Pakistan's military takes a big hit

By Syed Saleem Shezad

The United Nations Security Council's declaration this week of the Pakistani group Jamaatut Dawa as a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), which is banned as a terrorist organization, marks a major setback for Pakistan's military establishment.

The UN has subjected Jamaatut to sanctions as a terrorist group, including an asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo. Jamaatut claims it is a charity organization separate from the LET, which has been linked to the devastating attack on Mumbai last month in which close to 200 people died.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and his diplomatic corps based in Washington and New York had lobbied hard to counter efforts by the Pakistani military establishment to protect its strategic assets, as Islamabad wants a real clampdown on the LET and Jamaatut.

It has got its way, with the Security Council's al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee also designating as terrorists four men believed to be members of the LET or Jamaatut - group leader Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, chief of operations Zakir Rehman Lakhvi, finance chief Haji Muhammad Ashraf and financier Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq. Bahaziq is also a former leader of the group in Saudi Arabia.

The designation also covers all aliases and affiliates of the LET, including Jamaatut, a charity formed after the terror ban was imposed on the LET in 2002.

Within 24 hours of the UN announcement, Pakistan carried out raids on Jamaatut offices throughout the country. Saeed and other leaders have been placed under house arrest, while several Jamaatut leaders have gone underground.

India presented Pakistan with difficult-to-deny evidence through US officials soon after the Mumbai attack and made it quite plain that it wanted action against the LET for its links to the attack. One of the 10 attackers admitted to being trained by the LET.

However, top military leaders, who have kept a low profile in the post-Pervez Musharraf period that effectively ended at the beginning of the year, went into overdrive and the office of the president, prime minister and Foreign Office were held hostage on this issue.

The Pakistani media were given directives to label the Mumbai attack a conspiracy hatched by India's Research and Analysis Wing, Israel's Mossad and the US's Central Intelligence Agency to tighten the noose around Pakistan. While the George W Bush administration was assured by army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kiani that action would be taken against the LET, the government was advised by the military to make a distinction between Jamaatut and the LET.

Amid some drama, last Sunday Pakistani helicopters flew to Shawai in Pakistan-administered Kashmir to arrest LET commander Zakiur Rahman. But LET offices and training centers had already been evacuated soon after the Mumbai attack, on the military's advice, in the event that India launched retaliatory attacks.

Zakiur Rahman, commander-in-chief of the LET, who lives in Islamabad in a residence provided by a Pakistani security agency, was called in on Monday morning to tender his arrest. He did so without any fuss. The same day, a day before the Muslim festival of Eid ul-Adha, Jamaatut was issued a "No Objection Certificate" to collect sacrificial animals throughout the country. The animals raise considerable sums of money.

All the time, international pressure was mounting on Pakistan and the political leaders in Islamabad were caught between this pressure for action against militants and the military, which wanted to go softly.

The Pakistani ambassador in Washington, Professor Husain Haqqani, and Pakistan's permanent representative at the United Nations, Hussain Haroon, took a pro-active role in soliciting the international community to help Pakistan.

They got their message across and the UN aimed at the core of the discord by explicitly naming Jamaatut. Soon after the UN announcement of sanctions, a message was communicated to the army chief and to the director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) through Pakistan's advisor on national affairs, retired Major General Mahmood Durrani, that the security agencies would have to cooperate in implementing the ban in both letter and spirit.

On Thursday, the sidelining of the military establishment was complete when police independently raided Jamaatut offices throughout the country without the intervention of any intelligence agencies. The State Bank of Pakistan announced a freeze the accounts of Jamaatut.

These developments are significant in that the military establishment, which has for so long dominated the affairs of state in Pakistan, has been outmaneuvered by the political government.

The next and most crucial step is to dismantle the unlimited powers of the ISI. Washington has already provided evidence of the ISI's involvement in the Mumbai attack. Pakistan has previously tried to clip the wings of the ISI by putting it under the Ministry of Interior, but the move was repulsed by the army.

An emboldened government, with the full backing of its Western allies, will be ready to try again. But the ISI, with its military nexus, has not become as powerful as it is by giving up any battle without a fight.