In a major political blunder, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan tried to browbeat Chief Justice Iftikhar Ahmed Chaudhry of the Pakistan Supreme Court into resigning on March9, 2007, as he was worried, inter alia, that he might come in the way of his getting himself re-elected as the President and continuing to hold charge as the Chief of the Army Staff(COAS). When he refused to do so, the General suspended him and forwarded a reference against the Chief Justice to the Supreme Judicial Council for enquiry into allegations relating to his probity. The intelligence agencies mounted a campaign to demonise the suspended Chief Justice. The lawyers, some sections of the political parties and large sections of the people rallied behind the Chief Justice. Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled on July20, 2007, that Musharraf's actions against the Chief Justice were illegal and ordered his re-instatement.
On July,10, 2007, Musharraf ordered the Commandoes of the Pakistan Army to raid the Lal (Red) Masjid in Islamabad and the two madrasas for boys and girls attached to it, and put an end to the activities of the clerics of the masjid and the students of the twomadrasas, who were trying to propagate the puritanical ideology of the NeoTaliban. Some of the students were spreading terror in parts of Islamabad adjacent to the Masjid by raiding shops sellingaudio and video discs, accusing women of being prostitutes etc. They also kidnapped some Chinese women working in a massage parlour and accused them too of being prostitutes. This led to a strong protest from the Chinese authorities, including a phone call to Musharraf from President Hu Jintao of China. The Chinese were got released andMusharraf, who had avoided action against the Masjid and its madrasas for nearly seven months, decided to act.
The commando action against the madrasa for boys, which is located at a distance away from the Masjid campus, was neat and smooth. Those students, who did not surrender, were taken into custody without resistance and normalcy was restored quickly without any loss of life.
The commando action against the Masjid and the madrasa for girls located inside the campus was bloody messy. Some girls surrendered on the first day. Maulana AbdulAziz, the chief cleric of the masjid, who tried to escape wearing a burqa, was arrested on the first day. But many other girls and Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the younger brother of Maulana AbdulAziz, refused to surrender. The commandoes, who entered the campus, met with fierce resistance from the clerics, some male students who had fled into the campus from their madrasa and the girls, who had refused to surrender.
The fighting lasted two days resulting in large casualties and severe damage to the building inside the campus in which the madrasa for girls was located. Ultimately, their resistance was overcome. In the fighting, Maulana Ghazi and his three Uzbeck security guards were killed. A large number of boys andgirls--more girls than boys-- were also killed. The Army's contention that only about a hundred people died has not been accepted by the people, who allege that at least 300 girls, if not more, perished. The truth is still not known and the matter has come up before the Supreme Court in the form of a public interest petition.
Most of the students of the two madrasas were the children of Pashtun tribals--many of them serving and retired soldiers of the PakistanArmy-- from the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The anger over the commando action and the deaths of a large number of children led to many acts of suicide terrorism and attacks on the security forces in the tribal areas. There were also two incidents directed against Chinese nationals. In the first incident at Peshawar, three Chinese were killed by unidentified persons. In the second incident at Hub inBalochistan, some Chinese engineers travelling in a bus had a miraculous escape in an explosion directed at their bus.
There have been reports of large-scale desertions of members of the Police force in FATA. Tribal soldiers in the Army andpara-military forces deployed in the FATA have also come under tremendous psychological pressure to desert. Messages appealing to them to desert have been circulating in the tribal areas. The illegal FM radio stations operated by the mosques and madrasas in the tribal areas have been repeatedly broadcasting theanti-Musharraf messages of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 in Al Qaeda, who has been calling for a jihad against the General.
Concerned over the angry reactions to the raid and the casualties, the intelligence agencies have mounted a campaign to project that Zawahiri was orchestrating everything that was going on in the Lal Masjid and its two madrasas since January and that the clerics and the students were acting at his behest. Nobody is prepared to accept this. There has been no evidence to show that Zawahiri and Al Qaeda had anything to do with the goings on in the Lal Masjid and its twomadrasas. The ideological influence of the Neo Taliban and its Amir, Mulla Mohammad Omar, was definitely there, but most of the actions taken by the clerics and their students were spontaneous.
Similarly, there is no evidence to show that Al Qaeda has been behind the wave of suicide bombings and other incidents in the NWFP and the FATA in protest against the raid on the LalMasjid. These were all reactions of angry individual Muslims -- most of them Pashtuntribals.
The welter of statements coming from Washington and the NATO forces in Afghanistan about Al Qaeda training camps in the tribal areas and the possibility of unilateral military strikes by US forces against the Al Qaeda infrastructure in the tribal areas has, on the one hand, created alarm among the law-abiding andpro-government tribals who have been leaving the area in large numbers fearing possible American attacks; and, on the other, has been fuellinganti-Musharraf and anti-US anger among the pro-Taliban tribals, who are getting themselves ready to resist the Americans, if and when they come.
As a result of the exodus of law-abiding and pro-government tribals from the FATA, the area faces the threat of coming largely under the control ofanti-Musharraf and anti-US elements. The statements from Washington are having the effect of handing over the area on a platter to the Neo Taliban and the remnants of AlQaeda. Reliable reports from well-informed sources indicate that while the Neo Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan(IMU) have a strong presence in the area, there is no evidence to show that the Arab elements of Al Qaeda have an equally strong presence in the area. Nobody is certain whether Osama bin Laden is alive or dead and, if alive, whether he is in the tribal areas.
Everybody is certain that Zawahiri is alive and active. He has stepped up his propaganda since the beginning of this year with the help of theAs-Sahab propaganda unit of Al Qaeda. But, nobody is certain whether he is operating from the tribal or non-tribal areas. Nobody takes seriously the claims of some American military officers about the increased influx of Arabs into Pakistan to join AlQaeda. Similarly, nobody takes seriously American allegations of an Iranian role in the resurgence of AlQaeda.
The various American statements on the resurgence of Al Qaeda are rich in allegations and rhetoric, but weak in evidence. During the last two years, there have been militarystrikes--either by the Americans or the Pakistanis-- in the areas close to the Afghan border. The fact that most of those killed in these raids were young students of the area and not members of Al Qaeda or the Neo Taliban clearly show that these strikes were based on inaccurateintelligence. The flow of human intelligence continues to be poor, but there have been one or two spectacular successes based on pinpoint intelligence such as the killing of Mulla Dadullah of the Neo Taliban by the NATO forces in Afghan territory and of AbdullahMahsud, a former detainee in Guantanamo Bay detention centre, by the Pakistani forces inBalochistan.
These two incidents show that there are elements even in the tribal areas, who are prepared to betray such persons for money. The fact that nobody has so far betrayed bin Laden despite the US offer of a reward of US Dollars 50 million is intriguing. Zawahiri and other remnants of Al Qaeda in the area have been using telephones very sparsely, but have been using the Internet quite freely.As-Sahab manages to have the messages of Al Zawahiri recorded and disseminated through the Internet, without the US intelligence and security agencies being able to locate the beginning of this Internet trail and trace Zawahiri and his followers through them. The available counter-Internet capabilities of the US and the rest of the NATO countries have not been adequate enough to enable the Western agencies use the Internet to catch them. The asymmetry in the Internet and counter-Internet capabilities between Al Qaeda and the Western agencies is widening.
Over-hasty military action by the US in the tribal areas on the basis of inaccurate or incomplete intelligence or both might prove counter-productive. The initial focus of the US action has to be against the IMU, with the help of the Uzbeck elements in the Afghan security forces and, if necessary, even the intelligence agencies of Uzbekistan. Unlike the Arab members of Al Qaeda, who take care not to rub the local tribals on the wrong side, the Uzbeck members of the IMU have been a law unto themselves. One saw the result of the anti-Uzbeck anger in South Waziristan earlier this year when the local tribals attacked them and drove them out. This anti-Uzbeck anger continues and has to be exploited.
In his over-anxiety to restore normalcy in the Lal Masjid, Musharraf has committed another blunder, which is having violentconsequences. He has got the Masjid hastily renovated, has had it re-painted green from its previous red and ordered the demolition of the buildings which had housed the madrasa for girls. He has reportedly decided to do away with the girls' madrasa and appointedpro-government clerics to be in charge of the Masjid.
Anger caused by his actions led to a fresh outbreak of violence in Islamabad on July27, 2007, when the Masjid was re-opened for prayers for the first time since the commando action. About 200 students of the boys' madrasa, who were recently released from detention, temporarily occupied the Masjid and prevented thegovernment-appointed cleric from conducting the prayers. They demanded that Maulana Abdul Aziz should be re-appointed the chief cleric and that he should conduct the prayers. The police had to intervene to eject the students, but thegovernment-appointed cleric declined to conduct the prayers in the face of opposition from the students. In a subsequent incident, an unidentified suicide bomber blew himself up near a restaurant in the area, killing 10 policemen, who were deployed there, and three others.
Senior officers of the Army are reportedly concerned over the anti-Musharraf anger in the tribal areas and among the tribal students studying in non-tribal areas. They are worriedthat the present anger, which is mainly against Musharraf, may turn against theArmy as an institution. Some of them have started urging Musharraf to retire as the COAS . They think that this might help in reducing the anger among the tribals. But, Musharraf is not yet prepared to quit as the COAS. His refusal to do so could lead to a parting of the ways between him and the CorpsCommanders. If this happens, he may have to quit.
Pakistan has started paying an increasingly heavy price for the follies ofMusharraf.
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B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai.
