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May 30, 2007

Pakistan: Islamist Crisis Deepens - Part 2 (of 2)

This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared earlier today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission. Part one of the article can be found here.

Pakistan: An Ally's Crisis Deepens

Part One (of Two)

Pakistan's 1,500 mile border with Afghanistan is rugged and mountainous, and for the tribal peoples living alongside it, the border is porous. The border, or "Durand Line", was artificially created in 1893 by the British more as a cartographic exercise than anything taking into consideration the ethnicity of the region. Pashtuns live in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Taliban fighters frequently cross over this border with impunity.

Two provinces lie alongside the border - North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Baluchistan (Balochistan). The latter province also lies alongside Iran, and is rich in oil and gas. Since 2004, there has been an insurgency in this region, led mainly by the Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) which was formed in the 1970s. Bugti tribal leader Nawab Akbar Bugti led this group until he was killed in a shootout with government forces on August 26 last year. The insurgency in Baluchistan has been driven more by financial reasons than religious ones. The local people feel they have not benefited from the revenue made from the oil and gas fields.

The BLA was banned in April last year by the Pakistani government, which denounced it as a terrorist organization. The group has committed atrocities against civilians in Quetta and against military personnel, but most of its targets have been the gas and power networks in the region. Bombings and attacks continue in the region. On the night of Sunday May 27. A bomb was placed in a parking lot of a state-owned gas company office complex in Quetta, killing a security guard and injuring another. The following day, three laborers were injured in six blasts around Quetta.

The Baluchistan insurgency seems less of a threat to the stability of the nation than the Islamist anarchy which has spread from NWFP, where the Pakistani "Taliban" has established itself. In September 2006, General James Jones, then NATO's Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, claimed that the Taliban was headquartered in or around Quetta in Baluchistan. Pakistan has denied this. In 2004, the Pakistan army moved against NWFP tribal leaders who were openly supporting Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban who were based in the tribal agency of North Waziristan in NWFP. The mission failed to gain control of the region, and led to local dissent against the federal authorities.

North Waziristan is one of seven "Federally Administrated Tribal Areas" (FATA) within NWFP. These are still governed under the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) deriving from 1901, when the region was part of British India, states a December 2006 report by the International Crisis Group, entitled "Pakistan's Tribal Areas - Appeasing the Militants. ICG suggests that since 2004, the Pakistan authorities have resorted to peace deals and treaties with tribal leaders, rather than establish real control of the region. Although 70,000 troops have remained posted near the border, and outside journalists are denied entry to the FATA territories, Musharraf's authority here is insignificant. Deals made with groups that resent "alien" Pakistani authority have not brought any positive results.

At the end of 2005, it became clear that "Taliban" influence was becoming officially established in the agencies of North and South Waziristan, described earlier in FSM. By March 2006, the local "Taliban" ruled South Waziristan and had established a sharia court in Wana, the agency's capital. More than 120 clerics and tribal elders had been killed in the year leading up to this takeover. An official accord was signed with tribal leaders of North Waziristan on September 5 last year, but did not stop the cross-border activities of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

In April, Uzbek radicals who had been part of the Talibanization of Waziristan were ousted by local Taliban. These "internal" conflicts appear to have been replaced by drives to impose strict Islamist principles in NWFP. In late April 32-year old Mullah Nazir, one of the South Waziristan Taliban leaders who had been involved in removing the Uzbeks' control declared that he would shelter Osama bin Laden if the Al Qaeda leader wished. On Saturday, May 5, 200 Taliban in Bajaur agency forced cars to stop, smashing their cassette players.

On May 6 the prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, refused to rule out having a state of emergency declared. He said that the constitution allowed for such a measure to be taken. On the same day a member of the PPP party was shot dead in NWFP, and the outlawed Lashkar-e-Islam staged a rally in Khyber agency, NWFP. This group had earlier demanded sharia law be imposed in villages in the agency, and its leader Mangal Bagh had presided over a public stoning in March.

On May 7, US media reported that the US had concerns that nuclear technology could fall into Al Qaeda hands. Such a scenario could happen in the event of an Islamist coup. In February 2004, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, admitted on TV that he had supplied nuclear technology and information to Libya, Iran and North Korea. Khan's illegal acquiring of nuclear technology had led to Pakistan's first nuclear tests which took place in Chagai, Baluchistan on May 28, 1998. Within days of his confession, Khan was pardoned by Musharraf for sharing nuclear technology. The fruits of his treachery led to the regime in North Korea detonating its first nuke on October 9 last year.

On May 14, prime minister Shaukat Aziz declared that there was no need to impose a state of national emergency. Lawyers in NWFP also ordered that if any members of the secular MQM party, which supports Musharraf, should enter the region, they should be shot on sight.

The government prepared for a crackdown on the outlawed Tehrik Nifaz-e-Shariah Muhammadi (TNSM) in Swat district, NWFP. This extreme Islamist group had threatened on March 25 to launch suicide attacks across Pakistan if their jailed leader Maulana Sufi Muhammad was not released within days. Tis individual claimed to have recruited 10,000 jihadists to join the Afghan Taliban in 2001.

The following day the military was attacked with grenades in Tank district, NWFP. A soldier was killed and military personnel and civilians were injured. In Punjab province, four members of the al-Qaeda linked Zafar group were arrested in Lahore.

On May 19, nine government officials were kidnapped in North Waziristan agency, NWFP. Six of these were women. Two days later, Taliban members in Lakki Marwat district, southern NWFP, kidnapped a member of the Ahmadi sect, which is regarded by Islamists as "heretical".

On Monday May 21, Mangal Bagh, the head of Lashkar-e-Islami ordered on FM radio that a tribal journalist in Khyber agency, Nasrullah Afridi, should be killed. Later that day a music shop was blown up in the home village of the federal interior minister, in NWFP.

On Monday May 21, the US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher praised the successes of the Pakistan military in repelling Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives along the Durand line. He said: "They've had 80,000 troops in that (border) area who’ve been active and I would say, for the last six months they’ve been increasingly active in preventing infiltration across the border, disrupting and arresting Taliban and supporting tribal leaders who are trying to expel foreign militants." The next day, an Al Qaeda camp in Zargarkhel village in North Waziristan was attacked by troops, backed up by helicopter gunships. Four al Qaeda members were killed in the operation.

On Thursday May 24 a committee of tribal elders in North Waziristan resigned. These individuals had the responsibility to ensure that the peace deals of the accord of September 5 were followed. They resigned in protest at the killing of four people in the military attack on Zargarkhel village. On the same day in Islamabad, the capital, the deputy leader of the Lal Masjid warned Musharraf that a Taliban opposition was growing to challenge his rule. Abdul Rashid Ghazi said: "If the government tries to suppress the change that our movement is demanding, then there is a likelihood of Talibanization. I can see it happening."

Major General Waheed Arshad, a senior spokesman for the ISI, claimed that support for the Taliban was coming "from a tiny minority". He said that fencing of the Durand line was going ahead, and the first 20 miles of this fencing would be erected along the border of Afghanistan and North and South Waziristan.

In Tank district, seven rockets were fired at a paramilitary fort, without injuries. On Friday, May 25, tribal elders in Mohmand Agency refused to take part in a jirga, or tribal council. The jirga was to have been held to unite elders in condemnation of the Taliban, but the participants feared "target-killings" like those which happen frequently in Waziristan.

On Saturday May 26, three soldiers were killed in Tank after a bomb attack on their convoy. Seven other soldiers were injured. On the same day, the home of Nasrullah Afridi, the journalist who had been subjected to a death fatwa from the Lashkar-e-Islami, was attacked. Three grenades were thrown, but no-one was injured. On the same day in Darra Adam Khel in NWFP, music and video shops were warned to cease their "unIslamic" activities.

On Monday, May 28 two soldiers were killed in Tank by a suicide bomber who rammed an explosives-laden car into their convoy.

India and Pakistan have been at loggerheads over the issue of Kashmir for years, and Pakistan has allowed groups that support Indian Kashmir secede from Delhi's control to function unimpeded within its borders. Since 2003, there have been attempts between the two nations to resolve their differences. There are about 20 groups who support secession of Jammu and Kashmir state from India, and several of these are headquartered in Pakistan, such as Harkatul Mujahideen, Jamat ud-Dawa which is led by Hafiz Mohammed Saeed (who also founded the terror group Lashkar -e-Taiba), and also the group known as Hizbul Mujahideen. The latter group is headed by Syed Salahuddin, who also controls an alliance of separatist groups called the United Jihad Council (UJC).

Pakistani Kashmir, according to a recent EU report entitled "Kashmir: Present situation and Future Prospect", is certainly not a place of freedom. The author, Baroness Emma Nicholson described the two Pakistan-controlled Kashmiri regions of Gilgit and Baltistan as "black holes". In these regions, human rights violations flourish. The report was condemned by Pakistan's ambassador to the EU as lacking objectivity, but Baroness Nicholson insisted that on October 26, 1947 the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, Hari Singh, had clearly spelled out his reasons for his state becoming a part of India, rather than Pakistan. Nicholson described Pakistani Kashmir as being "in chains".

Gilgit is in the north of PoK (Pakistan occupied Kashmir) is 60% Shia, and in the past the Pakistan army has colluded with extremist Sunni groups, including the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, to oppress the Shia population.

The crisis within Pakistan is between secularism and Islamism, federalism and tribalism. The Lal Masjid, based in the Aapara district in the heart of the capital though with a large student intake from NWFP and links with mosques throughout Pakistan, highlights the tensions within the nation as a whole. Members of Pakistan's secret service, the ISI, have been worshippers at the Lal Masjid. One former ISI member, Khalid Khawaja, is currently in jail for fomenting the anarchy of the mosque students. In the past ISI has been responsible for coup attempts. Musharraf, as head of the army, can withstand a coup as long as he is supported by the military.

One retired general, Talat Masood, recently claimed that Musharraf has lost control of the government. On Saturday May 26 Musharraf warned that religious extremism was threatening the stability of the nation.

On the same day, the US warnedits citizens not to travel to Pakistan, on account of intelligence which suggested that Western interests in the nation were due to be attacked. The US Embassy in Lahore warned: "American citizens should avoid areas where Westerners are known to congregate, vary their routes and times, and maintain a low profile. We remind American citizens that protests and demonstrations may occur throughout Pakistan without prior notice and to avoid all demonstrations and protests."

Musharraf is an ally of the West, but he alone cannot stem the tide of religious fundamentalism which is aiming to engulf the nation. Should Pakistan fall to the Islamists there is no knowing what will happen to the nation's nuclear arsenal. In the face of Islamofascism, there are few safeguards to maintain rights and freedoms for minorities. Hindus, Christians and Ahmadis have been treated so poorly under successive Pakistani regimes and their forcibly-imposed regulations that many have fled. The suspended Chief Justice Iftikar M Chaudhry is parading himself on public tours around the country, and claiming that the rule of law is important. When this same judge, supported by the Islamists who wish to tear down the government, upholds a legal system which still blatantly discriminates against women and non-Muslims, then Pakistan is truly in a deep crisis. Musharraf may have his faults, but Pakistan without his influence could easily succumb to the process of Talibanization.

Adrian Morgan

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Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at May 30, 2007 7:35 PM

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