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Two Approaches to
Terrorism
A
'friend' of the US and an Indian enemy
S a p r a says
.....
It is finally clear that the United States
Administration, no matter what its officials might publicly avow, is
not interested in taking on terrorism everywhere in the world. The
Administration will take on terrorists only if they directly
threaten US interests. This in itself is only to be expected but
what is scary is the growing belief within the US establishment that
even the worst of terrorists can be bought over - that its just a
matter of striking the right deal. Only if money and other
enticements do not prove enough will the US physically act against
terrorists. A combination of money, dubious deals and threats proved
more effective in Afghanistan than Tomahawk missiles and daisy
cutters. The security planners in Washington DC seem to think that
an all out ideological war against terrorism is a bit too much.
Therefore, even a person like Pakistan's military dictator, General
Pervez Musharraf, is acceptable as a "friend" of the United States.
He has acted like a friend because he has reined in his terrorist
Islamist cowboys in Afghanistan and sold the Taliban down the river
after creating, arming and sustaining them for 7 years. It does not
matter that the dictator also heads one of the most dangerous
Islamist machineries in the world, the Inter Services Intelligence
(ISI). This organisation has been systematically Islamicised since
the late 1970s when the country was ruled by another military
dictator, General Zia ul Haq, who believed that the only way
Pakistan could survive was by re-affirming its Islamic identity.
During the Soviet Afghan war, the ISI systematically channelled arms
and money to Islamist groups fighting in Afghanistan and starved
moderates and secularists.
Within Pakistan, the ISI promoted domestic
Islamists who ended up doing excellent work for the country by
creating the Taliban in 1994. Domestic Islamist parties have become
so much a part of the Pakistani polity that most people in that
country find their presence and preaching perfectly acceptable.
Using the Islamists has become an acceptable instrument of foreign
policy by the Pakistani leadership. In Afghanistan, the Pakistani
"hand" had been obvious for many years now. Pakistani regular army
soldiers and officers had been fighting along sides the Taliban to
achieve key military victories after the Taliban proved incapable of
fighting in a disciplined and effective manner. Pakistani military
and intelligence officers have been "guiding" the Taliban ever since
its inception in late 1994. In many ways, Pakistan had become the de
facto ruler of Afghanistan and this rule was enforced by a coalition
of terrorists - the Taliban, Al Qaida and the ISI. The US only
partially took on this terrorist grouping. The specific US target
was the non-Afghan (principally Arab) terrorists operating in
Afghanistan. Hundreds of them were systematically killed in Qilla
Jhangvi along with many Pakistanis who were caught in their midst.
The bulk of ISI and Pakistani military personnel were, however,
allowed to escape to Pakistan. At one time, the US even allowed
Pakistan to conduct an airlift from Kunduz where Pakistani army
regulars fighting alongside the Taliban were trapped. Most Afghan
chieftains were either bribed or bullied into submission. The
Taliban, without support from its mentor Pakistan, collapsed without
a fight and its top leaders disappeared into the
woodwork.
General Musharraf was publicly congratulated
for all this. He was also told that he could continue with his
terrorist activities elsewhere. After all, the terrorists taken out
of Afghanistan needed to be employed elsewhere and, more
importantly, Musharraf needed to survive. If the US wanted their
friend to continue ruling Pakistan and cracking down on "bad"
terrorists, he needed to use "good" terrorists elsewhere. The other
part of the world where Pakistan's ISI has been working actively
with Islamist terrorists is the state of Jammu & kashmir in
India. General Musharraf, in a key address on terrorism on 12
January 2002, claimed that Kashmir was in the blood of Pakistanis
and would never be abandoned. In other words, the General made it
clear that his country's terrorism in Kashmir, and against India,
would continue. How did the US react to all this? They looked a
little uncomfortable and them hummed something about the need for
India and Pakistan to talk like gentlemen and sort out things. The
Indian reaction was one of mounting disbelief. Then, General
Musharraf visited the United States and returned sounding cockier
still. He even claimed that the attack on the Indian Parliament on
13 December 2001 was not a terrorist attack. "Where is the proof, I
haven't been given any evidence", the General declared. He also
refused to extradite the 20 terrorists wanted by the Indian
government who have been given shelter in Pakistan. These high
profile terrorists are being protected by the ISI. Their names have
been changed and most have Pakistani passports. One such terrorist
is Dawood Ibrahim, the mastermind of the 1993 bomb blasts that
killed hundreds in the Indian city of Mumbai. The Pakistani media
has written extensively on Ibrahim's current avatar as a guest of
the Pakistan government. Ibrahim lives in Karachi and travels often
to the Middle East to keep his mafia and terror empire functioning.
The other terrorists wanted by India are openly engaged in various
Islamist activities like raising funds for the Jihad or organising
hate rallies against India. US officials know all this and what
Pakistan is doing in Kashmir but do not care. This is not "their
terrorism", that is Pakistan's and India's concern. Clearly there
are two approaches to terrorism.
A qualified approach to terrorism will not
work, not now and not in the long run. Terrorism does not
discriminate and what is "their" terrorism today could well become
"our" terrorism tomorrow. The tragic case of Wall Street Journal
reporter Daniel Pearl is a direct consequence of the anti-India
terrorism nurtured by the ISI. At first, General Musharraf claimed
that Pearl's abduction was the handiwork of India's intelligence
agencies. Subsequently, the Pakistani police picked up a well known
Islamist terrorist Omar Sheikh for Pearl's abduction. Sheikh, a
former student of the London School of Economics and a British
citizen by birth, admitted to the abduction. Omar Sheikh is well
known in India's intelligence circles. He had come to fight the
Jihad in Kashmir and thereafter was put to work in the Islamist
cells that targeted foreigners in India. He carried out an extremely
successful abduction in India but was ultimately caught. In his
confessions he admitted to a hatred for white skinned foreigners. He
would have spent the rest of his life in Indian jails had it not
been for the ISI that planned, through its Kathmandu office, a
brilliant plan to hijack an Indian Airlines plane. ISI trained
terrorists were brought to Kathmandu and put on the Kathmandu
flight. The flight ended up in the Taliban headquarters of Kandahar
in Afghanistan. One passenger was knifed to death and the Indian
government eventually freed three top terrorists who drove into the
sunset cheered on by the Taliban. All three terrorists drove
straight to Pakistan where they ostensibly disappeared. At least one
of them, Masood Azhar, the chief of the Jaish e Mohammad, openly
toured Pakistan, recounting his miraculous escape and how he had
taught the Indian infidels a lesson. Azhar continued to be protected
by the ISI. The other released terrorist continued to do what they
were best at. Omar Sheikh got itchy fingers and abducted Pearl.
Sheikh is in police custody but there are thousands of other
Islamist terrorists in Pakistan and India silently waging a
terrorist war against India. Terrorists kill an average of two
Indians every day. Their latest outrage was in the state of Jammu
& Kashmir [17 February 2002] where terrorist shot dead 8 men,
women and children. The youngest of those killed was a one and a
half year old child. They were killed because they were Hindus. All
this is indeed India's problem and not that of the United States'.
But if the US genuinely seeks a peaceful world it better choose
better friends.
S a p r a is an acronym for Security &
Political Risk Analysis, an
eminent Indian think-tank.
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