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EDITORIAL: Pantomime about Al Zawahiri

The Foreign Office has “protested” to the US ambassador in Islamabad, saying that an air attack from Afghanistan “apparently” targeting the Al Qaeda number two Aiman Al Zawahiri had killed 18 innocent Pakistanis in the Bajaur Agency in Pakistan. A Foreign Office statement later did not directly accuse the US forces of launching the missiles that hit the village. “According to preliminary investigations, there was foreign presence in the area and that [village] in all probability was targeted from across the border in Afghanistan”.

American and Pakistani “officials” are reported as saying on the NBC news that US predator drones fired as many as 10 missiles at the village. And ABC quoted Pakistani military sources as saying that “Al Zawahiri could have been among the five top Al Qaeda officials believed killed”. Then “two senior Pakistani officials” are supposed to have said that “the CIA had acted on incorrect information and Al Zawahiri was not at the site of the attack in the village of Damadola” where the house of the local “host” was bombed. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad, in greatly feigned anger, told TV networks that “we will not let such incidents recur”.

If the “intelligence” was faulty, whose intelligence was it? A Pakistani intelligence official is supposed to have said that the remains of some bodies had “quickly been removed” from Damadola after the strike and DNA tests were being conducted, “but would not say by whom”. As if to make sure that Washington was not held singly responsible for the death of 18 people, the Washington Post quoted an unnamed source as saying: “This would not have happened without Pakistani involvement”. In fact, the WP report said that Pakistan was “heavily involved” in the operation, which was carried out “by the CIA officers in Pakistan and Pakistani officials”.

What the Musharraf government faces is the death of 18, mostly women and children. It also faces the fallout of the intelligence botch-up — not the first when it comes to the Pakistani and American snoops — in the shape of a 5,000 strong mob that destroyed the office of an NGO in Khaar, the administrative centre of Bajaur. More agitation is planned in the rest of the country by the MMA who regards the Tribal Areas as its constituency. Already in another tribal agency, North Waziristan, the battle with the local warlords is going on and the score is alarmingly tilted in favour of the terrorists, considering that the people the state kills invariably include innocent women and children.

There is reason enough to believe that it was a “joint US-Pak operation” with the Pakistani side supplying some insider information. There are reports that Al Zawahiri was indeed invited by a local supporter. He could have even arrived and then left before the operation began as the incidence of “counter-intelligence” in the area cannot be ruled out. That an air-strike was preferred to a land-based covert operation points to the fact that the ground in Bajaur, as in the rest of the region, was not favourable to it. So far, air-strikes have been rarely successful — barring examples where single individuals were targeted when using a cell-phone. If the air operation is preferred it flies in the face of evidence in the past — unless of course the attraction of $25 million on the head Al Zawahiri lures greedy operatives to paint a convincing picture of how it can be done without “collateral” damage.

More than half of Pakistan is outside the ken, so to speak, of our intelligence agencies. The rumour that Al Zawahiri had married into our Mohmand tribe near the Bajaur Agency might actually have turned out to be true, and the “agencies” could have then followed the trail of Al Zawahiri’s earlier visits to meet his wife and children in the area. Over-excited by the “new information”, they could have recommended an air strike instead of a ground-based operation. Bits of information trickling out of Khaar say that foreigners were indeed invited to the house of a pro-Al Qaeda mullah who later buried the dead foreigners to prevent the authorities from taking the bodies. That, it is said, makes the total dead 29 rather than 18.

We have come to the point where “security” is apparently held to be incompatible with “politics”. The government is bogged down in Waziristan, Dera Bugti and Kohlu, and there is a growing threat from the grand opposition of the country of uniting and marching against Islamabad. If the prime minister and the president thought they could rely on Punjab, they should take another look at the growing opposition to the image the government is projecting of itself. *

SECOND EDITORIAL: Mr Desai got it wrong!

Launching their book Divided by Democracy in Lahore on Saturday, Pakistan’s Aitzaz Ahsan and India’s Meghnad Desai dwelt on the reasons behind the survival of democracy in India and its frequent demise in Pakistan. The two commented on their own countries without treading the thin ice of criticism of each other. The audience was favourably inclined to admiring India’s example of uninterrupted democracy and were prepared to take in their stride the incidents of Babri Masjid and communal riots of Gujarat that did not cover India’s democracy and its institutions with glory - until Mr Desai lost his cool and decided to ‘attack’ Pakistan.

Provoked by a reference from the audience to Indian atrocities in Kashmir, Mr Desai said Pakistan had treated Azad Kashmir no better than India’s Held Kashmir. In fact, he accused Pakistan of not developing the infrastructure of Azad Kashmir. This became apparent, he said, during the October earthquake when the stricken population could not be rescued and provided relief because there were no roads. But the truth is that Azad Kashmir had more infrastructure than the rest of Pakistan. Without being hypercritical of Mr Desai, let us say that the earthquake destroyed one of the best-laid road networks in the country; and an abnormally high number of children died because most of them were at school, Azad Kashmir having the best educational infrastructure in Pakistan. *

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