other way when confronted with evidence of Islamabad's human rights violations and neo-colonial despotism. This sleazy realpolitik, whereby Britain colludes with dictators, needs to change. It is doing great damage to the UK's international standing and betraying the just cause of the people of Baluchistan.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2007/12/pakistans_secret_war_in_baluch.html
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U.S. Officials See Waste in Billions Sent to Pakistan
By DAVID ROHDE, CARLOTTA GALL,
ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: December 24, 2007 ; http://www.nytimes.com
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — After the United States has spent more than $5 billion in a largely failed effort to bolster the Pakistani military effort against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, some American officials now acknowledge that there were too few controls over the money. The strategy to improve the Pakistani military, they said, needs to be completely revamped.
In interviews in Islamabad and Washington, Bush administration and military officials said they believed that much of the American money was not making its way to frontline Pakistani units. Money has been diverted to help finance weapons systems designed to counter India, not Al Qaeda or the Taliban, the officials said, adding that the United States has paid tens of millions of dollars in inflated Pakistani reimbursement claims for fuel, ammunition and other costs.
“I personally believe there is exaggeration and inflation,” said a senior American military official who has reviewed the program, referring to Pakistani requests for reimbursement. “Then, I point back to the United States and say we didn’t have to give them money this way.”
Pakistani officials say they are incensed at what they see as American ingratitude for Pakistani counterterrorism efforts that have left about 1,000 Pakistani soldiers and police officers dead. They deny that any overcharging has occurred.
The $5 billion was provided through a program known as Coalition Support Funds, which reimburses Pakistan for conducting military operations to fight terrorism. Under a separate program, Pakistan receives $300 million per year in traditional American military financing that pays for equipment and training.
Civilian opponents of President Pervez Musharraf say he used the reimbursements to prop up his government. One European diplomat in Islamabad said the United States should have been more cautious with its aid.
“I wonder if the Americans have not been taken for a ride,” said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Lawmakers in Washington voted Thursday to put restrictions on the $300 million in military financing, and withheld $50 million of that money until Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice certifies that Islamabad has been restoring democratic rights since Mr. Musharraf lifted a state of emergency on Dec. 16. The measure had little effect on the far larger Coalition Support Funds reimbursements.
While it was a modest first step, any new conditions in aid could have a major effect on relations between the United States and Pakistan. Pakistan’s military relies on Washington for roughly a quarter of its entire $4 billion budget.
In interviews, American and Pakistani officials acknowledged that they had never agreed on the strategic goals that should drive how the money was spent, or how the Pakistanis would prove that they were performing up to American expectations.
After Six Years, a Plan
Early last week, six years after President Bush first began pouring billions of dollars into Pakistan’s military after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Pentagon completed a review that produced a classified plan to help the Pakistani military build an effective counterinsurgency force.
The plan, which now goes to the United States Embassy in Islamabad to carry out, seeks to focus American military aid toward specific equipment and training for Pakistani forces operating in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas where Qaeda leaders and local militants hold sway.
For their part, Pakistani officials angrily accused the United States of refusing to sell Pakistan the advanced helicopters, reconnaissance aircraft, radios and night-vision equipment it needs.
“There have been many aspects of equipment that we’ve been keen on getting,” said Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, the Pakistani military’s chief spokesman. “There have been many delays which have hampered this war against extremists.”
United States military officials said the American military was so overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan that it had no advanced helicopters to give to Pakistan. American law also restricts the export of sophisticated drones, night-vision goggles and other equipment for security reasons.
There is at least one area of agreement. Both sides say the reimbursements have failed substantially to increase the ability of Pakistani forces to mount comprehensive counterinsurgency operations.
Today, with several billion more in aid scheduled for the coming years, American officials estimate it will take at least three to five years to train and equip large numbers of army and Frontier Corps units, a paramilitary force now battling militants.
“I don’t forecast any noticeable impact,” a Defense Department official said. “It’s pretty bleak.”
The program’s failures appear to be a sweeping setback for the administration as it approaches its final year in office. American intelligence officials say they believe that Mr. Bush is likely to leave office in January 2009 with the Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden still at large.
“We haven’t had a good lead on his exact whereabouts in two years,” another senior American military official lamented recently.
Al Qaeda More Active
This spring, American intelligence officials said the Qaeda leaders hiding in Pakistan’s tribal areas had reconstituted their command structure and become increasingly active. Backed by Al Qaeda, pro-Taliban militants have expanded their influence from the remote border regions into the more populated parts of Pakistan this year and mounted a record number of suicide bombings in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Coalition Support Funds program was intended to prevent that from happening. Under the program, Pakistani military officials submit bills and are paid for supplies, wear and tear on equipment and other costs, as well as for the American use of three Pakistani air bases, according to American officials.
The United States since 2001 has deposited more than $5 billion in reimbursements into the Pakistani government’s general budget account, the largest single portion of some $10 billion in aid to Islamabad in that time. Also included in that larger amount is $1.9 billion in security assistance, which Pakistan has used in part to buy new radios for troops, night-vision goggles and refurbished Cobra attack helicopters.
Pakistani officials say the Coalition Support Funds money goes into the national treasury to repay the government for money already spent on 100,000 troops deployed in the tribal areas. But American military officials say the funds do not reach the men who need it. That is especially the case for helicopter maintenance and poorly equipped Frontier Corps units.
During a recent visit to the border, an American official found members of the Frontier Corps “standing there in the snow in sandals,” according to the official. Several were wearing World War I-era pith helmets and carrying barely functional Kalashnikov rifles with just 10 rounds of ammunition apiece.
“It is not making its way, for certain, we know, to the broader part of the armed forces which is carrying out the brunt of their operations on the border,” the senior American military official said.
Members of Congress also express growing frustration with the Coalition Support Funds program.
“The situation in the tribal areas seems to be getting worse, not better, and that’s despite a billion dollars in aid,” said Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Armed Services Committee who visited Pakistan in fall 2006. “Just pouring the money in and asking them to do this is not producing the results that we need.”
Complaints Over Support
The most glaring example of the Coalition Support Funds program’s failure is helicopter maintenance, according to both Pakistani and American officials. In an interview with The New York Times last month, Mr. Musharraf complained specifically that a lack of American spare parts and assistance had handicapped the country’s 20 refurbished Vietnam-era Cobra attack helicopters provided by the United States.
“Ten days back, of 20 Cobra helicopters, we have only one that was serviceable,” he said. “We need more support.”
In interviews, American military officials scoffed at the statement. They said the United States had provided $8 million worth of Cobra parts in the past six months and would provide $4 million to $6 million in parts next year.
In addition, Washington reimbursed Pakistan $55 million for helicopter operation and maintenance costs for an eight-month period in 2007, American officials said. The United States later found out that the army received only $25 million from the Pakistani government for operations and maintenance of their entire national helicopter fleet for the whole of 2007.
American officials said they suspected that Pakistan had been overcharging for helicopter maintenance. Yet at the same time, maintenance of Pakistani helicopters is not being performed.
“Come March or April,” one official said, “I fully expect catastrophic failure of a large part of their helicopter fleet.”
For years, how money from the Coalition Support Funds was disbursed to the Pakistani government was veiled in secrecy. The size and scope of the payments to Pakistan was held so closely that one senior American military officer in Afghanistan said that he did not know that the administration was spending $1 billion a year until he attended a meeting in Islamabad in 2006.
“I was astounded,” said the officer, who would not speak for attribution because he now holds another senior military post. “On one side of the border we were paying a billion to get very little done. On the other side of the border — the Afghan side — we were scrambling to find the funds to train an army that actually wanted to get something done.”
But by mid-2007, the $1 billion-a-year figure became public, largely because of the objections of some military officials and defense experts who said that during an ill-fated peace treaty between the military and militants in the tribal areas in 2005 and 2006, the money kept flowing. Pakistan continued to submit receipts for reimbursement, even though Pakistani troops had stopped fighting.
Even then, however, American officials said there was little effort to rethink the purposes of the aid, or impose stricter controls.
Defense Department officials in the United States Embassy in Islamabad check the claims and ensure the receipts are well substantiated, officials said. The Pentagon’s comptroller and State Department then also certify the claims.
Dov Zakheim, who served as the Pentagon’s top financial officer until 2004 and helped set up the program in late 2001, said in a telephone interview that while he was at the department, the military carefully checked whether Pakistan carried out the operations it claimed and typically approved only 80 to 90 percent of each invoice.
But by July 2006, the Pentagon comptroller and Central Command were concerned enough about insufficient accountability to dispatch a team to Pakistan to lay out new requirements for more detailed invoices, a Pentagon spokesman said.
And by that fall, senior military officials at the embassy in Islamabad were telling visiting American lawmakers that the support fund program needed to be revamped to pay for specific objectives.
Inflated Invoices
Today, American officials say they believe that some of the invoices are inflated by as much as 30 percent.
“The claims that they submit are probably in some cases exaggerated and the amounts inflated,” said the senior American military official who had reviewed the program. “When it comes to reimbursement for the cost of food, bunker material, barbed wire fences, those are much more susceptible to inflation.”
Even the efforts to send Pakistan the refurbished Cobra helicopters, for instance, have cost more than expected and have fallen behind schedule. Pakistani forces have received only 12 of the 20 aircraft promised, and have been dissatisfied with the quality of them, a senior Pentagon official said.
One retired Pakistani military official said the American system of paying reimbursements did not allow for any forward planning. He expressed irritation that the Americans offered help, but not advanced American attack helicopters and drones, which are vital for counterinsurgency in the inaccessible tribal areas.
Praising Pakistan’s new army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who took command after Mr. Musharraf resigned as the head of the army last month, American military officials called for a complete restructuring of American military aid to Pakistan. They said that the United States should supply the same amount of overall military assistance to Pakistan, but also require that it be supplied under traditional military aid programs with tighter controls.
But they fear that members of Congress will react to the troubled reimbursement program by slashing military aid to Pakistan.
“It’s not all or nothing,” the senior American military official said. “You need to regulate and manage it for more benefit both to Pakistan and the United States.”
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INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
25-12-2007
Iran: Accidents happen, no doubt about it. But every so often we let them
happen, only to deeply regret it later. That's called foolishness. Such is
the case with western policy toward a nuclear Iran.
Iran has made two major announcements in the past two days. First, it says
it's just three months away from starting up its Bushehr nuclear facility,
thanks to Russia's timely Christmas gift of a supply of nuclear fuel.
Second, it says it wants to open up 19 more nuclear power plants, which
would require enormous amounts of refined uranium to run and give Iran a
plausible reason for enriching its own uranium.
Why not? Iran insists it wants nuclear power for peaceful purposes only.
Besides, the $1 billion Bushehr facility has been built under the auspices
of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). So what's the problem?
To begin with, the IAEA basically has ignored Iran's repeated breaking of
international law and flouting of U.N. agreements. Iran isn't supposed to be
enriching uranium, period.
Just last December, the U.N. passed Security Resolution 1737, which required
Tehran to freeze its enrichment efforts. Yet it continues to do so — with
the IAEA's apparent blessing.
Then there's the new U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which
created a huge stir when it concluded Iran halted its nuclear weapons
program in 2003.
If that's true, thank President Bush, because the weapons program ended
after Tehran watched the U.S. take just three weeks to remove Iraq's Saddam
Hussein — a tyrant Iran itself took eight years to fight to a bloody
stalemate at a cost of more than a million dead. Iran's leaders were, in a
word, scared.
Yet a recent Heritage Foundation report says it's "possible that new,
better-hidden programs were started up after the old ones were closed down .
. ." Not just possible, we think, but probable.
Western fecklessness has only emboldened Iran and enablers such as Russia.
Moscow began shipping nuclear fuel to Iran just this month, convinced Bush's
tough stance has been undercut by the NIE report. Iran thinks so, too.
Last month, Iran tested its new "Ashura" missile with an estimated range of
1,250 miles. That, according to American Enterprise Institute scholar
Charlie Szrom, could give Tehran the ability to "reach U.S. bases in the
Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe, including such U.S. allies as
Romania, Georgia, or Ukraine."
Even the most conservative intelligence estimates say Iran will be able to
build nuclear bombs by 2015. It already has 3,000 centrifuges whirring away
at its Natanz facility enriching nuclear fuel, with plans for thousands
more. The world ignores this at its peril.
Meanwhile, Europe expresses outrage, but little more — and continues to sign
lucrative business deals with Iran's mullahs.
What's Iran's plan? Listen to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader:
"In a dozen years," he's quoted by Adnkronos International, "Europe will be
an Islamic continent."
If you think the U.S. is isolated now, wait till that happy event occurs.
Add to that Iran's stated intent to rid the world of Israel, and its reason
for having nukes is clear. The Center for Strategic and International
Studies reckons an Israeli-Iran nuclear war would kill upwards of 800,000
Israelis and perhaps 20 million Iranians.
Meanwhile, Iran's rivals, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, say they won't stand by as
Iran develops nukes. They too will build some. More millions dead.
This isn't a game. Like World War I, it's one of the most preventable
disasters in history, one that endangers everyone in the West. Foreign
opinion be damned. We must do all we can to stop this nuclear disaster from
taking place — or regret it for all time.
http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=283391747598326
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Pak's Baloch war taking alarming proportions
25 Dec 2007, 2326 hrs IST,Sameer Arshad,TNN ; The Times Of India
Pakistan's undeclared war in Balochistan is
taking alarming proportions. The Punjabi settlers, long resented by the
local people are fleeing the province as the ethnic gulf widens in
Pakistan's biggest province.
Islamabad, locked in a bitter conflict with Baloch nationalists is now
finding it hard to restore order in the region on boil since the Pakistan
army started a military operation two years ago.
"The resentment against Punjabis is so strong that many of them have been
forced to vacate Baloch areas. They are either moving to Punjabi ghettos or
the Pashtun-dominated areas," says a Quetta-based programme officer for an
International humanitarian organisation.
The officer said the worry for Islamabad should be that Pashtuns, who are a
sizable minority in the province, are supporting Baloch nationalists in
their struggle.
"Though violence continues unabated in Balochistan, Islamabad seems to be
winning the information warfare by blocking information from the region," he
said.
Faiza Mir, international relations professor at the Balochistan University,
Quetta, said the resentment among Balochs stems from deprivation. "The
education, health, and other social indicators in the province are low
compared to other areas of the country," she said.
"Balochistan provides Pakistan the most precious source of energy, natural
gas. The revenues from Balochistan run into billions of dollars annually,
but Balochs are getting nothing in return," she said. She said the killing
of tribal chieftain Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti further infuriated Balochs and
made them more determined to fight for their rights.
In 1948, Pakistan annexed Balochistan against the will of the Balochs, which
resulted in three wars of independence, the first led by Karim Khan in 1948,
in 1968 led by Nawab Nowroz Khan, and then in 1973-1977 by a coalition of
Baloch tribes.
The disparities, too, are wide. Gas reserves in Balochisitan supply most of
Pakistan with its energy, but remain off limits to the local population.
Sui, for example, is the single largest source of natural gas in Pakistan
since 1950s. However, people in the area are yet to be provided natural gas.
Balochs also resent the construction of the deep-sea port in Gwadar, as they
fear the port would be used to rob their resources.
"Instead of redressing Balochi aspirations, Pakistan is imposing control
through force. Thousands of nationalists have been detained; many have
simply disappeared. With the nationalist under siege, many activists are
losing faith in the political process and now see armed resistance as the
only way to secure their rights," Brussels-based International Crisis Group
(ICG) said in its recent report.
It said that Islamabad was relying on divide-and-rule policies by supporting
Islamist parties in a bid to counter the secular forces in Baluchistan.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Pakistan/Paks_Baloch_war_taking_alarming_proportions/articleshow/2650804.cms
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U.S. Fears Greater Turmoil In Region
Pakistan's Crisis Could Affect War In Afghanistan
By Thomas E. Ricks and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers ; December 29, 2007
President Bush held an emergency meeting of his top foreign policy aides
yesterday to discuss the deepening crisis in Pakistan, as administration
officials and others explored whether Thursday's assassination of opposition
leader Benazir Bhutto marks the beginning of a new Islamic extremist
offensive that could spread beyond Pakistan and undermine the U.S. war
effort in neighboring Afghanistan.
U.S. officials fear that a renewed campaign by Islamic militants aimed at
the Pakistani government, and based along the border with Afghanistan, would
complicate U.S. policy in the region by effectively merging the six-year-old
war in Afghanistan with Pakistan's growing turbulence.
"The fates of Afghanistan and Pakistan are inextricably tied," said
J. Alexander Thier, a former United Nations official in Afghanistan who is
now at the U.S. Institute for Peace.
U.S. military officers and other defense experts do not anticipate an
immediate impact on U.S. operations in Afghanistan. But they are concerned
that continued instability eventually will spill over and intensify the
fighting in Afghanistan, which has spiked in recent months as the Taliban
has strengthened and expanded its operations.
Unrest in Pakistan and increasing fuel prices have already boosted the cost
of food in Afghanistan, making it more likely that hungry Afghans will be
lured by payments from the Taliban to participate in attacks, a U.S. Army
officer in Afghanistan said.
In a secure videoconference yesterday linking officials in Washington,
Islamabad and Crawford, Tex., Bush received briefings from CIA Director
Michael V. Hayden and U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson, said
National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe. Bush then discussed
Bhutto's assassination and U.S. efforts to stabilize Pakistan with his top
foreign policy advisers, including Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and national security
adviser Stephen J. Hadley, as well as Adm. William J. Fallon of Central
Command and Marine Gen. James E. Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff.
U.S. intelligence and Defense Department sources said there is increasing
evidence that the assassination of Bhutto, a former Pakistani prime
minister, was carried out by al-Qaeda or its allies inside Pakistan. The
intelligence officials said that in recent weeks their colleagues had passed
along warnings to the Pakistani government that al-Qaeda-related groups were
planning suicide attacks on Pakistani politicians.
The U.S. and Pakistani governments are focusing on Baitullah Mehsud, leader
of the Taliban Movement of Pakistan, as a possible suspect. A senior U.S.
official said that the Bush administration is paying attention to a list
provided by Pakistan's interior ministry indicating that Mehsud's targets
include former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, former interior minister Aftab
Khan Sherpao, and several other cabinet officials and moderate Islamist
leaders. "I wouldn't exactly call it a hit list, but we take it very
seriously," the official said. "All moderates [in Pakistan] are now under
threat from this terrorism."
Mehsud told the BBC earlier this month that the Pakistani government's
actions forced him to react with a "defensive jihad."
After signing a condolence book for Bhutto at the Pakistani Embassy in
Washington, Rice said the United States is in contact with "all" of the
parties in Pakistan and stressed that the Jan. 8 elections should not be
postponed. "Obviously, it's just very important that the democratic process
go forward," she told reporters.
The U.S. Embassy in Pakistan warned U.S. citizens Thursday to keep a low
profile and avoid public gatherings. A Pentagon official said plans to
evacuate Americans from the country are being reviewed.
"We've really got a new situation here in western Pakistan," said Army Col.
Thomas F. Lynch III, who has served in Afghanistan and with Central Command,
the U.S. military headquarters for Pakistan and the Middle East. He said the
assassination marks a "critical new phase" in jihadist operations in
Pakistan and predicted that the coming months would bring concentrated
attacks on other prominent Pakistanis.
"The Taliban . . . are indeed a growing element of the domestic political stew" in Pakistan, said John Blackton, who served as a U.S. official in Afghanistan in the 1970s and again 20 years later. He noted that Pakistani military intelligence created the Taliban in Afghanistan.
How the United States responds will hinge largely on the actions of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, in whom U.S. officials have mixed confidence. If there is indeed a new challenge by Islamic militants emerging in Pakistan, then the United States will have to do whatever it can to support Musharraf, the U.S. Army officer in Afghanistan said.
"Pakistan must take drastic action against the Taliban in its midst or we will face the prospect of a nuclear weapon falling into the hands of al-Qaeda -- a threat far more dangerous and real than Hussein's arsenal ever was," he said, referring to the deposed Saddam Hussein.
But Musharraf has a track record of promising much to Washington but doing little to counter the militants, others said. "My prediction is, Musharraf will go into a bunker mentality and be nicer to the Muslims," said John McCreary, who led the Defense Intelligence Agency's 2001 task force on Afghanistan. "He goes through the pretenses of crackdown but never follows through."
"Pakistan isn't really engaged in a fight against terror," added Blackton. "One of the mistakes amongst many U.S. policymakers is to project the American construct of a war on terror onto the Pakistani regime struggle for survival. There are some congruencies between the two, but even more differences."
The clever move for Musharraf would be to allay such doubts by capturing or killing a major Islamic extremist leader in the coming weeks, said Larry P. Goodson, an area expert who teaches strategy at the U.S. Army War College. But he said he doubts that would happen or that Musharraf would take many concrete actions, aside possibly from declaring a new state of emergency.
A countervailing pressure on Musharraf is that
if he does not respond effectively to an Islamic militant campaign against
his government, he also could face falling from power. At some point, said
Teresita C. Schaffer, a former State Department official specializing in
India and Pakistan, the Pakistani army "could conclude that he's a liability."
Staff writer Joby Warrick and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to
this report.
Source: Washington Post
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