If ever the twain should meet...

The attack across the LoC by the Pakistan Army on August 6 was soon after Pakistan Prime Minister called for better relations with India. This act and the continuing provocation is meant to convey to peace seekers in Pakistan that peace was possible only under certain conditions beyond the reach of a civilian Prime Minister. This heightened tension is only another episode in the troubled India-Pakistan relationship and not the last.

Despite this and other catastrophic incidents, which are symptomatic of Pakistan’s continuing stance on India, there are many in India who still hope that normal relations with Pakistan are possible under the new dispensation in Islamabad. It is better to make a realistic assessment about possibilities of normalcy and not get disappointed by our own rhetoric and false hopes.

There are three essential ground realities. The civil-military relations in Pakistan remain tilted overwhelmingly in favour of the military. Second, the manner in which Pakistan society is getting radicalised with the liberal elite marginalised or co-opted for their own survival. The discourse even among the liberals is that Pakistan is as much a victim of terror as India, conveniently overlooking that Pakistan is a victim of its own demons and India is a victim of Pakistani terrorism. Moreover, the present Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, a Punjabi, favours the religious right and this should put him more in natural harmony with those of the powerful Pakistan Army.

Benazir Bhutto’s swearing in was delayed until General Aslam Beg extracted a promise from her in 1988 that there would be no change in the Afghan, nuclear or defence (meaning India) policies and that Zia’s family would not be harassed. This time too, General Ashfaq Kayani met PM-designate Sharif before he was sworn in. Surely, all false notions about peace with India were cleared and the nature of civil-military relations reaffirmed.

The Kashmir issue has remained an obsession with the Generals especially post-1971, post-Siachen and post-Kargil. Bhutto, had confirmed that both General Aslam Beg and later Pervez Musharraf had boasted to her about the Army’s plan that would end with a victory in Srinagar. On both occasions, Bhutto had thrown these plans out as recipes for disaster. The persistent and near-suicidal adventurist Musharraf, now Sharif’s handpicked Army Chief, revived it in 1998-99.

Even as Atal Bihari Vajpayee was commemorating the Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore, Musharraf was supervising the Kargil Double Cross on his own government as much as on the enemy. Sharif denied any knowledge of the plan but Musharraf insisted that he had briefed him on January 29, 1999 (in the Northern Areas), and again on February 5 (Kel), and March 15 (ISI headquarters).

If this version is correct, then Sharif had been briefed twice before Prime Minister Vajpayee arrived in Lahore on February 19. It seems a broad Kashmir plan was discussed by Musharraf with the Prime Minister in early 1999, although details are scanty. General Ziauddin, Sharif’s loyal DG ISI later disclosed that emissaries were sent to Kabul (probably by Sharif) in early 1999 seeking reinforcements from the Afghan President Mullah Rabbani, who surprised his Pakistani visitors by offering 500,000 volunteers in response to a request for 20-30,000 for jihad in Kashmir.

Two of the major incidents that occurred in India — the Mumbai bomb blasts of March 1993 after which the perpetrators landed safely in Karachi and Kargil 1999 — happened during the watch of Sharif. It is unthinkable here in India that any intelligence chief or an army chief would launch such operations, which have immense political and military consequences without political clearance. There was some convenient double speak from Sharif claiming total innocence. It is an extremely frightening prospect that today we have a Prime Minister in Pakistan who says he was clueless that his Generals were pushing his country towards an Armageddon.

Sharif and his brother Shahbaz have been close to the Tableeghi Jamaat from where vulnerable young men are then recruited by jihadi groups. Javed Nasir, Sharif’s DG ISI, at the time of Mumbai bomb blasts in 1993 later joined the Tableegh. In 1990, Sharif was ready to introduce Shariah and in his second term toyed with the idea of declaring himself as Ameer-ul-Momineen (commander of the faithful) like the first four Caliphs.

Stories about Sharif having met Osama bin Laden several years ago refuse to go away. According to an ex-ISI agent, PML (N) received financial assistance from Osama for their election campaign at a time when the ISI was helping him too. Money was routed through Samiul Haq and Sharif had promised a hard-line Islamic government. This was the nature of the man then and one is not sure if Sharif has since changed his mind.

There has been a noticeable increase in the influence of sectarian organisations like the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat) and other similar organisations in Punjab in the last few years marked by increased killings of Shias and other minorities. The PML(N) had sought the help of the ASWJ and other similar groups allowing the party to campaign all over Pakistan for the May elections. Jamaat-ut-Dawa, the mother of LeT, has received financial assistance from Shahbaz’s government.

Sharif’s closeness with the Saudis who had given him shelter in his days of exile, his natural inclinations towards Islamic right, and his Punjabiyat should eventually bring him closer to the Pakistan Army. He may be able to convince the Generals that he has abandoned his earlier ambitions to rein them in. His equation with the Army and the jihadis will determine his conduct towards India.
Therefore, the questions that remain are whether or not Sharif is now a changed man and seriously intends to carry the peace process forward, or is this merely a ruse to buy time as Pakistan attempts to first strengthen its position in Afghanistan. Also whether or not he is naturally inclined towards discarding the jihadi option by shutting down the infrastructure permanently and has the ability to do. Reasonable talks can only be possible then and not before.

We take immense pride in our ancient civilisational history. It is equally important though, to remember and learn from our contemporary history, act with prudence instead of conjuring starry-eyed emotion, which makes us rush into unwanted situations.

Source : Asian Age , 31st August 2013

The unending turmoil in Egypt

The Egyptian crisis extends beyond Egypt and Egyptians in the complicated Middle East. It is not even merely about the deeply entrenched Egyptian military versus the Muslim Brotherhood. There are conflicted US economic and strategic interests in the region and an assertion of Saudi Arabian interests. Ever since the US dumped Hosni Mubarak in 2011, Saudi and Gulf monarchies have feared regime instability following the success of Muslim Brotherhood’s political Islam in overturning existing systems. There is sectarian conflict in Iraq and increasingly in Syria with the involvement of the Al Qaeda creed. The world generally overlooks the fate of the Kurds who live across four countries.

Resentment: A protester holds up a poster of Egypt’s ousted president Mohamed Morsi during a protest in front of Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Paris. Pic/AFP

 

The July coup by Gen Al-Sisi had received assurances in advance from the Saudis and UAE of assistance worth US $6 billion to offset any cut off by the Americans. This was tantamount to challenging decades’ old US pre-eminence in Egypt and also brought the 68-year old US Saudi security arrangement under some stress. The latest outburst by King Abdullah accusing the US (without naming) of “ignorance” about Egypt and “interference” in the Arab world is a new low in Saudi-US relations. The financial guarantee from Arab monarchies also deflated US pressure on Egypt that IMF conditions would have to be met for additional financial assistance.

There were suspicions of contacts between Morsi’s Brotherhood with the Iranian Ayatollahs and there have been fresh allegations about the Brotherhood’s plans to resort to terrorism. No wonder then that the global response to the bloodletting by the Egyptian military as it removed President Morsi has been mixed, barring condemnation in the Muslim world.

The US has to deal with its global interests conflicting with interests of the regional powers. Qatar, the home to the US Centcom’s Forward Base and to US efforts to strike a deal with the Taliban had initially supported Morsi pouring in billions of dollars in Egypt, Syria and Gaza. However, the kingdom abruptly changed policy in July, the day Saudi Arabia decided to support the military coup in Egypt. The Qataris were thus acknowledging that when it was a question of regime survival, the Saudis were the bosses.

The US is caught in its own dichotomies of having to talk to the Taliban without militarily defeating them, of fighting against Bashar Assad in Syria on the same side as Al Nusra, the Al Qaeda franchisee in Syria or inability to prevent the sectarian civil war in Iraq. It still does not have an answer to the rising power of Iran nor the ability to adequately assure its ally Israel.

Possibly the lines that Sykes and Picot had drawn in the Middle Eastern sand are being redrawn brutally. One would think that the US is running out of viable stable friends in the region at a time when the Chinese and the Russians remain interested in strengthening their positions in the region. Russian military supplies to Syria are matched by American supplies to Jordan.

As with many global American interests, they are quite often defined by financial considerations. The US $1.3 billion military assistance to Egypt has a strong US connection as several companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and others benefit from this assistance. Add to this the strategic importance of the Suez Canal to meet military and commercial requirements.

The Americans had supported Morsi and the Brotherhood last year hoping that they were the moderates who would help them stem the radical tide in the region. The US could not achieve this, nor could it support Morsi when he was deposed, nor condemn the coup and nor even support Al Sisi. In the end, America could only watch helplessly, paralysed by its own contradictions. The traditional US policy of picking pliant dictators and then plying them with dollars and weapons has been showing diminishing marginal returns. But some suggest an alternative possibility. This draws a deep Machiavellian plot where the US pretends to withdraw support in Egypt while the Saudis step in as the saviours, thereby portraying themselves as the new guarantors of peace and stability in the region.
Meanwhile, there are reports that Hosni Mubarak may be set free soon and the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood has been arrested. The banning of the Muslim Brotherhood would push them underground and into the arms of the Al Qaeda.

Is the Empire striking back or is this a case of overkill? The threat of retaliation by the Al Qaeda and its affiliates is going to keep all intelligence agencies working overtime.

Source : Mid Day , 22nd August 2013 .

No lunch in Lahore yet

Peace with Pakistan is desirable . But it's also a grievous error of judgement to misread smiles when behind them lie murderous intentions , writes Vikram Sood.

Peace between nations is a laudable objective and countries have fought wars in the name of peace. Pakistan started four wars against India, not counting the skirmish in the Rann of Kutch and the endless proxy wars that it has pursued since 1989. Despite such experiences, there are many in India who exult every time there is a change of guard in Islamabad, hoping for a peaceful future.

They argue that the new Nawaz Sharif regime in Islamabad is different from the previous one and that there are enough indications to show that a new deal can be worked out and the ‘breakfast in Amritsar and lunch in Lahore’ dream could become a reality.

They dream of a future when Pakistani goods would travel through India to Bangladesh and Indian goods would cross the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan unhindered, Mumbai and Karachi would be twin cities and Indian movies will be a rage in Pakistan. Is this a dream or a vision? It could have been a vision worth pursuing by both nations but it is a mirage because the reality of Pakistan is different.

We are so anxious about our good boy image that we are prepared to overlook the decades of depredations of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and its masters. We are prepared to jettison our demands that Pakistan gives India some sort of satisfaction on terrorism.

We should not be held hostage to the ranting of the likes of Hafiz Saeed is the argument. Pakistan’s extensive anti-India terror battalions should be ignored. This is precisely the argument that the Pakistani establishment expects India to adopt: rationalise a soft stance as magnanimous and visionary when it is nothing but appeasement. At other times, they will continue to seek equality.

We are being encouraged to forget the reality of Pakistan at our peril. Pakistan is home to the al-Qaeda and its second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri is in that country. At this juncture, it is prudent for both the US and Pakistan to not talk about the whereabouts of Zawahiri.

The new leadership in Islamabad today is sending emissaries to India to talk about how the new democratic Pakistan is forward looking and it is India which is stuck in a groove. This is glib talk akin to an insurgent opting for ceasefire not with peace in mind but only to buy time.

It would be difficult for even a realist to ignore that Pakistan’s leaders creamed a gullible — or a willing US — of $28 billion in the last decade as it pretended to fight their war on terror. If they could do this to a benefactor, think what they would do to a declared adversary. One has to listen to a former Pakistani foreign secretary spouting venom on their TV channels to understand that this frame of mind is far more pervasive than we are led to believe.

Reports about the Inter-Services Intelligence financing the Haqqani network to target the Indian ambassador in Kabul now and the embassy in the past reconfirm the extent of Pakistani attempts to frighten India out of Afghanistan.

The recent attack on the Indian consulate in Jalalabad took place after US secretary of state John Kerry’s visit to Pakistan. Surely, the Pakistanis would have repeated to Kerry their fears about Indian intentions in Afghanistan and how the Indian presence could upset the fine balance in that country after 2014.

The recent killing of five Indian soldiers in the Poonch sector is par for the course for the Pakistan army. It now seems that our anxiety to give alibis to the Pakistan government in exchange of a vague promises of talks is also par for the course for them.

Transgressions like the last two — Jalalabad and Poonch — need immediate and appropriate retribution and not convoluted statements from the Indian government. Further the argument that India and Pakistan should resume dialogue to give Pakistan the comfort it needs on Kashmir, Siachen, Sir Creek and the water issue is even more untenable today.

There is a message in the attack in Jalalabad for Sharif: the road to peace with India lies through Rawalpindi and the jihadi headquarters and not via Islamabad. The age-old civilian versus military equation in Pakistan is not going to tilt overnight in favour of the former. At present, the army is far more useful to the US than Pakistan’s civilian leadership.

The extended term of General Parvez Kayani is scheduled to end later in the year.

Ideally, the Americans would want to continue to deal with the man they know rather than a new chief of the army at a time when they are departing from Afghanistan. The familiar interests of the army that emanate from its primacy and its vast corporate interests in Pakistan are also at stake in any redefining of the civil-military relationship.

So unless Sharif can sort out his equation with the army first and get the jihadis on his side, the question that we need to ask ourselves is who do we talk to, about what and when.

Peace and stability are desirable objectives. Talking to one’s neighbour is both unavoidable and necessary in the two countries’ interests and not in the interest of other powers. But it is also a grievous error of judgement to misread smiles when the intentions are murderous.

Pakistan is unable to live with its own minorities and there is very little scope for hoping that the leadership there will want to make peace with India — a country it obsessively considers a threat at best or an enemy at worst.

The urge to try something ‘zara hatke’ might work for Bollywood. It is dangerous when national interests are involved and the issue has not been thought through. The defence minister has warned Pakistan that the consequences of such transgressions will be severe next time and so be it.

Source : Hindustan Times , 12th August 2013 .

A dossier on war and winning

 

By Jeremy Scahill

Rs 899

They used to call them torture taxis that carried their high-value human cargo on a mission of extraordinary rendition for enhanced interrogation techniques at places outside the country.
This was shorthand for kidnapping terror suspects from one country to locate them at black sites in countries that were friendly — usually run by autocrats not known for observing the niceties of human rights. The US did not want to be accused of violating the Geneva Convention on human rights but wanted terror-related intelligence even though it was known that interrogation is not the best way to elicit accurate or reliable intelligence. Even so, terror suspects were subjected to the most horrendous forms of torture to get information for America’s counterterror experts fighting their country’s Global War on Terror. An unconventional war was being fought with equally unconventional methods, no holds barred. The US had established its own Gulags.

Recall the notorious Abu Ghraib prison photographs of torture of naked Iraqi soldiers that were posted online by Lynddie England and her boyfriend and caused a furore because of the methods and techniques that had been adopted by US forces. Both served jail terms but this and other similar acts left scars in the region. Tragically, the discourse at that time in the US was not just torture but more torture as Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney pushed their agenda in Iraq.

Jeremy Scahill, in his book, Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield, recounts those days in the court of George W. Bush where there was intrigue, subterfuge, conspiracies and rivalries as ambitions and egos clashed. It was the Pentagon versus the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) versus the CIA and the state department versus the Pentagon and, outside the US, the CIA versus the Inter-Services Intelligence. Scahill’s book is more than just about intrigues. It is a detailed tour of terror lands across the globe — Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen and Iraq. This war on terror was fought from cloistered rooms in the White House, Langley and the Pentagon from where Rumsfeld had declared his own war against the CIA. It is the story of US might represented by the US Special Operations Command and Joint Special Operations Command and the CIA in their charge against terror.

Secrecy and secret operations are seductive. Within weeks of taking over, US President Barack Obama declared his intentions to continue with his predecessor’s counterterrorism policies. These included targeted killings, warrantless wiretaps, secret prisons, rendition programmes and deployment of mercenaries along with covert CIA operatives as the US went in hot pursuit of Osama bin Laden and the Yemeni-American Anwar al-Awlaki who was finally killed in a drone attack in Yemen and so was his 16-year-old son a month later. By January 2011, when the Raymond Davis incident occurred in Lahore, there were 851 Americans with diplomatic immunity in Pakistan of which 297 were not working “in a diplomatic capacity”.

The chapter on the storming of the Fortress at Abbottabad on May 2, 2011, has the details but seems too laid back. The extreme tension and nervousness that must have prevailed is missing. Maybe it was intended so, to convey the strong steely temperament of the Navy Seals even with one Blackhawk down. Nevertheless, here was a hands-on President sitting on a folding chair in the Situation Room watching the event unfold in real time. Obviously, this was something President Obama wanted done, to explain that with the killing of the prime target, the global war on terror which his predecessor had started 10 years ago was coming to an end, and it was time to bring the boys back home.

Dirty Wars is not a book one can read lying in bed. It is too thick any way with its 500-odd pages with another hundred pages of citations. It is serious stuff and frightening too. It shows the character of a nation determined to succeed at any cost. It is about those who ran the government and the tasks they set for themselves. It is about people who, in their hubris of power, ended with the nemesis of rising Islamic radicalism from the Indus to the Nile and threatening to go beyond. Tragically, and maybe inevitably, we see them today anxious to talk to the scourge they set out to remove and failed.
Americans tend to overplay both friendship and enmity, dangers and capabilities. Other countries, less well-endowed, cannot emulate them but there are certain essentials necessary if the war on terror has to be won. One of the more important lessons is that counterterror is a long war; it is apolitical and needs tenacity of purpose.

Scahill’s detailed accounts of the American counter-terror effort should be read by those who make policy and have to fight terror wars. As the author himself says, the book is a story of the expansion of covert US wars, the abuse of executive privilege and state secrets, the embrace of unaccountable elite military units that answer only to the White House. More important, the book reveals “the continuity of a mindset that ‘the world is a battlefield’ from Republican to Democratic administrations”.

Source : 11th August 2013 , Book Review of Dirty War by Jeremy Scahill in Asian Age by Vikram Sood .

Kerry in Pakistan

New Delhi, Aug.9 (ANI): Karl Inderfurth, former Assistant Secretary of State and now a fellow at the CSIS, Washington, commenting on U.S.-Pakistan relations said "One has to keep expectations low for any dramatic improvement in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. We've been in a very deep hole for a long time. At the end of the day, we can't live with them and we can't live without them. That's true on both sides."

The U.S.- Pakistan relationship has been transactional from the very beginning. High expectations on both sides have been matched by bitter disappointments but, neither side has been willing to let go.

Today, Pakistan needs the U.S. to help it tide over the economic and power crisis and the U.S. needs Pakistani cooperation to make an honourable exit from Afghanistan, while Pakistan wants a pliable regime in Afghanistan.

In today's reality, the U.S. is Pakistan's most strategically crucial ally with the most investments in the country. It influences decision-making in many other aspects in Pakistan. For instance, the U.S. threatened that it would impose sanctions if the USD 7.5 billion Iran Pakistan gas pipeline were pursued.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was the highest American diplomat to have visited Pakistan (July 31 to August 2) since 2011 when relations had hit rock bottom following the Raymond Davis affair, the U.S. Seals raid that got Osama bin Laden in May 2011 and the Salala attack in November 2011 which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Anxious to work on a time line up to end of 2014, it is the Americans who seemed to be anxious to kick start the talks after the Doha fiasco. Actually the Americans had been working on Pakistan for some time now and Secretary Kerry had met President Karzai and General Ashfaq Kayani in Brussels in April this year. The meeting was frosty and Karzai had difficulty being civil to the General. However, this was followed by another meeting between Kerry and Kayani in Amman in May just after the elections in Pakistan.

Pakistan remains India-centric in Afghanistan and Kashmir and sees this as a last opportunity to extract its pound of flesh from an increasingly desperate and hapless U.S. Therefore, it has worked on a discourse playing on U.S. perceptions, urgencies and vulnerabilities in the region. The usual Pakistani argument is that it could help the US and global cause much better if India could be persuaded to be flexible and reasonable on the various outstanding India Pakistan issues and reduce cross border tensions. This narrative has resonance in Washington DC. Sections of influential U.S. think tanks and Beltway policy makers have been buying and selling this line - that a successful outcome for the U.S. in Afghanistan depends on Indian concessions to Pakistan, both in Afghanistan and on issues like Kashmir, Siachen.

The mood in DC is vastly different from a decade ago. The "can-do" spirit has been replaced by "can't do" or "don't know how" feeling so let us get the hell out of Afghanistan. The argument now is on the following lines, probably. We do not understand Afghanistan and any way it is of no importance to US. Let the locals sort it out and if they want Taliban, then it is their choice. It would help if India and Pakistan made up with each other, but the U.S. should get out from the mess for which Indian obduracy and Pakistani interests are the basic cause. The U.S. administration and policy circles are now unwilling to see the Indian point of view.

Soon after Kerry left Islamabad there was a suicide attack on the Indian Consulate in Jalalabad on August 3 that killed 12 civilians including children. It was suspected that this attack was carried out either by the Haqqani Network or the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba both of whom are close to the ISI. There were other reports that the ISI had offered prize money for the assassination of the Indian Ambassador in Kabul. Translated it was meant to show the fragility of peace in Afghanistan because of Indian presence.

Around the time of a global of a possible Al Qaeda strike in the Middle East leading to closure of 21 U.S. missions, there was a terror alert in Islamabad as well. This was meant to show perhaps that Pakistan was a victim of terrorism as well camouflaging the fact that these terrorists were their own creation.

Finally, the killing of five Indian soldiers on the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir on August 5 was designed to depict how tenuous peace between two nuclear powers was in the region.

Former U.S. Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill's repeated warning about the likely course of events in Afghanistan-Pakistan, should be taken seriously but that is unlikely to happen because facts do not suit the desired outcome. He points out rightly that Afghanistan will be a mess after U.S. withdrawal and attributes this to Pakistan's obsession with wanting to check India's rise in the region. Pakistan finds India's presence in Afghanistan to be unacceptable. For this it continues to need its jihadi option in the east under a nuclear umbrella operating under a low threshold. The U.S. has accepted this discourse - which is that India is Pakistan's enemy twice over in Afghanistan and in Kashmir, India. Besides, the fading story of an Indian economic resurgence that would have benefited U.S. economic interests does not help the Indian cause.

It would be tragic that U.S. and India - two countries whose interests in the region will be most affected by what happens inside Pakistan - are unable to see the situation from the same prism. Once the American forces withdraw, the Taliban backed by Pakistan will take control of the Pushtun belt in the south and east of Afghanistan. The route to Kabul will lie through Kandahar and Nangarhar if the other ethnic groups, the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras, are willing to accept Pushtun suzerainty. How long the Taliban retain control of Afghanistan and now long Pakistan retains control of the Taliban or even the Pushtun, is a subsequent story but the interregnum is going to be violent and destabilising, even for Pakistan.

The U.S. would be making a grievous strategic error by walking away from Afghanistan and leaving it to be over run by the Taliban at a time when it has no presence in Iran and an increasingly tenuous presence in Pakistan with China peering over the Hindu Kush. This would be happening at a time when Pakistan itself is dangerously teetering towards radicalism.

Source : ANI , 9th August 2013 .

Twelve reality bytes

Let us get the facts on the table first about the global security situation in a context where discussions on WMDs are now relegated to international conferences and sporadic discussions about Iran and North Korea. The threat that is pre-eminent today is terrorism.

Facts: The Abbottabad Commission report describes the Osama incident as a ‘story of complacency, negligence, irresponsibility at various levels in and outside government’

 

Fact One. In our neighbourhood, Al Qaeda sits on top of a heap of various jihadi organisations like the Quetta Shura of Mullah Omar’s Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani Network, India-specific Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Harkat-ul Mujahideen, sectarian Sunni militias Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Sipaha-e-Sahaba or Ahle Wal Sunnat Jamaat, and finally, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.
Fact Two. All these terror outfits have had close links with the Pakistani state through the ISI and the Army. They have been trained, sheltered, equipped and carefully nurtured by the Pakistani state for more than two decades.

Fact Three. Many of the mainstream political parties took the help of these terror organisations in their election campaign in the Punjab last May. There is collusion of interest and there is always a payback time.

Fact Four. The only one which has turned sour for the Pakistani Deep State has been the TTP. There are other smaller players who are like bit players and disappear when not needed by the directors of the drama.

Fact Five. The recently disclosed Abbottabad Commission report described the Osama incident as a “story of complacency, ignorance, negligence, incompetence, irresponsibility and possibly worse, at various levels inside and outside the government.” This is a damning indictment without naming names and it is clear to anyone that the reference is the Deep State, especially the expression “and possibly worse”.

Fact Six. Khaled Ahmed, a well-known Pakistani commentator said in a recent column that Al Qaeda had spread out into the Islamic world. Its presence in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Nigeria, Mali, and Egypt was so pronounced that one forgets its headquarters were in Pakistan, because after the death of Osama bin Laden, its next leader, Ayman Al Zawahiri was still here.

Fact Seven. It is from some hideout similar to that of Osama bin Laden that Zawahiri must be passing on instructions to his followers. It simply suits every one in the West not to talk about Zawahiri as part of the unfinished agenda. The US and its allies are preparing to leave Afghanistan and would not want to be reminded of Zawahiri. It suits Pakistan not to talk about him because they would not want to face another uncomfortable disclosure about their complicity.

Fact Eight. The US has closed down 21 of its diplomatic missions and consulates in the Middle East for a week beginning August 5, fearing terror attacks.

Some other countries have also closed their missions. Today the world sees one power with global reach, Al Qaeda, shutting out the US, a global super power, out of the region for a week. A global alert of this nature was largely based on intercepted intelligence between Al Qaeda leaders as revealed in the US press. This could be repeated elsewhere.

Fact Nine. Separately, Interpol had issued alerts about Al Qaeda-linked jailbreaks in nine countries. This has been issued after jailbreaks in Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan in Pakistan, Benghazi in Libya and Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

Fact Ten. Both these alerts by the US Government and Interpol must have been substantially based on intercepted intelligence.This takes us to the current debate following the Snowden disclosures about the extent of US surveillance and the various related privacy and legitimacy issues.
Fact Eleven. So long as there are global terrorist threats, global surveillance and cooperation between intelligence agencies is inevitable. The US with its global interests feels it faces global threats. It has the means to try and counter them; therefore it does misuse this capability. It has been doing this for years on friend and foe alike. But the whole point is how does an intelligence agency determine which link, email id, various social media sites, telephone numbers need to be followed except through data mining. HUMINT is not enough. It would help if critics of the system also suggested how to make them secure without breaching the sanctity of privacy. It is a long road to appropriate regulation against misuse.

Fact Twelve. None of the counter terror efforts will succeed unless global powers deal effectively and consistently with the epicentre of terrorism -- Pakistan.

Source : Mid Day , 8th August 2013