Editorial by the writer, published in The News, Nov 1, 2006


Into the maelstrom


You’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t -- this pretty much sums up the position the Pakistan government finds itself in following the attack on a madressah in Bajaur agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas early on Monday morning. Over 80 people died in the attack -- the government saying that they were all "miscreants" a euphemism for militants while the locals and the MMA have claimed that they were all madressah students, most of them between the ages of 15 and 25. The government insists that the madressah was being used as a military training camp and this may well be corroborated by reports, quoting locals, that the madressah was run by the pro-Taliban Tehrik Nifaz-e-Shariat Muhammadi (TNSM) which in the past had sent thousands of volunteers to fight US forces in Afghanistan. It also needs to be considered that Bajaur agency lies opposite Afghanistan’s Kunar province, one of the possible hideouts of top Al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden as well as Ayman Al-Zawahiri. Besides, the province and Bajaur itself is known to have links to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who, according to the views of some experts, may be operating in tandem with Taliban fighters. At least one newspaper report quoted local residents as admitting that the madressah may well have been a meeting place for militants fighting NATO forces in neighbouring Kunar province, across the international border.

Of course the manner of the raid and the conflicting eyewitness accounts, the high death toll (the highest since 9/11 of any anti-militant operation carried out by the government) and not to mention reports by at least two leading US news networks that a US drone may have been involved in the missile attack creates for a very difficult situation for Islamabad. But any US involvement was swiftly denied by the Pentagon though the ISPR director-general who told a foreign wire service that there may have been "intelligence sharing". He also said that the owner of the madressah had been warned to refrain from carrying out militant activities but had chosen to ignore all such warnings. Also, the manner and intensity of the raid would make one think that there perhaps was intelligence which led the government to believe that there may have been a high-value target at the madressah -- sort of similar to an air strike in Bajaur earlier this year, whose target was supposed to be none other than Ayman Al-Zawahiri. On this, Pakistani officials have so far been reticent in their comments to the Pakistani media. However, on Tuesday, the Washington Post carried a story which quoted Pakistani officials as saying that the missile attack was launched after US intelligence reports that senior Al Qaeda figures were hiding there. That would perhaps be the only plausible justification from the government’s point of view for bombing a whole building outright since ordinary militants could have been arrested and prosecuted.

The timing of the raid is intriguing as well because the head of the madressah who was killed in the attack -- a TNSM leader -- was said to be preparing to sign a peace deal with the government, along the lines signed recently in South Waziristan. In fact, nine TNSM activists, according to reports, had recently been released by the government as preparation for the deal. Since its inception, the agreement with South Waziristan’s tribals has been under close international scrutiny. On Monday, a US congressional report said that Taliban activities along the Afghan-Pakistan border had increased in the two months since the South Waziristan deal. "Seven weeks after the deal was struck, the rate of Taliban activities in neighbouring Afghanistan appears much increased and some reports say the militants are failing to uphold their commitments," it said. Clearly, a similar deal in Bajaur would not have gone down too well in Washington or even Kabul. So what should the government do now? For starters, it should understand the consequences of its actions, especially given the very high death toll and the region’s traditional anti-western hostility. Also, it should not be willing to ’sacrifice’, if that is indeed the case, the lives of dozens to target a handful of senior Al Qaeda leaders. One needs to question the tactics of blowing up a whole building as happened on Monday; couldn’t the "miscreants" have been arrested instead? On one hand the government has to face the pressure to do more from its allies in the war against terror and on the other hand it has to face seething discontent at home when such attacks are conducted. It’s not exactly in a very enviable position. But one thing is for sure: extremism, militancy and support for jihadi outfits have to be eliminated and for that the government doesn’t need any ’dictation’ from the US or any other country because this is very much in our own national interest.