ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The United States Central Intelligence Agency faces its toughest test yet to prove wrong the suspicions of many within the Pakistani strategic community that some of the terrorism exported from Afghan soil into Pakistan has direct or indirect support from Washington.
The immediate test centers on Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the bandits who present themselves as Pakistani Taliban. The Americans have begun some cosmetic drone attacks on Baitullah’s territory and there are reports Washington has agreed to launch a joint operation with Pakistan against this bandit. The purpose is to assuage Pakistani concerns about the U.S. role. In July last year, Pakistan’s military leadership confronted senior CIA and U.S. military commanders with evidence showing Washington indirectly protecting anti-Pakistan terrorists on the ground. This newspaper broke that story on Aug. 5, 2008, with a front page headline, ‘US told not to back terrorism against Pakistan’.
For quite some time now, some Pakistani officials have reason to believe that not everything the Americans have been and continue to do in our region is shared with or has the consent of Pakistan, their supposed ally in this war.
Mehsud is a good example.
This bandit and his former leader and associate, Abdullah Mehsud, pioneered the attacks on Chinese interests in Pakistan, which was the first thing Abdullah did after being released from Gitmo in 2003. Interestingly, he was not handed back to Pakistan despite being a Pakistani citizen but was released to Afghanistan where he went back into the custody of U.S. military and the Karzai government. Abdullah was killed not on his home turf but when Pakistani security forces caught him sneaking back into Balochistan from a secret visit to Afghanistan, where he most probably was meeting his handlers. How he financed, armed and sustained a 25,000-strong militia remains beyond explanation. This militia continues to have quality arms and generous funding. Until now CIA drones have never targeted Abdullah or Baitullah or any other militia that is committed to attacking Pakistan. During the operations in Bajaur, our soldiers were reportedly stunned at one point to see close to 600 well armed terrorists come in from Afghanistan, fight the Pakistani military and then escape across the border. CIA never attacks such ‘terrorists’. There has been a meteoric rise in the number of anti-Pakistan militias and fighters within our tribal belt since 2004 and onwards, complete with religious brainwashing justifying the killing of Pakistanis as a first priority. This has coincided with the launch of terrorism in Balochistan and northern Pakistan, engulfing the area between Gwadar port and the Chinese border.
There are reasons to believe that, in order to punish the real or imaginary Pakistani tolerance for ‘Afghan Taliban’ – the real Taliban, I must add – someone who wields power in Afghanistan decided to make Pakistan pay by grooming their own Islamic fighters who’d solely focus on fighting Pakistan, as compared to the Afghan Taliban who focus on fighting the Americans inside Afghanistan. The idea is simple: pushing fake Islamists – professional killers trained in the art of recruiting and organizing death squads, Islam-focused propaganda experts tasked with brainwashing and mind twisting, fluent in Pashto, Uzbek, Arabic and possibly Chechen, and develop conduits for money and arms supplies from Afghanistan into Pakistan – and let them exploit to the hilt Pakistan’s multiple ethnic and religious fault lines.
We know that Indian spymasters and the intelligence service of the U.S. client government in Kabul are aiding terrorism inside Pakistan. The question is: how much of this has Washington’s covert or overt approval?It’s also quite interesting to note how the U.S. uses India to ratchet up the heat on Pakistan whenever there is a hiccup in the relationship. These days the Indian climbdown coincides with renewed signs that Pakistan’s political and military leaderships are cooperating with Washington.
This is not the Cold War era. The role of CIA outposts in Pakistan is becoming disputable now in many areas. While there is no question that both countries need to maintain close intelligence cooperation, the conflicting visions of America’s and Pakistan’s respective national security interests in Afghanistan and the region means that we need to reduce the level of unbridled CIA presence here and roll back some of the concessions that were necessitated by 9/11. In 2002, the Americans were allowed to establish bases in Balochistan and CIA was given the right to recruit Pakistanis in the tribal belt. These two areas of Pakistan are the most disturbed parts of our country seven years later. And now our territory is being used to attack the interests of Iran and China. We don’t have problems with these two nations but the U.S. does. It is also quite clear that Washington is creating conditions across our western belt that would make it impossible for China to pursue trade and energy corridors through Pakistan. The U.S. media alone has created and is sustaining an undeclared war against Pakistan whose intensity varies with the fluctuations of the U.S.-Pakistani ties.
Hopefully Mr. Richard Holbrooke heard this week in Islamabad that we don’t accept American diktat over Afghanistan where we have our own interests to watch like everyone else. While diplomats can handle the political side, it is the intelligence cooperation, and the CIA role specifically that is problematic from the Pakistani viewpoint.
The immediate test centers on Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the bandits who present themselves as Pakistani Taliban. The Americans have begun some cosmetic drone attacks on Baitullah’s territory and there are reports Washington has agreed to launch a joint operation with Pakistan against this bandit. The purpose is to assuage Pakistani concerns about the U.S. role. In July last year, Pakistan’s military leadership confronted senior CIA and U.S. military commanders with evidence showing Washington indirectly protecting anti-Pakistan terrorists on the ground. This newspaper broke that story on Aug. 5, 2008, with a front page headline, ‘US told not to back terrorism against Pakistan’.
For quite some time now, some Pakistani officials have reason to believe that not everything the Americans have been and continue to do in our region is shared with or has the consent of Pakistan, their supposed ally in this war.
Mehsud is a good example.
This bandit and his former leader and associate, Abdullah Mehsud, pioneered the attacks on Chinese interests in Pakistan, which was the first thing Abdullah did after being released from Gitmo in 2003. Interestingly, he was not handed back to Pakistan despite being a Pakistani citizen but was released to Afghanistan where he went back into the custody of U.S. military and the Karzai government. Abdullah was killed not on his home turf but when Pakistani security forces caught him sneaking back into Balochistan from a secret visit to Afghanistan, where he most probably was meeting his handlers. How he financed, armed and sustained a 25,000-strong militia remains beyond explanation. This militia continues to have quality arms and generous funding. Until now CIA drones have never targeted Abdullah or Baitullah or any other militia that is committed to attacking Pakistan. During the operations in Bajaur, our soldiers were reportedly stunned at one point to see close to 600 well armed terrorists come in from Afghanistan, fight the Pakistani military and then escape across the border. CIA never attacks such ‘terrorists’. There has been a meteoric rise in the number of anti-Pakistan militias and fighters within our tribal belt since 2004 and onwards, complete with religious brainwashing justifying the killing of Pakistanis as a first priority. This has coincided with the launch of terrorism in Balochistan and northern Pakistan, engulfing the area between Gwadar port and the Chinese border.
There are reasons to believe that, in order to punish the real or imaginary Pakistani tolerance for ‘Afghan Taliban’ – the real Taliban, I must add – someone who wields power in Afghanistan decided to make Pakistan pay by grooming their own Islamic fighters who’d solely focus on fighting Pakistan, as compared to the Afghan Taliban who focus on fighting the Americans inside Afghanistan. The idea is simple: pushing fake Islamists – professional killers trained in the art of recruiting and organizing death squads, Islam-focused propaganda experts tasked with brainwashing and mind twisting, fluent in Pashto, Uzbek, Arabic and possibly Chechen, and develop conduits for money and arms supplies from Afghanistan into Pakistan – and let them exploit to the hilt Pakistan’s multiple ethnic and religious fault lines.
We know that Indian spymasters and the intelligence service of the U.S. client government in Kabul are aiding terrorism inside Pakistan. The question is: how much of this has Washington’s covert or overt approval?It’s also quite interesting to note how the U.S. uses India to ratchet up the heat on Pakistan whenever there is a hiccup in the relationship. These days the Indian climbdown coincides with renewed signs that Pakistan’s political and military leaderships are cooperating with Washington.
This is not the Cold War era. The role of CIA outposts in Pakistan is becoming disputable now in many areas. While there is no question that both countries need to maintain close intelligence cooperation, the conflicting visions of America’s and Pakistan’s respective national security interests in Afghanistan and the region means that we need to reduce the level of unbridled CIA presence here and roll back some of the concessions that were necessitated by 9/11. In 2002, the Americans were allowed to establish bases in Balochistan and CIA was given the right to recruit Pakistanis in the tribal belt. These two areas of Pakistan are the most disturbed parts of our country seven years later. And now our territory is being used to attack the interests of Iran and China. We don’t have problems with these two nations but the U.S. does. It is also quite clear that Washington is creating conditions across our western belt that would make it impossible for China to pursue trade and energy corridors through Pakistan. The U.S. media alone has created and is sustaining an undeclared war against Pakistan whose intensity varies with the fluctuations of the U.S.-Pakistani ties.
Hopefully Mr. Richard Holbrooke heard this week in Islamabad that we don’t accept American diktat over Afghanistan where we have our own interests to watch like everyone else. While diplomats can handle the political side, it is the intelligence cooperation, and the CIA role specifically that is problematic from the Pakistani viewpoint.