India Under Siege

India’s 9/11: Mumbai method and madness

By Manish Chand

No other terror attack in India has dominated global media spotlight as the November 26 Mumbai massacre. What caught the world’s eye and sparked unprecedented global outrage was the sheer precision and audacity with which a little over a dozen terrorists unleashed the reign of terror in Mumbai and paralyzed India’s business capital, killing nearly 200 people, including 24 foreigners. CNN latched on to the Mumbai carnage within hours of the attacks, blamed by India on Pakistan-based elements, and aired minute-by-minute updates on the most audacious strike by terrorists India has ever seen. With six Americans and six Israelis killed in the attack, CNN’s anchors and terrorism experts were quick to see huge implications of the Mumbai mayhem: it was more than an attack on India, it was also an attempt to terrorise the West for doing business with India, reeking of an al-Qaeda like operation. International dailies also sensed the larger picture and christened the terror attacks, and the subsequent 60-hour siege of Mumbai, ‘India’s 9/11.’

The terror spectacular in Mumbai surpassed other such attacks in India in terms of sheer scale and sophistication. But in the ensuing chaos and mayhem – it took nearly 60 hours of unrelenting operation by India’s elite commandos to flush out terrorists holed up in two luxury hotels and a Jewish center – the world has a fairly coherent idea of the identity of the perpetrators and motivations driving this diabolic act of mass destruction.

The message of the terrorists was embedded in their canny choice of symbolic targets – two top luxury hotels in India’s business capital and a fashionable café that symbolized the globalizing face of a rising India and attracted the well-heeled and tourists from Western countries in droves, the iconic railway station designated as a Unesco heritage site, and a Jewish center at Nariman House. The methods used and the targets chosen point towards a joint operation by al-Qeada and Lashkar-e-Taiba, a banned Pakistan-based militant outfit that was created by Pakistan’s ISI to foment insurgency in Kashmir.

If one pieces it together, one can safely say that terrorists were targeting symbols of a rising India and its deepening involvement with the Western world. These terrorists were no freaks driven by a freak death wish; there was more than method in their madness and their tactic suggests a taste for high symbolism – a trait that was more than evident in their deft choice of 9/11 targets in the US: World Trade Tower in New York and the Pentagon building in Washington – the pre-eminent symbols of America’s economic and military power.

The attack on a lone rabbi and his family in the Nariman House, a local hub of Chabad-Lubavich, an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect, was a symbolic declaration of vengeance against the Zionists, who are despised by Islamic jihadis and reviled as Islam’s enemy down the centuries. Translated into the vocabulary of al-Qaeda or radical Islam, terrorists were sticking to their declared script of liquidating the enemies of Islam – Crusaders, Zionists and their new ally and collaborator, a Hindu-majority rising India that is seen to be callous towards grievances of its 140 million Muslims. The attacks were a cruder version of the dubious dialectic of the clash of civilizations that was touted as the ideological force behind the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York. This also happens to be the declared credo of Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the chief of LeT, the outlawed Pakistan-based terrorist outfit that is suspected of having a hand in the Mumbai attacks. “Jews, Christians and Hindus are enemies of Islam. It is our aim to unfurl the green flag of Islam in Washington, Jerusalem and New Delhi,” the ideologue of the LeT had said years ago. It is this agenda which is being enacted in all its chilling and gory details now and which has sucked the Mumbai attacks into the matrix of the global jihad. It was like re-playing 9/11 in Mumbai with India’s cosmopolitan city as the staging ground.

It is not that Mumbai has not been attacked before. But unlike attacks in 1993 and 2006 - there have been at least six terrorist attacks in this city in the last 15 years - where perceived injustices inflicted on Muslims and a visceral row over the destruction of a mosque were the spurs for the carnage, this time round the terror has a larger and more complex ideological message that is global in character and hints at an al-Qaeda influence. Unraveling motives will also help also shine a light on the Deccan Mujahideen, a previously unknown militant outfit, which has claimed responsibility for the 26/11 cold-blooded carnage. Incidentally, “Deccan” is used by radical jihadists as a symbol of the Muslim rule in southern India and point towards their larger agenda of what they think as liberating Muslim lands form Hindu rule.

Why did the world react with unprecedented anger and outrage at the Mumbai mayhems. First and foremost, there were 22 foreigners among nearly 200 killed by what India suspects to be Pakistan-based terrorists. Secondly, targets chosen by terrorists included carefully chosen haunts like two luxury hotels and a fashionable café, which were frequented by foreigners. The idea was to terrorise foreigners who were flocking to a rising India, seduced by its growing economic weight and burgeoning business opportunities. Third, terrorists wanted to target the West and Westerners. There are stories doing the rounds that terrorists checked the passports of their potential victims and targeted only those from western countries. A Russian delegation which was staying in Taj Mahal hotel was let off after terrorists checked their passports. Fourth, a little-known Jewish center, called Nariman House was targeted. The symbolism of the attack was evident: it was not just India, but America and its allies that were in the firing line of terrorists. The attack on Nariman House was also meant to give a pan-Islamic flavour to the operation and resurrect discredited theories of the clash of civilizations that became fashionable after the 9/11 attacks. Fifth, the terrorists wanted to stall India’s emergence as a regional power in which the US and the Western world has also developed stakes. Sixth, they wanted to provoke a confrontation between India and Pakistan that would revive anxieties of South Asia turning into a nuclear flashpoint. The grand strategic design, experts say, was to force the US and the European Union to play a more proactive role in the resolution of the Kashmir issue.

If these were the motives of the Mumbai massacre managers and their henchmen, it is not difficult for the world to see where the attacks were coming from. Who could have such a complex set of motives to target India’s financial capital? It was not just the tactics of the terrorists, but the sheer sophistication of the multi-layered message that went out from Mumbai that has stirred the world into looking at 26/11 as another 9/11, perhaps a dress rehearsal to a bigger 9/11 in America, which is patting itself on the back over the absence of terror strikes in the last seven years.

Initially, India did not reflexively blame Pakistan for the Mumbai attacks – a charge that was often made in the western media in the past – but waited for preliminary evidence before pointing a finger at “elements in Pakistan” for these outrageous attacks. In blaming elements in Pakistan, New Delhi made it a point not to accuse the civilian government in Islamabad for complicity in the attacks as has been the case in the past. This was construed as sign of weakness by the powers-that-be in Islamabad who predictably went into the denial mode and claimed that their country too was a victim of terrorism.

But with more damning evidence emerging, New Delhi is now readying to confront Islamabad with a list of ISI handlers of the Mumbai attackers. Nobody is denying that Pakistan is also a victim of terrorism, but there is also an overwhelming consensus that terrorism which is stalking Pakistan is being managed by those outfits which were created by Pakistani establishment as an instrument of its foreign policy. The breaking point came when Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari summarirly rejected India’s demand for handing over three fugitives who are wanted in India for major terror strikes and sought to pass the buck by blaming “non-state actors” for the Mumbai massacre. However this time round, the world was not willing to be fooled. American intelligence and security agencies were actively monitoring the aftermath of the Mumbai mayhem and came out with leads pointing to the collusion of the ISI and Army in the terror attacks. Finally, it took US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to call Pakistan’s bluff in a day-long tour to New Delhi Dec 3.

In a blunt message to Pakistan, Rice assured India that it expected Pakistan to cooperate "fully and urgently" with India in the probe of the brazen coordinated terror strikes in Mumbai, which bore the imprint of "an Al Qeada like" operation and underlined that no country can wash its hands off terrorist groups operating within their territory by calling them non-state actors. The message was aimed at Zardari. "The fact is, non-state actors perform from the confines of the state. There has to be direct and tough action (by Islamabad)," Rice said. "Non-state actors remain a matter of responsibility if it's in your territory," Rice stressed and reinforced this message when she met Pakistan's leaders in Islamabad the next day. Offering full cooperation to India in probing the terror attacks, Rice underlined the need for global cooperation in fighting terrorism of this nature. "We expect all responsible nations to cooperate. Pakistan has a special responsibility to do so, fully, transparently and urgently," she stressed.

Most important, she indicated that the terrorism flowing from Pakistan has to move beyond semantic jugglery to real issues: fixing the perpetrators and brining them to the book. Rice could not have said what she said in India without leads from US intelligence agencies. According to American intelligence agencies, former officers from Pakistan's army and its powerful ISI helped train the Mumbai attackers, the New York Times has reported, citing a former US official. The FBI teams are already in India and are actively assisting Indian intelligence agencies. There is in fact a growing convergence between the two sides on the origin of the Mumbai attacks, their planning and execution which is seen to be directed by powerful elements in Pakistan establishment.

With these damning disclosures and increasing global outrage as a backdrop, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Dec 5, with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev by his side, that New Delhi and the international community have reached the "same conclusion" that the "territory of the neighbouring country" was used for perpetrating these attacks. He also reminded the world community of its obligation to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror to the book. “We expect the world community to recognise - and other countries have come to the same conclusion - that the territory of the neighbouring country has been used for perpetrating this crime," Manmohan Singh said without directly naming Pakistan. "It's the obligation of all countries concerned that the perpetrators of this crime are brought to the book," Manmohan Singh said when asked what India proposed to do about the perpetrators of the Mumbai assault who were said to have come from Pakistan. "We have told the world that the people of India have felt a sense of hurt and anger as never before due to the Mumbai terror strikes. That's the message to everyone,” the prime minister said. "We will wait for the outcome," he said in response to a question on India's response to Pakistan's refusal to hand over the fugitives New Delhi suspects have been involved in major terror strikes in India, including the Nov 26 Mumbai terror attacks.

In any other context, these words could have sounded like platitudes, but what set them apart was a conviction that India is not alone in this battle, but the international community is increasingly looking at Pakistan as a source of terror that can affect anyone and everyone anywhere.

With Pakistan calling world capitals to convince the international community of its claimed innocence, India, too, has launched a diplomatic offensive to convince the world community about the crying need for action. Six days after the Mumbai attacks, a senior Indian diplomat held a meeting with the envoys of those countries whose nationals were killed in the Nov 26 terror strikes and expressed India’s deepest condolences for the death of their nationals in the Mumbai strikes. The heads of missions from Germany, Canada, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Italy, Thailand, Israel and Mauritius were present at the meeting.

The message was not lost on anyone: the world needs to act and take concrete action against these terrorists who have found sanctuaries in Pakistan and their mentors in the establishment. Banning militant outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba and its political wing Jammat-ud-Dawa could be the first step in that direction. Attacking the financing network of Islamic terrorists is the next step – Americans nailed some of 9/11 perpetrators by tracing the funding of these terrorists. Putting pressure on Pakistan to arrest Hafiz Saeed, the chief ideologue of LeT who is being openly feted and patronized in Islamabad, will go a long way in easing tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours as India suspects the LeT to be the chief architect of the Mumbai blasts.

In the end, the terrorists did manage to get some of their messages across; these themes were echoed in leading international dailies and opinions by experts around the world. But if these were the motives of Mumbai massacre managers, then they may have only partially achieved their objectives. In fact, one can say that they have made a major strategic error by forcing the Western world to see terrorism in India as an integral part of the global war on terror. Not too long ago, terror attacks in India hardly merited a word in the Western media and were often equated with unresolved tensions with Pakistan. With Mumbai attacks, which is widely seen as India’s 9/11, that has changed radically with the international media reporting and analyzing these senseless attacks in Mumbai in minute details. In an act of solidarity and a sign of linked destinies, Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg held a prayer meeting with Indian Americans in the US’ financial capital; an Australian newspaper wrote memorably about standing shoulder to shoulder with India and warning the international community to cave in to the designs of Mumbai attackers.

Within hours of the attacks, there were pointed condemnations of these acts of terrorism and reiterations of solidarity with India. Many leaders around the world, including US President George Bush, President-elect Barack Obama, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, rang up Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and threw their weight behind India’s battle against terrorism, which they saw equally as their own battle. The message to the perpetrators of Mumbai attacks and their handlers was clear: it was not just India that was targeted, but the bombs were also aimed at India’s integration into the West and an increasingly globalized world.

The world community, therefore, has to realise that it’s time for action, not words. It can’t allow the rulers of Pakistan to get away with inaction on the plea that the perpetrators of such attacks are non-state or stateless actors. Sovereignty comes from authority. If the civilian government in Pakistan is not in charge – there are rumours of an impending coup in Islamabad – then Pakistan is a fit case of armed intervention. Striking out terrorist camps and targeting those elements in the establishment with rigorous intelligence-gathering is the only way out. The US will not like India and Pakistan to go to war as any confrontation between the two nuclear-armed neighbours would lead Pakistan to divert its troops from the Afghan border to the Indian border and ruin its hopes of defeating a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. The world community, too, would not like the two countries to go to war, which could escalate into a nuclear conflagration. That’s why the US has mounted international pressure on Pakistan to arrest top LeT commanders and former ISI chiefs like Hamid Gul who are said to be actively sponsoring jihad against India and are suspected to have hand in the Mumbai strikes. There is also a move by influential US senators to link the aid to Pakistan with action on anti-India terrorists. The US is also planning to get some of the militant outfits operating in Pakistan designated as terrorist entities by the UN.

India has noted these moves approvingly, but in the end these steps will be judged by how effective they are in getting Pakistan to deliver concrete results in the battle against terrorism proliferating from its soil. However, if the pressure of the world community is not strong enough and there is little action from Pakistan except tokenism in bringing the masterminds and engineers of India’s 9/11 to book, India will have no option but to go to war. India is keeping the military option as a last resort. But New Delhi has sent a message to the world that there is a limit to India’s patience in the face of relentless terror attacks coming from the neighbouring country.

India-Pakistan ties in deep freezer

By Manish Chand

It was another round of talks between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan. The mood was upbeat; and the sentiments of friendship appeared genuine and spontaneous. Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi spoke eloquently about setting “a perfect pitch” for bilateral relations by inviting the Indian cricket team to visit Pakistan. He also spoke effusively about promoting trade, jointly combating terrorism and a new climate in Pakistan favouring stronger ties with India. India’s External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee smiled at the end of a joint press conference, and indicated that the cricket team would go to Pakistan after a stringent security review. It was 9.15 pm (IST).

Minutes later, the mayhem started in Mumbai with terrorists targeting carefully chosen targets in India’s financial capital that included two luxury hotels, a crowded railway station and a Jewish center. The day is now etched in the collective memory of Indians and will ferment in anger and anguish for days to come: 26/11, India’s version of American 9/11.

Twenty hours later, the warming India-Pakistan ties showed signs of chill, which are deepening as the winter wears on with India blaming “elements from Pakistan” for perpetrating the Mumbai carnage. Mukherjee called Qureshi on the phone – Qureshi was addressing women journalists in New Delhi Nov 27 and singing his usual song of cricket and trade - and read out from a written statement putting Pakistan on notice. An offended Islamabad sent a military plane to fetch Qureshi the next morning and bring him home, abruptly cutting his trip to India, and, in the process, signaling to New Delhi that it won’t blink so easily.

Predictably, Islamabad went into a denial mode and it’s spin-doctors spread carefully crafted rumours about Pakistani troops moving from the western Afghan border to the Indian border – a move that was designed to alarm the Americans as any movement of Pakistani troops would have jeopardized the US’ Afghan war. Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Reza Gilani rang up India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and agreed to his demand for sending ISI chief to India in the context of investigations into the Mumbai blasts. The Pakistani Army chief put his foot down and told Zardari point blank that sending the ISI chief to India was unthinkable. Hours later, Zardari did a flip-flop and told India that Islamabad would only be sending a senior ISI official. The message was clear to those in the know: the game of camouflage and one-upmanship was on.

Five days later, India’s foreign office summoned Pakistan’s high commissioner Shahid Malik and served him a demarche Dec 1, asking Islamabad to take "strong action" against those elements New Delhi suspects to be behind the blasts. India also asked Pakistan to hand over most wanted fugitives from Indian law and to proscribe anti-India militant outfits. The most wanted list includes Laskhar-e-Taiba leader Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, who is widely suspected to be a mastermind behind the Nov 26 Mumbai carnage, Mumbai-based gangster Dawood Ibrahim who fled to Karachi after engineering the 1993 Mumbai blasts, and Jaish-e-Mohammad outfit's chief Masood Azhar, a top suspect in the Dec 13, 2001 attack on Indian parliament.

In response, Zardari offered a joint investigation team, which was spurned by India. Subsequently, Zardari summarily rejected the demand for handing over fugitives, asking India to produce evidence so that they can be prosecuted in Pakistani courts. India claims it has provided strong evidence in the past - the list of India's 20 most wanted dates back to 2002 in the aftermath of the Dec 13, 2001 attack on Indian parliament. New Delhi is carefully weighing in its options, that could include a precision military strike against terrorist camps in Pakistan, but has indicated it will decide on this issue only after a formal response from Pakistan to its Dec 1 demarche.

In short, the India-Pakistan relations have touched their lowest point after the Mumbai mayhem, that is widely perceived to be carried out by Pakistan-based militant groups and their mentors in the Army-ISI establishment who were feeling threatened by American pressure to liquidate their creation: the Taliban. Nobody could have foreseen a month ago this sharp U-turn in bilateral ties between India and Pakistan, the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

With Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, who only a few weeks ago charmed India by saying there is a little bit of India in every Pakistani, repudiating demand for returning fugitives from Indian law and little sign of cooperation coming from Islamabad in the wake of Mumbai's terror attacks, India has decided to put its bilateral dialogue "on hold" till its concerns are addressed. The decision to suspend the composite dialogue process has come after more damning evidence emerged, linking not just Pakistan-based elements but its Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), to the Mumbai blasts. New Delhi is convinced "without a shadow of doubt" about Pakistan's spy agency ISI's involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks and is preparing to present to Islamabad "a list of ISI handlers" who allegedly masterminded the terror strikes, reliable sources said.

“We are one hundred percent convinced that the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) is involved in the Mumbai attacks,” said highly-placed intelligence sources. “We know these attacks could not have been staged by an isolated militant group. There is not a shadow of doubt about that,” the source said. “We are zeroing in on the names of these ISI handlers and will present a fool-proof case (to Pakistan) soon,” the source said, adding that the American intelligence agencies are coming round to the same conclusion.

Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist who was arrested after the Mumbai terror strikes, has revealed during his interrogation that he was trained in at least four camps in Pakistan and met LeT leader Mohammad Hafeez Saeed at a camp in Pakistan. Saeed is among the fugitives New Delhi wants extradited from Pakistan. New Delhi is now convinced that the LeT was working in close coordination with some sections in the ISI, which created the militant outfit nearly two decades ago to wage a proxy war against India over the Kashmir issue. The Let, a militant outfit which was banned in 2002 under American pressure, now operates under the control of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which runs Islamic schools and charity work in Pakistan. India now wants Pakistan to ban JuD.

The first casualty of the chill in India-Pakistan ties in the aftermath of Mumbai carnage has been trade talks - an area in which the new civilian government in Islamabad has shown great enthusiasm, echoing India's long-standing position on improving relations through trade ties.

India has called off a trip by a Planning Commission team which was going to Islamabad to lay the groundwork and finalise the dates for a visit by Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Ahluwalia was to return a visit by his Pakistani counterpart Salman Faruqui who came here earlier this month and explored the possibility of cooperation in building Metro and in renewable energy.

India and Pakistan launched the fifth round of composite dialogue in July in the shadow of the bombings outside the Indian mission in Kabul. New Delhi blamed the ISI for the blasts, which put the dialogue process under strain. The talks on the remaining items in the composite dialogue which contains official talks on eight items that include disputes over Siachen and Sir Creek, trade and economic cooperation, water dispute and cultural cooperation, have now been put off indefinitely.

With strong evidence emerging about the ISI’s links to the Mumbai carnage and growing public anger and outrage in India clamouring for action against perpetrators of these attacks, the Indian government can’t be seen not to be doing anything concrete after blaming Pakistan-based elements for the massacre. New Delhi has already taken one decisive step: suspending the composite dialogue till Pakistan comes clean about the links of various agencies and groups operating from its territory to the Mumbai blasts which killed nearly 200 people and injured over 300. Another option that is open is to launch precision military strikes against terror camps in Pakistan – a move that is fraught with high risks and one that threatens to turn into a full-blooded armed confrontation, which could invite international intervention. This could, however, become a real option if Pakistan does not come out with any convincing proof of action in a reasonable period of time. But for this move to succeed, it will require American and international backing. Indian authorities are already working with the US security and intelligence establishment to garner evidence to establish the involvement of the ISI and LeT in the Mumbai attacks. The Americans know probably more about these attacks than the Indian intelligence agencies, say top sources. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hinted at it when she sent a tough, no-nonsense message to Pakistan, asking it to cooperate “urgently and transparently” with India in tracking the perpetrators of the Mumbai mayhem that killed 172 people, including six Americans. Rice, who was in New Delhi on a day-long visit, Dec 3, was also pointed in calling Islamabad’s bluff by emphatically stating that non-state actors, whom Zardari blamed for attacks, remain the responsibility of those countries in whose territory they have made their base. She reinforced this message when she went to Islamabad the next day asking the latter to show “robust action” against militants. But left to themselves, Americans won’t pressurize Pakistan beyond a point as it would mean imperiling its Afghan war which is a much bigger issue in the US’ scheme of things. However, this time round, the US is solidly behind India and has a stake in bringing the perpetrators of this al-Qaeda like operation to the book. The American support works to India’s advantage, but at the end of the day India has to decide on how to put an end to this game of bleeding India with a thousand cuts – which was once Pakistan’s public policy of avenging India for the creation of Bangladesh – once and for all. Is war the only option? It’s a huge and dangerous step, with potentially catastrophic implications not just for the two countries but has the potential of turning the region into a nuclear flashpoint. Time is, however, running out. New Delhi has to decide fast whether the costs of doing something tangible outweigh the costs of doing nothing.

Jihadistan: A guerrilla nation that Pakistan cannot control

By Harold A. Gould

In the face of the mounting military, political and ideological threats emanating from the Taliban-Al Qaeda sanctuary in the tribal areas of Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, it is wrong to think that the US should sit on its hands while Pakistan makes timorous efforts to rein in the Islamic extremists.

Yes, the US must exercise caution and circumspection in dealing with Pakistani political sensibilities. At the same time, if Pakistan won't act with sufficient force in the region, the US is at least justified in hotly pursuing insurgent bands into Waziristan and other tribal areas of Pakistan, and continue the search for Osama bin Laden and the other terrorist leaders finding protection in these areas.

To be sure, the US should do whatever it can to encourage and vitalise Pakistani efforts to pacify and control the region. In doing so, we must recognise that elements in Pakistan's security forces are sympathetic to the insurgents and more interested in protecting than pursuing them. This has indeed been the case since the Taliban emerged out of the Pashtun cultural matrix and the Al Qaeda arrived on the scene to inject global ideological spice into their cause.

It also is fair to say the duplicitous machinations of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) have made it nearly impossible for all recent Pakistani governments - no matter what their political complexion - to deal effectively with the insurgents.

But there is another element of political reality in the tribal lands that must be acknowledged. It is that a form of quasi-state formation has occurred in the Hindu Kush. The region is no longer under meaningful Pakistani suzerainty, not even of the nominal kind that it had enjoyed in the past.

The Taliban and Al Qaeda have carved out a virtually autonomous political entity, melding together under the rubric of Islamic fundamentalism many of the indigenous tribes inhabiting Waziristan; they have formed a loose confederation whose tribal leaders acknowledge Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden as their spiritual and political Emirs.

They have established in most of the region a functioning, loosely integrated governmental system viable enough to impose taxes, issue permits to businesses, maintain an agricultural economy (based upon massive, lucrative opium poppy cultivation), operate a judicial system based upon Shariah law, inaugurate an educational system (madrassas) adapted to their fundamentalist proclivities, and sustain a guerilla military with sophisticated weaponry and a manpower base numbering in the tens of thousands.

I have given the name "Jihadistan" to this guerilla nation.

Under these circumstances, it is naive to insist that the only thing the US, the coalition forces, and the Afghans can do is to just sit passively on the Afghan side of the border, absorbing an increasing quantum of death and destruction from this Jihadi state. They have to find ways to effectively fight back, to attack and neutralise the terorists' growing military capabilities and their ramifying politico-economic influence.

Inevitably this has to involve strategies that endeavor to penetrate Jihadistan both with selective, surgical military strikes, and through systematic efforts to undermine the hold over the hearts and minds of the tribal communities now in the thrall of the Taliban and Al Qaeda through an admixture of economic, political and ideological initiatives. This is where Pakistan comes in.

Publicly, the current Pakistani leadership, for understandable reasons, is proclaiming that it will resist any and all proactive measures taken by the US and its allies to interdict the capacity of the Taliban and Al Qaeda to attack Afghanistan from its Jihadistan sanctuary.

But the US must realize that there are ways, some subtle and some not so subtle, of inducing the Pakistani leadership to rein in this jingoistic posture and bring it around to the policies that the present political realities in the Hindu Kush demand.

What are these procedures? Certainly, a major key is making continued economic and military assistance to Pakistan contingent on the willingness of President Zardari and his political coalition to agree to more decisive collaborative military action (as opposed to winging it on their own with limited results) against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

This policy would be a start in the face of Pakistan's current economic circumstances, and in the face of the fact that President Zardari's recent trip to China in search of greater material and moral support failed to yield tangible results. Ditto, their overtures to Saudi Arabia. This means that the Pakistani leadership really have no other place to turn but the US.

Yes, this implies the use of more aggressive political pressure than some advocate, arguing that it would lead to a complete breakdown in what is left of the US-Pakistani relationship.

Past precedents, however, suggest that this is not necessarily so. It would not be the first time that gentle persuasion has been undertaken by the US in its dealings with Pakistan, with results that proved satisfying to everyone's perceived strategic interests.

Lyndon Johnson employed stern pressure on Ayub Khan in 1965 to terminate Pakistan's attack on India. Relations between the two countries were strained for a while but in the end larger strategic and practical considerations enabled them to get over it.

In 1999, Bill Clinton, in concert with the international community, came down hard on Pakistan over the Kargil incident and induced then prime minster Nawaz Sharif to abort it despite disgruntlement in the army. This eventually led to the coup by General Pervez Musharraf. Once again, both sides got over it, and Musharraf for a while became America's principal non-NATO ally.

The claim, in other words, that putting pressure on Pakistan to make a deeper commitment to more active collaboration with the US coalition in Afghanistan is not as far-fetched as some contend.

Decisive political and economic pressure has worked in the past and there is no reason to believe that it would not work in this instance. Pakistan, after all, has much to gain by seriously joining in the quest to wrest Jihadistan from the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

A successful collaboration with US and coalition forces will increase Pakistan's chances of neutralising, if not eliminating, the Jihadist quasi-state now in control of the Hindu Kush. It would also materially improve the chances for the Pakistani middle-class and the moderate political environment that recent elections set in motion to complete the task of bringing Pakistan into the mainstream of democratisation now enveloping global society.

Comments