RAW involved in NWFP terrorism
S M Hali

THE cold-blooded attack on the mourners who had congregated to pay their last respects to the DSP, who had lost his life earlier in the day on Friday last in Mingora cannot be the work of any Muslim. The equally callous targeting of a tribal jirga in Kohat on Sunday is contrary to the norms of tribal customs and traditions. At least 45 people were killed and 50 wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up on Friday during the funeral of a DSP who was killed earlier in the day. DSP Lakki Marwat, Javed Iqbal, who was being buried was one of four killed in the morning when their van struck a Improvised Explosive Devise planted along the roadside in Lakki Marwat. Some of the dead identified are Station House Officer Mingora Habib Zaman, Sub Inspector, Muhammad Rehman, son of late DSP, Gazan, and Naib Nazim of Union Council Malook Abad, Habibullah Khan. The deadly explosion occurred after the funeral prayer when a smartly turned out police contingent was presenting Guard of Honour to the coffin of the late DSP. According to hospital sources, the death toll is likely to rise where an emergency was declared and besides the doctors on duty, the local medial practitioners also rushed to the hospital and have been helping the local administration in treating the wounded patients, majority of whom are in precarious condition.
The death toll in Darra Adamkhel suicide attack reached 30, while 35 were wounded. According to official sources notables from five clans of Darra Adamkhel held a Jirga in Zarghon Khel. The suicide bomber struck the assembly immediately after the meeting was ended, killing 30 persons including three critically wounded that succumbed to their injuries at hospitals. Earlier, the wounded were shifted to hospitals as emergency was declared at local medical facilities. Fifteen critically wounded have been transferred to Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar, while remaining were shifted to other hospitals of Kohat and Peshawar. The notables in their meeting had decided to burn houses of those tribesmen and impose fine who will provide shelter to foreign miscreants. Local tribal elder Haji Saif Wazeer had called the Jirga. Security has been tightened in the area after the attack.
The havoc being wreaked on the people of Pakistan and the tribal belt in particular is an aftermath of Pakistan’s active role in the war against terror. However, Pakistan’s active participation in the war is no longer by choice but by compulsion. Pakistan served as a frontline state in the war to liberate Afghanistan from the invading forces of then Soviet Union, which again was a compulsion, since if the Soviets had not been stopped in their tracks; they would have over run Pakistan. Since December 1979, throughout the Afghan War, the K.G.B., K.H.A.D. (W.A.D.) (a former Afghan intelligence outfit), and RAW stepped up their efforts to concentrate on influencing and covertly exploiting the tribes on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. There was intimate coordination between the three intelligence agencies not only in Afghanistan but also in Pakistan, where destabilization was sought through a subversion and sabotage plan related to Afghan refugees and Mujahideen in the tribal belt and inside Pakistan. They jointly organized spotting and recruitment of hostile tribesmen and trained them in guerrilla warfare, infiltration, subversion, sabotage, and the establishment of saboteur forces/terrorist organizations in the pro-Afghan tribes of Pakistan in order to carry out bombings in Afghan refugee camps in the NWFP and Balochistan to threaten and pressure them to return to Afghanistan. They also carried out bomb blasts in populated areas deep inside Pakistan to create panic and hatred in the minds of locals against Afghan refugee Mujahideen to pressure Pakistan to change its policies on Afghanistan. The defeat and retreat of the Soviets from Afghanistan changed things.
However, the allies and coalition forces then ditched both Afghanistan and Pakistan after routing the Soviets, which left the Jihadi forces to fend for themselves. Agencies like the Indian secret service RAW found it an opportune moment to fish in troubled waters. It nurtured its age old dream of finding an access to Central Asia as well as grip Pakistan in its pincers through Afghanistan. The advent of the Taliban denied them this privilege; however 9/11 changed everything. The US-led war against terrorism, with the Northern Alliance as its bulwark, provided the Indians a secure foothold, since they had been nurturing them for this very opportunity. The rest is history.
The Karzai government repaid India for its hospitality and permitted it to locate four Consulates and ten Trade Centres, teeming with RAW operatives in a semicircle around the Pak-Afghan border to destabilize Pakistan. They have been indulging in sabotage, sedition and the harbouring of terrorism, militancy and extremism in Balochistan, Waziristan, NWFP and the rest of Pakistan. Ample evidence has been found confirming these suspicions. The latest attacks confirm that no true Muslim or any tribal would indulge in such heinous deeds and it has to be the work of RAW.
The infamous Indian secret agency has been indulging in multi dimensional attacks to destabilize Pakistan. It is fomenting trouble through sedition and subversion, while at the same time; it is playing on public opinion, both nationally and internationally through its media. Various think tanks, like “South Asia Analysis Group” (SAAG) are busy churning out subversive literature against Pakistan. Mr. Bahukutumbi Raman, commonly known as B. Raman, former Additional Secretary Government of India, ex-head of the counter-terrorism division of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the author of an insider account of India’s infamous intelligence agency RAW: “The Kaoboys of R&AW: Down Memory Lane”, which is a memoir of the former spymaster who spent 27 years working in Intelligence Bureau (IB) and RAW, “Intelligence—Past, Present & Future” and “A Terrorist State as a Frontline Ally”; now contributes generously to various Indian dailies and journals with an obsession of targeting Pakistan. He provides analyses of any and every event in Pakistan; at the drop of a hat, he is there to offer his slanderous opinion, which is religiously carried by SAAG.
Pakistan’s general elections-2008 was a compelling topic for B. Raman. In the run up to the elections as well as immediately following the polls, only in the last one month, he commented on topics like: ‘PAF, SSG go into action against Mehsuds’, ‘Alleged Indian, Pakistani Tablighis held in Spain with IED material’, ‘Time to stop swimming with Musharraf’, ‘South Waziristan: an update’, ‘Musharraf proves bin Laden right’, ‘Pak Army faces four-front jihad’, ‘Al Qaeda: US queers pitch for Pakistan’, ‘Jihadis target Frontier Gandhi’s party’, ‘Another jihadi attack on Frontier Gandhi’s party’, ‘Pashtun suicide terrorism—an update’.
In an article appearing a day prior to the election titled: ‘Pak Elections: keeping the fingers crossed’, B. Raman implied that President Musharraf would be using the state machinery to rig elections despite the presence of international observers to monitor the elections. He surmised: “There will be many gaps in the monitoring, which could be exploited by Musharraf and his supporters to have the elections rigged.” Once the election results clearly ruled out the advent of wide scale rigging, B. Raman changed gears in his first post-election article ‘Pakistan: where they stand on issues of interest to India’ and maliciously introduced a set of questions, which have no relevance to India, but were posed to various Pakistani political leaders and their supposed response, drawing malevolent conclusions. The questions themselves clearly depict the author’s mindset: “Should there be a military representation in the NSC if it continues?”, “Should the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) be headed by a civilian?”, “The command and control of the nuclear arsenal”, “Are Pakistan’s nuclear weapons vulnerable?”, “Should the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna be given direct access to Dr. A. Q. Khan?”, “Terrorism in Pakistan”, “What have been the positive and negative impacts of Pakistan’s participation in the war on terror?”, “Which are the countries to which special attention should be given in foreign policy?”, and “should Pakistan have a dialogue with Israel?” After posing the: “Kashmir Question”, he retorts: “Nawaz Sharif’s replies on the Kashmir issue have been framed in such a manner as not to make the Punjabi Generals of the Army uncomfortable. Nawaz Sharif and particularly his brother Shahbaz Sharif have been in touch with many of the serving and retired Punjabi officers and he has kept in view their sensitivities.”
In his next article appearing on February 21: ‘Pak polls: impact on “War” against Terrorism’, notice the cheeky inverted commas around “War” in the title itself. With ill intention, he targets the government of President Musharraf that he “missed no opportunity to belittle and humiliate Nawaz. The ANP was looked down upon not only by the Pakistan Army and the ISI, but also by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the US State Department as the stooges of India and the former USSR as well as the present Russia of President Vladimir Putin.” On February 26, he focuses attention through the assassination of the top doctor Pakistan Army: ‘Why Jihadi Anger Against Pak Army Medics’, on February 27, ‘Re-Arrest of Former Huji Amir’. On February 29, he comes up with ‘Hunt for Al Qaeda: US HUMINT Continues Improving’.
SAAG appears to be a RAW sponsored website while B. Raman’s Chânakyan style Pakistan-bashing needs scrutiny. It is not possible for a single person to roil anti-Pakistan pulp-fiction day-in day-out without active support from a vicious organization like RAW. We need to be wary because it appears that RAW wants to play a dangerous game in Pakistan and is muddying our political scenario with its murky intrigues and machination at a sensitive moment when a fresh government is being formed and Pakistan is vulnerable.



Post election fault lines
Dr Moeed Pirzada

IN PAKISTAN’S post election scenario, the White House and the State Department, in steps and stages, rushed to support President Musharraf. And it was followed by intense diplomatic activity inside Islamabad to sustain his political space. These overtures were a must to ensure the continuity of US strategic interests in a period of transition. However, it ended up creating the impression as if the fault lines between Pakistan’s new political dispensation and the US centre around Musharraf. Well for the time being they do — but the real trouble lies somewhere else.
As the diplomatic activity became visible many newspapers in Pakistan shot up editorials and op-Eds condemning the US interference. They termed it: meddling in Pakistani politics and attempts to negate the will of Pakistani electorate, which had overwhelmingly rejected Musharraf. This was sheer hypocrisy. The US State Department and media have been active throughout the last few months mediating with Musharraf’s regime on behalf of Pakistan’s civil society, politicians and the media. None of us objected to that interference then; if any thing it was actively sought and welcomed and often any delay of statements from Washington were resented; how could the rules of the game change suddenly?
In reality the US State Department and the media have remained very active in following and shaping the political developments inside Pakistan. And this is not only in the last few months but it built up over the last two years. In what may be referred to a “constructive engagement” the US media joined the State Department, the US embassy in Pakistan and Pakistan’s civil society in pressurising the Musharraf regime to move towards a process of “credible elections”. It was this relentless process of engagement, confidence building on all sides and persuasion that lead to, among other things, the: return of Benazir Bhutto; issuance of NRO to facilitate her party; prevention of emergency the first time in August; taking off uniform by Musharraf; an early end to emergency and easing of the restrictions on the media and ensuring an election that could be accepted by all stakeholders. This process of engagement has almost turned the US State Department into a domestic player in sync with Pakistan’s civil society, media and politics.
Yet this apparent alliance between the US interests and Pakistan’s civil society especially in the last few months may have hidden the serious differences that lie underneath; fault lines few like to address on either side of the divide. Laura King of the Los Angeles Times may be one of such few US journalists who came up clearly pointing out that the election results in Pakistan do not mean support for the US policy of stepped-up attacks against the militants. [LA Times; 26 Feb]
US paradigm from the beginning of 2006 — gradually adopted by the British political establishment — that lead to the acceptability of Benazir Bhutto in Washington and her return to Pakistan was based on the premise that Ms Bhutto and her party will provide a foundation of popular political support to General Musharraf’s war against terrorism. I suspect that this paradigm was less a result of original thinking on behalf of the US State Department and more a case building by Ms Bhutto and her supporters in the US and some articulate voices inside Pakistan’s print media. The very fact that Washington establishment bought it — and ignored the former premier Nawaz Sharif — points out the US difficulties in understanding Pakistan and their limitations in terms of choices.
Ms Bhutto before her tragic death gave repeated statements to keep that assumption alive and recently after winning elections Mr Zardari, her widower and co-chairman of the PPP, has twice echoed the same message. But it should be of some significance that even the PPP election campaign in Pakistan was conducted without any direct reference to the war against terrorism. And Mr Nawaz Sharif — who has undoubtedly emerged as the most popular national leader in Pakistan — maintained a careful distance from the jargon of the war against terrorism. Since winning the elections he has even demanded that US needs to define the war against terrorism in more specific and narrow terms.
Taking a quick glance at the last few years, this strategy of “face change” for beefing up support for the “war against terrorism” may not be anything more than a short term remedy.
True! Musharraf had never been a popular leader in the way a politician inspires by his words and jugglery and wins elections but for the first few years in power he enjoyed high approval for his actions. His decision to support the US against the Taleban and overtures of peace towards India were popularly accepted as difficult decisions taken under pressure but nevertheless in the best national interest. His downside started when he was increasingly seen unable to preserve Pakistan’s interests in Afghanistan or secure any concessions from India for his peace overtures.
Public and the politicians — many of whom will now come into power — and the Pakistani media often blasted Musharraf for being a US stooge; the lackey who was continuously making concessions against the national interests for he lacked legitimacy and popular support. US media were against him from the very beginning; initially because they suspected him or his military for covertly helping the Taleban and working against India and later when he became unpopular they resented Bush Administration for propping up an unpopular dictator — a situation that reminded many of the US support for the Shah of Iran.Ironically, the prin cipal under-current of the lawyers movement was unmistakably nationalistic with references towards the “missing persons” and a feeling that strong independent judiciary may provide some protection against the repeated dictates and insults from the US; an assumption that was lead credence by the Bush administration’s failure to support the cause of the reinstatement of the judges.
Summing it all up: Musharraf is merely a symbol of the fault lines; the real test of the new political construct’s ability to deal with the US will depend upon the extent to which US policy makers and media are able to revisit the whole concept of this ongoing war against terrorism.
Many in Pakistan’s civil military bureaucracies are extremely suspicious of some sort of ‘undeclared regional agenda’ by the US; others are concerned that tragic consequences to Pakistani social fabric are not being understood by the US and yet there are others that understand that a continued US engagement is a must for the economic expansion and sustenance of this region. In the wake of Pakistan’s elections a new US vision is needed that can assuage these fears and take most if not all on board

.—Khaleej Times





Knitting together life’s moments
Elissa Ely

THERE’S a wonderful knitting store in my neighbourhood. It’s a large room with a few tables pushed end to end, like a variant of King Arthur’s court. The owner sits serenely in the middle of half-finished sweaters and dropped purls. She remembers every project each customer has begun. Visiting her is a life pleasure. Here is another life pleasure: Twice a year or so, I take my dog to the vet. For 20 years, some family pet or other has been a patient of his. One day, while he was washing his hands after seeing my cats, he started to talk about the health problems of his own pets. It was as if I had been knighted after all those fur balls. Now our appointments are reunions, little joys, even though the dog still dreads them.
Incidental intimacies fill the day: The knitting store owner, the vet, a likable colleague, my dentist discussing a recipe with himself over my open mouth, the parents of other children encountered on playgrounds, a neighbour of many years I mean to invite for dinner. All of them are happenstance encounters that come to be counted on over time. My mother always said it was important to coordinate colours before decorating a room. But these are random fabrics thrown together by fate. Through the years, you grow used to chintzes and polka dots. They bring swaths of colour. One day, you realise these fabrics are the whole colourful world. In the dim light of February, I find myself looking ahead. There is plenty to fear about old age — indignity, illnesses of memory, a body no longer under command. But I fear losing the encounters of my settled life.
As I picture it, the swaths of colours begin to fade away; one by one, or, if the situation is catastrophic, all at once. Life narrows — a move to assisted living, a nursing home, a different city nearer the sun. With luck, family is close by. But the incidental people are gone. It’s like entering a bunker. A few survivalists I know, still in their prime, are plotting their defence; hunched over blueprints, they dream of retirement utopias where they will grow old with friends of their choosing. They don’t understand it’s not only friends who colour the world. I don’t say much to the man who has doled out $20 of regular gas every Tuesday for many years, yet our meetings are a lovely shade of fuschia. They clash a little with the dog walker, whose visits are green as grass, and one of the neighbours who is a recessive bronze, but I am not my mother, and I love when the palette runs together.
I guess we rehearse the losses to come in little ways — childhood comrades fall off, boyfriends marry and move elsewhere, colleagues take jobs in distant states, correspondence becomes holiday cards becomes silence. People drift away but stay in sight for a while, waving gently so we don’t notice when they disappear. Sometimes these incidental intimacies come to consciousness, where I can peer at them. My heart swells when the dentist discusses his recipes, though my teeth aren’t very interested. But usually, I take them for granted. When the sun is shining, it never occurs that they won’t last forever. A while ago, a college friend gave some stern advice — when you are old, he warned, be sure to surround yourself with young people. He views them as an antidote to the hazards of self-centered aging. As a result, he is stockpiling acquaintances decades younger than him. It is a deliberate strategy to animate and keep him alive.

—Khaleej Times