While promoting terrorism abroad has been the trademark of Pakistan's military establishment, new skeletons are tumbling out of the ISI's cupboard. The “tell-all” book, Inside Al Qaeda and Taliban: Beyond bin Laden and 9/11 , written by journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, widely believed even within Pakistan to have been bumped off by the ISI, has been banned in Pakistan.

Shahzad made some startling revelations to an American television network, virtually hours before he was abducted. He revealed that even before the 9/11 terrorist strikes, there were formal agreements between the ISI, on the one hand, and the Taliban and Al Qaeda, on the other. Moreover, just after 9/11, the then Director-General of the ISI, Lieutenant Gen Mehmood Ahmed, assured both Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden in Kandahar that Pakistan would neither mount operations against them, nor would it arrest them.

Given these assurances, it is not surprising that Mullah Omar, Osama bin Laden and their supporters and armed cadres crossed the Durand Line and were given shelter in Pakistan. Some second-ranking Al Qaeda leaders were, however, targeted when they were suspected of involvement in attempts to assassinate Gen Musharraf in December 2003.

ISLAMISATION OF ARMY

Shahzad asserts that the “Pakistan army has always been closely allied with Islamist forces,” adding that mutinies from within the army's ranks were always possible in the event of major operations against Al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuaries.

While the Islamist propensities of significant sections of the Pakistan army establishment are well-known, what is now emerging is that support for Islamic extremism is also significantly prevalent in the Pakistan Air Force and Navy.

The recent attack on the Mehran Naval Base in Karachi, where US-supplied naval reconnaissance aircraft were destroyed, has revealed the extent to which radical Islamist elements have infiltrated the Pakistan Navy.

Even more widespread has been the infiltration of radical Islamist elements into the Pakistan Air Force, including the Chaklala Air Base near Rawalpindi, where transport aircraft given by the US are based. Airmen from this base were involved in an attempt to assassinate President Musharraf in 2003.

The malaise of Islamic radicalism has also spread to Pakistan's nuclear establishment. Dr A. Q. Khan, infamous for his rabid references to “Hindu treachery,” was a major player in moves to transfer nuclear weapons capabilities to Iran, Saudi Arabia and Libya. Bhutto himself described Pakistan's quest for nuclear weapons as his country's contribution to “Islamic Civilisation”.

These sentiments are shared by senior Pakistani nuclear scientists like Sultan Bashiruddin Mehmood, who, along with his colleague Abdul Majeed, was detained shortly after the terrorist strikes of 9/11 for helping the Al Qaeda to obtain nuclear and biological weapons capabilities.

Mehmood openly voiced support for the Taliban and publicly advocated transfer of nuclear weapons to the whole “Ummah” (Muslim Community worldwide). Two other Pakistani scientists, Suleiman Asad and Al Mukhtar, wanted for questioning about suspected links with Osama bin Laden, disappeared in Myanmar. Did they disappear into the territory of Pakistan's “all-weather friend” and partner in proliferation, China?

ZIA'S LEGACY

The roots of this radicalisation can be traced back to the days when the US and Western world backed Pakistani military dictator, General Zia ul Haq, to the hilt.

It was General Zia who ushered in a new era of Islamisation, bigotry and blasphemy laws targeting minorities, and nurtured radical, armed Islamic groups bent on waging jihad across the world. Officers recruited in his era are three-star Generals today, and the army is largely motivated by the ideology of the “Quranic Concept of War” articulated by his protégé Brigadier (later Major General) S.K. Malik.

Describing anyone who stands in the way of jihad as an “aggressor”, Malik held that “the aggressor is always met and destroyed in his own country”. Malik also had a unique view of the concept of “terror”.

He averred: “Terror struck into the heart of the enemy is not only a means. It is an end in itself. Once a condition of terror into the opponent's heart is obtained, hardly anything is left to be achieved. Terror is not a means of imposing a decision upon the enemy, it is the decision we wish to impose on him. It is a point where the means and end merge.”

This is precisely what was sought to be “imposed” on the ill-fated people killed in the Victoria Terminus in Mumbai on 26/11.

POLICY OF APPEASEMENT

Despite evidence that the ISI recently passed on operational intelligence received from the CIA to terrorist groups, both the US and the UK are making conscious efforts to gloss over the ISI-terrorist nexus.

The greatest threat to internal security in the UK comes from nationals of Pakistani origin, motivated and trained in terrorist safe havens in Pakistan. The UK seeks to appease Pakistan, to facilitate an early withdrawal from Afghanistan and secure ISI cooperation for internal security. The Americans seem to believe that Pakistan has to be kept in good humour, at least for the present, to achieve larger strategic objectives.

India should shed illusions that the Pakistan military establishment can be persuaded to discard the use of terrorism as an instrument of State policy, by mere sweet words and “composite dialogue”.

(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan. blfeedback@thehindu.co.in )

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