Speaking the truth

Moazzam Husain

The view was panoramic from atop Peochar from where the operational commander of the Special Forces contingent informed a private TV channel that ‘the militants’ leadership had fled by the time we got here’.

He moved on to speculate on the sources of arms and funds for the Swat Taliban alluding to a ‘foreign hand’. Within hours, rightwing blogs and discussion groups on the Internet were ablaze with activity. ‘See we told you, it was the Indians’. We finally have ‘proof’. Stop the operation … stop fighting America’s war, the noises came.

I tread with caution here before jumping to any conclusions. The guns are of Russian, American and Indian origin we are told. This is one data point. The source of funds is a question mark and thereby potentially another data point. Now let’s consider a few more and then see if we can join the dots.

There is an international arms bazaar and some enterprising regional arms dealers. A variety of weapons are available in this region at a price. Moreover, theUS ticket out of Afghanistan is a well-equipped, disciplined Afghan National Army (ANA) — becoming an effective counter-insurgency force before 2020. For now, the force has a high rate of dropout and desertion. Its arms inventory has Soviet bloc weapons. New recruits, when issued American arms, often choose to sell them after dropping out. Some soldiers desert to the Taliban who offer $300 per month as against $70 in the ANA.

Consider also that the cache of weapons recovered from Lal Masjid was stolen from inside the Aabpara police station in the heart of our capital. It’s not just weapons that Nato loses in Afghanistan, sometimes its prisoners escape too. One of these was Abu Yahya al Libbi who on the night of July 10, 2005 along with three others escaped from the interim detention facility at the Bagram airbase. Libbi was one of the hundreds captured and interrogated by the Pakistani security establishment before being handed over to the Americans.

Al Qaeda today is a multinational organisation. It often does business under different brand names. Based on interrogation of suspects, the Egyptian interior ministry believes that the Feb 22 bombing in Khan el Khalili in Cairo was the work of an Al Qaeda cell masquerading as the Palestinian Islamic Army. The cell arranged paramilitary training in Gaza sending recruits there via tunnels under the border.

According to Al Ahram, Egypt’s leading independent daily, the arrested suspects in the Khan el Khalili bombing include a French woman of Albanian origin, a British national of Egyptian descent, two Palestinians, a Belgian national of Tunisian descent and two Egyptians — multinational par excellence.

Al Qaeda’s methods are modern. The organisation today operates in ‘network mode’ indicating a cellular structure as opposed to a hierarchy. It can keep a low profile and its cells can build the capability of its affiliates by infusing the use of information technology and other tools of globalisation. So while the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan destroys TVs, CDs and computers, Al Qaeda uses its video production facilities, websites and electronic bulletin boards as a force multiplier.

After escaping from Bagram, Libbi arrived in Swat and linked up with the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM). With help from Libbi, Maulana Fazlullah’s first illegal FM channel went on air in 2006. In time this pilot was scaled up into a successful propaganda machine with a series of elusive FM broadcast stations. These operated through portable transmission boxes of Chinese origin that could be mounted on trucks and even motorcycles. Libbi provided content development guidelines to Fazlullah: ‘Pakistan’s army should be treated as an occupying infidel army waging an offensive war on an invaded Muslim population.’

In the aftermath of the fall of the Lal Masjid in 2007, Al Qaeda arranged reinforcements for Swat from Baitullah Mehsud, its virtual proxy in Pakistan and host to a large contingent of foreign fighters. Uzbeks, Arabs and Chechens were sent to join Fazlullah’s forces in Swat. Training camps were set up and a large recruitment drive initiated. Within two years Al Qaeda transformed a primitive organisation into a formidable political and military force. This force not only extracted an unprecedented and unanimous concession for implementation of Sharia from Pakistan’s parliament but was later able to engage the Pakistani military in the longest battle of its history.

In terms of understanding the sources of funds for the Taliban, let’s pick up another data point: Tariq Azizuddin, the Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, was released after being held for three months by his Taliban kidnappers. According to this newspaper, the Pakistan government released an unspecified number of militants and paid $2.5m in ransom. Kidnapping for ransom is the Taliban’s second largest source of funds after narcotics. The released were associates of Taliban commander Mansoor Dadullah. It is very easy to ascertain who Dadullah works for. Pick up the ISI’s tactical interrogation reports on the released associates. Had they indicated a foreign intelligence connection during interrogation? Indeed, had Abu Yahya al Libbi indicated any such connections?

Only such brutal honesty can lead the people of Pakistan to the exit door out of the present quagmire. By pointing the finger at others we may drop the ball again. At 2 pm on Oct 1, 2001, a jeep laden with explosives rammed into the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly in Srinagar. Jaish-i-Mohammad claimed responsibility for the attack. That same evening an as-yet-unexplained fire gutted the sensitive records portion of the GHQ.

A month after the attack on the Indian parliament, President Musharraf made his famous ‘U-turn’ speech in January 2002. Three days later another fire gutted the records, this time of the interior ministry on the 16th floor of the Shaheed-i-Millat secretariat in Islamabad’s Blue Area. A dark chapter of Pakistani history may have been obliterated by these fires. But burning evidence of your past sins does not get you to a viable future.

The choices we make today will determine whether the 15-year-old in the madressah will — in 10 years time — emerge as a reformed, skilled and economically productive citizen of what will then be a modern state. Or whether he would have risen to become a warlord and will be seen negotiating with a foreign mining contractor for the grant of a concession to a full block of Thar coal — in what will possibly be a denuclearised Pakistan with a nominal government. By choosing to speak the truth today, we choose a better future.