Execution Met With Silence in Pakistan

November 26, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Zofeen Ebrahim

KARACHI, Nov 26 (IPS) – Wednesday, Nov. 21, dawned like any other in the sleepy town of Faridkot, located some 150 kilometres from the Punjab capital of Lahore in Pakistan. But as the town’s 3000 residents went about their daily routines the air grew thick with apprehension, for a reason none wanted to mention.At seventy-thirty that morning, one of the town’s former residents, a man named Ajmal Kasab, was executed in Pune’s Yerawada Central Jail, in western India’s Maharashtra state.

Kasab was the sole survivor of a group of ten men who carried out the three-day terror rampage in November 2008 that left 166 people dead in Mumbai.

Kasab was charged with 86 offences, including murder and waging war against the Indian state. After a long trial and the denial of his clemency appeal on Nov. 5, he was hanged just a few days before the fourth anniversary of the senseless but well-orchestrated attack that brought the nuclear neighbours to the brink of war.

Shafique Butt, a correspondent for the English daily newspaper ‘Dawn’, who visited the village on the morning of the execution, told IPS over the phone from Punjab, “While everyone knew he had been hanged, people were just not willing to talk about it; let alone express their feelings – either in favour or against (the execution).”

Kasab’s immediate family had long since left the village. “No one is sure if they have been relocated by the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), or Pakistan’s intelligence agencies,” said Butt. The LeT is also blamed for an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001.

“I was told there are five or six Lashkar men in the village,” Butt added, including, possibly, Kasab’s younger brother who was just a teenager in 2008.

On the streets, ordinary Pakistanis have shown little or no interest in Kasab’s hanging. They are far too concerned about their own safety: bomb blasts have become a daily occurrence in all the big cities, despite high security since the holy month of Muharram began a week ago.

“The government of Pakistan will not take a critical position on this issue; it will stay quiet,” said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Lahore-based political analyst.

Islamic parties and hard-line anti-India groups have expressed some resentment or spoken about the denial of justice, Askari told IPS, but sustained protest was not expected.

Only a handful of people, like Saba Khan, a housemaid in Faridkot, lamented the act. “Couldn’t they have given him life imprisonment? They didn’t even grant him his last wish of meeting his mother,” she told IPS.

Re-examining ‘terrorism’ in Pakistan

On the other side of the border, the hanging has been hailed as “a victory for India” and a “tribute to all the innocent people and police officers who lost their lives” in the tragedy of November 2008.

Megha Prasad, deputy bureau chief for the Indian news channel ‘Times Now’, who reported live from outside the Oberoi and Trident hotels where 33 people were killed, expressed surprise at the clandestine execution of “foot soldier Kasab”, but told IPS that the execution may bring “temporary closure to the victims of 26/11”.

Still, she echoed the sentiments of many when she added that justice will only be delivered when the “perpetrators and those who masterminded 26/11 are brought to book.”

Other experts have been even less taken aback by the incident, which came just one day after India, along with 39 other U.N. member states, voted against a General Assembly draft resolution calling for a non-binding moratorium on executions.

“Kasab’s hanging was a foregone conclusion and surprised no one,” Pervez Hoodbhoy, a peace activist and academic, told IPS. “It had to be done, else mass murder would have gone unpunished.”

“That the Mumbai attacks were carried out by a Pakistan-based militant group can surprise no one because, literally for decades, groups such as LeT and Jaish-e-Muhammad, have publically declared that they exist only to attack India, anywhere and at any time,” he added.

Indeed, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, founder of the banned LeT, is a prominent public figure in Pakistan, often seen at political rallies delivering vitriolic sermons, directed primarily at the United States government.

Hoodbhoy’s analysis, shared by many others, highlights the sticky situation the government is now in.

For years, according to Askari, the most popular narrative within official political circles has been that Pakistan is a victim of terrorism. “(Most) officials attribute terrorist activities and violence in Pakistan to Pakistan’s foreign adversaries. That means that they do not give much credence to domestic sources of Pakistan’s problems.”

Zohra Yusuf, chairperson of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told IPS that this makes a strong case “for Pakistan to adopt a credible, meaningful policy. Pakistan has to go after terrorists – and not back off only because India is asking it to act. Almost all terrorist attacks anywhere in the world seem to have some Pakistani ‘connection’, from the U.S. embassy bombing in Kenya” to the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. twin towers, she said.

“The world understands how difficult it is to tackle militants,” added Ashaar Rehman, resident editor for ‘Dawn’ in Lahore, “but is in no mood to play the understanding elder when its own existence is on line.”

But for now, he said, Pakistan seems either unable or unwilling to tackle rising militancy.

Hoodbhoy pointed out that most militant groups had, at some point in their existence, received the support of Pakistani intelligence agencies. “While some still do (accept the support), others have pointed their guns against their former benefactors,” he said.

Many experts believe Pakistan should make public some of the answers they must already have gathered through their investigations such as: who masterminded the the 2008 attacks and why, where and how the gunmen were trained, and most importantly, how these activities went ‘unnoticed’ in Pakistan.

But the government has proven it will be slow to act. It took a long time for Pakistan to even admit that the Mumbai attacks were planned on its soil, and it continues to deny any official involvement.

While seven of the alleged masterminds were charged in 2009, more evidence is needed to convict them, the government insists.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

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Filed Under: Asia, Featured, Justice, Security, Terrorism Tagged With: , , , , ,

India’s Fragile Security Ten Years After 9/11 Attacks

September 12, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Neelam Deo and Akshay Mathur*

IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

MUMBAI (IDN) – On September 12, 2001, a day after 9/11, the Times of India published a story titled, ‘India hopes US will now pressurise Pak’. At the time, this relayed a common national sentiment – India may finally get the United States to become a close ally against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, and help India in eradicating terrorism.

Ten years hence, neither has the U.S. taken a position against Pakistan, nor has India prepared itself better to fight terrorism and insurgency on its home ground. A massive explosion at the Delhi High Court this week (September 7) left at least 14 dead and some 60 injured. It served as a horrific reminder that India continues to be at the receiving end of terrorism.

This is the third major terrorist attack in Delhi since 9/11, following the one on Parliament on December 2001 and another at the Sarojini Nagar Market in October 2005. Mumbai has seen similar attacks with the serial blasts in March 1993, train bombings in July 2006, the 26/11 attacks of November 2008 and coordinate attacks of July 2011. Many more such incidents have taken place across the country in smaller cities like Jaipur and Pune.

Yet, rather than designing and executing ways to secure our borders, we remain enamoured with the effects of 9/11 and anniversaries of attacks in London, Madrid, and elsewhere. The government’s response is the same – they had some intelligence, law enforcement was in a state of alert, but there was no actionable intelligence, and of course somewhere along the chain of command between the Home Minister and the constable on the street, our counter-terrorism strategy was never converted into skills or systems that would prove useful.

The usually communicative, media-friendly politicians have no comment to give, reflecting only their incapability or worse, indifference. The media gives it due importance for 24 hours, then in the absence of any new information from the government or the public, moves on to other news-worthy items.

While 9/11 did not get the U.S. to change their position, it did force them to change their rhetoric. Having become a victim of the international terror network, it no longer described India’s terrorism as a response to domestic events – the tearing down of the Babri Masjid, unresolved problems of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, the Godhra outrage – all of which were used emphatically in the earlier decades.

Of course, a position against Pakistan is still unlikely given the reality of U.S. objectives in the region. But considering that the U.S. is leaving the Af-Pak region even more militant than before 2001 with direct implications for India, the refusal to acknowledge the role of the state in organizing terrorist incidents across the border is egregiously insulting.

Where India has had over 15 attacks in the last 5 years, most of which remain unresolved, the U.S. has managed to protect its homeland and not allow a single terrorist attack on its soil since 9/11. One planned for New York in 2010 was foiled successfully by the law enforcement agencies reflecting the swift and effective response by the anti-terrorism units.

The Washington Post reported last year that more than 1,200 hundred government organizations and almost 2,000 companies were working on programmes related to counter-intelligence, homeland security and intelligence in the U.S. These are mostly geared to preventing outsiders coming into the U.S. and undertaking terrorist attacks in pursuance of political objectives overseas.

Worse Off

Do we even need anything comparable when many of our incidents are perpetrated by our own people indoctrinated and trained usually in Pakistan? Even if by some miracle we were to attain such organizational structures, our poor coordination abilities would derive us no benefit.

That explains one part of our failure. We still seem to think that hi-tech gadgets, such as CCTV’s will somehow hide the lack of coordination and training that has seeped through our system. Our Home Minister is often in Washington and continues to look for coordination with the U.S.’s Homeland Security department. But imitating American-style security by purchasing sophisticated equipment won’t work without the security apparatus and training that goes with it.

The other part is the denial that terrorism has increasingly become a home-grown issue and that there is little political will to fight this battle across the three-tier legislative system of central, state and community governments. Groups such as the Indian Mujahideen and Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) have become entrenched in the criminal and undercover terror network, and we don’t have a deep counter-intelligence team that can camouflage themselves within communities to pick up alerts at the design stage or swift teams that can foil attacks before the bombs go off.

The dangerous political polarity, a paralysed ruling coalition, a fractured opposition, a popular distaste for a corrupt polity and complicit bureaucracy, and a slowing economy, has handicapped any progress towards this issue. If the terrorists are more agile, sophisticated and meticulous in their planning now, and Indian forces remain under-trained, ill-equipped and tactical, then, unfortunately, we are simply worse off than we were in 2001 by sheer relativity.

The 9/11 attacks transformed our world too. The revenge invasion and devastation of Afghanistan and later Iraq changed our neighbourhood completely. An already hostile Pakistan became even more implacable with stepped-up military aid and political backing from Washington. Although now the West is coming to terms with the duplicity of Pakistan, it is still not able to get off that tiger. When the West leaves Afghanistan and Iraq, according to its own political timetable and as dictated by its economically straitened circumstances, India will have to deal with the consequences.

Statements Just Don’t Reassure

Are we prepared? Look at what’s around us: an economically weakened U.S. and EU but militarily aggressive NATO, a much-strengthened and aggressive China, a dangerously weakened and unstable Pakistan, the risk of the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and heightened Shia-Sunni strife in the Gulf. These are playing out simultaneously and close by.

As this article goes to print (on September 10), the National Integration Council is meeting for the 15th time since it was first established in 1962 by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to fight the evils of communalism, casteism, regionalism, linguism and narrow-mindedness. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s public statement that India must strengthen its investigative agencies and intelligence apparatus is clear. But with the dangerous developments in world affairs and lack of progress at home, his statements just don’t seem reassuring.

*Neelam Deo is Director, Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations, Mumbai, and former Ambassador, Denmark and Ivory Coast. Akshay Mathur is the Geo-economics Fellow at Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations, Mumbai. This article first appeared on September 10 on http://www.gatewayhouse.in. [IDN-InDepthNews - September 11, 2011]

2011 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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Filed Under: Asia, Featured, Geopolitics, Security, Terrorism Tagged With: , , ,

INTROSPECTION IN PAKISTAN: WILL IT ENDURE?

June 28, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy

B.RAMAN

The anger and humiliation caused in Pakistan by the unilateral raid by  US naval commandos on the residence of Osama bin Laden at Abbottabad on May 2,2011, and by the inability of the Pakistani Army and Air Force to prevent the raid have had two significant effects.

2.The first is widespread questioning by different sections of public and military opinion of the advisability of the present level of co-operation with the US and other NATO countries in counter-terrorism and the increasing dependence on the US for military and economic assistance.

3.While the state of Pakistan is not in a position to reduce its dependence on the US for assistance, an exercise is already on to curtail the present level of co-operation in counter-terrorism. As part of this exercise, there has been a reduction in the presence of intelligence officers and trainers from the US and other NATO countries based in Pakistan. The US and the UK have been told that Pakistan no longer requires training assistance for its security forces engaged in counter-terrorism duties and asked to withdraw the bulk of their trainers from Pakistani territory.

4. Only two aspects of the bilateral co-operation  between Pakistan and the US have remained untouched till now. The first relates to the permission given by the Pakistani authorities for the unloading of logistic supplies for the NATO forces in Afghanistan at the Karachi port and their road movement to Afghanistan by trucks. The second relates to the informal acceptance by the Pakistani authorities of the operations of the US Drone (pilotless plane ) strikes on suspected terrorist infrastructure in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).Recently, the US has stepped up its Drone strikes on suspected hide-outs of the Haqqani Network in the Kurram area of the FATA without facing any objection from the military leadership.

5.Simultaneously with the exercise to re-fashion Pakistan’s relations with the US, one could also discern initial signs of an introspection over the advisability of the present policy of unrelenting hostility to India. Some have started arguing that it is this hostility to India encouraged and promoted by the military leadership that has been leading to a high level of dependence on the US. It is, therefore, argued that if Pakistan wants to reduce its strategic dependence on the US, it has to have a new look at its present policies towards India.

6.In an article carried by the “Dawn” of Karachi on June 20,2011, Adnan Rehmat a journalist, analyst and media development specialist, who heads an NGO called Intermedia, argued for a new look India policy in the following words: “Misplaced bravado does not  make pride and there’s no shame in desiring peace with someone we’ve painted as an enemy. The only way the delusional mindset that ill-serves Pakistan will be righted is when the national security doctrine puts the people, not the military establishment, at the center of Pakistan’s raison d ‘etre. We have tried India as an enemy and it has cost us dearly. It’s time to try India as a friend because the cost of being a friend is far, far less than the cost of being an enemy.”

7. More than the article itself, what has been a pleasant surprise is the large number of favourable readers’ endorsement that it has been receiving. The article has already received 162 feed-backs  from the readers —many of them positive.

8. The mood of less suspicion towards India which one notices could be attributed not only to the realisation that the past policy of hostility to India has proved counter-productive and increased Pakistan’s dependence on the US, but also to the improvement in the ground situation in Balochistan. The Baloch freedom-struggle is showing signs of losing steam. The number of attacks on Punjabi settlers working in Balochistan has declined. There is less disruption of the gas supply to industrial units in Punjab and Sindh from Balochistan.

9. The weakening of the Baloch freedom struggle is partly due to infighting among Baloch nationalist leaders and partly due to the ruthless suppression by the Army. India never had any role in encouraging the separatist movement in Balochistan. Despite this, the Pakistani authorities had convinced themselves that the Baloch freedom struggle could not have achieved the successes that it had without clandestine Indian support.

10. The splits in the movement and its consequent weakening have come as a pleasant surprise to the Pakistani authorities. This seems to be having a benign effect on their perception of India vis-à-vis Balochistan.

11. The attempt to look at India less negatively as a result of these developments is presently confined to sections of the civil society and to the non-governmental world. One does not as yet see signs of it in the Armed Forces, but the civilian bureaucracy shows signs of keeping its traditional anti-India reflexes in check. The ambiance of declining negativism towards each other noticed during the just concluded talks between Smt.Nirupama Rao, India’s Foreign Secretary, and Mr.Salman Bashir, her Pakistani counterpart, at Islamabad, is a sign of hope. Will it endure and gather strength? (27-6-11)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently. Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com . Twitter: @SORBONNE75 )

Copyright © 2011 B. Raman – South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG).

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Filed Under: Asia, Conflict, Featured, Geopolitics, Insurgency, Politics, Terrorism Tagged With: , , ,

POST-ABBOTTABAD PAK SULKING HAS HAD NO IMPACT ON OBAMA

June 23, 2011 by

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR—PAPER NO. 729

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy

By B.Raman

Pakistan’s post-Abbottabad sulking and partly-real, partly-manufactured anti-US  anger have had no impact on President Barack Obama’s counter-sanctuary emphasis in his counter-terrorism strategy.

2. It was this counter-sanctuary emphasis that enabled the successful extermination of Osama bin Laden on May 2,2011, by  US naval commandos raiding his house clandestinely at Abbottabad and  the successes scored by the Drone (pilotless planes of the CIA) strikes against other medium and high-value targets of Al Qaeda and its affiliates in Pakistan’s jihadi belt— wherever that belt is located, in the tribal areas or outside.

3.The counter-sanctuary operations  which were confined to the tribal belt till May 2, have been extended beyond unilaterally. A future repeat of this extension to areas outside the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) cannot be ruled out if necessary to wipe out the surviving remnants of the high-value leadership of Al Qaeda.

4. This message—loud and clear—had repeatedly come out of Washington DC since May 2 and it came out again in Mr.Obama’s address to the American people on June 23 outlining his plan for a de-surge in Afghanistan, which would involve the withdrawal  — in two instalments of 10,000 and 23,000 troops— of the reinforcements that he had sent to Afghanistan in 2009. The de-surge would start next month and would be completed by election time next year.

5. The planned de-surge is based on a less pessimistic assessment of the counter-insurgency situation on the ground in Afghanistan. The peak in pessimism seen in 2009 has given way to the first signs of hope—though not optimism— that the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda has started moving gradually in the direction desired by the US.

6. In Afghanistan, the Taliban has not yet been defeated, but has been contained. It has been made amenable to enter the process of negotiation. Al Qaeda, its ally, has suffered such serious attrition in Pakistan that its usefulness as an ally has diminished. Al Qaeda and its affiliates  do not seem to be in a position to reverse the tide and recover their balance.

7.The threats from the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda & Co have been contained. From a phase of containment, the US policy has moved into a phase of elimination of the threat which does not require the engagement of the same level of forces as till now.

8. Mr.Obama’s less pessimistic assessment of the counter-insurgency ground situation in Afghanistan is accompanied by  a realistic assessment of the counter-terrorism ground situation in the jihadi belt of Pakistan. The belt remains. The irrational jihadi ardour remains. The insincerity of the Pakistani political and military establishment in dealing with jihadi terrorism remains. The sanctuaries remain. The suspicions regarding Pakistani official complicity with the terrorist remnants remain.

9. How to deal with this complex ground situation in Pakistan’s jihadi belt? Victory is not yet in sight in the counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations, but there are hopes of victory. The scene on the ground is no longer one of unmitigated gloom as it was since the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US homeland.

10. How to translate these seeming hopes into durable reality? Will they concretise into reality or turn out to be another chimera? The answer to this question has to come from the jihadi belt of Pakistan. It has to come from the General Headquarters of the Pakistan Army. It has to come from the headquarters of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). It has to come from the confused political and military leadership of Pakistan, which continues to live in a make-believe world of its own imaginary creation thinking and hoping that the importance of Pakistan’s strategic location and value will once again prevail in the US geostrategic calculations and that it can reverse its tide of gloom.

11. Mr.Obama has taken care to discourage the illusions of the Pakistani leadership. He said in his address to his people: “ Of course, our efforts must also address terrorist safe-havens in Pakistan. No country is more endangered by the presence of violent extremists, which is why we will continue to press Pakistan to expand its participation in securing a more peaceful future for this war-torn region. We will work with the Pakistani government to root out the cancer of violent extremism, and we will insist that it keep its commitments. For there should be no doubt that so long as I am President, the United States will never tolerate a safe-haven for those who aim to kill us: they cannot elude us, nor escape the justice they deserve.”

12. It is a strong message that India has every reason to welcome. There is more stick than carrots in the message. There are more admonitions than lollipops in the message. India should keep discreetly nudging the US to keep translating the message into reality without relenting periodically as the US has been wont to do. That will be in the interest of both the US and India.

13. Can Pakistan change? Can Pakistan be made to change? The answers to those questions lie in New Delhi and Washington DC and nowhere else in the world. (23-6-11)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail:seventyone2@gmail.com. Twitter: @SORBONNE75 )

Copyright © 2011 B. Raman – South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG).

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Analysis, Foreign Affairs, Security, Terrorism, United States Tagged With: , ,

HOW TO WARD OFF THREATS TO PAK NUCLEAR ARSENAL?

May 26, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy

B.RAMAN

The daring commando style raid into a Pakistani naval base at Karachi on May 22 by terrorists of the Pakistani Taliban has highlighted once again the poor state of physical security at sensitive infrastructure in Pakistan and the undetected  infiltration by extremist elements into the Pakistani Armed Forces.

Since the Pakistani Taliban came into existence in July 2007 , it has organized a number of such raids into the establishments of the armed forces including into the General Headquarters, the sanctum sanctorum of the Pakistan Army in Rawalpindi. The success of these raids was made possible by the suspected help of insiders, who collaborated with the terrorists, and by the poor state of physical security.

The fact that such raids continue to take place and that the security forces and the intelligence agencies continue to be taken by surprise would add to the concerns of the international community regarding the state of physical security in Pakistan’s nuclear establishments and the dangers of the presence inside them of sympathisers who might collaborate with organizations such as Al Qaeda and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) in facilitating an act of  terrorism involving the use of nuclear material seized from such establishments.

There are three possible dangers needing attention. The first is terrorists and their sympathizers wittingly or unwittingly causing  radioactive leakages by raiding such establishments and  damaging the production process. The second is the terrorists getting hold of easy-to-use nuclear material such as dirty bombs from ill-guarded establishments. The third is the leakage of the technology to terrorists from sympathetic scientists.

To prevent such dangers one requires an effective process for the  continuous identification and weeding out of suspicious elements from nuclear establishments, a capability for the collection of human and technical intelligence regarding planned raids into such establishments and a  physical security system with multi-layer security that could prevent attacks effectively even in the absence of preventive intelligence.

Repeated physical security breaches in sensitive infrastructure in Pakistan are due not only to poor preventive intelligence, but also to a single-layer security which was not able to stand up to a determined attempt to breach the security.

The Pakistanis claim that such breaches are unlikely in the case of nuclear establishments where, according to them, there is a multi-layer security and there is a constant vetting of the personnel to detect attempts at infiltration. Moreover, according to them, their nuclear arsenal is not kept in a ready-to-use form in one place, but in dismantled parts in a number of places. Thus, to be able to get at a nuclear weapon, the terrorists should be able to raid successfully at more than one place simultaneously, which would be difficult.

The serious failures of intelligence and security at Abbottabad where Osama bin Laden had been living undetected for over five years underlined the dangers of totally depending on Pakistani verbal assurances with regard to  security against any kind of terrorism. Unadmitted incompetence and complicity at different levels with terrorists reduce the value and dependability of such Pakistani assurances.

The rest of the world would be as much affected as Pakistan by any breach of the physical security of Pakistan’s nuclear establishments. It is, therefore, important that the international community should not remain satisfied with Pakistan’s oral assurances alone. There has to be a close and continuous interaction between the intelligence and security agencies of Pakistan and those of the US and other NATO countries for ensuring that the security of nuclear establishments in Pakistan cannot be breached.

This means the association of the agencies of these countries  in the planning and implementation of security measures in the nuclear establishments. It is believed that US experts in nuclear security already play a discreet, but important role in this matter. Is their role adequate to ensure that what happened in the Karachi naval base cannot happen in a nuclear establishment?

Only the US, which is more knowledgeable than any other country in matters relating to nuclear security in Pakistan, will be in a position to answer this question. India, which has an adversarial relationship with Pakistan, cannot expect to play a role in this matter. But through close interaction with the US agencies, it should be able to reassure itself that whatever needs to be done is being done by the US with the co-operation of Pakistan. 

India can play a useful role in helping the US in this matter by strengthening its capability for the collection of human and technical intelligence regarding likely threats to Pakistan’s nuclear establishments and arsenal  and sharing it with the US.

There is little scope for a stand-alone Indian role with regard to the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, but discreet co-operation between India and the US can add value to the efforts being made by the US.

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi )

Copyright © 2011 B. Raman – South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG).

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Filed Under: Asia, Commentary, Nuclear Weapons, Security, Terrorism Tagged With: ,

Osama the Symbol Not So Easy to Vanquish

May 4, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By David Elkins

WASHINGTON, May 3, 2011 (IPS) – Far from concluding the war on terror, both Western and Muslim-majority countries – many emerging or still embroiled in months of popular protests – will continue to face a threat from extremist ideology after the United States’ decade-long campaign to capture or kill Osama bin Laden has come to an end, most analysts say.

The U.S. will now position its tactical focus and key intelligence assets to defeat those members of al Qaida’s (AQ) network of global affiliates who remain elusive.

The hunt for bin Laden was costly, resulting in wars both in Afghanistan and Iraq, claiming the lives of over 100,000 civilians and 5,000 U.S. military personnel, and draining 1.3 trillion dollars from state funds since Sep. 11, 2001.

However, as President Barack Obama made clear in his speech on Sunday night, bin Laden’s death, while an important moment for U.S. morale, does not herald the end of the U.S. campaign against extremist ideology nor does it greatly reduce the potential for more terrorist attacks, according to analysts.

"He’s been a source of ideology and a symbol and those are roles that can be played by a dead man, as well as a live one… These [attacks] will happen regardless of bin Laden," former CIA analyst Dr. Paul R. Pillar told IPS.

———-   
A movement in decline

In the broader historical context however, AQ’s narrative of violent extremism is in a state of decline and has lost a significant number of its direct supporters and sympathisers, according to some regional experts.

"The Sunni movement is not specifically linked to al- Qaeda as an organization, but it’s much more of a historical revival of Sunni Islam. It will run its course like a fever," former U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency official Lt. Gen. Patrick Lang told IPS.

"Revivalism crops up every 100 to 150 years and sets out to conquer the human spirit for Islam and takes a lot of casualties in the process and then kind of dies down…It’s a kind of cyclic phenomenon and Islamic terrorism will die out after a while," Lang added.

Earlier examples of alternative or revivalist Islamic movements – those that offered a fundamentalist alternative to the mainstream Sunni interpretations of sacred texts and Islamic law – were significant because of their eventual irrelevance to the contemporaneous understandings of Islam as practiced in the day to day lives of the majority of Muslims, and marked the continuation of a boom and bust pattern in general religiosity.

Dating back to the 11th century, the Almoravid dynasty in the Maghreb, or the teachings of Sheikh Ibn Taymiyyah, Ahmad Sirhindi’s Naqshabandi order in South Asia – which focused on mystical interpretations of Islam rather violent religious conservatism – were all pertinent examples of reactionary strains in this cyclical trend of pre- modern Islamic tradition.

But it was not until the encroachment of Western imperialism that reactionary groups began incorporating violent messages into their ideologies – Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Sayyid Qtub emphasised an exclusionary and coercive fundamentalism in much of their most influential writing.
———-

A decentralised network

Since news of the death of al Qaeda’s figurehead broke over Washington Sunday night, there has been almost universal consensus that it will do little to strange the group’s operational capacity, given its decentralised leadership and diffuse bases of operation.

The most recent attempts on U.S. targets – Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s "underwear" bombing of a Detroit-bound commercial airliner and Faisal Shazad’s car packed with faulty explosives in New York’s Times Square – were attributed to the Yemeni-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and are highly indicative of this trend.

"External operations (AQ’s attacks against the West) are not likely to be impacted. [Bin Laden] really only got involved in ops planning to approve spectaculars, particularly those using a new means of attack or against a new target," Leah Farrall, a former senior counterterrorism analyst with the Australian Federal Police, wrote on her blog, "All Things Counter Terrorism."

"Second-tier leaders deal with external operations for the most part. Aside from communications disruptions (which do little to disrupt those already deployed) this section will continue on business as usual," Farrall added.

While bin Laden’s death marks a significant loss for the organisation’s strategic guidance, its ability to coalesce and focus the energies of disparate extremist groups into terrorising on both a local and global scale, and in promoting its grotesque model of inspirational authority, according to some analysts, AQ’s organisational leadership is structured to allow others such as Ayman al-Zawahiri, AQ’s putative but far less capable heir-apparent, or Anwar al-Awlaki, AQAP’s chief of operations to continue attacks, albeit with less cohesiveness.

As recently as Apr. 30, in a bombing thought to have been perpetrated by AQIM, 16 Western tourists were killed in Morocco.

Along with other organisations that espoused violence as a means to create an Islamic utopia, using as religious justification various fundamentalist interpretations such as al-Wahhab and Egyptian born- Sayyid Qtub’s, AQ succeeded in exploiting particular world events beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s to elicit a violent response from a few hundred like-minded individuals – burdening, in the process, an overwhelming majority of Muslims who did not have, nor wanted to have any association with bin Laden’s violent variant of anti-imperialism.

Despite bin Laden’s questionable religious authority, he was extremely adept at melding political sentiments that stood up against the historical and modern legacies of Western imperialism, the Middle Eastern autocrats of pan-Arab nationalism – as well as Arab monarchies, particularly Saudi Arabia, bin Laden’s birthplace – with messages of social justice for all Muslims and a incitement of jihad against Western targets throughout the world.

Since the U.S.’s failed attempts to kill bin Laden under the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations – the 1998 missile attack on a compound near Khost, Afghanistan and the 2001 firefight in Afghanistan’s Tora Bora region – the Central Intelligence Agency’s Special Activities Division and the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command as well as other intelligence agencies have, in a frustrating, at points disappointing campaign, targeted AQ’s leadership with tenacious zeal.

President Obama stated in his announcement on Monday night that bin Laden’s death "should be welcomed by all who believe in human peace and dignity." But his movement is far from being defeated wholesale.

The pro-democracy uprisings in the Middle East have reiterated what has long been a formal rejection of the extremist narrative in the mainstream public opinion of Muslim-majority countries, and they indicate a further shift away from the latest version of fundamentalist revivalism – religious identity was but a peripheral component that motivated the forces for change in both Egypt and Tunisia.

"[E]ven before bin Laden’s death, analysts had begun to argue that al-Qaida was rapidly becoming irrelevant," Richard A. Clarke, former counterterrorism coordinator at the National Security Council wrote in a New York Times op- ed on Tuesday.

"But such rejoicing would be premature. To many Islamist ideologues, the Arab Spring simply represents the removal of obstacles that stood in the way of establishing the caliphate. Their goal has not changed, nor has their willingness to use terrorism," Clarke added.

Regardless of any continued threat AQ and its affiliates may pose, most would agree that Osama’s death will encourage the West, if only symbolically, to move away from its preoccupation with radical Islam and focus on the real concerns and aspirations in those countries where its existence has had the most devastating impact.

"It is time to declare extreme Islamism a failed ideology, renounce the culture of fear, and get on with the new world of Middle East politics," Dr. Gary Sick, a regional expert wrote in his blog "Gary’s Choices" on Tuesday.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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Dramatic End to Long Hunt

May 2, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Aprille Muscara

WASHINGTON, May 2, 2011 (IPS) – In the middle of the night, in an affluent suburb a little over 50 kilometres north of Islamabad, Pakistan, Osama bin Laden was gunned down in a compound shielded by barbed wire-topped walls up to five-and-a-half metres high. He resisted, United States officials say, fighting till the death as he had vowed he would.

“The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat Al-Qaeda,” U.S. President Barack Obama declared in a surprise speech late Sunday evening.

“Yet his death does not mark the end of our effort,” he continued. “There’s no doubt that Al-Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must – and we will – remain vigilant at home and abroad.”

Initial reactions by politicians, lawmakers, and observers here portray bin Laden’s death as a “victory”, with spontaneous street celebrations erupting in places like the White House, Times Square and Ground Zero.

“The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done,” former president George W. Bush said.

The operation that killed bin Laden – a helicopter assault carried out by a small team of U.S. personnel – was years in the making; indeed, a decade. But, ten years after the September 11, 2001 attacks changed the calculus of U.S. foreign policy and launched a global “war on terror”, the abiding consequences of bin Laden’s demise remain to be seen.

Senior White House officials conceded that reprisal strikes by Al-Qaeda to avenge bin Laden’s death are possible, but stressed that the U.S. is taking “every possible precaution” to protect its citizens.

Some pundits, however, have been quick to note the largely figurehead role the Al-Qaeda chief has played in recent years, and are doubtful that bin Laden’s now permanent absence will change the organisation’s operations in any significant way.

Another outstanding question is the impact of the U.S.-led operation “deep inside Pakistan”, as Obama described it, on an already strained U.S.-Pakistan relationship.

Senior administration officials said that Islamabad was kept in the dark about the pre-dawn raid that killed bin Laden in order to ensure the safety and success of the operation.

“We shared this with no other country, including Pakistan,” a White House official told reporters after Obama’s speech. “We believed it was essential to the security of our personnel. Shortly after the raid, we contacted senior Pakistani leaders to brief them.”

“Over the years, I’ve repeatedly made clear that we would take action within Pakistan if we knew where bin Laden was,” Obama said in his speech. “That is what we’ve done.”

Obama green-lit the operation on Friday, Apr. 29, eight months after U.S. intelligence pinpointed the location of a courier known to be a protégé of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and considered to be among bin Laden’s trusted few.

The courier was tracked to an unusually well-protected compound in Abbotabad just 700 metres from the Pakistan Military Academy, the symbolic heart of the country’s armed forces and its focal training centre.

“We were shocked by what we saw,” a senior administration official said, recalling the “extraordinarily unique compound” housed on a plot of land about eight times larger than those nearby, located at the end of a narrow, dirt road in a relatively secluded area.

Worth one million dollars, the compound was protected by a series of walls three-anda-half to five- and-a-half metres tall, but had no Internet or telephone services, the official said.

“The final conclusion from an intelligence standpoint was two-fold,” another official said. First, a “high- value asset” was housed within the compound; and second, “there was strong probability that that person was Osama bin Laden.”

“Our best assessment, based on a large body of reporting based on several sources, was that bin Laden was living there with several family members,” the official added.

Islamabad was not given prior notice of the Abbotabad raid, which also resulted in the deaths of three other adult men and one woman and injuries to two women, according to senior White House officials. But “it’s important to note that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding,” Obama noted in his speech.

“Indeed, bin Laden had declared war against Pakistan as well, and ordered attacks against the Pakistani people,” he added.

“Tonight, I called President Zardari, and my team has also spoken with their Pakistani counterparts,” Obama said. “They agree that this is a good and historic day for both of our nations. And going forward, it is essential that Pakistan continue to join us in the fight against Al-Qaeda and its affiliates.”

But the response in Pakistan has been less than celebratory. Bilateral relations remain shaky, with the case of CIA operative Raymond Davis still fresh, reports of civilian casualties due to U.S. drone strikes continuing, and protests gathering pace in recent months over U.S. military operations in the country.

Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, as well as opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah, took the opportunity to distance Kabul from its association with bin Laden.

“Now it’s proven that Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations are not based in Afghanistan, and Pakistan is a haven for them,” Abdullah said.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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B.RAMAN’S ANALYSIS: OSAMA BIN LADEN’S DEATH : Q & A

May 2, 2011 by

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR–PAPER NO.713

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy

B.RAMAN

Question:Was the operation that was carried out by the US Special Forces against   Osama bin Laden resulting in his death  at Abbotabad in Pakistan on the night of May1 an exclusive US operation or was it a joint US-Pak operation?

A: Till now the indications are that it was an exclusive US operation. Since it involved the ingress of the US specal forces into Pakistani territory by air in helicopters, it was likely that Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Pakistan’s Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), was informed before the helicopters with the special forces took off from Afghanistan for the raid even though US officials have reportedly been asserting that Pakistan was informed only after the helicopters had taken off at the end of the operation. When the Bill Clinton Administration launched the Cruise missile strikes on the traininmg camps of Al Qaeda in the Jalalabad area of Afghanistan in 1998 they followed a similar procedure. Gen Anthony Zinni, the then Commanding Officer of the US Central Command, flew to Islamabad from a US naval ship and informed Gen.Jehangir Karamat, the then COAS, about the impending raid. The US did so to make sure that Pakistan did not interpret that the missile had been launched by India and order a missile strike against India. A similar precaution was likely to have been taken this time too. Moreover, Abbotabad, an important military garrison town, has high air defence cover. It was important to prevent   a messy air defence action by Pakistan against the US helicopters if its radars had  detected their approach. The entire operation lasted a little over two hours. Durung this period, one of the helicopters crashed. It was blown up and destroyed by the special forces.A newsletter disseminated by a retired US naval officer says:"Source says actual crash sight was on Kakul Road, Abbottabod, Pakistan just down from the Pakistan Military Academy exercise grounds. See image for road, which was reportedly blocked off by local security after the incident. Folks in the city mentioned on Twitter at the time that the action was very, very close to the PMA." This would indicate that during the entire operation on the ground, which lasted over 90 minutes if one excludes the time taken by the choppers for their to and fro journey, the Pakistani security forces did not intervene and try to find out what was going on. The local police blocked the stretch of the road where the helicopter had crashed to prevent onlookers rushing there till the Americans had destroyed the chopper. All this clearly shows that the Pakistanis must have had advance knowledge of the operation and had instructions from above not to intervene.

Has the US undertaken similar operations  deep inside Pakistan before?

A. Yes thrice before. Twice in 2002 in Faislabad and Karachi to capture Abu Zubaida and Ramzi Binalshibh respectively and once in 2003 in Rawalpindi to capture Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM).

How did those operations differ from the latest operation to kill OBL?

A. The three previous operations were joint US-Pakistan operations with the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) playing the leadership role. The raids were organised on the basis of technical intelligence (TECHINT) collected by the US agencies due to the  careless use of mobile telephones  by the three arrested persons. The latest operation against OBL seems to have been an exclusive US operation with  the prior knowledge of Pakistan, but with no Pakistani role in its planning and execution. Since OBL was not using any communication equipment such as mobile telephone, Internet etc in his hide-out, no Technical Intelligence would have been possible. It seems to have been mounted purely on the basis of Human Intelligence (HUMINT). The success of the operation speaks very highly of the improvement in the HUMINT capability of the US agencies.

Wherefrom could the HUMINT have come?

A.Abbotabad is a Hazara town. The Hazaras are strongly against Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban because of the massacre of the Hazaras, many of whom are Shias, in East Afghanistan when the Taliban was in power in Kabul. It is likely that the local Hazara community might have played a role in assisting  the US in its OBL hunt. In fact, it is surprising that OBL took shelter in that town despite the strong presence of the Hazaras there. No explanation for this has been forthcoming so far.

Is it possible that the ISI might have played a role in the collection of the HUMINT?

A. Difficult to answer this question.

How come the huge mansion in which OBL was reportedly  living did not attract suspicion as it was  being constructed in 2005?

A.Difficult to explain it unless the mansion had been constructed by a retired senior General of the Army as his farm house and then given on rent to OBL’s family with or without the  knowledge that it was the family of OBL.

For how long OBL must have been living in the mansion?

A.According to US media reports, the house had been under watch by the US since Auguat last year. Obama gave the order for the operation on April 29 on the receipt of precise information that OBL was inside the mansion. This would give rise to the possibility that Osama’s family had been living in the mansion at least since last August, that  OBL had been visiting them off and on and  that Obama gave the order for the operation after receiving information in the last week of April that OBL had come to visit his family. This is what happened in the case of Baitullah Mehsud, the Amir of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) who was killed in a Drone strike. His wife and children were living with her father. Baitullah was visiting them off and on. The Americans had reportedly managed to find out  the details of the car of Baitullah. One day they received information that Baitullah’s car was parked outside his in-laws’ house. They directed a missile strike at it. Baitullah was among those killed. In the case of OBL, they did not make a missile strike. Instead, they sent a spl. forces team to kill OBL in a fire-fight.

Was there an official  Pakistani complicity in OBL’s living in Abbotabad?

A.The evidence till now is circumstantial and not direct. Why did OBL choose to live in Abbotabad despite the presence of a large number of Hazaras there? The only possible answer is because he felt confident  his security would be assured there. He could have got this confidence only if had the support of some sections of the local security agencies and/or the police and also of some local elements of the non-Hazara segment of the population. This  is more speculative than of any evidentiary value. The direct evidence could come from the interrogation of those arrested alive from the mansion by the US spl forces.

What impact this will have on US relations with Pakistan?

The US already has considerable suspicion that Pakistan has been playing a double game by dragging its feet on the issue of action  against Al Qaeda. This suspicion will now be further strengthened. The smoking gun in the form  of OBL’s dead body has clearly established that OBL was living in an urban town of Pakistan. Was he living there with  the knowledge or collusion of the Pakistani security agencies? There is no smoking gun on this yet. Unless that becoms available, the US would find it difficult to act against the State of Pakistan. The relations will continue as before with ups and downs and with alternating praise for action taken and reprimands for actions not taken.

Will the death of OBL be the end of Al Qaeda?

A. No.Since 9/11, Al Qaeda is already a weakened organisation due to repeated Drone strikes on its hide-outs and capture of some of its leaders on the ground in Pakistan. This process of weakening that has been there  since 2002 could acquire pace and strength as a result of  the death of OBL. Despite this, Al Qaeda, by itself, will remain a potent force for some years to come until it suffers more attrition.

Will it have any impact on Obama’s plans to start thinning out troops from Afghanistan? Will it enable or tempt Obama to accelerate the process?

A. No. Obama’s decisions relating to Afghanistan will depend on the evolution of the ground situation in Afghanistan and on the proved ability of the Afghan National Army to withstand pressure from the Taliban.

What are the dangers of reprisal attacks by Al Qaeda and its affiliates?

A.High in the Af-Pak region. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Al Qaeda affiliates like the Lashksar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) will presume that the Pakistani security forces must have co-operated with the US. Acts of suicide terrorism  against the  Pakistani security forces and US nationals and interests in Pakistan could increase.

High against US nationals and interests in other countries.

Medium to low in the US homeland. ( 2-5-11)

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail:  seventyone2@gmail.com )

Copyright © 2011 B. Raman – South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG).

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


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Obama Says Bin Laden Killed by US Forces

May 2, 2011 by

The Real News Network
May 2, 2011

Rahimullah Yusufzai: Death of bin Laden a blow to Al Qaeda, but he will become a martyr that will inspire them


More at The Real News


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UPDATE: Osama Killing Shakes Up Pakistan

May 2, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim

KARACHI, May 2, 2011 (IPS) – Shabbir Hasan, 49, was woken up in the dead of the night to the sound of the "roar of a really low-flying helicopter." Hasan, a businessman, has lived in the hill station in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province all his life. The sleepy town is known for its educational institutions – and military establishments.

"All kinds of dreadful thoughts went through my mind, but never in my wildest of imagination did I imagine who was hiding in my neighbourhood," Hasan told IPS on phone from Abbotabad. Before he could go back to sleep, the whole family was awake, this time after a huge explosion. "We put on the television and it said a helicopter had crashed, that’s all."

They all went back to bed despite gunfire shots being heard from a distance. In the morning around 7:30 am, Geo, a private TV channel, broke the news of the death of some "high value target" in Abbotabad in a military operation.

At 8:30 am (Pakistan time), U.S. President Barack Obama made a speech, calling it a "good and historic day". Osama bin Laden, 54, had eluded the world’s biggest manhunt for years. He was "shot in the head" and killed in a mansion in Abbotabad Sunday night.

His body has been taken by the U.S. troops to Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, news reports say. From there it is expected it will be flown to the U.S.

"The elimination of Bin Laden by U.S. special forces in Abbottabad, just a few tens of miles from Islamabad and home to a big military academy, is a huge embarrassment for Pakistan’s military and civil establishment," Pervez Hoodbhoy, academic and peace activist told IPS.

"For over a decade they had, on every occasion, strenuously denied his presence in Pakistan. But how could the world’s most wanted man have lived in luxury for so many years, out of sight of our powerful and ubiquitous intelligence services?

"This may be a transformational moment: it may no longer be possible to continue with the policy of verbally condemning jihadism while tacitly supporting it."

Besides the 9/11 attack, Bin Laden has also been linked to a string of attacks including the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2000 bombing of the warship USS Cole in Yemen.

"I don’t buy this news!" Najma Sadeque, a senior journalist told IPS. "From the reports we had been getting for years, he should’ve died years ago because he was an ailing man."

"The United States excels in theatrics," she said, and this was another "face-saving exercise." She said the U.S. needs a respectful exit out of Afghanistan and an excuse to cut down the military budget. "The administration will now have an excuse to say it can cut the military budget now that the main target is no more."

Many in Pakistan, who considered him a hero for taking on the U.S., are bound to be saddened. "He will now become an even bigger hero, because he died fighting and was not captured," said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a senior journalist.

"Al-Qaeda will use this image to rally itself," he said, but adding, "with the Laden gone, Ayman al- Zwahiri, the next in line, will not be able to muster the same support."

Defence and military analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi sees several consequences from the death of Osama Bin Laden. "The groups affiliated with the Laden philosophy may resort to violence," he said talking to IPS on phone from Lahore.

"They will try to hit Pakistan for cooperating in this," agreed Yusufzai, adding: "But then they had been targeting Pakistan even before this happened. There will be no respite."

The killing has proved that Pakistan has cooperated with the U.S. by providing information, Rizvi said. But what will be more problematic is that "it has been proved true that he was hiding on our soil and now the U.S. will exert pressure on Pakistan to hunt out other targets."

Yusufzai said the arrogance of the U.S. will increase further now that they have succeeded in killing their biggest enemy. "It will mean a more inflexible foreign policy towards us."

He warns that the U.S. will now want Pakistan to cooperate in its targeting of the Haqqani network, a terrorist group aligned to Al-Qaeda. "While there were no two opinions in defeating and destroying Al- Qaeda, I’m not sure if Pakistan would be ready and forthcoming as far as that is concerned."

Rizvi is perplexed by the Pakistan government’s silence. "It’s very unusual as well as disappointing; it makes me wonder what story they would be busy cooking to give to the people."

Brigadier Asad Munir, former chief of military intelligence and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) in the Federally Administered Tribal Agency and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, says the killing "has proved to everyone that the Pakistan-U.S. relations are not as strained as they have been portrayed in both the local and international media. This was a joint ISI and CIA operation and so while friction may exist between the two, it had not come to any breaking point as assumed."

Munir said Pakistan cannot fight the terrorists without the help of the U.S. and at the same time, the U.S. cannot withdraw from Afghanistan without the cooperation of Pakistan. "It needs Pakistan to clear the tribal area of the Taliban."

Like Askari and Rizvi, Munir, too, foresees anger among splinter groups who had supported Osama bin Laden in the form of terror attacks, for which he said the government should be prepared.

"But the fact remains, in the death of this historic symbol of anti-Americanism and militant Islam, there will be an immediate weakening of the movement. He will be considered a martyr by many people, but the anti-Americanism he had cultivated will not germinate. Such sentiments need a proper organisation that can propagate continuously. With him gone and others on the run, this will also lessen." (

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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