A visibly upset Dick Cheney (the US vice president) arrived in
Islamabad on February 26, 2007 to vent Washington’s fury over
the Taliban’s spring offensive, for which the United States had
been unprepared. The United States had realized in late 2006 that
Al-Qaeda had been reinventing itself in Pakistan’s tribal areas
along with the Taliban, but its personnel were completely in the
dark on more recent developments. South-west Afghanistan had
slipped from their hands; the Taliban ruled Afghanistan’s Helmand
province and several important districts in Kandahar province; and
the situation had seriously deteriorated in Urzgan and Zabul. For
the first time the coalition troops felt the Taliban had become a
major threat, and Cheney warned General Musharraf of serious
consequences if Pakistan did not wage all-out war on the militants
in its tribal areas.
During the visit Dick Cheney went over all the previous agree-
ments between the government of Pakistan and the Taliban, in which
Pakistan had given money to the Taliban warlords (as compensation
for their losses during military operations). He accused Pakistan of
having ties with some of the Taliban factions such as the Haqqani
network. The situation became even more complex when Cheney
visited Kabul the next day. While he was at the Bagram air base,
a suicide attack killed 23 people and injured 20. The CIA later
reported that the attack had been planned in North Waziristan by Abu Laith al-Libi, who at the time was only loosely associated with
Al-Qaeda. (He later joined Al-Qaeda as a regular member, and led
its operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan.)
Cheney’s visit was critical to the next course of events in South
Asia. He understood that Pakistan’s tribal areas were completely in
the hands of Al-Qaeda and the source of the Taliban’s strength. This
new thesis changed the dynamics of thinking in Western capitals.
Previously the West had believed Pakistan to be no more than a safe
sanctuary for Taliban and Al-Qaeda fugitives, but now realization
dawned on them that Pakistan was at the core of the problem. If
the problem was to be resolved, it had to begin in Pakistan.
This new understanding gave impetus to US efforts to pressurize Musharraf’s regime to democratize Pakistan. The United States wanted to continue with its support to Pakistan, but at the
same time wanted to see a mechanism in place that would protect
its strategic interests. This thinking process actually evolved after
the Taliban’s spring offensive of 2006. It eventually turned into
Washington’s Af–Pak policy in 2008, which assessed the entire
Pakistan and Afghanistan region as a single theater of war, and
Pakistan’s tribal areas as the root cause of the problems.
Broadly speaking, from January 2006 onwards the United States
remained behind the scenes, working on a strategy to give popular
impetus to the “War on Terror.” The United States thought that
democratic reforms would create the needed space. Cheney’s visit
to Pakistan and Afghanistan had proved a milestone in changing
minds. The forward strategy of the United States after identifying
Pakistan and Afghanistan as one conflict zone was to promote
democracy.
By the end of 2006 Musharraf agreed to the US formula of
holding national elections, and at the beginning of 2008, power
shifted to an alliance of a secular and liberal political parties led by
the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).6 The other members of the future
coalition were the secular Pashtun subnationalist Awami National
Party (ANP),7 Muttehida Quami Movement (United National
Movement, MQM), Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam Fazlur Rahman group
(JUI), and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q).8
Under the new dispensation Musharraf agreed to shed his
uniform, appoint a US-approved chief of army staff, then stay on
as the civilian president of the country to oversee the whole system
and the “War on Terror.” Benazir Bhutto’s role was considered
crucial. A parliament led by her government could easily pass laws
against Islamic seminaries and launch a powerful campaign against militancy in the country. The ANP and the MQM were to be her
supporting arms, while the JUI was to endorse the format from the
religious angle.
Washington and London next brokered a deal between Musharraf
and Benazir Bhutto, as a result of which the notorious National
Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) was promulgated in October 2007.
It negated all the charges of corruption against Ms Bhutto
and her spouse Asif Ali Zardari, and allowed them to come back to
Pakistan as free citizens to take part in national politics. This plot
was hatched in February 2006 and came to fruition in April 2007
– the same month as the United States put pressure on Islamabad
to launch an all-out war against the militants. As a consequence,
the agreement signed by Hafiz Gul Bahadar, Maulana Sadiq Noor,
and Maulana Abdul Khaliq in Miranshah in September 2006 broke
down on May 20, 2007. What followed was the bloodiest chapter
in Pakistan’s history.
An overview of events after the US invasion of Afghanistan reveals
a massive intelligence failure concerning Al-Qaeda’s regrouping and
its strategic vision, which successfully countered US moves in the
region and prevented Pakistan from taking any winning measures
against the pro-Taliban militants. The result was the spring offensive
of 2006, which spurred the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan
to new heights. Meantime Al-Qaeda was looking minutely into
developments in the South Asian theater of war, and assessing how
Washington was planning political and military counter-moves
against its structures in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
This starts another real-life story in Al-Qaeda’s A Thousand and One Nights adventures, with a new theme and a new cast of char-
acters. Al-Qaeda’s strategy was to take root in Pakistan’s tribal areas in order to achieve a spillover effect in south-west Afghanistan, then
establish Afghanistan’s Helmand province as the main conduit to
export insurgency all around the country. But it faced the challenge
of the US reaction in 2007. The United States had by then correctly
identified the Al-Qaeda sanctuaries and was in the process of
devising the means to destroy them. Al-Qaeda had to protect them
at all costs. Thus begins a game of strategic manipulation between
the United States and Al-Qaeda.
The next phase of Al-Qaeda operations was to launch attacks in
Pakistan’s cities to cause disruption and thereby prevent any joint
US–Pakistan attack on Al-Qaeda strongholds. In 2007 the United
States started building a forward base in the Afghan province of
Kunar, a few hundred meters away from Pakistan’s Bajaur Agency. The construction of similar bases and US military posts began
simultaneously in Afghanistan, near the Pakistani tribal areas of
Mohmand, North Waziristan, and South Waziristan. At the same
time, the United States secretly contracted with Pakistan to use its
airbases for drone strikes on militant hideouts in the tribal areas.
But while the United States was busy funneling billions of dollars
to strengthen its forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda
played its wildcard of taking the war to Pakistan’s cities. (Al-Qaeda
was always a step ahead of Washington in the context of making
political connections in Pakistan.) In fact, Al-Qaeda had planned
to take the war to Pakistan’s cities earlier, but the plan could only
be implemented in 2007, after the Taliban’s 2006 summer offensive
against the United States had been blunted.
Dick Cheney was to oversee the US mission statement for
the region. Under the guidelines set by Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri,
Sheikh Essa Al-Misri was the director of Al-Qaeda’s master plan
for Pakistan. Sheikh Essa, an Egyptian ideologue whose record
is discussed later in the book, was the Al-Qaeda emissary sent
to meet various Islamic politicians and political organizations in
Pakistan from 2003 onwards. He was intended to forge an Islamic
political front in the country’s urban areas to strengthen support for
Al-Qaeda. The people whom Sheikh Essa met included:
- Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the then chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), a
leading Islamic party of Pakistan which was considered a South
Asian version of the Muslim Brotherhood. - Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the chief of Jamaatut Dawa (JD),
formerly known as Laskhar-e-Taiba, a banned militant outfit of a
Salafi and Wahhabi religious inclination. - Maulana Fazlur Rahman, the chief of JUI, a society of Muslim
scholars and an influential political party subscribing to the
Deobandi school, which already supported the Taliban. - Dr Israr Ahmed, an academic who called for the revival of the
Islamic caliphate.
However, the people who responded most significantly to Al-Qaeda’s
call in both letter and spirit were two brothers, Maulana Abdul Aziz
and Abdul Rasheed Ghazi, the prayer leaders of Islamabad’s Lal
Masjid. The Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) hosted two religious schools
in Pakistan’s federal capital, Islamabad. Jamia Hafsa, adjacent to
the mosque, was the school for girls, and Jamia Faridia, situated in
the upmarket E-7 district of the capital, was for boys. Over 7,000 students were studying in both schools. The mosque had been
founded by Maulana Abdullah, a veteran Jihadi who had fought
against the Soviets in Afghanistan, so the organization had strong
ties with such radicals as Mullah Omar, Dr Ayman Al-Zawahiri,
Tahir Yaldochiv, and Osama bin Laden. After Abdullah’s assas-
sination in the late 1990s, two of his sons, Maualana Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rasheed Ghazi, became Lal Masjid’s prayer leader and
deputy prayer leader respectively. Both brothers, like their father,
were committed to the cause of Jihad.
The Pakistan Army had intensified military operations against
the militants by mid-2003. The operations were unpopular from
the very beginning, and even the secular political parties were not prepared to voice their support for them. The general public under-
stood the Taliban as an anti-imperialist resistance movement. Thus the military operations against them were taken by the masses as
Pakistan’s support for neo-imperialism. Politicians such as Qazi
Hussain Ahmed, Imran Khan, and Nawaz Sharif blamed the then
president, Musharraf, for shedding the blood of innocent Pakistani
tribal Muslims in order to prolong his incumbency as Pakistan’s
president by gaining support for his military dictatorship from
Western governments. There were two attacks on Musharraf in
late 2003 in Rawalpindi, and these upped the pace. Thousands of
Jihadis were arrested as suspects. The United States then pressurized
Pakistan to close down the Pakistani militant camps in Kashmir, and
anti-Americanism in Pakistan soared to new heights. Only a small
spin was required for Al-Qaeda to take advantage of the situation.
On the advice of Al-Qaeda, Maulana Abdul Aziz issued a
religious decree in 2004 which declared the South Waziristan
operation un-Islamic. The decree prohibited the burial of the soldiers
in Muslim graveyards. Funeral prayers for those who had died in
the action against the Muslim militants in South Waziristan were
forbidden. The decree was circulated throughout the country and
500 clerics signed it. That was all the spin needed to further ignite
anti-American feelings in Pakistan. All the combined guns of the
militants could not have been as useful in belittling the Pakistan
Army as that religious decree. Matters did not end there. As a result of the religious decree,
several cases were reported by the media of parents refusing to
receive the dead bodies of their sons who had been killed fighting on
the side of the armed forces. Religious clerics refused to say prayers
over their bodies. The result was the demoralization of the rank
and file of the Pakistan’s armed forces. Dozens of lower-ranking non-commissioned officers defied the commands of their officers to
fight and were court-martialed. Almost an equal number of officers
resigned from service on receiving orders of their postings to South
Waziristan. The Pakistan Army had been well placed to defeat the
militants in 2004, but Al-Qaeda’s timely spin by using Lal Masjid
had clipped its wings.
The two brothers from Lal Masjid were in regular contact with
major Al-Qaeda leaders including Tahir Yaldochiv and Sheikh Essa,
which enabled them to receive directives on strategy. By 2007,
Lal Masjid had become an Al-Qaeda powerhouse in the federal
capital of Islamabad, directly in the face of Pakistan’s powerful
ISI in Islamabad, and the military’s General Headquarters (GHQ)
in the capital’s twin-city, Rawalpindi. Meantime, the militants’
strength kept increasing around the country. They expanded their
influence from South Waziristan to North Waziristan, then moved
on to Bajaur and the Mohmand and Orakzai agencies. The total
strength of the militants in North and South Waziristan soared to around 50,000, and the security crackdown on militants associated with the Kashmir Liberation Movement (KLM) enhanced this number by causing a massive migration of other militants to the two
Waziristans. This migration included such stalwart commanders of
the KLM as Ilyas Kashmiri and Abdul Jabbar.The US CIA and Pakistan’s ISI submitted report after report on the increasing strength of the militants, and advised Pakistan’s govern-
ment to take timely steps to prevent more damage. Pakistan tried to mount a bigger operation than the earlier ones, but Al-Qaeda held
the Lal Masjid trump card. They did not have to resort to battle:
Pakistan was forced to sign a ceasefire agreement.
Musharraf and his aides had planned to take serious action
against the Lal Masjid lobby many times, but military intelligence
always opposed the move. The reason was that in the already
charged anti-American atmosphere, taking any such action against
Lal Masjid and its adherents would have brought matters to a head.
Dozens of the daughters of Pakistan’s armed forces personnel, influential businessmen, and bureaucrats were day students in the Lal Masjid schools. Already wary after the soldiers’ near-mutiny over
the tribal area operations, Musharraf’s government was unwilling
to confront a political upheaval in the middle of the federal capital.
This delay in dealing with Lal Masjid proved catastrophic.
It was hardly a shock to learn that Washington and London
were pressing Pakistan to draw up a strategy that would lead to a
conclusive defeat of the militants. It was at this time that Washington
pressured Musharraf to strike a deal with Benazir Bhutto for a
broad-based alliance of secular and liberal political parties, to
counter the rising public support for the militants. At the same
time, Western intelligence agencies drew a full map of the Al-Qaeda
assets in Pakistan. These assets started with Islamabad’s Lal Masjid,
and moved into the Swat Valley through Malakand division in the shape of Mullah Fazlullah. Added to these was the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-
e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi, which was connected to the militants in Bajaur, North Waziristan, and South Waziristan. In the face of
this, US and British officials visited Pakistan, one after the other,
to persuade Pakistan to urgently set up a coherent strategy for the
defeat of the militancy.
This whole game plan was already on Al-Qaeda’s radar, and it
struck while the plan was only half-completed. In January 2007,
the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan broke its ceasefire accord
with the Pakistani security forces and unleashed a series of sudden
attacks on their positions. Pakistan’s GHQ in Rawalpindi was taken
aback by this move and was still trying to comprehend it, when
the Lal Masjid students took to the streets. To create an issue, they
took up the demolition of a few mosques that had been built on
illegally occupied land. To prevent the matter from spinning out
of control the government quickly agreed to the students’ demands
and stopped further demolitions of mosques. The administration
also agreed to provide alternative land for the congregations whose
mosques had been demolished. However, the Lal Masjid radicals
stuck to their guns and insisted that the new mosques should be
rebuilt on the same land they had originally been erected on.
Baffled by the attitude of Maulana Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rasheed
Ghazi, Pakistan’s government had no idea that the brothers were in
fact playing games under a broader Al-Qaeda strategy to sabotage US
interests. The occupation by Lal Masjid female students of Islamabad’s
Children’s Library, adjacent to the mosque, captured the world’s
attention. The students announced they would not evacuate the library
until Islamic law (sharia) was enforced throughout the country.
Muslim academia, in both Pakistan and abroad, was stunned
by the Lal Masjid affair. Mufti Taqi Usmani, the spiritual guide of
the Lal Masjid brothers and a respected Islamic economist, flew
up from Karachi to Islamabad for a detailed discussion with the
brothers on their violent reformist agenda. Abdul Aziz could not
answer Taqi Usmani’s questions because in the light of the Quran,
according to Sunnah (traditions set by the prophet Muhammad)and Salaf (the unanimously agreed traditions according to which
Islam has been practiced over the last 1,400 years) he could only
mumble that the steps taken were essential for the Islamization of
Pakistan. Taqi Usmani was so disappointed and annoyed with the
Lal Masjid cleric’s attitude that he expelled Maulana Abdul Aziz
from his spiritual guide circle. Usmani then publicly announced
that all spiritual ties between them were severed from that point.
Abdul Aziz could not have suffered greater public humiliation than
this, but it did not deter him from continuing on the path he had
embarked on.
As the news of Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto’s secret meetings
to plan a new alliance hit the media, Lal Masjid jacked up its
protests to a higher level of violence. The female brigade of the
seminary, Jamia Hafsa, abducted an alleged female pimp to trigger
Lal Masjid’s “Crisis Action” plan.
On March 9, 2007, the then President Musharraf dismissed the
chief justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhary. This
began the lawyers’ movement. Within a few weeks, the media, civil
society, and several political parties came out in support of the
lawyers’ movement. With this new sea of trouble compounding the Lal Masjid issue, it became impossible for the Musharraf govern-
ment to undertake any effective military operations in the two Waziristans. As the lawyers’ movement picked up pace, Lal Masjid
activities also increased. In the center of Islamabad, Lal Masjid
vigilantes forcibly closed down video and music shops. When their
people were arrested by law enforcement agencies, they abducted
civil law enforcement personnel so that they could exchange them
with their own people in custody.
The Ministry of Interior put both Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rasheed
Ghazi on the wanted list, and the police force was instructed to
bring the mosque under blockade. But the Lal Masjid vigilantes
inspired so much fear that the police kept their distance. At the same
time, Abdul Aziz’s firebrand Friday sermons continued to rouse the
masses, including some of the police deployed around the mosque.
Al-Qaeda’s leadership in North Waziristan was aware that sooner, rather than later, Lal Masjid’s role would be over – that the govern-
ment’s tolerance level would reach its limit and a strong reaction to the Lal Masjid clerics was imminent. The Al-Qaeda shura (council)
met in North Waziristan and, after prolonged discussion and debate,
agreed that the high point of their struggle in Pakistan would come
when the foreseeable military operation against Lal Masjid began.
Open war against the US–Pakistan designs was now unavoidable. In July 2007, the military conducted a military operation against
Lal Masjid, and after several days of siege, troops entered the
mosque. Maulana Abdul Aziz tried to sneak out in a burqa (a
woman’s covering veil) but was arrested. Abdul Rasheed Ghazi,
his mother, and Abdul Aziz’s son were all thoughtlessly killed by
the security forces. A number of male and female students died
with them. The first US objective had been achieved: an important
Al-Qaeda asset in the federal capital of Islamabad had been elimi-
nated. The US–Pakistan alliance would now prepare for an all-out war against Al-Qaeda.
On the political front, the deal between Benazir Bhutto and
Musharraf had matured, with Ms Bhutto scheduled to return to
Pakistan in October. On the military front, operations against the
militants in Swat, as well as in the two Waziristans, were primed. But
matters did not move on smoothly for the Musharraf regime. There
was a massive reaction to the Lal Masjid massacre. Musharraf’s
ruling party, PML-Q, was not ready to own the operation; civil
society movement picked up pace; Pakistan’s Supreme Court restored
a hostile Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhary to his earlier position as
chief justice of Pakistan; and the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif
(who had been exiled by Musharraf under an agreement with Saudi
Arabia) sought to return to Pakistan.
But the Lal Masjid saga was over. Abdul Rasheed Ghazi had been
killed and his brother Abdul Aziz captured. The story had reached
its climax. Al-Qaeda then released a video declaring Abdul Rasheed
Ghazi a “righteous” leader (Imam-e-Barhaq) and vowed to avenge
the Lal Masjid massacre. This marked the beginning of another
chapter in the continuing Al-Qaeda A Thousand and One Nights
drama.
After the Lal Masjid operation, the United States and its allies
moved quickly to push Pakistan towards destroying Al-Qaeda once
and for all in Pakistan. But Al-Qaeda restructured just as quickly to
boldly confront each new challenge. With that, although Al-Qaeda
was not able to destroy the whole US plan for South Asia, it did
manage to put a serious dent in it. When next the Al-Qaeda shura
met in North Waziristan to discuss future strategy, it was agreed
that the time had arrived when Pakistan’s alliance with the United
States was so cogent that sporadic, stand-alone tactics against it
would not work. The shura was of one voice on the issue of the
Pakistan regime’s takfeer (heresy) – the following chapters will spell
this out in detail – and agreed on khuruj (revolt) against the state of
Pakistan. The Lal Masjid clerics had set the scene for the next battle, and after the unpopular Lal Masjid operation, Al-Qaeda would
capitalize on it.
In Islamic jurisprudence a revolt is only allowed against a Muslim
state when the ruler and establishment transgress all limits. The
first khuruj was attempted on the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson,
Hussain Ibn-e-Ali, when Ummayad ruler Yazid bin Mauvi was
installed as the Caliph under a hereditary arrangement, in violation
of established Islamic norms which only allow the selection of a
Muslim ruler with the consent of the Muslim populace. Al-Qaeda
decided on the kind of a strategy Ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328) had
adopted in identical circumstances when he was fighting a Jihad
against the Mongols, a foreign occupation force who had converted
to Islam, but had terminated Islamic law as the single source of law
and instead introduced laws in which Islam and Mongol traditions
were mixed to introduce two parallel legal systems in their empire.
The Mongols had already occupied Baghdad at the time and were
eyeing other Muslim cities. The Muslim ruler of Syria and Egypt,
Nasir Al-Din, had doubts on the capacity of his forces to defend his
realm against a Mongol attack, so he had assured the Mongols of
his neutrality – that he would not fight against the Mongols if they
were to retake control of Baghdad. For Tamiyyah it was a major
deviation on part of any Muslim ruler to refuse Jihad in defense of
a Muslim state. Tamiyyah felt this was sufficient reason to launch
a revolt against the ruler. Tamiyyah then warned Nasir Al-Din if he
did not break his agreement with the Mongols on the occupation
of Baghdad, he would stop the Jihad against the Tartars and launch
khuruj against him. He threatened Nasir Al-Din that he would first
dethrone him and then fight the Mongols independently. Tamiyyah’s
threats compelled Nasir Al-Din to join forces with the resistance,
and he fought against the Mongols.
Al-Qaeda decided to pursue the same principle in 2007 after the
Lal Masjid operation. Osama bin Laden installed Abdul Hameed,
aka Abu Obaida al-Misri, as the imam-e-khuruj (the leader of
revolt) for Pakistan. And with his coming we see of a new strategy,
with a new cast of characters in the continuing A Thousand and
One Nights tales of Al-Qaeda.
SETTING UP THE AF–PAK THEATER OF WAR
The end of the Lal Masjid rebellion brought about a new and
significant turn of events. The US blueprint for Pakistan was unveiled. This envisaged a new troika positioned to pursue the
mission against Al-Qaeda. The troika included a military chief who
was fully onboard with the United States in its “War against Terror,”
a US-supportive parliament comprising secular and liberal forces to
drum up popular support for this, and a strong civilian president
to oversee affairs and report to the US political administration on
unfolding events. Both military and civilian US aid packages were
to be routed through the president. While the preparations for this
new dispensation were underway, the pro-Western General Ashfaq
Parvez Kayani, who was very close to the US military command, was
installed as the vice-chief of army staff in October and nominated as
the future chief of army staff (COAS).
Kayani had not been Musharraf’s preferred successor. Musharraf
had wanted General Tariq Majeed (who was promoted to the
ceremonial position of the chairman joint chiefs of the Staff
Committee on October 7, 2007) as the army chief. But Kayani was
the US choice. His appointment went against the traditions of the
armed forces, as never before in the history of Pakistan’s army had
a director general (DG) of ISI been made COAS. The argument
was that the DG ISI, whose concern was with intelligence needs,
had to consort with politicians who might influence him to move
away from the military’s perspectives on both domestic and foreign
policy issues. Intelligence chiefs also had to have close rapport with
other countries’ intelligence apparatus, and at times, even friendly
relations with them. If, therefore, an intelligence chief was appointed
as COAS, there was always the risk of national security interests
being compromised.
Kayani’s record showed he could be ruthless. As the vice-chief
of army staff in October 2007, he had used Pakistan’s air force
to fire indiscriminately on alleged militants in Mir Ali and Swat.
Scores of civilians were killed. Unlike Musharraf, Kayani was
unconcerned about inflicting collateral damage. Similarly, in North
Waziristan, South Waziristan, Bajaur, Mohmand, and Swat, Kayani
had remained indifferent to the plight of millions of civilians forced
to abandon their homes while military operations were being
conducted in 2008 and 2009.
With Ms Bhutto’s return affirmed on the political front, Pakistan
was required on the military front to conduct operations to
eliminate all of Al-Qaeda’s strategic assets in Pakistan. The Swat
Valley was where this was to start. Before the military could take
up their positions in the valley, however, the militants scrapped the
2006 Miranshah Agreement, and by the time the Lal Masjid episode began, they were already attacking Pakistan’s security forces’
positions in both South and North Waziristan. Over the period from
July 24 to August 24, 2007, 250 militants and 60 soldiers were
killed.
On September 2, 2007, a few dozen militants led by Baitullah
Mehsud ambushed a 17-vehicle army convoy and captured an
estimated 247 soldiers – without a shot being fired. The event
stunned the nation. Several officers were among those captured.
To add insult to injury, the militants then invited the BBC to
hear these officers (from the Baloch regiment) speak in favor
of the insurgency. Following this the army returned to their
Waziristan military headquarters and garrisoned the area, setting
up a number of checkpoints. This did not deter the militants. In
mid-September the Taliban attacked army outposts across North
and South Waziristan. This led to some of the heaviest fighting in
the Pakistani Taliban’s war against the state security apparatus in
these areas. The first Pakistani Army outpost was attacked and
overrun by the Taliban on September 12, 2007. It resulted in the
capture of 12 Pakistani soldiers. The next day, a suicide bomber in
Ghazi Tarbela visited a Pakistani army base, destroying the main
mess hall, killing 20 members of the elite Special Services Group
(SSG) and wounding 29. A series of attacks followed, and by
September 20, 2007 five of the Pakistani Army outposts had been
overrun and an additional 25 soldiers captured. In all, more than
65 soldiers were killed or captured, and over 100 were wounded.
Most of the attacks by the militants were knee-jerk reactions to
the Lal Masjid massacre.
About two weeks later, the army counterattacked with helicopter
gunships, jet fighters, and ground troops to hit militant positions
near the town of Mir Ali. In heavy fighting over the next four days,
between October 7 and October 10, 2007, 257 people were killed,
including 175 militants, 47 soldiers, and 35 civilians.
Al-Qaeda then decided to revamp its plans to counter US designs
in the region. While the theater of war was in the making in Pakistan’s
cities, Musharraf had instructed the ISI to work for a political solution
in which the secular or liberal parties would dominate the politics of the country. An alliance was then forged between the Pashtun subna-
tionalist ANP in NWFP, the JUI (Fazlur Rahman Group), a religious party ready to act as an intermediary between the religious forces and
the establishment in NWFP and south-west Balochistan, the MQM,
based in Sindh, which represented the Indian Muslims who had
migrated to Pakistan after the partition of British India in 1947 (who
were a real anti-Taliban secular force), and Musharraf’s hand-picked
PML-Q, mainly from the Punjab.
Musharraf ordered a National Reconciliation Ordinance to be
proclaimed on October 5, 2007. This granted across-the-board
amnesty to all politicians, political workers, and bureaucrats who
had been accused of crimes including corruption, embezzlement,
money laundering, murder, and terrorism between January 1, 1986
and October 12, 1999 (the time between the two periods of martial
law). It was a discriminatory ruling whose prime intention was to
cancel corruption cases against Benazir Bhutto and her spouse Asif
Ali Zardari. As soon as the NRO came into legislation, Ms Bhutto
announced her return to Pakistan.
This was the perfect opportunity for Al-Qaeda to take the bull
by the horns. Ms Bhutto was a populist politician and as her image
would inevitably compel her to move in wider and more open circles,
she would be a soft target. Al-Qaeda got down to discussing the
merits and demerits of assassinating her. They all agreed that killing
her would change the political landscape. They realized that Al-Qaeda
would not be the only beneficiary, but also knew that killing her
would seriously dent US designs in the South Asian region.
The plan to kill Ms Bhutto was prepared a year ahead of the
November 2008 US presidential elections. Al-Qaeda had foreseen
the victory of the Democrat candidate, Barack Obama, and was sure that if Bhutto was hit during the transition phase of the Bush admin-
istration, it would come as a major blow to US designs on Pakistan.
A number of Al-Qaeda-affiliated sleeper cells across the country
were activated, including one in Karachi, where Ms Bhutto was
supposed to arrive on October 18, 2007. On her landing at Karachi
airport, thousands of people rallied to welcome and escort her back
to her home in the city. The rally was hardly halfway through when
suicide bombers struck. Ms Bhutto somehow escaped unharmed,
but 136 people were killed and over 450 people seriously injured.
The attack caused a serious rift between the Musharraf government
and Ms Bhutto. The Musharraf government was roundly criticized
for the security lapse, yet Ms Bhutto remained undeterred. She
held rallies across the country, including in NWFP (now Khyber
Pakhtoonkhwa), and spoke against the militants everywhere she
went. She was the only politician in Pakistan who openly stood up
for the operation against Lal Masjid.
For the first (and last) time in Ms Bhutto’s political career, however,
she was denied the opportunity to focus on national politics in her
election campaign. All her addresses to the public were against the militants and Al-Qaeda. As a consequence militants followed her
throughout her political gatherings, but they found no opening to
strike until her arrival on December 27, 2007 in the garrison town of
Rawalpindi. There she was assassinated. Within few hours, Pakistan
found itself in total chaos. The entire country was in the hands of
agitators, with law-enforcement agencies nowhere to be found.
Dozens of trains were attacked in Ms Bhutto’s home province of
Sindh, while public and private property was destroyed all over the
country. The post-December 27, 2007 situation exposed, for the
first time, the weakness of Pakistan’s internal security. Al-Qaeda
had succeeded in creating a crisis situation in the urban centers
of Pakistan, designed to deter Pakistan from collaborating with
the United States in its designs against this revolutionary Islamic
force. However, Al-Qaeda too went through its moment of crisis,
which prevented it from taking full advantage of the situation. This
came with the sickness of Amir-e-Khuruj, Abdul Hameed, alias
Obaida al-Misri, who was suffering from hepatitis C. The deadly
disease had made him so weak that he could not capitalize on this
post-December 27 situation. Within a few days of Ms Bhutto’s
assassination, Abdul Hameed also died and Khalid Habib was
installed as the new Al-Qaeda head for Pakistan’s operations. He in
turn was killed a few months later in a CIA predator drone strike.
Between January 2008 and February 2008, suicide attacks in
Pakistan outnumbered the suicide attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But as there had been no coordination in the Al-Qaeda ranks
because of the unexpected death of al-Misri, this could not be trans-
lated into multiple strategic advantages. However, there had been
one important gain for Al-Qaeda: with Benazir Bhutto assassinated
just before the scheduled January 8, 2008 elections, the US plan of
reorganizing the secular and liberal political parties and Pakistan’s
security forces under one banner against Al-Qaeda had failed. This
had driven the United States, Pakistan’s army, and Musharraf into
a corner. The entire US roadmap for the region had gone askew. The elections were postponed, and although Benazir Bhutto’s assas-
sination had gained her party (PPP) a huge sympathy vote, and it emerged as the majority party in the February 18, 2008 elections,
in the eyes of the political pundits sitting in Western capitals, her
shocking death had destroyed Pakistan’s political equilibrium. Musharraf shed his uniform on November 27, 2007. The recon-
ciliation agreement between him and Ms Bhutto no longer existed (as one signatory, Ms Bhutto, was now dead). US Republican President
George Bush’s administration had been the chief guarantor, but Bush was on his way out and the new administration was shortly
to be ushered in. At that particular crossroads there was little room
for effective political decisions.
Earlier, under Saudi Arabian pressure, Musharraf had been forced
to allow the hostile Sharif brothers, Nawaz and Shahbaz, to return to
Pakistan. The Lal Masjid massacre and the sacking of the judiciary
on November 3, 2007 by Musharraf had left his staunchest ally,
PML-Q, standing on very shaky ground. Inevitably Nawaz Sharif’s
party, the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N), made more than expected inroads into parliament, and it now became impos-
sible to form a government without PML-N’s inclusion in a broad coalition government. This left Musharraf with problems. The new
army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, had as his first objective
restoring the army’s image among the masses. It had deteriorated
because of the armed forces’ repeated involvement in politics, and
this had been aggravated by the judicial crisis and the unpopular Lal
Masjid operation. In the prevailing circumstances the now retired
General Musharraf was a liability. The military began to distance
itself from politics, and issued a notification for the early withdrawal
of armed forces personnel from civilian posts. Kayani moved away
from Musharraf, who was still Pakistan’s president, and instructed
his military colleagues to do the same.
Musharraf, as president, was still the supreme commander of the
armed forces, and he tried to remove the COAS twice, by offering
the post to the chairman joint chiefs of the Staff Committee, General
Tariq Majeed. But Majeed refused as he saw this as a breach of
military discipline. He believed that a potential crisis would arise in
army circles if there were any such move, and as a professional soldier,
he was totally averse to this prospect. His failure to remove Kayani as
COAS meant that Musharraf’s position deteriorated further.
Pakistan’s politicians watched these developments closely, and
began to scramble for new positions. Musharraf’s main allies,
PML-Q and MQM, looked in other directions. Musharraf’s
supporters such as the JUI-F and the ANP switched their allegiance
to the emerging political alliance. Musharraf’s sworn enemies in
the PML-N then launched a campaign to drive him out of power.
The PPP, the party that had won the largest vote in the February
2008 elections, sought to win over Washington to Pakistan’s
changed military establishment. Pakistan’s new ambassador in
Washington, Professor Husain Haqqani, and the US ambassador in
Islamabad, Anne W. Patterson, moved to convey to Washington why
Musharraf’s removal was imperative. In August 2008, Musharraf barely avoided an impeachment motion compelling him to step
down from Pakistan’s presidency. In the weeks that followed Asif
Zardari was elected the new president of Pakistan, which was not
an option Washington had thought of, as Zardari had always been
disliked by Pakistan’s military establishment. Nevertheless, Zardari
became the head of state, and supreme commander of the Pakistani
armed forces by virtue of this position. Worse still as far as the army (and others) were concerned was that despite the stigma of corrup-
tion attached to him, Zardari as Pakistan’s president was entitled to manage all the US-sponsored economic development programs in
the federally administered tribal areas.
After his wife Benazir Bhutto’s death Zardari had become head
of the PPP, the governing partner of a coalition government ready
to fight against the terror war. In addition he had personal enmities
with the major opposition political parties, especially PML-N which
had earlier put him in jail and filed criminal charges against him.
Noted newspapers such as the New York Times and Washington
Post ran detailed stories of his alleged corruption during his wife’s
premierships. These raised alarm bells in most Western capitals.
With Pakistan’s political symmetry thus out of kilter, Al-Qaeda
emerged as the sole beneficiary.
The whole year from Ms Bhutto’s death to the resignation of
Musharraf provided space for the militants to act more aggressively.
After a brief backdown in 2007, the militants in Swat resurfaced at
the beginning of 2008. Swat’s theater of war was a perfect diversion
for Al-Qaeda and the Neo-Taliban’s regional ambitions. This was
to have Pakistan’s armed forces disengage from the Pakistan–
Afghanistan border areas, to leave NATO exposed on that front.
The Pakistan Army’s continuing operation in the Swat Valley could
not have served Al-Qaeda’s purpose better, and they successfully
regrouped in the Khyber Agency, Orakzai, and Dara Adam Khail to
besiege the former NWFP’s provincial capital, Peshawar. Meantime
Al-Qaeda went on with its reorganization in the tribal areas, with a
show of strength in Afghanistan, while penetrating Pakistan’s cities.
It then fashioned a parallel entity, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan
(TTP), to reinforce its positions in the natural fortresses of seven of
Pakistan’s tribal agencies.