Making Sense of Musharraf's Volte Face

(Please also see the author's earlier paper titledAfghanistan: Pakistan's Black Hole of April 17,2001)

Though many US analysts project General Pervez Musharraf,Pakistan's self-reinstated Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), self-styled ChiefExecutive and self-promoted President, as a liberal-minded Muslim, throughouthis career he was known for his proximity to the Islamic religious parties, aproximity which was strengthened during the Afghan war of the 1980s.

After seizing power in October, 1999, he showedhimself to be amenable to pressure from Islamic parties and conceded,one after the other, their demands. Even independent Pakistani analystsadmitted that the religious parties won more concessions from the General duringhis first 18 months in office than they could during the first 18 months ofZia-ul-Haq.

The Pakistan Army in general and Gen. Musharraf, in particular,looked upon the role of the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment incontributing to the defeat of the Soviet troops before 1988, the overthrow ofNajibullah in 1992 and to the capture of large areas ofAfghanistan through the Taliban in post-1994 as major success stories, which, intheir perception, had restored the morale of the establishment shattered by thedefeat in East Pakistan in 1971. They hailed the perceivedsuccess in Afghanistan as the triumph of their long pursued quest for astrategic depth in that country which could be exploited to their advantage inthe event of another military conflict with India.

They also projected the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan asproviding Pakistan with what they described as an Islamic depth, by makingPakistan (a hope which was belied), through Afghanistan, a gateway to theexternal trade of the Central Asian Republics (CARs) and an ideologicalpole of attraction for the Islamic organisations of the CARs.

On May 25, 2000, Musharraf, for the first time,explicitly articulated Pakistan's reasons for its continued backing of theTaliban. He stated that in view of the demographic and geographic patternof the ethnic Pashtuns, who constituted the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan(40 per cent of the total population of 20 million) and the second largest afterthe Punjabis in Pakistan, it was in Pakistan’s national interest to supportthe predominantly Pashtun Taliban regime.

Subsequently, speaking at the Pakistan Institute ofInternational Affairs in Karachi in the third week of June 2000, Musharrafmaintained that Pakistan could not afford a two-front threat to its security --from India and Afghanistan. He said that it was wrong to believe that theMujahideen groups which had sprung up in Afghanistan since the war against theSoviet troops (in the eighties) were 'terrorists' even though some of theirfactions might be involved in terrorist activities.

He added that Pakistan would not do anything tojeopardize the future of the Pashtuns and claimed that he already discernedsigns of moderation on the part of the Taliban, as against its extremism of thepast. Musharraf asserted that the Taliban had brought peace to thecountry and had also managed to disarm the people. He also emphasizedPakistan's Muslim identity as one of the determinants of his government'sforeign policy.

Strongly criticising the statements of Musharraf, theRome-based ex-King, Zahir Shah, stated that Musharraf was delineating anethnic Pashtun policy in Afghanistan and was violating the fundamental notionthat the 'Afghan nation is composed of different ethnic groups united andindivisible with a recognized Afghan national identity. ' He termedMusharraf’s comments as 'interference and aggravation of the national unityof Afghanistan'. The Northern Alliance accused Pakistan of imposingon Afghanistan, through an ethnic tribal group, a political system,which suited its national interests, and described it as a violation ofAfghanistan’s sovereignty and independence and of recognized internationalnorms.

Large sections of the Pakistani civil society were not inagreement with Musharraf's perceptions of the so-called success story of themilitary-intelligence establishment in Afghanistan. They started worryingthat the so-called strategic depth was inexorably turning into a strategic blackhole from which Pakistan might have difficulty in extricating itself, if it didnot do so immediately.

But the military-intelligence establishment did not heedtheir warnings and continued to live in a make-believe world of its own,as it did in East Pakistan in 1971, thinking that its policy had started payingdividends. It was blind to the creeping deleterious effects of itsinvolvement in Afghanistan on Pakistan's own future as a nation. Amongsuch effects before September 11, 2001 were:

• Pakistan's diplomatic isolation.
  
  
• Its serious economic difficulties to which its involvement in Afghanistan too contributed considerably. In an article in the Nation of December 29, 2000, Mr.Ahmed Rashid, the well-known Afghan expert of Pakistan, described the economic price being paid by Pakistan for its involvement in Afghanistan as follows: 'The present Taliban war budget is estimated to be around US$100 million. Of that, 60-70% is derived from the revenues of the smuggling trade, some 30-40% from the drugs trade and about 5-10 % from direct financial aid. Pakistan has been paying some US$ 10 million a year for the salaries of Taliban administrators in Kabul and other aid, while until 1998 Saudi Arabia was also a major financial contributor. Terrorist groups also help fund the Taliban. Bin Laden funds an Arab brigade and helps fund Taliban offensives against the Northern Alliance. Pakistan and recently Turkmenistan provide other indirect aid such as fuel, technical help in maintaining airports and aircraft, restoring electricity in major cities, road construction and military supplies to keep the Taliban war machine functional.' This estimate did not include the pay and allowances of the serving and retired Pakistani military and civilian officers serving in the Taliban-controlled territory which were directly being paid to them by the Islamabad government and incorporated in the budget of the General Administration Department of the Pakistan government.
  
  
• Aggravation of sectarian clashes in Pakistani territory, the Sunni terrorist groups operating from sanctuaries in Afghanistan, the complicity of the anti-Shia elements in the Taliban.
  
• Dangers of a possible Talibanisation of the Pakistani society.
  
• The setback to Pakistani hopes of emerging as the gateway to the external trade of the Central Asian Republics and of benefitting from energy supplies from there.
  
• Setback in relations with Iran.

Despite the active involvement of serving and retired Pakistani militarypersonnel in its militia, the Taliban was not able to overwhelm the militias ofthe Northern Alliance and dislodge them from the 10 per cent of the territory controlled by them. Though much inferior in numbers and poorin equipment, the militia led by Ahmed Shah Masood (since assassinated by twocadres of bin Laden's Al Qaeda) fought an intrepid war of attrition andmade the Taliban militia bleed.

What stood in the way of the Northern Alliance reversing thePakistani colonisation of the rest of Afghanistan was the lack of supportfrom the Pashtuns of southern Afghanistan. It would be incorrect to viewthe entire Pashtun population of southern Afghanistan as supporting the Taliban.There were undercurrents of anger against the Taliban amongst the Pashtuns whichmanifested themselves in at least one abortive attempt to overthrow the Talibanafter the US bombing of the terrorist training camps in October 1998, and afailed attempt to assassinate Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Amir of the Taliban, in Kandahar in August1999 by exploding a car laden with explosives outside hishouse. Some of his relatives were killed, but the Amir escaped.

The angry anti-Taliban sections of the Pashtuns were reluctantto co-operate with the Northern Alliance, which consists largely of Tajiks andother non-Pashtun ethnic groups. They did not want to be projected by theTaliban and its Pakistani masters as traitors to their community.

Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment controlledeffectively not only the Taliban militia, but also the newly-establishedintelligence agency of the Taliban, as the successor to the Khad, whoseheadquarters were established in Kandahar. Qari Ahmadullah, who washeading the newly-established Taliban intelligence agency and was designated asthe Minister for Security, was actually an officer of the Inter-ServicesIntelligence of Pakistan and worked in the Taliban under the cover of a mullah. He used to work in the Afghan Division of the ISI under Lt.Gen.Mohammed Aziz, former Deputy Director-General of the ISI before March 1999, whosubsequently became the Chief of the General Staff (CGS). He is now Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee.

Through its control of the Taliban intelligence agency,the ISI was able to detect in advance and frustrate the efforts of the anti-Talibansections of the Pashtuns to organise themselves and rise against the Amir.

In the absence of support from the Pashtuns, the NorthernAlliance was thus not in a position to reverse the Pakistani colonisation andrestore the lost independence of Afghanistan. But it was able to make thePakistani involvement a costly adventure for Pakistan as a nation.

It was said that growing sections of Pakistan's civilianbureaucracy, particularly those in the Foreign Office and in the economicministries, were convinced that the Afghan involvement was proving to becounter-productive and that Pakistan's economy would never be able to come outof its present comatose state, and the Pakistan state would never be able to comeout of its diplomatic isolation unless and until the military-intelligenceestablishment's involvement in Afghanistan and its use of the Taliban was ended.

During a conference of Pakistan's regionalambassadors held inIslamabad earlier this year, most of them, including, surprisingly, Riaz Khokkar, itsambassador in Beijing, known as a hawk, were reported tohave strongly called for a re-consideration of the Afghan policy, but theiradvice was rejected by Gen.Musharraf and his corps commanders. Lt.Gen.Mahmood Ahmad, the then DG of the ISI, was reported to have told theambassadors: 'I have no doubt in my mind that Pakistan's policy willprevail because Allah is on our side.'

This was typical of the wishful-thinking mindset, whichprevailed even amongst those senior officers of the military, not generallyidentified with religious fanatics. This mindset made them believethat Allah was on the side of Pakistan, whether it be in Jammu & Kashmir orin Afghanistan or in dealing with their economy. And that what they lacked inintelligence, perspicacity and vision, they could make up by invoking the nameof Allah to convert failures into successes.

By March 2001, there were indications that even some corps commanders had started feeling that the time had come for Pakistan to break withthe Taliban and bin Laden and that it should co-operate with the US in itsefforts to have bin Laden arrested and deported to the US for trial.

Amongst the corps commanders, who gave strong expression tothis view was Lt.Gen.Imtiaz Shaheen (aPunjabi), who was the then Corps Commander, 11 Corps, at Peshawar. Hestrongly criticised in the corps commanders' conferences the terroristactivities of the Taliban and bin Laden. He also criticised the ISI'slinks with bin Laden and its action in providing medical facilities to him andhis family in the military hospital in Peshawar.

He had earlier incurred the displeasure of Musharraf and QaziHussain Ahmed of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) by vigorously taking action againstthe arms smugglers market in Darra Adam Khel in the North-West Frontier Province(NWFP), many of whom contributed funds to the Taliban and the JEI.

Before his posting to Peshawar, Lt.Gen.Shaheen, who wasDirector-General of the Pakistan Rangers,had headed a Task Force onthe unauthorised arms-manufacturing industry in Darra Adam Khel, which was themain supplier of arms and ammunition to Islamic terrorist groups in India andother countries. He strongly expressed the view that if Pakistan continuedto tolerate these smugglers, who enjoyed the protection of the Islamicorganisations, there could ultimately be a serious threat to Pakistan's ownnational security.

Annoyed over the repeated criticism by Shaheen of his pro-Talibanand pro-bin Laden policies and faced with pressure from the Qazi to transfer himout, Musharraf transferred Shaheen to the GHQ, Rawalpindi, as Chief of LogisticsStaff in April, 2001, within 14 months of his taking over as CorpsCommander, Peshawar.

The "Far Eastern Economic Review" of Hong Kong(April 26, 2001) commented as follows on his abrupt transfer: 'Musharraf hasreplaced Lt.Gen. Imtiaz Shaheen, the corps commander in Peshawar, after he hadserved less than a year in the post. The Peshawar corps headquarters isconsidered the primary support and logistics base for economic and other aid toAfghanistan's Taliban. Shaheen was considered an outspoken officer who, ininternal meetings of the Corps Commanders, was critical of the Army's continuedsupport to the Taliban, and sought greater curbs on the activities of extremistIslamic parties in Pakistan. Retired military officials say he was alsourging Musharraf that the Army should make a quick exit from running thecountry.

Pakistan denies it is giving military aid to the Taliban and saysit is fully implementing January's UN sanctions, which forbid the supply of armsby any country to the Taliban. A five-man UN monitoring team arrived inIslamabad on April 14 to evaluate the effect of the sanctions and whetherPakistan is still supplying military aid. Western diplomatic sources say thatRussia and France have provided evidence to the UN in New York that Pakistaniaid is still getting through. Shaheen's replacement is Lt.Gen. Ehsanul Haq,the former Director-General of Military Intelligence. The governmentdescribed the change as a standard personnel reshuffle.

Lt.Gen.Ehsanul Haq was previously the DGMI and was sent byMusharraf, on his promotion as Lt.Gen., to Peshawar to continue with the policyof backing the Taliban and bin Laden. His posting was also meant to placate the Qazi to whom Ehsanul Haq was close. After Lt. Gen.Fazle Haq (January 1978 to March 1980) and Lt. Gen. Mumtaz Gul (May 1994 toOctober 1996), Lt. Gen. Ehsanul Haq was the third Pashtun Army officer fromthe NWFP to head the 11 Corps since it was established in Peshawar in April1975. He is from Mardan, which along with Kohat and Karak districts,constitutes the so-called martial belt in the NWFP and provides the bulk of thePashtun soldiers to the Pakistan Army from this province.

Lt. Gen. Ehsanul Haq, like the NWFP Governor Lt. Gen. (retd) SyedIftikharHussain Shah, belongs to the Air Defense Command of the Pakistan Army. Infact, he had served as the second-in-command to Lt. Gen. (Retd) Iftikhar earlier.

Lt.Gen. Ehsanul Haq, who has now been moved out of Peshawarwithin five months of his taking over as corps commander, to take over as theDG, ISI, from Lt.Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, has been projected by Pakistani and foreignanalysts as a liberal-minded officer like Musharraf. But, like Musharraf,he was known in the past for his proximity to the Islamic parties andparticularly to Qazi Hussain Ahmed of the JEI.

When the Qazi initially opposed Musharraf's going to India in July 2001, for the summit withA.B.Vajpayee, the Indian Prime Minister, andrejected Musharraf's invitation for pre-summit consultations, it was Ehsanul Haq,who met the Qazi and persuaded him to meet Musharraf and support his visit toIndia.

It was Ehsanul Haq who was used by Musharraf to create a splitin Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (PML) through Mian Azhar and topressurise Mohammad Rafique Tarar to quit as the President of Pakistan andthe Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to administer the oath of office asPresident to Musharraf on June 20 2001. He was also being used byMusharraf to create a split in Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party.

On the advice of Ehsanul Haq, Musharraf set up a taskforce headed by Lt.Gen. (retd) Hamid Gul, former DG, ISI, to recommend therevamping of the Taliban's state and administrative machinery and to transformthe Taliban's religious militia into a professional standing Army with asuitable rank structure. Ehsanul Haq and Hamid Gul attended the firstceremonial parade as a professional army held by the religious militia at Kabulin August 2001. Amongst others, who attended this parade, were bin Laden,Mohammed Atef, his No.2 in the Al Qaeda and Ayman-al-Zawahiri of the Al Jihad ofEgypt.

In the last week of August 2001, following the death of Lt.Gen.Ghulam Ahmed, Chief of Staff to Musharraf, in a road accident, Musharrafappointed Lt.Gen. Hamid Javed, who was serving as the managing director of the HeavyIndustries, Taxila, as his chief of staff, and Lt.Gen. Mohammad Akram, DDG, ISI,as his military secretary. Maj.Gen. Ihtasham Zameer was posted as DDG, ISI.Zameer was closely involved in the past in networking with the Taliban and theAl Qaeda. Around the same time, in the face of continuing pressure fromthe US on the bin Laden issue, Musharraf sent Lt.Gen.Mahmood Ahmed, the then DG,ISI, toWashington DC for talks with George Tenet, Director, CIA, and StateDepartment officials.

Thus, till the terrorists struck New York and Washington DC onSeptember 11, 2001 Musharraf stuck to his policy of supporting the Taliban andbin Laden and making use of them for training the jehadi groups meant for useagainst India in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere and resisted US pressure tohelp in the arrest and deportation of bin Laden.