This article was received three days ago. We had to change its title when news agencies announced what the article seemed to predict.
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INCREASING TERRORISM INTENSIFIES CASE FOR EMERGENCY IN PAKISTAN
As Pakistani general elections draw nearer, the internal situation in the strife-torn country is worsening by the hour. Described as the most dangerous spot in the world by Newsweek, it suffered the most horrendous terrorist strike on October18– killing more than 140 and injuring over 500 –marring the colourful homecoming of Pakistan’s largest political party’s leader—Ms Benazir Bhutto—who was welcomed by no less than 2.5 million people (according to BBC correspondent present in the cavalcade) that had descended upon Karachi from all over the country to receive her ending her eight-year old self-exile.
Despite government’s claims, its intensive military and security operations against terrorists, the militants have become all the more daring and are striking at will and at targets of their choosing. While their larger agenda is Talibanistation of the entire country and imposition of Sharia, their immediate target is Pakistan’s security and intelligence apparatus to instil desperation in them on their gross failure to counter the terrorists. Besides, their vigilantes carry on scotch-earth raids in settled areas destroying video-shops, bill-boards displaying female models, barber shops to stop them from shaving men to let them grow beards, beauty parlours, massage houses and threatening women to burn their faces with acid if they did not adopt hijab as a way of life. Clandestine distilleries have been destroyed and even those alcohol shops doing business with foreigners under government licence are not spared.
• SUICIDE BOMBING NEAR ARMY HOUSE—RED MOSQUE BACKLASH?
The most alarming development is that the militants are gradually expanding their activities and descending from their mountain operational locations into settled areas and plains, carrying out raids and suicide bombings at government offices, military convoys, cantonments, video-shops, tv cable channels, local radio stations etc. Their latest attack was on October 30 in the garrison town of Rawalpindi when suicide bombers blew themselves near the Army House that bunkers under loads of concrete, Pakistan’s President-cum-army chief General Pervez Musharraf’s residence.
The two suicide bombers blew themselves killing and injuring scores in a bus and passers by when they realised that cops at the police security check post in the area had spotted them. No damage, however, was done to Army House. Investigators so far have not claimed that this attempt was made specifically at the Army House but it is described by them as a most serious breach of presidential security cordoning off the entire locality and its vicinity. Investigators who want to remain anonymous claim that the incident had links with the military operation on the Red Mosque. “It could be a long awaited backlash aiming to strike at the President”, the source said.
However, well-informed sources in the corridors of power claim that at the time of writing this report, President Pervez Musharraf was busy in consulting with his military, civilian and intelligence colleagues the possibilities of imposing state of emergency in view of an uncontrollable law and order situation in the country.
Sources maintain the emergency proposal is being fully backed by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, the PML-Q leadership including Chouhdry Shujaat Hussain, ex-President Farooq Laghari. Federal Minister Ejazul Haq, Railway Minister Shaikh Rashid, Law Minister Dr Sher Afghan and the three provincial chief ministers. It may be mentioned that they had been pressurising General Musharraf to impose emergency from the time of Ms Bhutto’s decision to return home so that the ruling party could wriggle out of facing imminent defeat in the elections. It needs to be recalled that Farooq Laghari—close to President Musharraf—had urged upon him to postpone elections for one year immediately after suicide bomb attacks on Ms Bhutto’s homecoming cavalcade. He had also asked for institution of a national government.
• ERUPTION OF MILITANTS IN SWAT
While South and North Waziristan have almost become a Talibanised terrory where Talib’s Islamic writ has become the order of the day, these militants have now spread their lethal tentacles to until recently peaceful and serene Swat Valley. In the recent incidents it is roughly estimated that more than 150 army/security/intelligence personnel have been done to death by the militants while themselves losing several hundred. In their captivity are more than 200 army personnel who had been waylaid last month by the militants with huge supplies of ration and ammunition for the Pakistani troops embattling in their area.
The latest area for a bid to be taken over by the militants is Swat where almost daily ten to fifteen security personnel are being killed by the militants. Scores of them have been butchered and beheaded. Their bodies are lying in the open to tell Pak government supporters the ill-fate awaiting them for betraying the militant’s jihadi cause.
• EXODUS BY PEOPLE TO SAFER LOCATIONS
The deterioration in the situation in Swat has compelled otherwise well-settled and peace-loving people leave their hearths and homes for safer places amid a constant barrage of crossfire between security forces and militants in areas around Mingora. Burqa-clad women dragging their their children are seen crossing through the icy cold waters of the Swat river which serves as a divide between the security forces holding positions on elevated grounds and the equally entrenched and heavily armed militants on the other side aiming their rockets at the perched troops.
Militants acknowledge that almost 60 per cent residents of Imam Dehri, the headquarters of the rebel Talib leader Maulana Fazlullah, have left their homes for safer sanctuaries while mostly men-folk have stayed back to salvage their belongings. The reason for the exodus given by Muslim Khan, spokesman for the Taliban is the indiscriminate bombing and shelling by Pakistan army using American gunship helicopters. Similar reports of fleeing people are being received from the embattled Matta and Kabal areas. Although local district administration official does not have any idea of how many people had been uprooted due to violence and fear of further escalation of fighting in Pakistan’s most popular tourist resort, the figure could run into thousands running away to save their lives. Quite a large number of them have packed their homes following announcements on loudspeakers by the local authorities asking the residents of Kot, Maglawar and Charbagh to vacate their homes and move to safe places, resulting in a large number of women and children scurrying through fields and orchards. The population of the three villages is said to be between 20,000 and 25,000. Exact figure of those who have left is not known yet but many of the villages look deserted and haunted atmosphere seething with the smell of gun-powder.
Maulana Mohammad Alam of the defunct Tehrik Nifaz-i-Shariat Muhammadi (TNSM) who has convened his own ‘peace jirga’ at Bagh Dheri in Matta has, in the meanwhile, warned the government of suicide bombings if the military was not pulled out of the area and Sharia was not enforced. Militants’ spokesman Muslim Khan has also demanded enforcement of the 1991 Sharia Regulation and release of defunct TNSM leader Maulana Sufi Mohammad. Incidentally, Sufi Mohammad, who had led thousands of followers for ‘jihad’ in Afghanistan against the US invasion, has been behind bars since November 2001 and his son-in-law, Maulana Fazlullah, known for his preaching on self-operated FM radio—popularly known as “Maulana Radio”, leads the organisation in Swat.
• TENUOUS CEASEFIRE CRACKING UP
Although late Monday the pro-government tribal authorities announced a ceasefire but nobody knows how long it can sustain as there are already signs of its cracking up. A militants’ spokesman told a journalist on phone that it was up to the government to decide whether to continue with the ceasefire and resolve the issues through talks or fight it out. “We are ready for both”.
While Pakistan army was reluctant to retrieve the bodies of its soldiers, the militants had retrieved the bodies of their two comrades killed in two days of violence and buried them. The government has claimed that the security forces killed 50 to 60 militants. Muslim Khan claimed that the militants wanted to hand over the bodies of over 20 security personnel to the government as part of the ceasefire agreement. But, he alleged, the security forces on the pretext of collecting the bodies of their men had sent in 16 truckloads of soldiers. “They wanted to take away the bodies by force and that’s something we will not allow. We are willing to hand over the bodies of their men, even carry them across the river.”
Journalists who visited the embattled zone spoke of between 20 and 25 bodies of soldiers lying around. Eight of them had been beheaded in what is described as trade-mark butchery of Al-Qaeda. In the meanwhile tension is heating
Tension is reportedly mounting and fears of another round of fighting arose with the failure of the talks over the handing over of the bodies. The militants said they would hand over the bodies of the security personnel killed last week after their 11 comrades captured by the authorities were handed over to them.
• GOVERNOR ORAKZAI SEES FOREIGN HAND: IS KABUL INVOLVED IN IT?
Strangely enough instead of accepting failure of the government to handle the situation, NWFP Governor—Lt General ® Ali Muhammad Jan Orakzai sees foreign hand in the Swat trouble. Not only that, he has denied that Taliban operatives from Waziristan had something to do with the trouble in Swat. He, however, has not named any foreigners though he indicated that the trouble in Swat had its links in Kabul. While he claims he is trying to restore peace through talks with militants, he has not ruled out military operation as the final option as if there is no military involved in the current operation.
• KABUL DENIES INVOLVEMENT
Reacting to obvious insinuations by Pakistan, President Hamid Karzai’s administration has described allegations of its involvement in the unrest in Waziristan and Swat as “absurd”. It claimed that, it would not allow Afghan soil be used for anti-Pakistan activities. “We will not allow anyone to use our soil against Pakistan,” President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman Humayun Hamidzada made it public, a day after the NWFP caretaker chief minister hinted at the possible involvement of India or Afghanistan in terrorist activities in the Swat region.
“Using terrorism as a foreign policy tool will serve nobody’s interests; such a practice is bound to backfire,” Hamidzada said. Terrorists and fundamentalists, he added, posed a common threat to the two neighbouring countries. “Therefore, we are willing to continue working with our Pakistani friends to fight terrorism,” he said. He said the government and people of Afghanistan felt sorry for the incidents of terrorism in Pakistan. Hamidzada also referred to Karzai’s recent interview in which the Afghan president had regretted bomb attacks in Pakistan.