The Net Of Terror

The confusion, which prevailed in Pakistan following the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), the allgedkingpin of Al Qaeda, has now somewhat been cleared. Consequently, a more meaningful analysis is possibledespite their being still many unanswered questions.

The confusion gave rise to two kinds of speculation:

• He was killed during the encounter in Karachi on September 11, 2002, during which Ramzi Binalshibh,another Al Qaeda operative, was captured and hence there had been a wrong identification.  This has beenproved wrong by his being handed over to US custody by the Pakistani officials.
  
  
• He was actually captured on September 11, but the Pakistani authorities had shown him as captured  onMarch 1, 2003, in order to soften any US anger due to their ambivalent stand on the Iraq issue. 
  
  This did not stand scrutiny.  If this was really so, the Pakistanis would have stage-managed a raid atsome other place near the Pakistan-Afghan border and shown him as arrested there.
  
  They would not have shown him as arrested in Rawalpindi in an area where many serving and retired officers ofthe Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) live, which was bound to create a suspicion in the minds ofthe Americans about the complicity of military officials with KSM.

After studying the reports emanating from Pakistan, my assessment is that at the instance of  Americanofficials, the ISI raided the house of a leader of the women's wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) in Rawalpindihoping that the American information about the presence of KSM there would be wrong.  To their shock,they found it was right and KSM was there.  This is purely my assessment and I do not have any clinchingevidence to prove it.

What next? The US media is full of reports about the valuable documents givingthe names and telephone numbers of Al Qaeda sleepers in the US supposedly found at the place of arrest. Details of a follow-up action memorandum alleged to have been issued by the USA's Federal Bureau ofInvestigation (FBI) have also been published.  One should for the present treat these reports withreservation.  These seem to be inspired leaks or plants to remove any suspicion in the minds of theAmerican public about the real significance of the arrest in the war against terrorism.

The arrest and its sequel have corroborated what Indian officials and I havebeen saying for months, namely, that:
 

• The surviving dregs of Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the other components of Osama bin Laden's (OBL)International Islamic Front (ISI) escaped into Pakistan from Afghanistan  in the beginning of last yearand have been given shelter there.
  
  
• While the dregs of the Taliban have taken shelter in the tribal areas of Balochistan, the North-WestFrontier Province (NWFP) and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), those of Al Qaeda have spreadthemselves out into the urban areas of Sindh and Punjab.  The dregs of the Pakistani components of theISI have taken shelter in Karachi, the Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and the Northern Areas (NA).
  
  
• Reports received in August, 2002, indicated that bin Laden himself was undergoing treatment at the Binorimadrasa of Karachi for a sharpnel injury sustained at Tora Bora.

These reports were not taken seriously by the Americans earlier.  They apparently suspected them to bemotivated Indian propaganda.  It is hoped that at least now they would take them more seriously and stepup pressure on Islamabad to take effective action against the dregs.

The speculation in Pakistan as to whether KSM was really arrested has peteredout and has been replaced by equally frenzied speculation about the fate of OBL.  Gen . Pervez Musharraf,who earlier used to pooh-pooh reports of his being alive and in Pakistan, now admits grudgingly that he isalive, but still denies that he is in Pakistani territory.

There is palpable nervousness in Pakistani official circles that he mayultimately be found in their territory, thereby adding to the suspicions of the Americans about their linkswith Al Qaeda.

Many in Pakistan are now convinced that the US net is closing in on OBL andthat he cannot escape capture by the Americans, unless he commits suicide.  Did OBL himself suspect thatthe US is close on his heels? Since November 12, 2002, a number of messages and statements attributed to OBLhave been circulating in the Islamic world. 

In one of them, he was quoted as expressing the fear (or hope?) that he might"martyr" himself this year and might end up in the belly of the eagle.  Many Muslims hadinterpreted the expression "belly of the eagle" as a reference to the US.  Some of them hadalso seen this as possibly a reference to a major terrorist attack planned against the US, in which he himselfmight be participating.  Another possible interpretation is that his statement reflected his anxiety thathe might not be able to evade capture for long.

Thecomplicity of the JEI with Al Qaeda should be a matter of concern.  Of all the Islamic political partiesin Pakistan, the JEI has always been the most favoured by the military-intelligence establishment.  Itsleaders are perceived in Pakistan as the Army's blue-eyed Mullahs.  While maintaining an overtlyanti-establishment line, it has always covertly collaborated with the Army and the ISI. 

ManyPakistani Army officers and nuclear scientists gravitate towards the JEI after their retirement. Worrisome examples are those of Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul and Lt. Gen. Javed Nasir, both former Directors-General ofthe ISI, and Mr.A.Q.Khan, the "father" of the Pakistani atomic bomb. It is likely that the women'swing leader of the JEI gave shelter to KSM at the instance of such retired officers who have been helping AlQaeda andtheTaliban escape decimation by the Americans. 

TheJEI's nexus with Al Qaeda is the tip of the iceberg of the nexus with the terrorists of at least some sectionsof the Army.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently,Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Convdenor, Advisory Committee, Observer ResearchFoundation (ORF), Chennai