Pakistan Follows its Own path

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

Visiting United States officials Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week presented Pakistan with "difficult to deny" proof of the involvement of officials of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Pakistani militant groups in last week's Mumbai attack.

They have demanded direct action, such as the arrest of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the chief of the Jamaatut Dawa, formerly the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), the group with which the 10 attackers of Mumbai were connected. They also want the LET's Zakiur Rahman apprehended, as well as the ISI officers involved in plotting the Mumbai attack.

But the Pakistani military command, the Corps Commanders Conference, agreed on a principled stand on Thursday that Pakistan will confront the threat of militancy through its own course of action, not at the dictates of anybody else. This position has been relayed to Washington, Asia Times Online contacts familiar with the security apparatus say.

The danger is that the US will see the Pakistani stance as a stalling move and take matters into its own hands. Already over the past few months, the US has stepped up unmanned Predator drone attacks on militant targets inside Pakistan in its frustration with Islamabad for not doing enough in clamping down on militancy.

There is no immediate indication of how Pakistan will react, although it clearly has to do something, given the evidence of communication intercepted between Rahman and the Mumbai militants and the confessions of the only militant to have survived - Ajmal Amir Kesab. He is reportedly said to have detailed how the militants were trained in Pakistan.

In an excerpt from his interrogation handed to Pakistan by Indian authorities, Kesab is reported to have said, "I thought, why should I die when I have a chance to kill more people. Then I was surrounded and captured, but no problem. I will spend some time in prison and then some of my comrades will hijack an [Indian] plane and get me released."

Despite this, there is skepticism among the general masses, the military cadre and Pakistani media over the authenticity of anything coming from Delhi. This is a major hurdle preventing Islamabad from taking "direct" action.

HNN described on November 19 how high-level meetings between US intelligence and the ISI at different levels devised plans to cripple the support systems of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Pakistan. Two prominent names came up for discussion - retired Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul and a former ISI official, retired Squadron Leader Khalid Khawaja. Tightening the noose around people such as Gul and Khawaja and the like is one way to cut off support for the Taliban.

Now the US has given the names of four former ISI officials, including Gul, to the United Nations Security Council to put them on a list of international terrorists.

Gul, who once headed the ISI, has confirmed this, saying that if Pakistan does not protect him he will contact different international forums. "This is because I am vocal about American imperialist designs in the region. I can read their mind and have the capability to expose them. And this is because they want to malign the Inter-Services Intelligence," Gul told HNN.

Khawaja, a middle-level former ISI official, also confirmed to HNN that his and Gul's names "had been put on the ECL", Pakistan's Exit Control List. This could not be independently confirmed with the Federal Investigation Agency Airport immigration desk.

This could be the beginning of the tightening of the noose around the ISI and elements in the armed forces, possibly even leading to the ISI being declared a a rogue organization.

Already, under US pressure, the government has taken some steps to clip the wings of the ISI. Several months ago, it was placed under the Ministry of Interior, rather than the military. However, due to a fierce reaction from the army and from then-president and retired General Pervez Musharraf, the decision was reversed.

Recently, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced the closure of the ISI’s political cell. Nevertheless, the ISI has a deep-rooted history as a secret service with successful operations against the Soviet Union, India, Israel and in Eastern Europe and its structure makes such steps superficial.

Further, the political government is weaker than the military institution, which makes it difficult for it to take telling action against the ISI.

The Americans realize this, so they will adopt their way of doing things, while the Pakistan army will decide on how to deal with Pakistan's jihadi outfits. These approaches won't necessarily be in harmony, and there is always the possibility of another attack on India that could set the region on fire.