Importing Intolerance

The proliferation of madrassas is posing a threat to Sindh’s non-violent Sufi landscape.
By Salam Dharejo

"I have had nothing to eat since last night; Ghazi Baba has stopped feeding us and deprived us by closing his doors,” says a 60-year-old woman who has been living at the shrine of Abdullah Shah Ghazi for the last 20 years. The shrine was shut down by the police on June 18, 2009, after it received a terrorist threat.

         This marks the first time that a shrine in Sindh has been closed due to the fear of an extremist attack. Shrines of various Sufi saints have been under threat ever since the Taliban began targeting places of pilgrimage, forcibly trying to impose their own religious agenda upon the masses that have been living in peace and harmony for centuries. Due to the deep-rooted influence of Sufism, fanaticism has never flourished in Sindh. However, the proliferation of extremist elements is posing a potential threat to what has been a liberal Sindhi society for many years.

          An increasing number of young worshippers in mosques and the trend of growing beards indicate the visible impact of religious preaching. The majority of religiously inclined people seem to live in the urban areas of the province. Abdul Wahab, the peshimam of the Babul Majeed Mosque in Sukkur, is happy to note the increasing number of worshippers: “I have noticed that in the past few years many young, educated persons have been visiting mosques to pray five times a day. It’s worth noting that people do not only come to pray here; most of them help organise religious ceremonies and collect contributions for the expansion and construction of mosques,” Wahab tells me.

        The growing inclination towards religion can be gauged through different indicators. The practice of azadari (maatam) for example, has dramatically increased in both urban and rural areas. Today, religious festivals are gaining in popularity; besides Eid, many other religious days are being celebrated all over the country. Modern techniques of celebrating such festivals or days have become an effective tool to engage young people in religious-cum-entertainment activities. For example, Awais Qadris’s style of singing naats has brought significant changes to the age-old form. Consequently, naats have become more popular and younger people now excitedly take part in naat competitions.

          Singing has always been a popular form of entertainment in Sindh. Throughout history, singers and poets have enjoyed the patronage of rulers and the monetary support of the public. Today, however, even in the semi-urban areas of the province, extremists are trying to discourage the practice. Just recently in 2008, in Sujawal, a small town in the Thatta district, organisers were warned not to organise a musical function in the town. “Some students from a local madrassa interrupted the show and warned us that they would not allow anti-religious activities and said, ‘If you do not heed us, we will forcibly stop the event,’” poet Akash Ansari, organiser of the musical programme, tells Newsline.

         Ishaque Mangrio, a writer and social reformer, is not concerned. “I don’t believe in exceptions; the people of Sindh are liberal in their lifestyle,” he says. “If you look at their culture, you will find that Sufi traditions of tolerance and non-violence form an essential part of their nature. People have a great attachment to their saints: every year, hundreds of Urs are held all over the province and the numbers of devotees are increasing with the passage of time. In interior Sindh, not a single incident of suicide bombing has occurred, and people do not fear going to the shrines of famous Sufi saints.”

           On the contrary, Mohammad Ali Manjhi, a local intellectual of Thatta, believes that the preaching of extremist groups is gradually affecting traditional Sufism. “In urban and semi-urban areas, unchallenged religious intolerance and violence is gaining ground. In Sanghar, an addict was killed in front of the police on charges of blasphemy. Not a single protest was carried out by the citizens against the culprits, even though many people knew that the person had not committed any blasphemous act.”

          Evidence of a religious tilt in interior Sindh includes the increased number of madrassas in the province. A rapid growth in the construction of madrassas has been witnessed in both the upper and lower parts of Sindh in the last few years. In Sukkur district, the Panno Aqil taluka is famous for religious education – a madrassa is to be found in almost every village. Similarly, in Umerkot district, there are more than 400 madrassas, which proves the all-pervasive religious influence in the area. Growing extremism has played a pivotal role in destabilising religious harmony in the area. Recently, in March, Hindus – who comprise half of the total population of Umerkot – were attacked by Muslims on the day of Diwali, on charges of blasphemy.

          The forced conversion of Hindus to Islam has never been a widespread practice in Sindh, but in recent years, thousands of Hindu girls have been forcibly converted. Many Hindu girls in upper Sindh have also been encouraged to marry Muslims. Amrot Sharif in Shikarpur district has become a shelter of sorts for converted Hindu women and, Aziz Shah, the sajjada nasheen, provides all kinds of support and legal aid to the converts. In the past, he has even ensured that their weddings were celebrated and highlighted in the media to help spread the practice.

          Similarly, Gulzar-e-Khalil, the village of Pir Ayub Jan Sarhandi in Umerkot, is home to several Hindu women who have been converted to Islam. Pir Ayub Jan Sarhandi claims that he has seen more than 10,000 such conversions. These practices, which threaten the secular fabric of society, have never been publicly condemned by any local organisation or civil society institution, while the religious parties and institutions have actively extended their moral and monetary support for the continuation of such practices.

          Although there is no concrete evidence of the involvement of Sindhis in suicide bombings in Pakistan or abroad, many people belonging to interior Sindh have, in the past, participated in jihad. “A lot of people belonging to the Brohvi and Memon communities of Shikarpur took part in the jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan. Many of them were killed during the war, and their coffins were brought to their ancestral graveyards,” says Paryal Marri, a Shikarpur-based human rights activist.

          Earlier, Sufi thought and practices received political and public support. Gaining the support of local pirs and the sajjada nasheen was used by rulers as a means of strengthening their political power. At the time, business communities in Sindh mainly consisted of Hindus, who spent money on the development of shrines and charities. However, business communities are now overwhelmingly Muslim and are thus more likely to extend money to Islamic welfare institutions and madrassas. Additionally, the political patronage of religious forces has increased their influence. Arbab Ghulam Rahim, the former chief minister of Sindh, was actively involved in consolidating Wahhabi institutions in Sindh by providing state support. Furthermore, in upper Sindh, Abdul Haq, the sajjada nasheen of the Pir of Bharchoondi Sharif, Abdul Samad Halejvi of Panno Aqil, Mufti Abdul Wahab Chacher of Rohri and Aziz Shah of Amrot Sharif, are all staunch supporters of Wahhabism and have an immense influence on local politics.

          Mazhar Laghari, a political analyst, is of the view that in the absence of any progressive movement and ideology, the growing inclination of the youth towards religion is only to be expected. “I have grown up in the village of Kunri in district Umekot, where my grandfather, Ghulam Mohammad Leghari, the leader of the Hari Tahreek (a farmers’ movement in the late ’70s) turned the village into a camp of revolutionaries. The same village is now nurturing jihadis. The decorated graves of two young persons from the village, who were killed during the jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan, fascinate the young minds as they are considered to be shaheed.”

          Tolerance, equality and non-violence – the fundamentals of Sufism – are rapidly vanishing from Sindhi society, while institutionalised violence, as preached by religious forces, is swiftly proliferating in the province. Shrines have failed to become institutions from where an effective message of non-violence and tolerance can be passed on to the masses. “They (the shrines) are becoming places of rituals that merely provide entertainment to people,” says Manzur Kohyar, a member of the executive committee of Sufi International. So what will be the end result? “Obviously, violence and intolerance will destabilise the social harmony in a society that is already fragile,” Kohyar concludes.

The Two Faces of Jihad

Militants from South Punjab tend to be better educated and more ruthless than those from the NWFP.
By Ayesha Siddiqa

The Punjabi jihadis are different from their counterparts in FATA: the former are comparatively more educated. There are many, such as Maulana Masood Azhar, who were educated in the Banuri town madrassa in Karachi and completed their dars-e-nizami – an eight-year course in religious ideology that inculcates the significance of jihad in the pupil. There is a constant flow of students from religious seminaries in South Punjab to Karachi. There are also those who have a secular education and are given responsibility for further education or conversion, and not just jihad. Additionally, there is also a reverse flow of militant religious scholars from South Punjab to other parts of the country. A prime example is Lal Masjid’s Maulana Abdul Aziz Ghazi and his wife, who hail from Dera Ghazi Khan.

         Besides being relatively more educated, the Punjabi jihadis are also distinguishable from the Pashtoon jihadis in terms of their style of fighting. A lot of the fidayeen (suicide bombers) come from the Punjab and are reputed to be much more brutal in their handling of victims. Frontier Governor Owais Ghani says some of the more ferocious commanders of the Taliban forces in Waziristan and Swat are South Punjabi jihadis and are much more difficult to crack than their Pashtoon counterparts. They have no emotional ties with people up north, he states, and are mainly ideology-driven, just like their Arab and Uzbek brothers-in-arms. So, as one freelancing jihadi confided, Uzbeks chop off a victim’s head with extreme precision and fight with an enviable commitment. The Punjabi jihadis want to avenge the rape of Muslim women in Chechnya, Bosnia, Palestine, Kashmir and Afghanistan by waging a war against non-Muslims. Militant groups show films of the killing of Muslims in these conflict zones and the rape of women to draw potential warriors. The preachers assure the fighters that a holy war is not only sanctioned by Islam but is a must for every able-bodied Muslim male.

          So, it does not really matter that the territories mentioned above are not connected with the immediate social reality of the fighters. Unlike the Pashtoons, the South Punjabis are not motivated to wage war because they have lost one of their own in the war on terror. Instead, they are willing to give up their lives (or offer others in their family) because they are highly motivated about higher, selfless causes. Jihad provides an immediate sense of empowerment to people who now begin to see themselves as being capable of helping helpless women in far away lands. Those who are sent are even given Arab names to inculcate in them a sense of history.

Terror’s Training Ground

By Ayesha Siddiqa

A few years ago, I met some young boys from my village near Bahawalpur who were preparing to go on jihad. They smirked politely when I asked them to close their eyes and imagine their future. “We can tell you without closing our eyes that we don’t see anything.”

         It was not entirely surprising. South Punjab is a region mired in poverty and underdevelopment. There are few job prospects for the youth. While the government has built airports and a few hospitals, these projects are symbolic and barely meet the needs of the area. It’s in areas like this, amid economic stagnation and hopelessness, that religious extremists find fertile ground to plant and spread their ideology.

          The first step is recruitment – and the methodology is straightforward. Young children, or even men, are taken to madrassas in nearby towns. They are fed well and kept in living conditions considerably better than what they are used to. This is a simple psychological strategy meant to help them compare their homes with the alternatives offered by militant organisations. The returning children, like the boys I met, then undergo ideological indoctrination in a madrassa. Those who are indoctrinated always bring more friends and family with them. It is a swelling cycle.

        Madrassas nurturing armies of young Islamic militants ready to embrace martyrdom have been on the rise for years in the Punjab. In fact, South Punjab has become the hub of jihadism. Yet, somehow, there are still many people in Pakistan who refuse to acknowledge this threat.

          Four major militant outfits, the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), are all comfortably ensconced in South Punjab (see article “Brothers in Arms”). Sources claim that there are about 5,000 to 9,000 youth from South Punjab fighting in Afghanistan and Waziristan. A renowned Pakistani researcher, Hassan Abbas cites a figure of 2,000 youth engaged in Waziristan. The area has become critical to planning, recruitment and logistical support for terrorist attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In fact, in his study on the Punjabi Taliban, Abbas has quoted Tariq Pervez, the chief of a new government outfit named the National Counter-Terrorism Authority (NCTA), as saying that the jihad veterans in South Punjab are instrumental in providing the foot soldiers and implementing terror plans conceived and funded mainly by Al-Qaeda operatives. This shouldn’t come as a surprise considering that the force that conquered Khost in 1988-89 comprised numerous South Punjabi commanders who fought for the armies of various Afghan warlords such as Gulbuddin Hikmatyar and Burhanuddin Rabbani. Even now, all the four major organisations are involved in Afghanistan.

         The above facts are not unknown to the provincial and federal governments or the army. It was not too long ago that the federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik equated South Punjab with Swat. The statement was negated by the IG Punjab. Perhaps, the senior police officer was not refuting his superior but challenging the story by Sabrina Tavernese of The New York Times (NYT). The story had highlighted jihadism in South Punjab, especially in Dera Ghazi Khan. The NYT story even drew a reaction from media outlets across the country. No one understood that South Punjab is being rightly equated with Swat, not because of violence but due to the presence of elements that aim at taking the society and state in another direction.

         An English-language daily newspaper reacted to the NYT story by dispatching a journalist to South Punjab who wrote a series of articles that attempted to analyse the existing problem. One of the stories highlighted comments by the Bahawalpur Regional Police Officer (RPO) Mushtaq Sukhera, in which he denied that there was a threat of Talibanisation in South Punjab. He said that all such reports pertaining to South Punjab were nothing more than a figment of the western press’s imagination. Many others express a similar opinion. There are five explanations for this.

           Firstly, opinion makers and policy makers are in a state of denial regarding the gravity of the problem. Additionally, they believe an overemphasis on this region might draw excessive US attention to South Punjab – an area epitomising mainstream Pakistan. Thus, it is difficult even to find anecdotal evidence regarding the activities of jihadis in this sub-region. We only gain some knowledge about the happenings from coincidental accidents like the blast that took place in a madrassa in Mian Chunoon, exposing the stockpile of arms its owner had stored on the premises.

          Secondly, officer Sukhera and others like him do not see any threat because the Punjab-based outfits are “home-grown” and are not seen as directly connected to the war in Afghanistan. This is contestable on two counts: South Punjabi jihadists have been connected with the Afghan jihad since the 1980s and the majority is still engaged in fighting in Afghanistan.

          Thirdly, since all these outfits were created by the ISI to support General Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamisation process, in essence to fight a proxy war for Saudi Arabia against Iran by targeting the Shia community, and later the Kashmir war, the officials feel comfortable that they will never spin out of control. Those that become uncontrollable, such as Al-Furqan, are then abandoned. This outfit was involved in the second assassination attempt on Musharraf and had initially broken away from the JeM after the leadership developed differences over assets, power and ideology. Thus, the district officials and intelligence agencies turned a blind eye to the killing of the district amir of Al-Furqan in Bahawalpur in May 2009. As far as the JeM is concerned, it continues its engagement with the establishment. In any case, groups that are partly committed to the Kashmir cause and confrontation with India continue to survive. This is certainly the perception about the LeT. But in reality, the Wahhabi outfit has also been engaged in other regions, such as the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Badakhshan since 2004.

          Fourthly, there is confusion at the operational level in the government regarding the definition of Talibanisation, which is then reflected in the larger debate on the issue. Many, including the RPO, define the process as an effort by an armed group to use force to change the social conditioning in an area. Ostensibly, the militant outfits in the Punjab continue to coexist with the pirs, prostitutes and the drug mafia, and there is no reason that they will follow in the footsteps of Sufi Mohammad and Maulana Fazlullah, or Baitullah Mehsud. Since the authorities only recognise the pattern followed by the Afghan warlords or those in Pakistan’s tribal areas, they tend not to understand that what is happening in the Punjab may not be Talibanisation but could eventually prove to be as lethal as what they call Talibanisation.

          Finally, many believe that Talibanisation cannot take place in a region known for practicing the Sufi version of Islam. There are many, besides the Bahawalpur RPO, who subscribe to the above theory. A year ago in an interview with an American channel, Farahnaz Ispahani, an MNA and wife of Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, stated that extremism couldn’t flourish in South Punjab because it was a land of Sufi shrines. This is partially true. The Sufi influence would work as a bulwark against this Talibanisation of society. However, Sufi Islam cannot fight poverty, underdevelopment and poor governance – all key factors that encourage Talibanisation.

          South Punjab boasts names such as the Mazaris, Legharis and Gilanis, most of whom are not just politicians and big landowners but also belong to significant pir families. But they have done little to alleviate the sufferings of their constituents. A visit to Dera Ghazi Khan is depressing. Despite the fact that the division produced a president, Farooq Khan Leghari, the state of underdevelopment there is shocking. Reportedly, people living in the area in the immediate vicinity of the Leghari tribe could not sell their land without permission from the head of the tribe, the former president, who has been the tribal chief for many years. Under the circumstances, the poor and the dispossessed became attractive targets for militant outfits offering money. The country’s current economic downturn could raise the popularity of militant outfits.

          In recent history, the gap created due to the non-performance of Sufi shrines and Barelvi Islam, or the exploitative nature of these institutions, has been filled partly by the Deobandi and Ahl-e-Hadith madrassa conversion teams and groups, such as the Tableeghi Jamaat, and militant outfits. This alternative, unfortunately, is equally exploitative in nature. Sadly, today the shrines and Barelvi Islam have little to offer in terms of “marketing” to counter the package deal offered by the Salafists for the life hereafter, especially to a shaheed: 70 hoors (virgins), a queen hoor (virgin queen), a crown of jewels and forgiveness for 70 additional people. This promise means a lot for the poor youth who cannot hope for any change in a pre-capitalist socio-economic and political environment, where power is hard to re-negotiate. Furthermore, as stated by the former information minister Mohammad Ali Durrani, who had been a jihadi from 1984-90, a poor youth suddenly turning into a jihadi commander is a tremendous story of social mobility and recognition that he would never get in his existing socio-economic system. More importantly, the Deobandis and Ahl-e-Hadith offer a textual basis for their package, which is difficult for the pirs to refute due to the lack of an internal religious discourse in the Islamic world. The modern generation of pirs has not engaged in an internal discourse to counter this ideological onslaught by the Salafis. The main belief of Salafism is that all Muslims should practice Islam as it was during the time of Prophet Muhammad. The religion at that time, according to them, was perfect. Salafism – which pre-dates Wahhabism – is often used interchangeably with Wahhabism, which is actually an extension of Salafism.

          Punjab offers a different pattern of extremism and jihadism. The pattern is closer to what one saw in Swat, where Sufi Mohammad and his TNSM spent quite a few years indoctrinating the society and building up a social movement before they got embroiled in a conflict with the state. South Punjab’s story is, in a sense, like Swat’s in that there is a gradual strengthening of Salafism and a build-up of militancy in the area. The procedure of conversion though, dates back to pre-1947. Still, the 1980s were clearly a watershed, when both rabid ideology and jihad were introduced to the area. Zia-ul-Haq encouraged the opening up of religious seminaries that, unlike the more traditional madrassas that were usually attached with Sufi shrines, subscribed to Salafi ideology. In later years, South Punjab became critical to inducting people for the Kashmir jihad. The ascendancy of the Tableeghi Jamaat and such madrassas that presented a more rabid version of religion gradually prepared the ground for later invasion by the militant groups. Two reports prepared around 1994, firstly by the district collector Bahawalpur and later by the Punjab government, highlighted the exponential rise in the number of madrassas and how these fanned sectarian and ideological hatred in the province. These reports also stated that all of these seminaries were provided funding by the government through the zakat fund.

          The number of seminaries had increased during and after the 1980s. According to a 1996 report, there were 883 madrassas in Bahawalpur, 361 in Dera Ghazi Khan, 325 in Multan and 149 in Sargodha district. The madrassas in Bahawalpur outnumbered all other cities, including Lahore. These numbers relate to Deobandi madrassas only and do not include the Ahl-e-Hadith, Barelvi and other sects. Newer estimates from the intelligence bureau for 2008 show approximately 1,383 madrassas in the Bahawalpur division that house 84,000 students. Although the highest number of madrassas is in Rahim Yar Khan district (559) followed by Bahawalpur (481) and Bahawalnagar (310), it is Bahawalpur in which the highest number of students (36,000) is enlisted. The total number of madrassa students in Pakistan has reached about one million.

          Everyone has been so focused on FATA and the NWFP that they failed to notice the huge increase in religious seminaries in these districts of South Punjab. According to a study conducted by historian Tahir Kamran, the total number of madrassas in the Punjab rose from 1,320 in 1988 to 3,153 in 2000, an increase of almost 140%. These madrassas were meant to provide a rapid supply of jihadis to the Afghan war of the 1980s. At the time of 9/11, the Bahawalpur division alone could boast of approximately 15,000-20,000 trained militants, some of whom had resettled in their areas during the period that Musharraf claimed to have clamped down on the jihad industry. Many went into the education sector, opened private schools and even joined the media.

          These madrassas play three essential roles. First, they convert people to Salafism and neutralise resistance to a more rabid interpretation of the Quran and Sunnah in society. Consequently, the majority of the Barelvis cannot present a logical resistance to the opposing ideology. In many instances, the Barelvis themselves get converted to the idea of jihad. Secondly, these madrassas are used to train youth, who are then inducted into jihad. Most of the foot soldiers come from the religious seminaries. One of the principles taught to the students pertains to the concept of jihad as being a sacred duty that has to continue until the end of a Muslim’s life or the end of the world. Lastly, madrassas are an essential transit point for the youth, who are recruited from government schools. They are usually put through the conversion process after they have attended a 21-day initial training programme in the Frontier province or Kashmir (see box “A Different Breed”).

          State support, which follows two distinct tracks, is also instrumental in the growth of jihadism in this region. On the one hand, there has generally been a link or understanding between political parties and militant groups. Since political parties are unable to eliminate militants or most politicians are sympathetic towards the militants, they tend to curb their activities through political deal-making. The understanding between the SSP and Benazir Bhutto after the 1993 elections, or the alleged deal between the PML-N and the SSP during the 2008 elections, denote the relationship between major political parties and the jihadis. Currently, the SSP in South Punjab is more supportive of the PML-N.

          The second track involves operational links between the outfits and the state’s intelligence apparatus. As mentioned earlier, some of the outfits claim to have received training from the country’s intelligence agencies. Even now, local people talk of truckloads of weapons arriving at the doorstep of the JeM headquarters and other sites in the middle of the night. While official sources continue to claim that the outfit was banned and does not exist, or that Masood Azhar is on the run from his hometown of Bahawalpur, the facts prove otherwise. For instance, the outfit continues to acquire real estate in the area, such as a new site near Chowk Azam in Bahawalpur, which many believe is being used as a training site. Although the new police chief has put restraints on the JeM and disallowed it from constructing on the site, the outfit continues to appropriate more land around the area. Junior police officials even claim seeing tunnels being dug inside the premises. The new facility is on the bank of the Lahore-Karachi national highway, which means that in the event of a crisis, the JeM could block the road as has happened in Kohat and elsewhere. Furthermore, the outfit’s main headquarters in the city is guarded by AK-47-armed men who harass any journalist trying to take a photograph of the building. In one instance, even a police official was shooed away and later intimidated by spooks of an intelligence agency for spying on the outfit. Despite the claim that the SSP, the LeJ and the JeM have broken ties with intelligence agencies and are now fighting the army in Waziristan, the fact remains that their presence in the towns of South Punjab continues unhindered.

          Is it naivety and inefficiency on the part of officialdom or a deliberate effort to withhold information? The government claims that Maulana Masood Azhar has not visited his hometown in the last three years. But he held a massive book launch of his new publication Fatah-ul-Jawad: Quranic Verses on Jihad, on April 28, 2008, in Bahawalpur. Moreover, JeM’s armed men manned all entrances and exits to the city that day – and there was no police force in sight. The ISI is said to have severed its links with the JeM for assisting the Pashtoon Taliban in inciting violence in the country. Sources from FATA claim, however, that the JeM, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) and LeT are suspected by the Taliban for their links with state agencies.

          In addition, intelligence agencies reportedly ward off anyone attempting to probe into the affairs of these outfits. In one case, a local in Bahawalpur city invoked daily visits from a certain agency after he assisted a foreign journalist. Similarly, only six months back, a BBC team was chased out of the area by agency officials. In fact, intelligence officials, who had forgotten about my existence since my last book was published, revisited my village in South Punjab soon after I began writing on militancy in the area and have gone to the extent of planting a story in one of the Urdu newspapers to malign me in my own area. In any case, no serious operation was conducted against these outfits after the Mumbai attacks and the recent spate of violence in the country. Hence, all of them continue to survive.

          The Deobandi outfits are not the only ones popular in South Punjab. Ahl-e-Hadith/Wahhabi organisations such as the Tehreek-ul-Mujahidden (TuM) and the LeT also have a following in the region. While TuM, which is relatively a smaller organisation, has support in Dera Ghazi Khan, the LeT is popular in Bahawalpur, Multan and the areas bordering Central Punjab. Headquartered in Muridke, the LeT is popular among the Punjabi and Urdu-speaking Mohajir settlers.

          There are obvious sociological reasons for LeT’s relative popularity among these people. The majority of this population represents either the lower-middle-class farmers or middle-class trader-merchants. The middle class is instrumental in providing funding to these outfits. And the support is not confined to South Punjab alone. In fact, middle-class trader-merchants from other parts of the Punjab also feed jihad through their funding. This does not mean that there are no Seraiki speakers in Wahhabi organisations but just that the dominant influence is that of the Punjabis and Mohajirs. The Seraiki-speaking population is mostly associated with the SSP, LeJ and JeM, not to mention the freelancing jihadis that have direct links with the Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP).

          The LeT’s presence in South Punjab is far more obvious than others courtesy of the wall chalkings and social work by its sister outfit, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Despite the rumours of friction between the LeT and the JuD leadership, the two segments operate in unison in South Punjab. Three of the favourite areas of recruitment in South Punjab for all outfits are Cholistan in Bahawalpur, the Rekh in Dera Ghazi Khan, and the Kacha area in Rajanpur. The first two are desert areas known for their poverty and underdevelopment, while the third is known for dacoits. However, another known feature of Kacha in Rajanpur is that the clerics of the Lal Masjid come from this area and have partly managed to push back the dacoits. Local sources claim that the influence of the clerics has increased since they started receiving cooperation from the police to jointly fight the dacoits.

          Organisations such as the LeT have even begun to recruit women in the Punjab. These women undergo 21 days of ideological and military training. The goal is to ensure that these women will be able to fight if their menfolk are out on jihad and an enemy attacks Pakistan.

          The militant outfits are rich, both ideologically and materially. They have ample financial resources that flow from four distinct sources: official sources (in some cases); Middle Eastern and Gulf states (not necessarily official channels); donations; and the Punjabi middle class, which is predominantly engaged in funding both madrassas and jihad for social, moral and political ends. With regard to donations, the militant outfits are extremely responsive to the changing environment and have adapted their money-collection tactics. Gone are the days of money-collection boxes. Now, especially in villages, followers are asked to raise money by selling harvested crops. And in terms of the Punjabi middle class, there are traders in Islamabad and other smaller urban centres that contribute regularly to the cause. These trader-merchants and upcoming entrepreneurs see donations to these outfits as a source of atonement for their sins. In Tahir Kamran’s study “Deobandiism in the Punjab,” Deobandiism (and Wahhabiism) is an urban phenomenon. If so, then the existence of these militant outfits in rural Punjab indicates a new social trend. Perhaps, due to greater access to technology (mobiles, television sets, satellite receivers, etc), the landscape (and rustic lifestyles) of Punjab’s rural areas has changed. There is an unplanned urbanisation of the rural areas due to the emergence of small towns with no social development, health and education infrastructure. Socially and politically, there is a gap that is filled by these militant outfits or related ideological institutions.

          Fortunately, they have not succeeded in changing the lifestyles of the ordinary people. This is perhaps because there are multiple cultural strands that do not allow the jihadis to impose their norms the way they have in the tribal areas or the Frontier province. This is not to say that there is no threat from them in South Punjab: the liberalism and multi-polarity of society is certainly at risk. The threat is posed by the religious seminaries and the new recruits for jihad, who change social norms slowly and gradually. Sadly nothing, including the powerful political system of the area, which in any case is extremely warped, helps ward off the threat of extremism and jihadism. Ultimately, South Punjab could fall prey to the myopia of its ruling elite.

          So how does the state and society deal with this issue?

          Deploying the military is not an option. In the Punjab this will create a division within the powerful army because of regional loyalty. The foremost task is to examine the nature of the state’s relationship with the militants as strategic partners: should this relationship continue to exist to the detriment of the state? Once this mystifying question is resolved, all militant forces can be dealt with through an integrated police-intelligence operation.

          This, however, amounts to winning only half the battle. The other half deals with the basic problems faced by the likes of those young jihadis-in-training from Bahawalpur who said, “We don’t see anything” in our futures. Presently, there is hardly any industrialisation in South Punjab and the mainstay of the area, agriculture, is faltering. The region requires economic strengthening: new ideas in agriculture, capital investment and new, relevant industries. This is the time that the government must plan beyond the usual textile and sugar industries that have arguably turned into huge mafias that are draining the local economy rather than feeding it.

          Investment in social development is desperately needed. A larger social infrastructure that provides jobs and an educational system that is responsive to the needs of the population can contribute to filling the gaps. The message of militancy is quite potent, especially in terms of the dreams it sells to the youth, such as those disillusioned boys from my village. Jihad elevates youngsters from a state of being dispossessed to an imagined exalted status. They visualise themselves taking their places among great historical figures such as Mohammad bin Qasim and Khalid bin Waleed. It is these dreams for which the state must provide an alternative.

Chinese troops offer an Afghan solution

BEIJING - On August 11, China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) kicked off its largest military maneuver in decades. About 50,000 troops, drawn from each of the seven military commands, were deployed by "rail and air transport" to unfamiliar territories far from their garrison training bases. The goal of the exercise was "to improve [the PLA's] capacity of long-range projection", reported the official Chinese news agency Xinhua.

The PLA, therefore, was not staging maneuvers to prepare for a hypothetical invasion of Taiwan, as it has done in many of its past exercises. Those "Taiwan maneuvers" had very little practical use, as many generals have conceded that even if China were to attack the island, it would do so through rockets and missiles, not

by trying to land thousands of soldiers on Taiwan's beaches.

Those maneuvers served only to exert psychological pressure on the Taiwanese population. It worked to a small degree, in the sense that the Taiwanese were scared, but it backfired in that the Taiwanese were not intimidated into submitting to China, conversely, they were convinced to resist China's reunification pulls.

Since those self-defeating initiatives, the PLA has become smarter, but it still has political goals behind each of its announced maneuvers. In this case, the PLA is thinking of long-range projection - that is, sending troops out of Chinese territory for special purposes. The one territory that needs troops and where Chinese soldiers could be deployed is Afghanistan.

With its latest exercises, China could be winking at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United States - both of which are presently engaged in Afghanistan - saying, we have troops, they are trained, and we could send them over.

NATO needs more troops in Afghanistan. Even though the combined number of foreign troops there now stands at about 100,000, the territory is infamously mountainous and inhospitable. It is twice as big as Italy, and slightly smaller than the US state of Texas.

With 33 million people, over half of them below the age of 25, the country's median age is 17.6; that is, over half of the population has been born and raised seeing nothing but war. Over 80% of the population is illiterate, yet most of the men are proud owners of rifles which they have used many times.

Much of the economy is based on drug trafficking (according to estimates, Afghanistan produces some 70% of the world's total opium output) and international aid - two polluting elements in any society and even more so in a country torn by war for the past 30 years.

In this situation, given the restive and hostile Taliban and the tribal leaders waging war on the Kabul government, the number of troops deployed is a pittance.

In addition to the about 100,000 foreign troops, there are "contract workers" (that is, mercenaries working for Kabul) who could number as many as 40,000. The present objective of the Barack Obama administration is to raise the Afghan security forces to as many as 250,000.

The grand, optimistic total would thus be about 400,000 troops to police a land across which are scattered at least 10 million young, angry, illiterate, toughened and armed men. By comparison, Italy, with no real insurgency to speak of, and about 60 million inhabitants, has over 600,000 police and troops confronting just a few thousand armed criminals in a territory half the size.

Such comparisons are difficult, but certainly these numbers tell us that in no way can even 400,000 troops bring security to Afghanistan in the present situation. And the figure of 400,000 is very optimistic for many reasons, such as taking for granted the loyalty of the Afghan troops.

In this situation, even if China were to send 50,000 troops - all of those which took part in the August maneuver - it would make a difference, but not enough of one. As much as it needs more boots on the ground, Kabul needs a better political settlement along its borders to make those boots effective.

The first problem is Pakistan. The country is a well-established haven for the Taliban, who can cross the porous border at will to launch raids into Afghanistan.

Pakistan's intelligence and security forces have for a long time trained and financed the militancy in divided Kashmir, where jihadis cross into Indian-administered Kashmir to tackle Indian security forces. [1] Technically, Pakistan has stopped supporting these jihadis, but it still keeps an eye on them, thus keeping alive channels of communication and collaboration.

Many of these Kashmiri militants have good connections with the Afghan Taliban, in many cases they are the same people - they pray in the same mosques, studied in the same madrassas (seminaries), and they can fight just as well in Kashmir as in Afghanistan. In this way, the Pakistani security forces, by helping the Kashmiri cause, also help the Taliban cause.

Pakistan makes no secret that it doesn't like the Kabul government, which it considers too "pro-New Delhi", and it is no secret that Islamabad fears being squeezed by India controlling Afghanistan. In this way, it is in Pakistan's best interests to keep the Kashmiri insurgency alive, at least to prod the Indians and have more bargaining chips with them - it is also in Pakistan's interests to "liven up" things in Afghanistan.

Indeed, the situation might be too lively for Pakistan's own good, as the Taliban have established control in much of the tribal areas. However, while high temperatures are dangerous, they also mean greater American attention, thus more aid and more Pakistani political leverage in Washington.

Even poppy cultivation has a place in this puzzle. The poppies are cultivated in Afghanistan, but reach the world with the help of people in Pakistan and Iran, who are lining their pockets and who thus allow the situation to fester. An eradication policy for opium poppies must be found, but enforcing it will only be possible if the traffickers are curtailed.

In sum, if there is no political solution with Pakistan that conclusively stops its support of Kashmiri or Taliban militants, Afghanistan will never be at peace.

Afghanistan was peaceful only before the Soviet invasion of 1979, when the country kept a balance with its neighbors and relied heavily on Pakistan. After the Soviets - Cold War allies of the Indians - invaded Afghanistan, Islamabad felt it was being squeezed and fought hard and successfully to draw the Americans into the conflict.

Even now, if Pakistan is not totally on the side of the foreign troops in Afghanistan, the Taliban will never be stopped. Seeking security in Afghanistan in the present situation would be like trying to empty a bathtub full of water by opening the drain but keeping the faucet running.

One solution for the US in Afghanistan would be to simply pull out and entrust the Pakistanis with overall security, while keeping a watchful eye on developments in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This was the situation in the 1990s, except the US simply forgot to monitor developments, didn't heed the cries for help from Pakistan, and things went awry, with the Taliban coming to power in 1996.

Ideally, Pakistan and India should find a solution to the Kashmir problem. This would start a circle of bilateral trust which would lead to the militants being stopped. But no solution has been found for Kashmir in over 60 years, so we can hardly hope for a resolution now.

Less ideally but more practically, China could send troops to Afghanistan and open a comprehensive regional dialogue on Afghanistan, involving also the Russians and the Iranians - besides the Americans, Pakistanis and Afghans.

The value of Chinese troops on the ground could be political. In the past 60 years, China has been an unflinching Pakistani ally, and its presence on the ground could be a pledge to keep Afghanistan in "Pakistani hands". On the other hand, India should agree to leave Afghanistan to Pakistan, in return for a Pakistani back-down over Kashmir. This latter agreement would be very difficult, but it could be helped by the Indians agreeing to Chinese troops in Afghanistan.

All this would not only serve the purpose of having more foot soldiers on the ground, it would serve the Pakistani interest of wresting Afghanistan from the Taliban's hands. Pakistan should close the faucet so the flood of militants will dry up.

Without a political solution and a political goal, any military solution will by definition be defeated.

The above reasoning is based on a political goal: to minimize the Taliban's insurgency so much that Afghanistan can safely be crossed by pipelines, roads, goods and tourists. This is regardless of who rules in Kabul - whether it is current President Hamid Karzai or anyone else, or whether the government is a democracy or something else.

Note
1. See author's interview with Zhang Xiaodong L'Iran tra Cina e Usa La Stampa, March 3, 2009.

Francesco Sisci is the Asia Editor of La Stampa.

Americans see a change in the air in Pakistan

Thursday, September 24, 2009 By By Dr Shahid Masood

WASHINGTON: Americans see a change fast, but smoothly, coming in Pakistan in the wake of loss of credibility of the man at the helm, following some domestic legal developments. After meeting top political and defence decision-makers here in the US capital, where I was invited by the National Defence University (NDU) for a two-day seminar on the anniversary of 9/11, I was told in unambiguous terms that a change in Pakistan was inevitable for US policy interests, although Washington does not intend to disrupt the system. Several important Pakistani political players have also been conveyed the same message by the US political and defence establishment, including the MQM and recently the ANP, whose chief is travelling with President Asif Zardari in New York. The main problem being faced by the US administration, which it may never admit publicly, is that the present set-up with Asif Ali Zardari as the de facto ruler, has no credibility at home and no ability to deliver on the promises he makes, either on the military side or on the war on terror or on governance issues. “Zardari has also abandoned the idea of political consensus which he had started to follow in the early days after the February elections,” one official said on background. “He appears to be non-serious in government and lives in perpetual fear and insecurity, preferring to stay out of the country.” The US side thinks that they had made a sensible move by pushing an alliance between late Benazir Bhutto and General Pervez Musharraf as this team would have provided all the ingredients of a stable and cooperative Pakistan to Washington. She would have provided the political support while Musharraf would have used his military muscle against the terrorists and extremists in a stable environment. They say Zardari has failed to provide that environment, rather he has involved himself in day-to-day business and administrative matters while his political coalition and parliament have been left looking like dumb and dummies. Many officials say Zardari has been asking the US administration to bail him out on too many issues and too many occasions. He has sought the US help to tame the Army, keep his alliance partners, especially the opposition of Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N in check, directly or through the Saudis on sensitive issues like Musharraf’s or cutting his own constitutional powers. All these demands are way beyond the capacity of any US administration to deliver while Zardari has almost left everything to us to handle, an agitated official said. “If we have to handle everything, his own credibility within the country will sink and has sunk to the lowest low.” Other officials I met were even blunter. They say the US abhors corruption, kickbacks and commissions anywhere in the world as a matter of policy. Another official said the US would keep track of the parties or persons involved and money transaction in the Pakistan’s rental power venture. There are still no roadmaps or any modality work sheets in Washington on how a change in Pakistan would occur, but the US capital is keeping its fingers crossed as to what comes out of the NRO case pending with the Supreme Court. The impression gathered from the words of these top Americans is that the US would not intervene if the apex court starts hearing the case. The view is that if the NRO was discussed and details of who benefited, who made what deals and how serious crimes were committed and then whitewashed, start to be revealed in the SC, the moral authority of the NRO beneficiaries would erode fatally. In this scenario, the NRO beneficiaries may themselves throw in the towel seeking a safe exit. In several informed US and Pakistani circles I moved in for several days in Washington, the same scenario was repeated, often exactly in the same tone and sequence. A Pakistani, who knows a lot about developments in Pakistan and the US scene, said that apart from this purely legal and domestic scene, there were four possible ways through which Zardari could exit. These ways were repeated by others who had nothing to do at all with the previous source. They are: one, impeachment; two, voluntary resignation in the wake loss of credibility; three, ‘natural’ or man-made elimination of the president, and, four, an Army coup. The impeachment and coup scenarios are considered non-starter and impossibility. US and some Pakistani circles said that a resignation after enough dirt is thrown in the public domain when the NRO case details begin to unfold is a favourite way out, as it would not, being an outcome of the legal process, disrupt the system. I was asked many times whether a coup is a possibility in the current situation and I always said no, but the question kept surfacing again and again. This is probably because there was some loose talk of a shuffle in the military hierarchy by President Zardari in which Army chief General Kayani was to be replaced by some other pliant general who could ensure continuity and stability for the Zardari regime. This scenario was shot down in Washington instantly as an impossibility, since it had information that the Pakistan Army considered a coup or intervention as a total no-go area and could have brought back another October 12, 1999 type of situation. It is so also because of the fact that Gen Kayani has established, through words and deeds, that he is all for democracy. With all these scenarios being discussed, the growing feeling is that not much time is left for the current status quo and it will lead to a period of political turmoil in Pakistan if President Zardari continues with his ways any longer. The sudden emergence of a top MQM delegation in Washington for talks with the policy makers, officials and think tanks of Washington has also raised many questions as the official Pakistani diplomatic channels were totally cut off and I gather that this was done at the insistence of the US side more than the MQM leadership. Not even a courtesy meeting between Governor Ishratul Ebad and Ambassador Husain Haqqani was held until four days after the arrival of the MQM delegation and meetings with top strategists, including Bruce Riedel, John Negroponte, Richard Boucher, and current State Department officials, including Richard Holbrooke. A similar exercise has now been planned with the ANP chief while he will be here in the presidential entourage. What happened in these meetings is known only to the MQM leaders and the US side but the tone and tenor of MQM in the coming weeks and days will give the first hints of whether the course of the PPP-MQM alliance is changing in stormy waters in the middle of the sea. How the ANP reacts is also to be seen but already Asfandyar Wali is said to be very happy with the praise for his party’s governance in the NWFP by US officials as well as the promises to give them direct financial aid. With the MQM and the ANP almost on board, I will be eagerly waiting for the first signs of the new US strategy unfolding in the days and weeks to come.

The Taliban and Salarzais

Sunday, September 27, 2009
Farhat Taj

I was in Pakistan in August and had the opportunity to meet the leaders of the anti-Taliban lashkar (volunteer army) of Bajaur’s Salarzai tribe. I am honoured that upon my request they travelled from Bajaur to meet me in Nowshehra and shared with me information about their anti-Taliban struggle. I am not mentioning their names for reasons of their security.

The area of the Salarzai tribe is on the border with Afghanistan. The tribe have collectively decided that there won’t be any Taliban on their soil. The Taliban have been driven out of the Salarzai area. The Salarzai lashkar, mostly made up of labourers and peasants, has successfully kept the Salazai area free of the Taliban.

Tens of Salarzail lashkar leaders have been target-killed. The Salarzai leaders informed me they hold the ISI responsible for the targeted killings. “The Taliban are just a façade. The real force is the ISI punishing us for our anti-Taliban struggle,” said one of the leaders.

The leaders said that Mamond Taliban headquarters used to be in Damadola, which is a few kilometres from the FC fort in Bajaur. The Mamond Taliban used to bomb Salarzai villages. The Salarzai tribal elders requested the Political Agent, the authorities of the FC and the Pakistani army to stop the Mamond Taliban. None of these offered any help. Finally the Salarzai lashkar took positions on the mountains and for two hours heavily bombarded the surrounding villages of the Mamond Taliban. At that point the political agent and a colonel of the army asked the Salarzai lashkar to stop the bombing. They gave the same old logic: who will fight the NATO forces from across the Afghan border if you eliminate the Taliban?

Following such encounters with the state authorities, the Salarzais decided to fire at any forces entering their area: be it the Taliban, Al Qaida, the army or the US or NATO. The Salarzais have taken up positions all over the area and are always on guard. The tribesmen take turns to defend those positions. Unlike the bombed out schools in the Taliban-controlled areas, all schools in the Salarzai region are functioning. The tribesmen are performing security duties in both girls’ and boys’ schools in the area.

The leaders informed me that there is a set pattern of target-killing of anti-Taliban Salarzai leader. Before each targeted killing all telephone links with the far-flung Salarzai area are cut off. The targeted killing takes place in 24 to 48 hours later. The telephone links are restored a couple of days after the assassinated leader has been buried. A day or so later a news item of a few lines appears in the newspapers about the killing. “No one in Pakistan seems to be bothered about the state-sponsored targeted killing of anti-Taliban Salarzai leaders. Our area is too far from the rest of Pakistan and our agony means nothing to fellow-Pakistanis. The Pakistani media never ever tries to probe into the targeted killings,” said one of the Salarzai leaders.

All telephone lines to the Salarzia area were dead the day I was meeting with the leaders. They said they were deeply worried whose turn it might be to be targeted for killing. Two days later the telephone links were restored. The same day they informed me on telephone that Malik Munasib Khan, the spokesman of the Salarzai lashkar, had been killed. They held the ISI responsible for his killing.

The Salarzai leaders also informed me that last year the army deliberately fired at those villages in Bajaur that were known to be staunchly anti-Taliban. They said one of their colleagues called Maj Gen Alam Khattak to ask him to stop the bombing of his village. “Major General Sahib! I will start a vendetta with you if you did not halt the bombing of my village immediately. I will make sure to kill you and your family at the first available opportunity,” they quoted one of their colleagues as saying. The major general asked him to meet Col Sajjad who was bombing the anti-Taliban villages from his base in Timergara. That colleague saw a big Bajaur map affixed on the wall in the office of Col Sajjad. The map had several encircled villages. Col Sajjad informed him that the map had been handed over to him by his commanders with the order to bomb all the encircled villages. “Our colleague’s blood boiled with anger: none of the villages had Taliban in them,” said the Salarzai leaders. The villages included Butmali, Danqul, Attkay, Matasha, Baro, Raghjan and Nazkai.

On the other hand, those Salarzai villages that had Taliban were not marked on the map or bombed by the army. Such villages are Pashat, Banda, Malasyed, Darra and Gundai. Now the Salarzai lashkar has cleared these villages from Taliban control, without any state support.

The leaders also made the accusation that the Salarzais are discriminated against by the state in allocation of developmental funds due to their hostility to the Taliban. The FATA Rural Development Project (FRDP) is working in Bajaur Agency but entire Salarzai area of the agency has been deliberately excluded by from the project. “A wilful under-development has been imposed on us as punishment for our anti-Taliban stance. The Salazai area would be included in FRDP if we allowed the Taliban to take control of our area. Without this, we Salarzais can beg as much as we can for development, but the state will never budge,” said the Salarzai tribal leaders.

The reason I write this piece is not to defame the institution of the Pakistani army, which I hold in high esteem. I just wish to request the President of Pakistan, the Chief of Army Staff and the DG of the ISI to pay attention to the complaints of the Salarzais and resolve their problems to the satisfaction of the tribe. The Salarzai leaders categorically told me they are loyal Pakistanis, but they are not ready to let the peace of their area be destroyed for the power games of the intelligence agencies. All they want from the state is peaceful and development.

I would request fellow-Pakistanis all over the country to support the Salarzais. I wonder why the civil society of Pakistan is so silent over the heroic anti-Taliban struggle of the Salarzais. Salarzais are the natural allies of all those who are against the Taliban and civil society should forcefully support them. I would request the Pakistani media to keep a close watch on the Salarzai area to discourage targeted killings there.

The Taliban are anti-civilisation. The Salarzais are the embodiment of civilisation because they are so oppose to the Taliban. I would request all civilised people in the world to morally support the Salarzais in the name of human civilisation.

The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo, and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy.

Email: bergen34@yahoo.com

US threatens airstrikes in Pakistan

Christina Lamb in Washington

The United States is threatening to launch airstrikes on Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership in the Pakistani city of Quetta as frustration mounts about the ease with which they find sanctuary across the border from Afghanistan.
The threat comes amid growing divisions in Washington about whether to deal with the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan by sending more troops or by reducing them and targeting the terrorists.
This weekend the US military was expected to send a request to Robert Gates, the defence secretary, for more troops, as urged by General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander there.
In a leaked strategic assessment of the war, McChrystal warned that he needed extra reinforcements within a year to avert the risk of failure. Although no figure was given, he is believed to be seeking up to 40,000 troops to add to the 68,000 who will be in Afghanistan by the end of this year.
However, with President Barack Obama under pressure from fellow Democrats not to intensify the war, the administration has let it be known that it is rethinking strategy. Vice-President Joe Biden has suggested reducing the number of troops in Afghanistan and focusing on the Taliban and AlQaeda in Pakistan.
Last week McChrystal denied any rift with the administration, saying “a policy debate is warranted”.
According to The New York Times, he flew from Kabul to Ramstein airbase in Germany on Friday for a secret meeting with Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to discuss the request for more troops.
So sensitive is the subject that when Obama addressed the United Nations summit in New York, he barely mentioned Afghanistan. The unspoken problem is that if the priority is to destroy Al-Qaeda and reduce the global terrorist threat, western troops might be fighting on the wrong side of the border.
The Biden camp argues that attacks by unmanned drones on Pakistan’s tribal areas, where Al-Qaeda’s leaders are hiding, have been successful. Sending more troops to Afghanistan has only inflamed tensions. “Pakistan is the nuclear elephant in the room,” said a western diplomat.
It is a view echoed by Richard Barrett, head of the UN Commission on Monitoring Taliban and Al-Qaeda, who believes the presence of foreign troops has increased militant activity and made it easier for the Taliban to recruit.
“If Obama sends more troops it had better be clear what they are to do,” he said.
“A few thousand more boots on the ground may not make much difference except push the fight into areas which are currently quiet because no one is there to challenge the Taliban. I cannot see any number of troops eliminating the Taliban. Obama has a really difficult decision to make.”
The debate has been intensified by the debacle of the Afghan election, which has left many European leaders struggling to justify sending soldiers to support a government that has been fraudulently elected.
According to preliminary results, President Hamid Karzai won 54.6% of the vote, compared with 27.8% for Abdullah Abdullah, his main challenger. But there have been complaints that fraudulent ballots may account for up to 20% of the 5.5m votes cast.
The Electoral Complaints Commission, overseen by a UN watchdog, has begun to recount about 10% of the disputed votes. Final results are not expected for two weeks. If Karzai is left without the 50% needed for outright victory, there must be a second round unless he agrees to form a unity government.
In the meantime, the country is in limbo and the Taliban is taking advantage, opening up new fronts in the north and west.
Al-Qaeda is also trying to capitalise on the uncertainty. Osama Bin Laden issued a call to European nations to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, and threatened reprisals with an allusion to the bombings in Madrid and London. The recording, released on Friday, seemed to be directed at Germany in the run-up to parliamentary elections today.
The Afghan election has strengthened the position of those in Washington who advocate eliminating Taliban leaders in Pakistan.
Senior Pakistani officials in New York revealed that the US had asked to extend the drone attacks into Quetta and the province of Baluchistan.
“It wasn’t so much a threat as an understanding that if you don’t do anything, we’ll take matters into our own hands,” said one.
The problem is that while the government of President Asif Zardari is committed to wiping out terrorism, Pakistan’s powerful military does not entirely share this view.
Earlier this year there was optimism that Pakistan had turned a corner after it confronted a Taliban group that had taken over the Swat valley and moved to within 70 miles of Islamabad.
There has been tacit co-operation over the use of drones. Some are even stationed inside Pakistan, although publicly the government denounces their use.
Suspicions remain among US officials that parts of Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, the ISI, are supporting the Taliban and protecting Mullah Omar and other leaders in Quetta.
It was to shore up Zardari’s domestic standing that Obama attended a Friends of Pakistan summit in New York on Thursday. On the same day, the US Senate tripled non-military aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year.
The Obama administration hopes such moves will reduce anti-American feeling in Pakistan. A survey last month by the Pew Research Centre found that almost two-thirds regarded the US as an enemy.
Drone attacks on Quetta would intensify this sentiment, causing some British officials to argue that such missions would be “unthinkable”.
The Pakistani government is reluctant to take its own action, however. “We need real-time intelligence,” said Rehman Malik, the interior minister. “The Americans have never told us any location.”
Western intelligence officers say Pakistan has been moving Taliban leaders to the volatile city of Karachi, where it would be impossible to strike. US officials have even discussed sending commandos to Quetta to capture or kill the Taliban chiefs before they are moved.

Begging with dignity —Rafia Zakaria

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\09\26\story_26-9-2009_pg3_2


In our sixty-second year, perhaps it’s time we came to terms with the reality that we are and have always been a nation of beggars. Ironically, it is only in embracing this grim reality that we can find the opportunity to change our future

If the recent summit in New York is a reliable gauge, then Pakistan, or rather “democratic” Pakistan is doing pretty well in the popularity contest otherwise known as the General Session of the United Nations General Assembly.
On Thursday, the “Friends of Democratic Pakistan” met to discuss the promotion of stable governance and economic development in Pakistan. The group includes Australia, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, the United Nations and European Union. President Obama, who co-chaired the meeting, announced the passage of the Kerry-Lugar Bill, which will provide Pakistan with $1.5 billion every year for the next five years.
The meeting and accompanying announcement of aid disbursement have provided much fodder for discussion in both the United States and Pakistan. The United States has expectedly tried to announce passage of the Kerry-Lugar Bill as well as the meeting itself as a major commitment that substantiates its long-term interest in Pakistan. Coming as it does, in the footsteps of an expected change in US policy toward the region, the announcements provide the Obama administration a means to deflect attention from its woes in Afghanistan by pointing to the potential of success in Pakistan.
For the Pakistani government, led by President Zardari, the task in New York is markedly more difficult. It must tread the delicate balance of being both gracious for the assistance while at the same time drawing attention to the holes in the Obama administration’s beneficence. One attempt to do just this was President Zardari’s demand, made a day before the meeting, that the United States reimburse the $1.6 million that Pakistan has spent fighting the War on Terror in the tribal belt. The demand was programmed ostensibly to emphasise the fact that aid disbursements to Pakistan are in exchange for services rendered in the US-led war against Al Qaeda rather than an act of magnanimity by the United States. In other words, the Pakistani delegation tried to paint as “payment” what the Americans would present simply as an act of generosity.
This delicate dance between grantors and receivers of aid is not in itself new. In the last few decades, as globalisation has become an economic and security challenge rather than an abstract theory, this dynamic has become a repeated accompaniment to most global summits. The rich nations controlling large chunks of the world economy have packaged their security interests as moralistic efforts to assist the poor without any strings attached. At the same time, poorer nations have sought to expose the security interests and consequent challenges to sovereignty that lie beneath the Global North’s commitments to economic and social development in the Global South.
The duelling narratives that emerge from the above dynamic mean that rich nations always have the task of presenting their aid as magnanimous while poorer ones always have an interest in presenting the aid amounts as emerging out of rich countries’ self-serving security interests.
In the current case, the challenge for the Pakistani government becomes more complex in light of ideological currents at home that present this dynamic as an inherent attack on the country’s sovereignty. Conservative commentators, especially those belonging to Islamist parties, present the need for aid as a failure by the current administration to safeguard the sovereignty of the nation. In doing so they disregard both the facts of Pakistan’s precarious economic existence in a world beset by financial crises but also the fact that whether we like it or not, the world market is controlled by countries like the United States.
In fomenting this attitude towards aid in general, these critics present the acceptance of aid as a choice rather than the necessity it has been for many governments past and present. Gullible Pakistanis are thus fed the myth that it is a particular government’s greed rather than the nation’s need that makes aid a requirement, and that the only thing keeping Pakistan from true self-sufficiency is the corruption of one or another administration.
The fact is that the acceptance or rejection of aid by Pakistan is not a facet peculiar to the Zardari administration. Governments past, present and future have been and are likely to remain tied to the disbursement of foreign assistance for many decades in the future. The scale of current security challenges and the inability of our weak state to respond to a growing insurgency necessitates that we accept any help that we get. The particular ravages of the global financial crisis on our economy and the mounting costs of a civil war that has led us to become a world leader in suicide bombings are recent precipitators of our hapless condition.
Idealistic notions of self-sufficiency that suggest that we deny how integral foreign assistance has been to our precarious existence these past sixty odd years indicate a blindness to both our local challenges and the place we hold in the international sphere. Pakistan is not and has never been a superpower, militarily, morally or economically. We do not have the infrastructure to create self-sufficiency in either our agricultural, industrial or manufacturing sectors. We do not have the natural resources to provide for all our energy needs or the capabilities to sell what we do have on the global market. Yet, instead of accepting these challenges and their consequent impact on our place in the world, we live imbued in nationalist myths and pretend that our current reliance on aid is solely a product of temporary mistakes or greedy politicians.
A novel argument for us as we poke fun at the unfortunate officials charged with the task of begging for this aid in New York would be to consider not the hokey notions of becoming the next global powerhouse fuelled by our un-availed (and largely imaginary) natural resources but rather a realistic assessment of what our capabilities and challenges really are. Not once in our sixty-two year existence have we survived without the assistance of foreign governments.
In our sixty-second year, perhaps it’s time we came to terms with the reality that we are and have always been a nation of beggars. Ironically, it is only in embracing this grim reality that we can find the opportunity to change our future.

Rafia Zakaria is an attorney living in the United States where she teaches courses on Constitutional Law and Political Philosophy. She can be contacted at rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

Taliban Widen Afghan Attacks From Base in Pakistan

By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON — Senior Taliban leaders, showing a surprising level of sophistication and organization, are using their sanctuary in Pakistan to stoke a widening campaign of violence in northern and western Afghanistan, senior American military and intelligence officials say.
The Taliban’s expansion into parts of Afghanistan that it once had little influence over comes as the Obama administration is struggling to settle on a new military strategy for Afghanistan, and as the White House renews its efforts to get Pakistan’s government to be more aggressive about killing or capturing Taliban leaders inside Pakistan.
American military and intelligence officials, who insisted on anonymity because they were discussing classified information, said the Taliban’s leadership council, led by Mullah Muhammad Omar and operating around the southern Pakistani city of Quetta, was directly responsible for a wave of violence in once relatively placid parts of northern and western Afghanistan. A recent string of attacks killed troops from Italy and Germany, pivotal American allies that are facing strong opposition to the Afghan war at home.
These assessments echo a recent report by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top military commander in Afghanistan, in portraying the Taliban as an increasingly sophisticated shadow government that sees itself on the cusp of victory in the war-ravaged nation.
General McChrystal’s report describes how Mullah Omar’s insurgency has appointed shadow governors in most provinces of Afghanistan, levies taxes, establishes Islamic courts there and conducts a formal review of its military campaign each winter.
American officials say they believe that the Taliban leadership in Pakistan still gets support from parts of the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s military spy service. The ISI has been the Taliban’s off-again-on-again benefactor for more than a decade, and some of its senior officials see Mullah Omar as a valuable asset should the United States leave Afghanistan and the Taliban regain power.
The issue of the Taliban leadership council, or shura, in Quetta is now at the top of the Obama administration’s agenda in its meetings with Pakistani officials.
At the same time, American officials face a frustrating paradox: the more the administration wrestles publicly with how substantial and lasting a military commitment to make to Afghanistan, the more the ISI is likely to strengthen bonds to the Taliban as Pakistan hedges its bets.
American officials have long complained that senior Taliban leaders operating from Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan Province, provide money, military supplies and strategic planning guidance to the Taliban in the south of Afghanistan, where most of the nearly 68,000 American forces are deployed.
But since NATO’s offensive into the Taliban-dominated south this spring, the insurgents have surprised American commanders by stepping up attacks against allied troops elsewhere in the country to throw NATO off balance and create the perception of spreading violence that neither the allied military nor the civilian Afghan government in Kabul can control.
“The Taliban is trying to create trouble elsewhere to alleviate pressure” in the south, said one senior American intelligence official. “They’ve outmaneuvered us time and time again.”
The issue has opened fresh rifts between the United States and Pakistan over how to combat the Taliban leadership council in Quetta. American officials have voiced new and unusually public criticism of Pakistan’s role in abetting the growing Afghan insurgency, reviving tensions that seemed to have eased after the two countries worked closely to track and kill Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, in an American missile strike in Pakistan’s tribal areas last month.
General McChrystal said in his assessment, which was made public on Monday, “Senior leaders of the major Afghan insurgent groups are based in Pakistan, are linked with Al Qaeda and other violent extremist groups,” and are reportedly aided by “some elements” of the ISI.
The United States ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson, said in a recent interview with the McClatchy newspapers that the Pakistani government was “certainly reluctant to take action” against the leadership of the Afghan insurgency.
Pakistani officials take issue with that, adding that the United States overstates the threat posed by the Quetta shura, possibly because the American understanding of the situation is distorted by vague and self-serving intelligence provided by Afghanistan’s spy service.
A senior Pakistani official said that the United States had asked Pakistan in recent years to round up 10 Taliban leaders in Quetta. Of those 10, 6 were killed or captured by the Pakistanis, 2 were probably in Afghanistan and the remaining 2 presented no threat.
“Pakistan has said it’s willing to act when given actionable intelligence,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. “We have made substantial progress in the last year or so against the Quetta shura.”
Pakistani officials also said that a move against militant leaders in Quetta risked inciting public anger throughout Baluchistan, a region that has long had a tense relationship with Pakistan’s government in Islamabad.
Mullah Omar, a reclusive cleric, recently rallied his troops with a boastful message timed for the Muslim holiday of Id al-Fitr.
In the message, he taunted his American adversaries for ignoring the lessons of past military failures in Afghanistan, including the invasion of Alexander the Great’s army.
And he bragged that the Taliban had emerged as a nationalistic movement that “is approaching the edge of victory.”
A half-dozen American military, intelligence and diplomatic officials said in interviews that the Taliban leadership in Baluchistan, which abuts the portion of southern Afghanistan where most of the fighting is taking place, is increasing its strategic direction over the insurgency.
“The Taliban inner shura in Baluchistan is certainly trying to exercise greater command and control over the Taliban in Afghanistan,” said one American official in Afghanistan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because his assessment involved classified intelligence.
The official said that Mullah Abdullah Zakir, a former inmate at the American military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who is now a top Taliban lieutenant, was involved in replacing Taliban shadow governors and commanders, as well as reorganizing the Taliban throughout the country. “The Quetta shura — you can’t knock on their clubhouse door,” a Western diplomat said. “It’s much more of an amorphous group that as best we can tell moves around. They go to Karachi, they go to Quetta, they go across the border.”
American officials grudgingly acknowledge the Taliban’s skill at using guerrilla-style attacks to manipulate public impressions of the insurgency. “We assess that the primary focus of attacks in northern provinces such as Kunduz is to create a perception that the insurgency is spreading like wildfire,” the American official in Afghanistan said. “But I think it’s more of an ‘information operations’ success than a substantive one of holding any territory.”
Another American intelligence official who follows Pakistan closely said the insurgents had sought to exploit allied countries’ political vulnerabilities, like elections in Germany on Sunday. “The Taliban have proven themselves capable of strategic planning,” the official said.
General McChrystal said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that he had been surprised by “the growth of the shadow government, the growth of its coercion and its growth into the north and west.”
Germany, which has suffered 33 combat deaths in Afghanistan, has remained committed to the Afghan mission, although it has placed strict limits on where its soldiers can serve, refusing to send them to the south.
But that commitment is now being hotly debated in the coming parliamentary elections, after an airstrike called in by a German commander this month. The NATO airstrike, directed at two tanker trucks carrying alliance fuel that had been hijacked by the Taliban, killed scores of people; the number of dead civilians remains unclear.
Other allies are also rethinking their presence in Afghanistan. A bomb that killed six Italian soldiers in Kabul last Thursday prompted Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy to declare that his nation had begun planning to “bring our young men home as soon as possible.” Italy has 3,100 troops in Afghanistan.

Sabrina Tavernise contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan.