Bhutto assassination reverberates across Afghanistan

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto last week continues to ring across Afghanistan, as American officials worry that it heralds the rise of a more virulent extremism against the Pakistani government that could undermine the Afghan mission. It could also damage the burgeoning strategic relationship between the two neighbors, and hurt efforts to fight cross-border terrorism.

US and Pakistani officials say that the mastermind was Baitullah Mehsud, leader of a coalition of Taliban-affiliated groups that united for the first time last month to step up their attacks on the Pakistani army and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The Tehrik Taliban-i-Pakistan was reportedly formed after a Dec. 14 meeting among 40 Taliban leaders in Waziristan. The leaders came from areas including the semi-autonomous tribal regions, known as the Federally Administered Tribal Area, and other areas of the North-west Frontier Province including Swat, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan.

While the Bhutto assassination might have been a spectacular inaugural mission to publicize this coalition, it also bodes ill for recent U.S. military claims that Afghan border attacks have dropped 40 percent.

Jan. 7 Update: The Council on Foreign Relations has this excellent roundup of analyses on how Bhutto's death could affect Afghanistan's stability and chances of success.

Comments

[Juma Khan Sufi]

By Juma Khan Sufi
The security forces of Pakistan have lost the confidence of the people. Whatever, happens in the country, people blame ISI or other intelligence agency. So much so that US, the biggest donor to the coffers of army, remains also suspicious. A few years back when Lt General (retired) Iftikhar Hussain was governor of the NWFP, he called some tribal influentials belonging to the highlands of former Hazara Division to help flush out the militants engaged in imparting and getting training in their mountains. One of the participants was a friend of mine belonging to Kala Dhaka who is often elected representative of that region in the provincial assembly. He told me that when he went back to his area, he started campaigning among his people against the jihadists. The jihadists retaliated by dubbing him kafir. However, since this man was highly respected and influential among his people, therefore, the man incharge of the training who happened to be from Gilgit with the pseudonym of Shahji cam to see him. He flatly told my friend that if he was thinking that he was giving training to jihadists on his own, then he was absolutely mistaken. Shahji said that all those heaps of weapons lying in his camps were being brought by the powers and he was just their agent. My friend came back and related the incident to the governor, who just nodded his head in disapproval and the matter was buried there and then.
The interior ministry of Pakistan accused Baitullah Masood and his accomplices to be involved in the assassination of Mohtarama Benazir Bhutto. Peoples Party and the general public dispute it and don’t believe in the assertion of the government keeping in view the past murky character of the security forces. The party of the martyred leader rightly points out to the gaps existing in this assertion. And I don’t want to repeat it here. What I want to say is that if the intelligence agencies are so much alert and in the knowledge of the things that they can intercept the conversation of Baitullah Masood carried out with his henchman to congratulate each other on this dastardly act and also know whereabouts of the most notorious and dangerous terrorist, then why can’t they go after him and eliminate him? If the house of some Anwar Shah where Baitullah was hiding, not hiding, but living in Makin, then it is Pakistani territory. It is not somewhere in Srinagar or Pulwama or other place in Jammu and Kashmir. But even to these areas the security forces are adept at sending their jihadists, but cannot deal with a notorious and dangerous character within the South Waziristan Agency, in NWFP, Islamic Republic of Pakistan. If Pakistan army fattened with the sweat and blood of the nation and with billions of dollars aid of US and NATO cannot deal on its own and is afraid of going after the terrorists, then they should allow the international community to operate in the region. The question arises as to why hundreds of armed forces personnel often surrender to the rag tag few dozen Taliban?
There are many unanswered questions. Why the Russian forces are capable of eliminating the most dangerous terrorists in Chechnya, while Pakistani forces are not only incapable but allegedly allowing such characters to stage gory dramas at Lal Masjid, Swat and Fata. Who the nation should hold responsible?

jksufi@hotmail.com
December 27, 2007