Category: Pakistan

Reports yesterday stated that the US launched a missile strike against a “high-value” terrorist target in Pakistan on Tuesday, but had not confirmed any success. Today, Reuters reports that secondary data indicates the missile hit a safe house of foreign fighters, but no confirmation has been issued as to whether the intended target got hit:

A suspected U.S. missile strike that killed up to 13 foreign militants in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region this week had targeted second or third tier al Qaeda leaders, according to residents in the tribal area. …
Intelligence officials said the area is controlled by Islamist militants and too dangerous for security forces to go. After the attack, militants surrounded the area and barred anyone from going near the house.
Ahmed Aziz, a 70-year-old resident, told Reuters that the militants also stopped villagers from attending the funerals, which was a sign that those killed were all foreigners.
“When local people die, they don’t stop anyone from attending their funerals,” Aziz said.

Sources now say that the targets were Abu Laith al Libi and Obaidah al Masri and/or their deputies. Intelligence services apparently tracked their movements and expected them to be in the house. Since security forces apparently cannot go to the site, they cannot confirm their deaths. However, the fact that terrorist forces sealed off the area and prevented locals from attending the funerals indicate not just that the dead were foreign fighters, but perhaps that they had more import than just hired muscle.
Intel will have to glean the identities of the dead through intercepts. The attack serves notice on the terrorists holed up in Waziristan and elsewhere in Pakistan that the US can reach across the border at will and make our presence felt in deadly ways. That will have the Taliban and AQ rethinking security plans, which may give us even more opportunities.
For those who had hoped to hear that Osama had gone to his 72 virgins, this news may not be terribly interesting. The war on terror, though, will get won through many actions such as this.

Over three years ago, radical Islamists seized a school in Beslan in the Russian republic of North Ossetia-Alania and killed 334 people, including 186 children. Last year, jihadists seized the Red Mosque in Pakistan, and more than 170 people died as a result. Now Islamist radicals have seized a school in Bannu, North Waziristan and hold over 250 children as hostages:

Pro-Taleban militants are holding children and teachers hostage in a school near the Pakistani district of North Waziristan.
Officials told a BBC reporter at the scene that up to 250 children were inside the school.
The militants took shelter in the school in Bannu town after a confrontation with local police.

The BBC says some chidren may have been released, but that has not been confirmed. This has the earmarks of another disaster on the same scale as Beslan, only this time the Waziris will have to stand around and watch as the jihadis use their children for their political purposes. Once again, the Taliban targets the weakest and innocent for their psychotic purposes.
Keep an eye on this situation. It could have far-reaching implications if the Taliban turns this into a bloodbath. In the meantime, pray as hard as you can that they do not.
UPDATE: Thankfully, the children have been released unharmed:

Gunmen who took up to 250 Pakistani school children hostage on Monday in a northwestern town freed them all and surrendered to tribal elders, a government spokesman said.

It’s not all good news. In a further erosion of Islamabad’s writ in the Waziristans and the North West Frontier Province, the terrorists surrendered to the tribal elders, who will decide their fate. That makes it fairly clear that Pakistan has little ability to enforce the law in Bannu and elsewhere in the frontier provinces bordering Afghanistan. The elders will not likely take much forceful action against the men, whether they are Taliban as initial reports indicated or part of a kidnap gang as this report states.

Pervez Musharraf wants you to know that he has Pakistan’s nukes under control. He doesn’t need American or other international troops to keep the weapons from falling into the hands of resurgent Islamist radicals. He wouldn’t mind keeping our money, however:

Pakistan is increasingly alert to the possible threat of Islamic extremists seeking control of its nuclear weapons, but its security system is fail-safe despite the rising militancy in the country, a top official said Saturday.
Some 10,000 soldiers have been deployed to secure the U.S.-ally’s nuclear facilities as part of a command and control system headed by President Pervez Musharraf and other top officials, said Khalid Kidwai, head of the Strategic Plans Division which handles Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.
Kidwai said there was concern that Pakistan’s weapons would fall into the hands of al Qaeda or Taliban-style militant groups. “Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, fissile material and infrastructure are absolutely safe and secure,” he told journalists.

The US and other nations worry that infiltration of the radicals into the military and intelligence services could eventually give them access to the nukes. Some have speculated that Pakistan and the US have worked out a plan for American seizure of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal if the situation spins out of control, but that seems unlikely, given the size of the country. It would take a full-scale invasion of a nation of over 150 million people, since Musharraf is unlikely to have them all stored in one spot. The Pakistanis call this “irresponsible talk”, and they’re right.
Despite their other assurances, the situation hardly gives anyone confidence in the stability of nuclear security. This is the same nation who managed to proliferate the technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya through the AQ Khan network. Khan remains in his villa under house arrest, but other Khans may exist within their program.
Right now, we have no way of knowing. We gave Musharraf millions of dollars to improve nuclear security after 9/11, but it doesn’t allow us to verify that effective safeguards have been put in place. The money came after we agreed that no Americans could set foot in Pakistan to inspect the application of the funds. All we can do is accept Musharraf’s what-me-worry platitudes and hope for the best.

And we think teenagers in America give us headaches! Pakistani security forces arrested a teenager who allegedly helped plot the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and who reportedly had prepared to meet his own set of virgins during an upcoming Muslim holiday:

Pakistani police have arrested a teenager who was allegedly part of a five-man squad in the plot to kill opposition leader Benazir Bhutto last month, security officials said Saturday.
The suspect, 15-year-old Aitezaz Shah, was arrested from the northwestern city of Dera Ismail Khan on Friday while planning a suicide bombing over the Muslim festival of Ashura, they said on condition of anonymity.
Shah told interrogators he had been part of a back-up team of three bombers who were tasked with killing former premier Bhutto if the original December 27 attack by two men had failed, the officials added. …
He allegedly said the attackers in the team that killed Bhutto were called Bilal and Ikramullah — the same names mentioned in an alleged telephone conversation between Mehsud and another militant the day after Bhutto’s death.

The Taliban used a 15-year-old for such an important mission? This seems a little difficult to believe — not impossible, but difficult. Two assassination attempts had already gotten botched, and one might suppose that the Taliban would have wanted to increase the reliability of the teams rather than take a flyer on a teenager, especially on the back-up team.
AFP’s sources can’t agree on one rather important point: where Shah was during the assassination. One says that Shah was in Rawalpindi where the assassination took place, but the other says the boy told them that he was in South Waziristan. That’s a long way to go to provide backup for an assassination plot. If he was going to kill Bhutto in the event of failure of the first team, how was he going to do it — by ballistic missile?
It sounds as if they caught a boy who has been recruited as cannon fodder for a suicide attack, perhaps one who heard some chatter around the campfire about Bhutto’s assassination. Either the boy or the security forces have exaggerated this into making him a mastermind of the murder. If the Taliban in Pakistan now have to rely on 15-year-olds to plot and carry out these kinds of operations, they’re much worse off than anyone would have guessed — and given their recent successes against the Pakistani army, that just doesn’t seem to be the case.

The Pakistani military suffered a humiliating defeat today on the Afghan frontier, as Taliban elements raided a fort and killed several soldiers before falling back on their own volition. Although the fort remains in the hands of the Pakistan military, the loss gives the Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies enhanced credibility — and exposes the Pakistan army’s weakness:

In an embarrassing battlefield defeat for Pakistan’s army, Islamic extremists attacked and seized a small fort near the Afghan border, leaving at least 22 soldiers dead or missing.
The insurgents later abandoned the fort and melted away into the hills, said military spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas. “There is no occupation of the Sararogha Fort. Militants have gone from there,” he said. ….
Nearly 100,000 soldiers are now in the area, supported by heavy artillery and Cobra helicopter gunships, but they have had little success in stopping militants from infiltrating into Afghanistan or in quelling Pakistan’s own worsening Islamic insurgency.

The Taliban and the Islamists have become emboldened after a long series of fights and appeasements. After years of conducting mostly ambushes on military patrols, the rebels now attack fixed positions in organized and moderately successful fashion. The army set up this particular post with a blend of local men, attempting to do what the US has more successfully done in Iraq by involving the local tribes in the security forces. It hasn’t worked, and the failures of the army have weakened their standing among Pakistanis.
The result of the recent string of bolder attacks by the Taliban, including suicide bombings, may make it easier for Pervez Musharraf to ask for outside intervention. As ABC reports, American military analysts now believe that the leadership in Pakistan sees the Taliban now as an existential threat, one that they may not be able to handle on their own. They may soon be willing to pay the political price of American assistance and intervention, figuring that the alternative may be the end of their regime and the collapse of Pakistan into a failed state or worse.
It would be far better if the Pakistani Army could defeat the Taliban on its own, but that would require a determination to fight that Musharraf has yet to demonstrate. He created this situation himself with his repeated attempts to appease the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The results are instructive for anyone who thinks that they can negotiate for peaceful coexistence with radical Islamists.

Pervez Musharraf wants peaceful elections on February 18th. In fact, he wants them so badly that he’ll kill anyone who gets in the way of peaceful elections. Musharraf warned that any attempt to disrupt the parliamentary elections through rioting would have deadly consequences for the provocateurs:

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has said troops will be ordered to shoot anyone trying to disrupt general elections due on February 18.
The elections are meant to complete a transition to civilian rule and allies of nuclear-armed Pakistan hope they will promote stability after months of political turmoil and rising militant violence. …
Speaking to businessmen in Karachi, the country’s commercial capital, Musharraf said the government would not allow riots to occur again.
“Let me assure you we are going to instruct the rangers and army to shoot miscreants during elections,” the official Associated Press of Pakistan quoted him as saying late on Monday. “We will not allow this activity to happen again,” he said.

Musharraf may have more standing on this than first blush. Pakistanis fear poll violence and may not participate in numbers large enough to establish the credibility of the elections. Musharraf needs a substantial turnout to legitimize the incoming parliament, especially in the eyes of the global community, even though it will almost certainly fall into the control of one of th opposition parties regardless.
In order to stop riots from gaining strength, Musharraf will have almost no other option but to order fire onto the organizers. The threat of that tactic, along with the expected heavy presence of the military on the streets, may discourage them from getting organized in the first place. The deterrent value of a massive security presence could help calm the streets for the election.
Of course, this depends on whether Musharraf’s definition of “riot” matches our own. It could just as easily be intended to intimidate Musharraf’s opposition from engaging in normal political assembly. It wouldn’t be the first time that Musharraf defined rallies as riots, after all, and this could easily be seen as a threat to suppress the opposition vote.

Scotland Yard experts on the case in Pakistan now believe that al-Qaeda assassinated Benazir Bhutto after reviewing all of the evidence. The Times of London reports from sources inside the organization that the investigators do not see any evidence of a cover-up, but of massive incompetence in the hours after the murder, which led to speculation of government involvement:

BRITISH officials have revealed that evidence amassed by Scotland Yard detectives points towards Al-Qaeda militants being responsible for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
Five experts in video evidence and forensic science have been in Pakistan for 10 days since President Pervez Musharraf took up an offer from Gordon Brown for British help in the investigation of the December 27 killing. Last week they were joined by three specialists in explosives.
The gun fired at Bhutto has been checked for fingerprints by the Scotland Yard detectives. A government minister told The Sunday Times that these have been traced through identity cards to a man in Swat, an area where Mehsud’s men have been fighting.
“There was no cover-up,” he insisted. “It was just unfortunate that in all the shock and confusion at the beginning, people shot their mouths off talking about sunroofs rather than simply saying it would be investigated.”

Wild theories still abound in Pakistan. Perhaps the silliest of these have the gun outfitted with a laser sight. That would, according to the conspiracy theorists, prove government complicity in the assassination because only the military would have laser-sighted guns. Not only is that not necessarily true, but it’s laughable on its face. The gunman was just a few feet from Bhutto when he fired, no more than ten feet and maybe much closer than that. A military shooter wouldn’t need a laser sight to hit a target that close, even with a handgun, and neither would anyone else.
Pakistani officials quickly laid the blame on Baitullah Mehsud, an AQ tribal leader who has humiliated Pervez Musharraf in the past. He captured 250 Pakistani soldiers without them firing a shot, and then forced Musharraf to trade for 247 of them; he beheaded three of them just to get Musharraf’s attention. Many people thought Mehsud made for a convenient villain, and even when Musharraf produced a transcript from an intercepted telephone communication in which Mehsud indicated his involvement, people wondered why Musharraf didn’t just capture Mehsud instead of his phone conversations. As the capture of 250 soldiers shows, though, that’s easier said than done in Waziristan.
Musharraf got what he deserved for the incompetent response of his government in the hours after Bhutto’s assassination. The double-talk and the ludicrous theory of Bhutto dying from a bump on the head completely destroyed his regime’s credibility on the assassination. Scotland Yard’s involvement allows Musharraf to start again on the murder and to establish a little more clearly the truth of the situation.

Pervez Musharraf has refused to have the UN investigate the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, according to AFP. In an interview with Le Figaro, the Pakistani president/dictator insists that internal police forces will partner with Britain’s Scotland Yard to probe the murder instead. Bhutto’s family had called for the UN to lead the investigation:

Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf has ruled out a United Nations probe into the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto, in an interview with a French newspaper published Saturday.
Musharraf told Le Figaro that UN involvement was out of the question, and that the investigation into Bhutto’s murder would be handled internally with the help of British police from Scotland Yard.
Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, and her son Bilawal have both called for a UN inquiry, along the lines of the world body’s probe into the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

Hariri got killed by a massive car bomb in Lebanon almost three years ago. The UN took over the investigation because the Security Council suspected that the Syrian government had conducted the operation. Under those circumstances, when one country is suspected of conducting an act of war against another and both are members of the UN, it made sense for the UN to take over the case.
It makes less sense here, for jurisdictional and pragmatic reasons. No one has shown any evidence that Bhutto’s assassination was conducted by another government. In fact, no one has even suggested that, although plenty have suggested that elements within Musharraf’s regime may have been complicit in it. The UN does not have “jurisidiction” in any sense over criminal acts not involving conflicts between governments.
Pragmatically, a UN investigation would mean never concluding the case, and the Hariri investigation is a pretty clear example of this. Next month will be the third anniversary of Rafiq Hariri’s murder, and the UN has come no closer in determining responsibility for the plot. Syria hasn’t cooperated with the investigation, and the UN can hardly enforce subpoenas on high-ranking officials in Damascus. It sounds impressive to have Turtle Bay run the probe, but it means that politics and the lack of enforcement capability will doom it to failure.
The inclusion of Scotland Yard sounds like a better plan. At least they will be free to blow the whistle on any official obstruction that occurs.

Plenty of presidential candidates in both parties have talked about how they plan to chase al-Qaeda to the gates of Hell, apparently placing that squarely in Pakistan. Pervez Musharraf, who runs the joint, has an answer for those who propose sending American troops into Pakistan — fuggedaboutit:

President Pervez Musharraf warned that U.S. troops would be regarded as invaders if they crossed into Pakistan’s border region with Afghanistan in the hunt for al-Qaeda or Taliban militants, according to an interview published Friday. …
The New York Times reported last week that Washington was considering expanding the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to peruse aggressive covert operations within the tribal regions.
Musharraf told the Straits Times that U.S. troops would “certainly” be considered invaders if they set foot in the tribal regions.
“If they come without our permission, that’s against the sovereignty of Pakistan. I challenge anybody coming into our mountains,” he said in the interview in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. “They would regret that day.”

Most of this talk has been rather asinine. When one country sends troops into another without permission, it’s called an invasion and an act of war. The invading country had better understand that the invaded country will respond to the intrusion, and that its population will in most circumstances rally to the existing leadership and unite against the invader.
What would we gain in this overt invasion? If we succeeded, we would destabilize Musharraf and give credibility to the radical Islamists, who would probably overthrown the military and political leadership in Pakistan and seize control of the nuclear weapons. If we failed, we would probably strengthen Musharraf’s dictatorship and keep Pakistan in the grip of an autocracy (at best) for another decade, with all of the attendant radicalization it would produce.
Logistically speaking, it would be difficult to accomplish in any case. We need Pakistan to keep our lines of communication open for our efforts in Afghanistan. Once we provoked a war with Musharraf, that cooperation would cease and our supply lines for the NATO effort would disappear. That would also make it almost impossible to conduct the very operations we hope to launch in the provinces where al-Qaeda lives, because those are the most remote areas of Pakistan. We’d have to invade through the whole country to get to them — and face a mobilization of potentially more than 20 million soldiers to do it.
The only way to conduct these missions is with small-scale covert operations against targets that have a lot of confirmation regarding AQ presence. It isn’t to get up on the dais on national TV and try to out-testosterone the other men and women on stage about who will invade Pakistan first and with more troops. The best way to succeed at these missions is to leave everyone wondering who did them.