Rethinking Islam with Sultan Shahin

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

27 May 2011, NewAgeIslam.Com

WORST FEARS on Pak May Come True
	Indeed, one of the reasons why the US and India are still training their sights on the LeT is because they suspect Mr Kashmiri retains operational links with his old LeT jihadi network and is using them to undermine US and India’s security interests in the region, including the 2008 attack in Mumbai. The astonishing thing is that this is the fourth terrorist attack on the Pakistan Navy in Karachi and no security lessons appear to have been learnt from the earlier ones, nor from the interrogation of three or four Navy personnel with links to Waziristan who have been detained for several months. The worst is yet to come. Two high profile trials of LeT agents or sympathisers in the US are bound to put more strain on the crumbling US- Pakistan relationship. -- Najam Sethi

WORST FEARS on Pak May Come True

By Najam Sethi THE terrorist attack on the Pakistan Naval Base Mehran in Karachi on May 22 is the fourth this month following the US Navy Seals operation to get Osama Bin Laden. The first two suicide- bomber attacks were in Khyber- Pakhtunkhwa province and the third on NATO trucks in Landikotal, Khyber Agency, FATA. In all four attacks, 113 security personnel, 15 civilians and six terrorists were killed. Responsibility for all was claimed by the Tehreek- i- Taliban Pakistan which had earlier publicly vowed to exact revenge for OBL’s killing. The attack on PNS Mehran is being propagandised by the state and opposition as a “conspiracy by foreign enemies” because two “India- specific” P3C Orion surveillance aircraft (also known as submarine killers) were targeted and destroyed. The Navy Chief has also dramatised the attack as one by “highly trained terrorists using sophisticated weapons”. This is self- serving nonsense designed to cover up for one of the most outrageous security lapses in Pakistan’s history. The Navy filed an FIR on May 24 alleging an attack by 10 terrorists, despite the Navy Chief’s assertion on May 23 that only four terrorists were involved and all were killed. The terrorists were armed with AK- 47s, hand grenades and a shoulder- fired rocket launcher with one rocket each, all items in the everyday use of Taliban tribals in Waziristan. The conspiracy theory is true only to the extent that the operation could not have been conducted without detailed assistance from insider Pakistan Navy personnel (not foreign spies) sympathetic to the TTP. Indeed, the attack has the planning hallmark of similar high- optic operations (including the one against the GHQ in Rawalpindi in October 2009) planned by Saif al Adal, OBL’s Al Qaeda successor and the AlQaeda mastermind behind the bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salam in August 1998 and the compound attack May 2003 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in which Al Qaeda terrorists killed 35 foreigners, mainly Americans. Similarly, the operation itself was probably the handiwork of Ilyas Kashmiri, a Punjabi, who heads the Harkat- ul- Jihad- e- Islami allied to Al Qaeda and based in South Waziristan. Mr Kashmiri was once a stalwart of the Lashkar- e- Tayyeba, trained by the ISI for conducting operations in Indian- held Kashmir. He broke away from the LeT and ISI and tried with “insider” help to assassinate Pervez Musharraf after the latter closed the jihad tap in 2003. Indeed, one of the reasons why the US and India are still training their sights on the LeT is because they suspect Mr Kashmiri retains operational links with his old LeT jihadi network and is using them to undermine US and India’s security interests in the region, including the 2008 attack in Mumbai. The astonishing thing is that this is the fourth terrorist attack on the Pakistan Navy in Karachi and no security lessons appear to have been learnt from the earlier ones, nor from the interrogation of three or four Navy personnel with links to Waziristan who have been detained for several months. Small wonder then that angry Pakistanis want to know how the Armed Forces are spending the nation’s scarce resources and whence their lavish expenditures on BMW cars, Land Cruisers, Golf Courses, Defense Housing Societies, Bahrai townships, Marriage Halls, School Systems, Petrol and CNG stations, various preferential industries and farms and assorted business ventures for their own “ welfare”. Not since the 1971 debacle have the Armed Forces been scrutinised so critically. Unfortunately, however, this is just the beginning of another damning story that is running parallel to the narrative on terrorism in Pakistan — the plummeting graph of US- Pak relations whose carefully contrived and mutually agreed ambiguity has now run aground without any new agreement on the rules of engagement. The Pakistanis are insisting that drone strikes in FATA must end and no unilateral US action along the lines of Operation Geronimo may be taken inside Pakistan. But the US has flatly rejected both demands and is determined to carry on regardless. Worse, the “ nuclear- scare scenario” — a terrorist attack on, or seizure of, Pakistan’s nuclear assets by Al Qaeda — has resurfaced internationally after the Mehran incident, provoking calls for preemptive operational planning by the US to protect, or take- out, Pakistan’s nuclear assets, depending on the situation. Inside Pakistan, this has only served to fuel the conspiracy theory that “ foreign elements, especially the US, are destabilising Pakistan with a view to knocking out its nuclear program. IN OTHER words, the more Al Qaeda- Taliban terrorists succeed in exposing and attacking the fatal weaknesses in Pakistan’s security apparatus, the more the populace is inclined to succumb to anti- Americanism. Certainly, the demands of the opposition to spurn US aid and hold America responsible for Pakistan’s Taliban travails feeds into and is sustained by this rising anti- American sentiment. The worst is yet to come. Two high profile trials of LeT agents or sympathisers in the US are bound to put more strain on the crumbling US- Pakistan relationship. The first is the trial in Chicago of a Pakistani businessman, Tahawwur Rana, who is accused of abetting the terrorist attack in Mumbai by a state- approver witness, David Headley, a self- confessed LeT/ ISI agent. The second is in Florida where Pakistani- origin, father- and- son, Imams of two mosques are accused of funneling $ 50,000.00 to terrorist organisations in Pakistan. The first will confirm the international community’s demonisation of the ISI as a double- dealing anti- American organisation and the second will fan anti- Pakistan sentiment in a scared but gullible American public. At home, a running series of Wikileaks exposing the hollow, lying, corrupt civil military leadership is going to add to the country’s woes and fears. In this developing scenario, any new American unilateralism in Pakistan or Al Qaeda- Taliban attack in India will lead to an explosive situation that may not be manageable by any of the local or regional stakeholders. If next week’s visit to Pakistan by Hilary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, is unsuccessful in finally defining and implementing the “ rules of domestic and regional engagement”, all our fears will likely come true sooner than later. Source: Mail Today URL: http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamIslamTerrorismJihad_1.aspx?ArticleID=4718