Security Scares For Musharraf

Security for President General Pervez Musharraf has been tightened up afterhis return from his extended overseas tour to Brussels, Havana, New York,Washington DC and London.

The tightening-up has followed two security scares in quick succession onOctober 4 and 5, 2006.The first incident took place at about 9-20 PM on October4, 2006, when there was a mysterious blast near the Army House in the Rawalpindicantonment. The sound of the blast could be heard in Islamabad, which is about15 kilometres from the Army House, which is the residence of Musharraf as theChief of the Army Staff (COAS). The blast was reported to have taken place in apark, which is adjacent to the Army House. Spokesmen of Musharraf played downthe seriousness of the blast and said there were no casualties or propertydamage. Subsequently, it was reported that the police, during a search of thearea, had also found some unused explosive material, which was found keptconcealed under a bench.

Even as the Army and police officials kept denying that the blast wasdirected at Musharraf, a fresh scare was caused by the discovery of two liverockets—reportedly of old Soviet origin—near the President's office inIslamabad. The rockets were found concealed by the side of the ConstitutionAvenue, which Musharraf often takes for commuting between the President's officeand the Army House in Rawalpindi. The two rockets were fixed to launchers with amobile phone attached to them.

The discovery of the rockets brought to mind a similar discovery of a SAM-7launcher on the terrace of a house in Lahore on February 7, 1982, during a visitof Zia-ul-Haq to the city. Subsequent investigations established that a missilehad been fired from the launcher at the plane of Zia, but it had missed itstarget. The Zia regime had blamed the Al Zulfiquar, a resistance organisationheaded by the late Murtaza Ali Bhutto, the brother of Mrs Benazir Bhutto, forthe incident.

Pakistani Police officials are admitting that the blast in Rawalpindi onOctober 4 and the discovery of the rockets in Islamabad the next day wereconnected and indicated a new conspiracy to kill Musharraf. The Soviet vintageof the rockets has given cause for suspicion that they might have come eitherfrom Balochistan or from Afghanistan. The present suspicion is that theconspiracy might have been hatched either by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA)in retaliation for the murder of the Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti by the Armyin August, 2006, or by the Jundullah (Army of Allah), a jihadi terroristorganisation which is associated with Al Qaeda.

Pakistani officials are tight-lipped about the investigation. The ease withwhich the suspects had managed to bring the explosive device and the rockets soclose to the places of residence and work of Musharraf without being detected bythe military and police units responsible for the security of the General hasgiven cause for concern that there must have been some complicity bymilitary/police elements. In the two attempts to kill Musharraf in December,2003, some junior officers of the Army and the Air Force were found to have beeninvolved. They have already been sentenced to death.

These incidents indicate the continuing unsatisfactory state of Musharraf'ssecurity despite US assistance for tightening up his security after theDecember, 2003, attempts on his life.

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India,New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai.