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NEW YORK| July 16th, 2008| Rupee News: If you answered “Taliban”, thats a wrong answer. If you call them “safe havens” in Pakistan, you have a Neocon Agenda. The answer is a bit more compex and you have to read on. The Urdu version of CNN (actually Urdlish and English) the obsequious and lazy press has been unable to decipher the differences among the various brands of “terrorists”. Listen to Ambassador Haqqani, and one will hear the worst hawk in the UN Congress berate Pakistan. Where are the Pakistani nationalists? Who speaks for Pakistan, and the Pakistani point of view.

India intelligence: “‘the aim of RAW is to keep internal disturbances flaring up and the ISI preoccupied so that Pakistan can lend no worthwhile resistance to Indian designs in the region.”

The Mayor of Kabul does not even have the loyalty of his own troops

This is the best time for Pakistanis to renegotiate their relationship with Washington. The Afghan resistance is strong and the occupation government is desperate. Hamid Karzai’s puppet regime is staring defeat in the face. The world is not very impressed with the American performance in either Iraq or Afghanistan and is reluctant to help. If we can’t exploit this moment, we might as well surrender without firing a shot. Ahmad Qureshi

The Area under Taliban control in Afghanistan is growing

Turn on CNN or Fox (or their Pakistani subsidiaries), and all you hear about is “The Taliban”, as if it was a monolithic force that keeps on growing. Lazy reporters, columnists with agendas and correspondents of the ignoramus variety use the all encompassing label of “Taliban” for all insurgent activity in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In actuality there are various groups involved in the Afghan war. The war reporting cannot be done with blanket labels and macro names.

our inability, post-9/11, to distinguish between our own domestically-rooted terrorism problem and the Al Qaeda brand of transnational terrorism. The result has been an enmeshing of the two with the result that our domestic polity is being rent asunder by suicide bombers and violent intolerance. The state has also been confronted with a growing credibility gap in terms of its assertion that the war against the practitioners of terrorism is our war and not the American war. There is a rationale behind this loss of credibility – the jumping on to the US bandwagon of the so-called “global war on terror”, which has within it a strong element of abuse of Muslims and Islam. Shireen Mazari

1) There are the old Taliban, the remnants of the old students who were raised in Pakistani refugee camps. These were trained by the CIA and supported by the likes of Congressman Rohrabaker.

2) Gulbadin Hikmatyar and his old jihadi network from the Afghan jihad against the USSR. These old soldiers have swelled in ranks mainly to oppose the non-Pakhtun government in Kabul.

3) Lashkar e Tayba

4) Jaish e Mohammadi

5) Ansar ul Islam

6) Hizb-ul-Mujahideen

7) Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan: This is an Indian supported outfit that tried to take over Swat and also supported the Lal Masjid insurgents in Islamabad.

8) Hooligans, criminals, and general scum of the earth

9) Drug mafia

10) Smugglers syndicate 533 7304

11) FATA militants commit to fight in Afghanistan

11) Afghan Terrorists in Pakistan:  The range of Afghan-based terrorism exported to Pakistan is breathtaking:

• A shadowy group called the BLA, a Cold War relic, rose from the dead to restart a separatist war in southwestern Pakistan ; Afghanistan gave birth to BLA in just three years of coming under U.S. control.
• BLA leadership has enjoyed a safe shelter in the Afghan capital, Kabul , and continues to remote-control terrorist assets inside Pakistan .
• Saboteurs trained in Afghanistan have been inserted into Pakistan to exploit and aggravate religious passions, especially after the Red Mosque operation.
• The attacks on Chinese citizens in Pakistan have been proven to be planned in Afghanistan and Islamabad does have evidence of Indian involvement in at least one case where three Chinese citizens were killed near Peshawar . The Chinese government is cognizant of this evidence.
• Money and weapons have been fed into the religious movements and al Qaeda remnants in Pakistan ’s tribal areas to fight Pakistani government and military.

* Taliban claims militants free to cross into Afghanistan if they do not stage attacks in Pakistan
* Pakistan Army spokesman denies military helping militants in any form

In such a situation the state has to realise it is dealing with three categories of people: those who support the state and therefore must be protected; those who are sitting on the fence waiting to see where the power balance will tilt – these need to be shown the ability of the state to exert its writ; and, finally those who are actually part of the militant extremists who need to be shown that they are on the losing side and need to use other non-violent means to assert their cause, or face the use of force by the state – in which case the state should have the ability to exert effective force against now heavily armed groups. All in all, if the writ of the state is asserted, the problem of infiltration can also be tackled to some extent, although an equal share of that problem arise from a lack of effective presence of state and international forces on the other side of the border.

The second front has to be to create immediate space between ourselves and the US. Unless this is done, the credibility of the state in declaring that it is fighting a national war on terrorism will continue to lack clarity amongst civil society. At the end of the day no state policy can succeed without being credible to its own people. If US aid is the cost then so be it, because we have already damaged our polity and our psyche by this disconnect between the government, military and the nation at large. In fact, the nation will rally round the state if the political and military elite show their intent and ability to create this space.

There are other tactical strategies that are also required to deal with the critical problem of terrorism within the country and its neighbourhood, but the starting point has to be assertion of the writ of the state and space between it and the US. Shireen Mazari

RAWALPINDI: In early June, about 300 fighters of various jihadi groups gathered in Rawalpindi for a secret gathering and agreed to resolve their differences and commit more fighters to Afghanistan.
“The message was that the jihad in Kashmir is still continuing but it is not the most important right now. Afghanistan is the fighting ground, against the Americans there,” said Toor Gul, a leader of the militant group Hezbul Mujahideen. He said the groups in attendance had included the Al Qaeda-linked Jaish-e-Muhammad and the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, Pakistani military and European intelligence officials confirmed the meeting, with a senior military official describing it as “an intelligence failure”.

Meanwhile, NATO spokesman Mark Laity expressed concern that the Pakistan government’s peace deals with militants were leading to “increased cross border activity”. However, Gul said that Mohmand and Bajaur agencies, in the country’s northwest, were emerging as the strongest insurgent centres. Pakistani and Western officials corroborated his information.
A former minister in the previous government, requesting anonymity, confirmed this, saying that insurgents were being paid between Rs 6,000 and 8,000 a month in Mohmand. He claimed that the Pakistani military and intelligence services were aware of this.

Understanding: Maulvi Abdul Rahman, a Taliban militant, said jihadi sympathisers in the Middle East were sending money to support the insurgents and more Central Asians were coming to fight. He said that under a tacit understanding with authorities, militants were free to cross to fight in Afghanistan so long as they did not stage attacks inside Pakistan.

However, Pakistan’s army vehemently denies giving covert aid to militants.

Denial: “If anyone says the army is providing sanctuary, nothing could be further from the truth,” army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said. He criticised the US and NATO forces for failing to capture insurgents when they cross into Afghanistan or stop them from coming into Pakistan. “Is it the responsibility of only one side to stop the border crossings?” he asked. Another senior government official said Pakistan has become the scapegoat for US and NATO failures in Afghanistan. He also denied that the army was helping militants. ap