Al Qaeda skeletons in Pakistan’s closet

One of the primary goals of the war on terrorism when it was launched last October was either the capture or extermination of bin Laden and the top al Qaeda leadership.

When the war was launched many strategic pundits predicted that the US would be locked in a fierce guerrilla war with the battle-hardened Taliban. But the script did not unfold in this manner. Having received a battering at the hands of US airpower the Taliban offered least resistance and conserved itself or what was left of it to fight on its own terms and conditions. Fortunately, for them the US tactic in conducting the war had had no success in immobilising their leadership and it quietly melted away.

If the leadership of the Taliban and the al Qaeda have decided not to give up their fight and were preparing for a long guerrilla war, it was obvious they would be creating bases for necessary logistical back up. It was inevitable that it would be in the desolateness of Southern and Eastern Afghanistan and the semi autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in the NWFP, where the writ of the Pakistan government doesn’t run anyway. Increasingly, there is evidence they are organising in the Southeastern provinces of Khost, Paktia and Paktika. The bordering Waziristan agency in the FATA could serve as the main supply line. It has to be remembered that this was the region that played an important role as a base in the guerrilla war that the Afghan Mujahideen waged against Soviet forces.

Further, if there were any place outside Afghanistan where Osama would be welcome, it is in the tribal areas of the NWFP. The Pashtun code of honour — Pashtunwali — would not allow the tribal to betray a guest. One may recall the Taliban’s refusal to hand over Osama to the US on the grounds that he was their guest. Given the porous nature of the Durand line that divides Afghanistan and Pakistan, which anyway the Pashtuns do not recognise, it was inevitable where the remnants and the leadership of the Taliban and the al Qaeda were headed.

But instead of taking determined measures to plug their exit routes, the US in its keenness on breaking the al Qaeda network extended itself to Philippines, Yemen and Georgia and neglected the backyard of its own area of operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As early as November last year itself there were reports that Taliban and al Qaeda fighters were creeping into the tribal areas in Pakistan. This was vehemently contested by Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf, who while deploying extra forces on the border declared that no al Qaeda would be allowed to enter Pakistan.

Nevertheless, there were consistent reports that a large number of survivors had managed to enter Pakistan with the complicity of serving and retired personnel of the Pakistani establishment. On number of occasion senior officials of the interim administration in Afghanistan had pointed out that the ISI and Islamic clerics had been giving safe haven to the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters. All this fell on deaf cars as more faith was placed on the US’s most trusted ally General Musharraf who had to be taken at his words that he was doing his best under severe limitations — in policing the borders and cracking down on the Pakistani jihadis domestically.

Of course, increasing his efforts were being viewed with scepticism as a pretension. Numerous reports in the US media recently seem to suggest that he has been playing a double game. However, what is interesting is that for every lapse or deliberately done act he seems to have credible answers, which seem to satisfy his American interlocutors.

The presence of the al Qaeda and Taliban on Pakistani territory is explained off, as it is impossible to seal the border. Why have the terrorists he had arrested in his antiterrorist crackdown been released? Because of his inability to hold them for long under the law! Who were the people he managed to evacuate from Kunduz? They were all misguided and misled youth. The US also has not helped its own cause by having allowed the evacuation.

However explained all these developments have definitely contributed to the sustaining of the Taliban and the al Qaeda and their penetration into Pakistan.

The capture of Abu Zubaydah, believed to be number three in the al Qaeda and a large number of al Qaeda operatives on March 27, of all places from Faislabad and the recent terrorist attack in Karachi which killed 14 French men if actually carried out by Al-Qaeda, as suspected, would mean that the al Qaeda has actually spread its network wide in Pakistan.

And to believe that it did this without any support and help from the jihadi groups within Pakistan is to confer magical qualities of astronomical proportions on the al Qaeda.

Pakistan based terrorist groups like Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Jaish-Mohammad and other groups who were brothers in arms and had shared training camps with the al Qaeda in Afghanistan had facilitated their mobility within Pakistan and probably still do it. General Musharraf by having released their leaders and other cadres is helping them regroup under new names.

Also, there is very little evidence to suggest that he has undermined their ability to carry out terrorist activities. Most of his measures have been cosmetic.

Whatever justification he may use at this point of time in releasing them, the fact is that it will come to haunt him if it is proved that the al Qaeda was behind the attack in Karachi and if more such attacks are carried out. He is not helping his own cause. But does he realise it? The tactician that he is, he may keep fighting the battles one after the other and think that he is winning but eventually may just lose.

Unfortunately, no can tell him that except perhaps the Americans. They after having overlooked the inevitable for a fairly long time are now in an intensified search for bin Laden and his cohorts in Pakistan having conducted joint operations along with Pakistani security forces. The reactions of the Pashtun tribals to the incursions of US forces on their territory has not been favourable with the tribals having threatened to join the war themselves. These are ominous signs that if the fugitives have to be captured the US led military campaign has to broaden into Pakistan, but then it is not going to be easy either. The painful reality is that if the terrorist infrastructure and network has to be broken, it has to begin from Pakistan and not the other way round.

Ajay Darshan Behera is a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington DC