"If the US and other NATO powers really want their counter-offensive to triumph, they have to work for the replacement from power in Islamabad of Musharraf, Lt.Gen.Muzaffar Usmani, his Deputy Chief of the Army Staff, Lt.Gen.Mohammad Aziz, presently a Corps Commander at Lahore, and, possibly, Lt.Gen.Mahmood Ahmed, the ISI Director-General, by moderate officers, who would be genuinely responsive to the concerns of the world community and sincere in their commitment to co-operate in the fight against international Islamic terrorism. For this purpose, the US has to identify officers with no past links with bin Laden and the Taliban. India might be able to help it in this regard."

-- Extract from my article titled The First World War against Terrorism

"In case, the US decides to launch a reprisal attack, a possibly workable plan for the US would be:

• Softening of the Taliban's ground positions by focussed air strikes followed by;
  
• Assistance to the Northern Alliance, through air support, to advance and occupy Kabul and Jalalabad and from there hunt for Osama bin Laden, without the US troops directly getting involved in the hunt. The Northern Alliance hates bin Laden for having got Ahmed Shah Masood assassinated and would be only too happy to hunt for him and his advisers and hand them over to the US.

"The US might be committing a serious error of judgement if it puts its eggs, even some of them, in the Musharraf basket."

-- Extract from my article titled Musharraf Orders Scram dated 17-9-01

Two days after the departure of Mr.Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, from Islamabad for New Delhi and a few hours before the launching of the combined US-UK air strikes on the Taliban infrastructure in Afghanistan on the night of October 7, 2001, Gen.Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's self-reinstated Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), self-styled Chief Executive, and self-promoted President, gave to himself an extension as the COAS and, took advantage of this opportunity, to ease out Lt.Gen.Mahmood Ahmed,a Punjabi, as the DG of the ISI, and Lt.Gen.Muzaffar Usmani, another Mohajir like Musharraf himself, as the Deputy Chief of the Army Staff.

Musharraf promoted Lt.Gen. Mohammad Yousef Khan, Chief of the General Staff (CGS), and Lt.Gen.Mohammad Aziz, a Corps Commander (4 Corps) at Lahore, as full-fledged Generals, superseding Mahmood Ahmed and Usmani, thereby forcing them to seek premature retirement. Yousef Khan, a Sindhi fundamentalist officer, has been appointed as the Vice Chief of the Army Staff (VCOAS), and Aziz, a fundamentalist Kashmiri officer (a Sudan),as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Comittee, a post hitherto held by Musharraf himself.

Consequent upon this, he has made the following other changes:

• Lt.General Ehsan-ul-Haq, a Pashtun officer, who was formerly Director-General of Military Intelligence (DGMI) and then Corps Commander at Peshawar, has been appointed as DG, ISI.
  
  
• Lt.

  Musharraf was always afraid that if the US wanted to have him replaced, Mahmood Ahmed could be its favourite choice.

  General Ali Jan Orakzai, Adjutant-General, belonging to the Orakzai (Pashtun) tribe of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), has been made the new Corps Commander at Peshawar. As Major-General, Orakzai had served as Director-General Frontier Corps (Northern Areas).
  
  
• Major-Gen. Zarrar Azim, a Punjabi (?), who was the Director-General of Pakistan Rangers, Punjab, has been promoted and appointed as one of the two Corps Commanders at Lahore in the post rendered vacant by the elevation of Aziz.
  
  
• Lt.Gen. Qadir Baluch, a Qadir Baluch hailing from the Baluch dominated coastal areas of Balochistan, who was Corps Commander, Gujranwala, has been posted as the Corps Commander, Quetta. Maj.Gen.Faiz Gillani of the ISI, has been promoted as Lt.Gen. and posted as the Corps Commander,Gujranwala. Being a Baluch, Musharraf hopes that Qadir Baluch would have no hesitation in suppressing the Pashtuns of Quetta who have been up in arms against the military junta for acting as what they perceive to be the quisling of the US-UK in supressing the Taliban. He is the first Baluch tribal to have risen so high in the Pakistan Army.
  

Through these changes, Musharraf has sought to achieve the following objectives:

• To pre-empt a possible coup against him by Mahmood Ahmed, Aziz and Usmani, who had staged the coup against Mr.

  Through the elevation of Aziz as a full General, the message is that allying with the US against the Taliban would not mean any abandoning of his support to the jehadi groups.

  Nawaz Sharif on October 12,1999, and paved the way for the take-over by Musharraf. With the easing out of Mahmood Ahmed and Usmani and the kicking upstairs of Aziz, thus depriving him of the command of any field formation, he has tried to ensure that no threat to his position could arise from these three officers. While the US strongly distrusted Aziz and Usmani, Mahmood Ahmed was perceived to be close to Washington DC till recently and Musharraf was always afraid that if the US wanted to have him replaced, Ahmed could be its favourite choice.
  
  
• To send a message to the religious organisations and the jehadi terrorist groups, through the elevation of Aziz as a full General, that his co-operating with the US against the Taliban would not mean any abandoning of his support to the jehadi groups. It is understood that Aziz, who has been supervising Pakistan's proxy war in Jammu & Kashmir since 1989 as the clandestine Chief of Staff of the Army of Islam consisting of the jehadi organisations, would continue to be in charge of it in his new post.
  
  
• To create a split among the Islamic organisations which have been organising the protests against his co-operation with the US.

  Maulana Masood Azhar, the head of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), had informed Mahmood Ahmed about the successful execution of the task of carrying out the explosion outside Legislative Assembly in Srinagar.

  Playing the leading role in these protests are the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) of Qazi Hussain Ahmed of the NWFP; the Jamaat-ul-Ulema Islam (JUI) of Maulana Fazlur Rahman of Balochistan; the Sipah-e-Sahaba of Azam Tariq of Punjab; and another faction of the JUI led by Samiul Haq. Even though Qazi Hussain Ahmed has been strongly supporting the Taliban and criticising the US action,he was in the past a strong opponent of the Taliban and supporter of Gulbuddin Heckmatyar, an Afghan Pashtun of the Hizb-e-Islami. The other three Islamic leaders have always been strong supporters of the Taliban and opponents of Heckmatyar. In the Army, Aziz, Yousef Khan and Usmani were considered very close to Qazi Hussain Ahmed. By promoting Aziz and Yousef Khan as full Generals and by keeping open the possibility of bringing back Heckmatyar to power in Kabul after the Taliban, Musharraf has sought to placate the Qazi and create a wedge between him and the other religious leaders. Despite his anti-US rhetoric, the Qazi is suspected by other religious organisations in Pakistan of being a CIA agent. When he visited the US in August last year, the State Department in Washington DC broke with its past policy of not receiving religious extremist leaders and received him for discussion. His JEI, while strongly criticising Musharraf's co-operatioin with the US against the Taliban, has avoided mobilising its large cadres in the Punjab and the NWFP against him.
  

The easing out of Mahmood Ahmed is significant. Musharraf always viewed him as one officer who could become the rallying point of the Punjabi officers unhappy with him. It is also learnt that Musharraf was annoyed with the tardy compliance by Ahmed of his orders for the shifting from the Taliban-controlled territory of all the heroin refineries run by the ISI and the surplus stock of heroin to Pakistan before international aid workers started moving into the areas near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. It is said that Ahmed was able to shift only about two-thirds of the heroin stocks in time.

It is said in Islamabad that Lt.Gen.(retd)Moinudeen Haider, the Interior Minister,another Mohajir, had brought to the notice of Musharraf a telephone conversation intercepted by the Intelligence Bureau (IB), which comes under Haider, on October 1,2001, in which Maulana Masood Azhar, the head of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), had informed Ahmed about the successful execution by the JEM cadres in Srinagar of the task of carrying out an explosion outside the local Legislative Assembly building.

There were also reports that Ahmed was aware of at least one of the money transactions preceding the New York world Centre attacks. Even though US officials have been projecting the September 11 terrorist incidents as the work of the Al Qaeda, many well-informed persons in Pakistan believe that the terrorist strikes in the US were actually carried out by the Al Jihad of Egypt with the collaboration of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) of Pakistan, both of which are members of bin Laden's International Islamic Front For Jehad Against the US and Israel.

They allege that the New York offices of the CIA and the FBI were located in the World Trade Centre buildings, that the offices of the FBI division investigating the past cases against bin Laden and which had successfully prosecuted the cases against Ramzi Yousef and the Egyptian cleric (Sheikh Omar) in connection with the WTC bombing of Februrary, 1993, were also located there and that that was one of the reasons why the Al Jihad and the HUM targeted it.

While Mahmood Ahmed would not have got involved with the money transactions and the JEM's attack in Srinagar without the clearance of Musharraf, the latter probably feared that if he did not immediately ease him out, he (Musharraf) might himself come under the suspicion of the US. While Ahmed has thus been eased out, he has reportedly been assured by Musharraf that he would either post him as an Ambassador to an important country or give him another important job in Pakistan itself.

Musharraf is fond of describing himself as the "great survivor". Will he survive the outbreak of violent protests in different parts of Pakistan against the US-UK bombing and the likely disatisfaction in the Army over the changes?

Till now, he seems to be confident that he can control the situation, particularly if the Qazi only keeps barking and does not bite, but the situation can rapidly slip out of his hands if bin Laden and the Taliban Amir are killed or captured by the US-UK forces and/or the street protests continue unabated. There are also indications of rumblings (mild, at present) in the lower and middle ranks of the Army and the Air Force. Stronger rumblings have been reported from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), having a large concentration of ex-military Pashtun tribes. Many of the mosques in the FATA have reportedly issued fatwas against the US, the UK and Musharraf.

It is said that Musharraf himself is worried more over the possibility of his being assassinated than of being overthrown.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai)