General Resentment

To be read in continuation of my earlier article titled  NoMore Lollipops

Between  25 and 30 people were killed and 66injured on September 4, 2007, in two acts of reprisal terrorism directed againstPakistani Army targets by two unidentified suicide bombers in the Rawalpindicantonment of Pakistan where the General Headquarters (GHQ) of the Pakistan Armyare located.

The first attack, believed to have been carried out bya suicide bomber on foot, came at 7-15 AM. His target was a bus of the PakistanArmy, which was carrying staff, civilians as well as uniformed personnel,to their place of work. There were 38 persons in the bus, of whom 18 were killedinstantaneously. The remaining were injured and have been admitted in hospital.

The second attack came at 7-20 AM just behind the GHQ.It was carried out by a suicide bomber on a motor cycle. His target was anunidentified senior army officer, who was travelling to work in his staff car. While he appears to have escaped, seven to 12 passers-by were killed and manymore injured.

While some reports said that the targeted bus wascarrying employees of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission to work, others saidit was actually carrying some civilian and uniformed staff of Pakistan'sInter-Services Intelligence (ISI). While Army spokesmen have admitted that thebus belonged to the army, they have refused to identify the inmates.

While it is clear that the suicide bombers had targetedvehicles linked to the army, it is not certain that they were aware that thepassengers in the bus were employees of the Atomic Energy Commission or the ISI.

Both Rawalpindi, the seat of the Army, and the nearbyIslamabad, the capital, had in the past seen many acts of terrorism. Therewere two acts of terrorism in Islamabad in July this year and there were twoattempts to kill President General Pervez Musharraf in Rawalpindi in December,2003. In March, 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), who allegedly orchestratedthe 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US at the instance of Osama bin Laden, wasfound hiding in the house of a woman leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) inRawalpindi.

There has been, as in respect of past terroriststrikes, no claim of responsibility for the two attacks.  While the suicidebombers are yet to be identified, usually well-informed tribal sources believethat the two strikes were carried out by the followers of Baitullah Mehsud, theleader of the Mehsud sub-tribe of the Pashtuns, who is closely allied to theTaliban of Mulla Mohammad Omar, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) ofYuri Yuldeshev. The IMU earlier used to operate from South Waziristan, but itnow operastes from North Waziristan.

Some media reports, quoting Pakistani media spokesmen,have attributed the two incidents to Al Qaeda, but there is so far noevidence of direct Al Qaeda involvement. As reported in my earlier paper citedabove, a fresh wave of anger, which initially started after the raid of thePakistani Army commandoes on the Lal Masjid in Islamabad between July 10 and 13,2007,  has further intensified after the death of Abdullah Mehsud, a pro-Talibantribal leader of South Waziristan and a former detenu at the Guantanamo Baydetention centre in Cuba, at Zhob in Balochistan on July 23, 2007.  Accordingto the Pakistan Army, he blew himself up when he was surrounded by the securityforces. But, his supporters allege that he was shot dead at point-blank range bythe security forces.

This anger has taken the form of attacks on thePakistan army vehicles and outposts in South and North Waziristan and thekidnapping of a large number of personnel of the Pakistani security forces bythe Mehsuds. The followers of Baitullah Mehsud in the Waziristan area arepresently estimated to be holding about 200 personnel of the Pakistani securityforces, whom they have taken hostage to demand the release of Mehsud tribesmenarrested by the Army.

There are three main causes for the tribal angeragainst the Army sweeping across the tribal belt.  Firstly, the commandoraid in the Lal Masjid, in which 300 girls of a madrasa, all from tribalfamilies, were allegedly killed. Secondly, the death of Abdullah Mehsud.Thirdly, the re-opening of the Army security posts in North and South Waziristanafter the raid on the Lal Masjid. Pro-Taliban tribal leaders see this as aunilateral violation by the Army of the peace accords with some tribal leaderssigned in South Waziristan in March 2005 and in North Waziristan in September,2006. Under these peace accords, in return for a commitment by the triballeaders not to assist foreign terrorists, the Army had withdrawn its posts fromthe area.

The US was unhappy over these agreements and has beenclaiming that they have facilitated the resurgence of the Neo Taliban and theNeo Al Qaeda from sanctuaries in North Waziristan. While the tribal leadersstrongly deny the presence of Al Qaeda in their area, they do not deny thepresence of the Neo Taliban and IMU members.  They do not look upon thePashtuns of the Neo Taliban and the Uzbecks, many of whom have married Pashtunwomen, as foreigners. They contend that their allowing them to stay in theirareas does not amount to a violation of their commitment.

The situation in the tribal areas has been furtheraggravated by widespread anger among tribal women against the Army due to thealleged killing of 300 tribal girls during the raid in the Lal Masjid. They havebeen encouraging their sons to take to suicide attacks to avenge the deaths ofthese girls.

While the continuing tribal anger and the new women'sanger and the resulting acts of  jihadi terrorism would be welcomed by AlQaeda, there is as yet no evidence to show that Al Qaeda has been the source ofthis unceasing wave of suicide terrorism in the Federally-Administered TribalAreas (FATA), the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and even in the capitaland Rawalpindi.

Musharraf's position, already weakened by hisconfrontation with the judiciary, is likely to be further weakened by the tribalanger against him and create misgivings in the Army that he is becoming aliability to the Army as an institution.

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), CabinetSecretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute ForTopical Studies, Chennai.