Posted on 09/09/2003 11:50:53 PM PDT by Qaz_W
Two years after the Sept. 11 attacks, questions are growing about whether Pakistan, a crucial American ally in the campaign against terrorism, is mounting a sincere effort to crack down on a resurgent Taliban and other Islamic militants.
The Pakistani military, which dominates the country, is credited by American officials with excellent cooperation in hunting down members of Al Qaeda. But members of the Afghan government and some Pakistani political and intelligence officials suggest that Pakistan is not doing all it could to stop Taliban forces from using its territory to attack Afghan territory, and that some elements of Pakistan's army are harboring Taliban and Qaeda members.
At least three low-level Pakistani army officers have been arrested on charges that they helped Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Al Qaeda's chief of operations, hide in the country before his arrest in March, Pakistani intelligence officials said. These officials believe that that the most likely hiding place of Osama bin Laden is in the tribal areas along the Pakistani-Afghan border.
Overwhelming public support for Mr. bin Laden among the area's religiously conservative Pashtun tribes continues to thwart efforts to arrest him, they said.
Such support is also evident elsewhere. Islamic militants are again operating openly in Pakistan. Last Friday afternoon at the Red Mosque in the center of Islamabad, the nation's capital, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, the former head of Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen, delivered a sermon to hundreds of worshippers as police officers lounged outside.
The State Department has declared the group a terrorist organization. In 1998, Mr. Khalil supported Mr. bin Laden's call for attacks on the United States and Western interests. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, banned the group. Mr. Khalil dissolved his former group and created a new one, Jamiat-ul-Ansar.
On Friday, he exhorted listeners to participate in "jihad," or holy war, but did not to say where.
"Our salvation lies in obeying the orders of Allah, not America," Mr. Khalil said. "If we don't do jihad, our prayers and fasting will not be accepted. This is a sacred duty."
After he spoke, members of a new group collected money from worshippers. Asked what the money was for, two members of the group said jihad in Kashmir, where Islamic guerrillas are fighting to overthrow Indian rule. Asked if it was also for jihad in Afghanistan, one answered "Praise be to God." The other quickly cut him off and said "no."
Members of the group sold a copy of the September 2003 issue of their magazine. Its cover featured an interview with Mr. Khalil in which he stated that "America should announce its defeat" in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The back page contained a report saying that in Afghanistan, "a raging battle betwen Islam and the infidels is continuing."
In an interview, Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri said Pakistan was fighting terrorism and Islamic extremism by all possible means. He cited the influx of 3.5 million Afghan refugees into Pakistan over the last 25 tumultuous years and scoffed at the idea that Pakistan would try to destabilize its neighbor.
"We have perhaps more to lose than any other country," he said, referring to a rise in poverty and Islamic radicalism that he attributed, in part, to Afghanistan's wars. "We have paid in ways no other county has paid."
The United States has shown no sign of questioning Pakistan's commitment to fighting terror. President Bush called Mr. Musharraf on Monday to thank him for Pakistan's contribution, the Foreign Ministry said. American officials believe that the Pakistani intelligence services, once seen as a key agent in the creation of the Taliban, have been thoroughly reformed since Sept. 11, 2001, and are now committed to fighting both Islamic extremism and terrorism.
Western diplomats say the Taliban is building up its forces along the border and running a recruiting network inside Pakistan. But they see the problem as one of Pakistani capacity and politics, not will, and say they have seen no evidence of direct aid from Pakistan's government to the Taliban. "They may not know what to do," said one Western diplomat.
They said the problem was that Pakistan's government was struggling to counter a culture of Islamic militancy that dates back to the anti-Soviet struggle in Afghanistan in the 1980's, a movement the United States helped to create.
But Afghan and Indian officials, as well as some Pakistanis, contend that the Pakistani military, its allegiances torn, is playing a double game with the United States.
Pakistan serves up the occasional Qaeda fugitive to appease American officials, they say. At the same time, it makes little effort to eradicate the Taliban and other militant groups that serve its foreign policy goals by fighting against India, its archrival.
Pakistani hard-liners see Northern Alliance commanders that dominate the Afghan Defense Ministry as Indian allies and warn that Pakistan is being surrounded by hostile neighbors.
Senior Pakistani government and intelligence officials dismissed the idea that their country might seek to foment trouble in Afghanistan for strategic reasons. General Musharraf has faced assassination attempts from militants, they say, for aiding the United States.
Whatever the real extent of Pakistan's assistance, there are signs that the invasion of Iraq, as well as disappointment with the American effort to rebuild Afghanistan, have deepened an ambivalence in the lower ranks of Pakistan's army and law enforcement agencies. One Pakistani intelligence official involved in the hunt for militants said that Al Qaeda was a threat to Pakistan's government, but that the Taliban are not.
In the border regions, an alliance of Islamic political parties won control in elections last October. The leading party in the alliance, the Jamiat Ulema Islam, runs a network of Islamic religious schools, known as madrasas, inside Pakistan that produced the Taliban leadership.
Afghan officials say Quetta, a city in southwestern Pakistan, has become a new haven for the Taliban.
Last Saturday, Taliban flags flew from shops in Pashtunabad, a quarter in the city packed with ethnic Pashtuns refugees from Afghanistan. Dozens of young students from madrasas wore large black turbans, a Taliban trademark.
Mullah Borjan, a madrasa student who said he was 23 or 24, said he planned to join the fight over the border.
"I will help Islam," he said, as other young students looked on approvingly. "I will start fighting."
The State Department has declared the group a terrorist organization. In 1998, Mr. Khalil supported Mr. bin Laden's call for attacks on the United States and Western interests. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, banned the group. Mr. Khalil dissolved his former group and created a new one, Jamiat-ul-Ansar.
On Friday, he exhorted listeners to participate in "jihad," or holy war, but did not to say where.
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