Foreign Policy In Focus

Not everyone found the reporting of the late Pakistani investigative journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad one hundred percent credible. But that may have just been a function of how incredulous they were at the extent to which he was able to insinuate himself with al Qaeda and the Taliban.

One of his most impressive contacts was long-time militant Ilyas Kashmiri, who fought in the Kashmir until President Musharraf wound down fighting there. Kashmiri then moved to Pakistan's tribal areas and turned on the state, once trying to assassinate Musharraf and later named as a mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

In a thought-provoking -- to put it mildly -- article on Shahzad's murder for the New Yorker, Dexter Filkins writes: "Muhammad Faizan, Shahzad's colleague, said, 'The militants used to call him, not the other way around."

Some background by Filkins:

Bruce Riedel, the former C.I.A. officer, said, "After the Abbottabad raid, the Pakistanis were under enormous pressure to show that they were serious about Al Qaeda. 

Four days after Shahzad's body was found,

… a C.I.A. officer, operating a pilotless drone, fired a missile at a group of men who had gathered in an orchard … in South Waziristan. … Among the dead was Ilyas Kashmiri. Given the brief time that passed between Shahzad's death and Kashmiri's, a question inevitably arose: Did the Americans find Kashmiri on their own? Or did they benefit from information obtained by the I.S.I. during its detention of Shahzad?

… If the C.I.A. killed Kashmiri using information extracted from Shahzad, it would not be the first time that the agency had made use of a brutal interrogation. … The evidence is fragmentary, but it is not difficult to imagine a scenario in which Pakistani intelligence agents gave the C.I.A. at least some of the information that pinpointed Kashmiri. Likewise, it seems possible that at least some of that information may have come from Shahzad, either during his lethal interrogation or from data taken from his cell phone.

If the I.S.I. supplied the C.I.A. with the whereabouts of Kashmiri, it probably didn't reveal to the C.I.A. where it obtained that information. Nevertheless, the C.I.A. should have been aware, as the I.S.I. was, that Shahzad was the go-to guy on Kashmiri. After all, as Filkins also reports, British intelligence officers asked Shahzad to help them contact Taliban leaders (he declined).

If this scenario is true, writes Filkins

… Shahzad's death would be not just a terrible example of Pakistani state brutality; it would be a terrible example of the collateral damage sustained in America's war on terror. 

Shahzad's reporting was one of the best and most dependable conduits to al Qaeda and the Taliban available to the United States. If the C.I.A. accepted the fruits of their interrogation of Shahzad from the I.S.I. for the sake of killing just one terrorist leader, thus did it signal that it condoned the I.S.I. shutting down the Shahzad pipeline for good. Worse, the C.I.A. is encouraging the I.S.I.'s use of Pakistani journalists as disposable human GPS units.

"The bloodbath in Karachi continues," blogs Murtaza Haider at Pakistan's Dawn.

The death toll in the last week alone has reached over 100. … in Pakistan’s largest city. The citizens appear helpless, the government looks impotent, and the future looks grimmer by the day. While the resurgence of violence in Karachi is a recent phenomenon, the rest of Pakistan had been engulfed in senseless violence since 2003. No fewer than 36,000 Pakistanis have died in violent deaths in the past eight years, making Pakistan the hotbed of religious, political, and ethnic violence.

Haider links to this mind-numbing 2011 timeline of militant activity in Pakistan, with all the killing that implies. What's the answer? In a subsequent blog post at Dawn, Ahmad Ali Khalid writes:

Today as we look at the tragic situation in Karachi an attitude has come to the fore. … ‘We need a strong man’ is a common plea by ordinary Pakistanis.

Nor are they kidding around.

To sort out the bloodbath in Karachi some would have us believe that more spilling of blood is necessary by calling in the Army. A popular call has been one of mass execution of politicians [yikes! – RW] by the Army and then a messianic ushering in of a glorious leader who can quash any sort of dissent.

Khalid understands "the call for a ‘strongman’ – it is only natural when jungle law is the norm in a city like Karachi." But

The ‘strongman syndrome’ is an insidious threat to Pakistan’s already fragile if not dysfunctional quasi democratic system. It is what paves the way for autocrats and ensures their survival. The ‘strongman syndrome’ is the glue for the social contract between a dictator and his peoples – it is a deadly rot that crushes the democratic spirit.

Khalid gets off a good one with that last line. Then he concludes that Karachi’s 

… deliverance will only come about with more democracy and more dialogue – it will only come about when political parties are held to account and the rule of law established.

Nevertheless, there's no end in sight to the violence. Hamza Ameer reports at Asia Times Online:

Al-Qaeda-linked 313 Brigade has appointed a new chief, Shah Sahib, following the death of its commander Ilyas Kashmiri in a United States-operated drone attack in the South Waziristan tribal area of Pakistan in June. 

And he's wasting no time picking up where Kashmiri left off.

… Sahib, a well-known Taliban commander, has been selected to initiate major alliances and finalize consultations ahead of Eid – the end of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan  – to launch fresh assaults against the Pakistan security forces. … a major assault is now expected to be launched immediately after Eid. … As Pakistan reels from floods, political paralysis, unrest in the major city port of Karachi and sectarian violence in Balochistan province, militants are preparing to escalate their activities on both sides of the border. 

Kabul, Afghanistan-American and allied forces in Afghanistan are strengthening a layered defense along the border with Pakistan to seize Haqqani network militants as they try to make their way to Kabul to carry out spectacular attacks, according to senior military officers.

-- New York Times, 8/1/11 

Okay, New York Times, time for a little geography lesson, with a few bits of history thrown in.

Let’s start with that old Rand McNally three-dimensional map of the world that formerly graced the walls of grammar schools across the country (I happen to have one in my closet). It has low spots to demonstrate deep-sea trenches and bumps for mountain ranges. Among the biggest set of bumps are the Hindu Kush (the western extension of the Himalayas) that corresponds to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The highest of those bumps is Mt. Noshaq (24,580 ft).

This is also a very long border, 1,510 miles more or less (more on that later). Think of the distance between Portland, ME and Miami, FL, New York City and Dallas/Fort Worth, or London and Moscow. It is mostly really big bumps (except some lower ones on the western edge of the border), so it is not only long, it contains some of the most formidable terrain on the planet. 

In fact the “official” border is marked from Sikaram Peak to Laman Peak. It is always a bad idea to fight a war where you measure the battlefield by the distance between peaks. If there are general rules of war, certainly one of them is: “Do not fight in places that the Rand McNally three-dimensional map puts lots of bumps.” 

This is also not a border, in the normal sense of word, with the striped guardhouses and border checks. For one thing, the Afghans and the Pakistanis had nothing to do with establishing it. That was done—with considerable mischief in mind—in 1893 by Sir Mortimer Durand, then England’s lead colonial officer in India (Pakistan did not yet exist).

His plan was to split up the Pashtuns—who have populated the region since at least the fifth century BC—so that they would not constitute a majority in either region. Pashtuns make up about 42 percent of Afghanistan and about 15 percent of Pakistan. The Pashtuns have never recognized the Durand Line, and neither has the government in Kabul. This makes Pakistan nervous, because aside from India, one of the things Islamabad fears most is ethnic dismemberment: the establishment of an independent Pashtunistan.

Pashtuns are among the most hospitable people in the world, but they don’t like being invaded or occupied, which no one has successfully managed to do, although many have tried. A 19^th century British general remarked that when one gets ready to invade the area, the first thing to do is plan a line of retreat, the inevitable course followed by all militaries.

So now, let’s look at “layered defense along the border,” as well as American pressure on the Pakistani military “to cleanse their border of militants.”

First, from the Pashtuns’ point of view, Pakistan’s military is just as much a foreign intruder as were the Greeks, Buddhists, Mongols, Muslims, and British, and Islamabad’s army would have just about the same level of success as all those other invaders. Second, any attempt to “cleanse” the border would stir up major hostilities among the tribes and clans in both countries and feed Pashtun nationalism, which is exactly what Islamabad does not want to do.

But even if Pakistan was to decide to actually try to “cleanse” the border, Islamabad has neither the manpower nor the money to do so (even if it were possible, which history argues it is not). Pakistan has some 1.4 million men under arms, but only a little over 600,000 of those are regular troops. The rest are reserves or border police and local paramilitaries. And most of those troops have to be kept on the border with India, with which Pakistan has fought three wars.

Pakistan’s military is currently engaged both in fighting its own domestic Taliban in South Waziristan and maintaining troops in North Waziristan, but the North West Frontier and Federally Administered Tribal Areas—the part of the world we are talking about—are vast tracts of terrain, and “pacifying” them is quite beyond the capabilities of any army in the world, let alone Pakistan’s.

The situation is not much different on the Afghan side of the border. The combined NATO forces are about 132,000, of which 100,000 are Americans (although 4,000 are headed home in the next few months). However, with the exception of the British, Canadians and Australians, most of the allied troops are not involved in active combat, so the actual number of troops available is closer 110,000. And not all of those troops fight. Some drive trucks, some handle supplies and logistics, some man bases. The final number of fighters? Maybe 60,000.

The Afghan Army is somewhere between 150,000 and 171,000—the exact number is hard to pin down because so many desert within the first few months—of which only several thousand—two brigades— are capable of fighting on their own. There are also 134,000 Afghan police, but they don’t fight. In fact, according to most Afghans, they mostly extort.

You can’t put all those U.S., allied, and Afghan troops on the Pakistan border, particularly since the Taliban have spread their attacks to formally “pacified” areas of the country, in the north, east and west. And. in any case, the Afghan Army is still training (although it is curious that while the Taliban soldiers receive virtually no training, they are able to hold their own in battle with the most sophisticated and well-trained military force in the world).

For arguments sake, let’s say you could put a mix of 40,000 troops on the border, a border of massive mountains and deep valleys, a border filled with passes, trade routes and goat trails, a border that stretches 1,510 miles. With 20,000 troops, the British Army could not seal the 224-mile border between southern and Northern Ireland.

Since the Haqqanis are Pashtun, they can cross this border virtually anyplace, and, as the last few weeks have illustrated, the Taliban and their allies can strike almost anywhere. The problem with all this nonsense about “thickening the Afghan border” is not the “senior military officials”— generals lie, it’s part of their job description—but that the New York Times would print this blather.

It is not only silly, it feeds dangerous illusions at a time when clear thinking is called for. As Gareth Porter of IPS News reports, “The Taliban leadership is ready to negotiate peace with the United States right now if Washington indicates its willingness to provide a timetable for a complete withdrawal.” According to Porter, the Taliban are willing to break any ties with al-Qaeda and won’t even demand a withdrawal date. The only thing they will insist upon are no U.S. bases.

So why isn’t the Times reporting this breakthrough instead of peddling foolishness?

More of Conn Hallinan's work can be found at Dispatches From the Edge.

India has long maintained the upper hand in lobbying for a pro-India unification with Kashmir in Washington. Supporters of the Indian position often wield significant clout by making substantial campaign contributions to the members of Congress. On the other hand, Pakistan seems far behind in pushing for a pro-Pakistan stance in the U.S. capital, which is often complicated by the bumps in U.S.-Pakistan relations in recent years. However, the recent discovery of Pakistan’s decades-old secret efforts in funneling money from the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) to tilt policy in the U.S. Congress and the White House provides a twist to the story.

The executive director of the Washington-based nonprofit group Kashmiri American Council (KAC), Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, together with his aide Zaheer Ahmad who mainly works in Pakistan, has been receiving funding from ISI to “buy” the hearts of U.S. Congress members in the form of campaign contributions to promote the cause of self-determination for Kashmir—a region over which both India and Pakistan claim sovereignty. The grand strategy of the KAC is to offset the Indian lobby by targeting members of Congress who work on foreign affairs with private briefings and events that would draw media attention.

According to an FBI estimate, the group received up to $700,000 per year from the Pakistani government. Prosecutors said that Ahmad recruited people to act as straw donors to the KAC when the money was actually from the Pakistani government. Federal Election Commission records indicate that under Fai’s leadership, at least $30,000 has been donated to campaigns and political parties in the United States, including a $250 donation to Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008.

The biggest individual beneficiary is Indiana Congressman Dan Burton, who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and reportedly received about $10,000 since 1997. Burton, founder of the House Kashmiri caucus, has traveled to Kashmir on multiple trips sponsored by the KAC. He is an outspoken advocate for the Kashmir issue and has appealed to Presidents Clinton and Obama to get more involved in attempting to mediate a settlement between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. In 2003, because of his overly staunch pro-Pakistan stance, Burton could not win the chairmanship of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s subcommittee on South Asia.

According to FBI, Fai coordinated the KAC’s activities with ISI handlers and often communicated in coded emails.

“You are aware that we have been working together for the cause for over a decade now,” wrote Fai in an email to a senior ISI official in 1995. “All these years, I have closely worked with you and others who came before you. It has taken us much time, energy, dedication, strategy and planning to achieve our common cause.”

The Justice Department also revealed that the Pakistani government had been approving speakers and giving Fai talking points to highlight at the annual Kashmir Peace Conference at the Congress, which Fai is best known for organizing. Fai was arrested Tuesday under charges of being an unregistered agent of a foreign government and faces up to five years in prison if convicted. The Obama administration has decided to return the $250 to the KAC, and Burton will transfer the donations he received from the KAC to the Boy Scouts of America.

This incident complicates the already strained U.S.-Pakistan relationship in the wake of the U.S. unilateral raid on Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and the Obama administration’s declaration of a massive reduction in aid payments to Islamabad. The marriage between the U.S. and Pakistan is indeed a bad one, and it is getting worse. However, divorce is not an option. Despite a series of recent crises, Washington and Islamabad still need each other in the struggle against the Taliban insurgency in Pakistan. In the meantime, the United States cannot achieve success in Afghanistan without Pakistan’s help. The lobbying scandal is an embarrassing affair, but the two sides must now work even harder to save the marriage.

Shiran Shen is an intern at Foreign Policy in Focus.

India has always been considered a soft state and it is time we shed this image.

Writing at Truthout, J. Sri Raman is quoting senior BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party --sort of India's Likkud)  leader Yashwant Sinha, who also says (emphasis added), "India should reserve the right of surgical strikes and hot pursuit against Pakistan irrespective of the consequences."

Sinha is speaking about the U.S. attack on the bin Laden compound. (Never mind the consequences, such as, shortly afterwards, the twin bomb attacks  on the Frontier Constabulary in Shabqadar, Charsadda, Pakistan that killed 80.) As Raman writes:

One of the very first questions raised in India by the [SEAL attack] was whether this was or was not an example for this country to emulate. "Yes," said India's extreme right and the security "experts" that give its rhetoric some respectability. They continue their campaign for a similar operation or series of operations from New Delhi to eliminate sources of anti-India terrorism seen to be harbored on Pakistani soil.

Of course

The demand is not entirely new.  [For example, the] question that the Bush-ordered aggression on Iraq . . . provoked was: should not India, too, support "pre-emptive" strikes against terrorist targets in Pakistan and the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir?

Raman also cites

. . . a pro-covert-action propagandist as saying, "If a Pakistan-based terrorist group carries out strikes against civilians in Mumbai ... India must be able to assassinate its leaders and their financiers."

For his part, Raman adds

Don't the words sound eerily like someone speaking from the White House in early May?

But no one throws down the gauntlet with as much of a vengeance as Indian national security advisor Bharat Karnad, who Raman quotes.

Does the ... government, encouraged by the successful action to finish off Osama, have the guts, gumption, but mostly the will, to rethink its ... attitude, when it comes to doing what any self-respecting country would do when under terrorist threat - bump off those responsible in a major way for terrorist strikes within India?

After a grievous wound like the Mumbai attack, India would be better advised to concentrate more on making sure it never happens again than worrying about vengeance. Especially because, to terrorists, punishment is of zero value as a deterrent.

Meanwhile, as India pumps up the volume on calls for revenge and as the TTP (Pakistan's Tehrik-i-Taliban) demonstrate more stealth and skill in its  attacks within Pakistan, what's to stop Pakistan from claiming that India is responsible?