The strongest link

K Subrahmanyam

Is it just a coincidence that the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, the 7/7 attacks on the London transport system, the shoe-bomber Richard Reid, and last week’s foiled plot to blow up ten civil airliners over the Atlantic all have Pakistani connections?

Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 attacks, received money from a Pakistani source, Omar Sheikh, just days before the attack. Some of the 7/7 suicide bombers visited Pakistan in the months before they carried out the outrage. Richard Reid started his journey to the US from Pakistan via Amsterdam. Now it is reported that money for the tickets of the would-be terrorists arrested last week was sent from Pakistan, a message to go ahead with the attacks emanated from Pakistan, and that some of these terrorists are, in fact, members of the banned terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed. It is obvious that Pakistani jehadi organisations are sources of inspiration for jehadi terrorists, and they continue to function freely in Pakistan.

When the issue of the arrested terrorists being of Pakistani descent was raised, a Pakistani spokesperson shifted the responsibility to the Americans. It was pointed out that from 1979 onwards, the US took the initiative to mobilise tens of thousands of mujahideen to wage jehad against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other jehadi militias originated out of that process. While this is undeniably true, and the Americans have to bear the primary responsibility for the origination of jehadi terrorism, Pakistan cannot completely disown responsibility for recent jehadi terrorist activities.

Pakistan is actively linked to jehadi organisations like Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. The Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) uses such organisations to wage a campaign of terrorism against India. Instead of cracking down on Pakistan for its role as the epicentre of terrorism, the US is providing it both economic and military assistance. In India, there is a lot of resentment about this perceived US softness towards Pakistani terrorism. This is very justifiable. But we should also consider why the US is so soft on Pakistan.

Pakistan is aware that it’ll enjoy US support for only as long as the threat of jehadi terrorism is sustained. So, continuing to serve as an epicentre of terrorism and posing a threat is the best way to blackmail the US into providing military and economic assistance. At the same time, when US and UK intelligence agencies uncover a plot, the Pakistanis cooperate with them in order to maintain goodwill. They cooperated in the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Yusuf and others only when US intelligence closed in on them. The Pakistanis have never captured and handed over a terrorist to the US on their own.

General Musharraf is also able to blackmail the US into permitting certain levels of terrorism in Afghanistan. It is implied that Musharraf could otherwise be overthrown and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons would fall into the hands of jehadi-friendly generals. While the US can never publicly own up to this, it is mortally terrified of this possibility. Musharraf rules Pakistan with the tacit support of religious parties and jehadi organisations, maintaining a live-and-let-live arrangement with them. Under international pressure, Musharraf has banned these groups but has allowed them to function under different names.

In the recent foiled plot to blow up civil airliners, it has been reported that some of the suspected terrorists travelled to Pakistan, worked in earthquake relief operations in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, and then underwent training in jehadi training camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, where they learned about assembling liquid explosives. Under these circumstances, one must rationally expect the US to pressurise Pakistan to wind up its jehadi terrorist infrastructure. The coming days will reveal how much clout the US has with General Musharraf and how effective Pakistan’s blackmail of the United States is.

The US has high stakes in Musharraf, since the democratically-elected leadership proved ineffective in controlling the ISI, jehadis and nuclear proliferation. The world should therefore be prepared to deal with Pakistani-inspired terrorism without relying on cooperation from Musharraf or effective American pressure on Islamabad. Pakistan, a failing state, intends to advance its interests by using nuclear blackmail and regulated doses of terrorism as its primary instruments of policy. The US appears to be powerless to stop Pakistani support of terrorism.

The writer is a strategic affairs analyst based in Delhi.