Pakistan has begun a crackdown on Lashkar-e-Taiba following intense pressure from India and the United States to take action against the militant group blamed by New Delhi for the Mumbai attacks. According to intelligence officials and local residents,  Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, a leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba, was arrested following a raid on a camp near Muzaffarabad in Pakistani-held Kashmir.

As discussed in an earlier post, India has long complained about what it saw as Pakistan’s failure to crack down on Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, another Pakistan-based militant group, which it says were nurtured by the Pakistan spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI, to attack Indian targets in Kashmir and elsewhere. 

So would the raid signal a major change of heart? And would it be enough to satisfy India?

The Economist calls it “a small sop” and much less than India had demanded of Pakistan. India’s Livemint condemns it as a “cheap” action to buy legitimacy. It complains that Pakistan took similar steps in 2002, banning Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) after it was blamed, along with Jaish-e-Mohammed, by New Delhi for a raid on India’s parliament in December 2001 that brought the two countries close to a fourth war.  (more…)

In the immediate aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, India’s response has been to look to the United States to lean on Pakistan, which it blames for spawning Islamist militancy across the region, rather than launching any military retaliation of its own. So after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s trip to India and Pakistan last week, have the Americans done enough for now?

According to Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper, Rice told Pakistan there was “irrefutable evidence” that elements within the country were involved in the Mumbai attacks. And it quotes unnamed sources as saying that behind-the-scenes she “pushed the Pakistani leaders to take care of the perpetrators, otherwise the U.S. will act”.

India’s Business Standard said the Indian government was pleased with the U.S. warning. “This is exactly what India wanted,” the newspaper said.

The Times of India, however, fretted the U.S. action against Pakistan appeared to be “turning tepid”, in public at least. It attributed the U.S. approach to the perceived need to avoid backing the civilian government led by President Asif Ali Zardari into a corner. (India has specifically not accused the Pakistan government of involvement in the Mumbai attacks, pointing instead to militant groups supported by Pakistan’s powerful spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI.) It also said the United States was wary of destabilising a partner on which it depends crucially as a transit route for supplies to Afghanistan, while also being hobbled by the change of administration in Washington.

So which way is the pendulum swinging — towards firm U.S. action that will allow Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to say he was right to put his faith in American diplomacy, or a lukewarm response that will either force India to act alone or leave its Congress-led government looking on in helpless frustration as it heads into a general election due by next May?

U.S. pressure has succeeded in pulling India and Pakistan back from the brink in the past.  When fighting erupted between the two newly declared nuclear-armed powers in the Kargil war in 1999, U.S. President Bill Clinton persuaded then Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to pull Pakistani troops back. (Sharif paid a high price. Later in the year he was overthrown by then General Pervez Musharraf, a lesson unlikely to be lost on the current civilian government which is seen as wary of making too many concessions to India for fear of alienating the powerful Pakistan Army.) (more…)

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has urged Pakistan to cooperate “fully and transparently” in investigations into the Mumbai attacks, while U.S. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell has pointed a finger at Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based Kashmiri militant group.

That’s probably the kind of language that would go down well in India, which has been frustrated in the past by what it saw as the United States’ failure to acknowledge the threat from Pakistan-based Kashmiri militant groups, instead preferring to rely on Pakistan as a useful ally in the region while focusing its own energies on defeating al Qaeda and the Taliban.

But what exactly can either the United States or India do if they want to put pressure on Pakistan? India has long complained that Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, another Pakistan-based militant group, were nurtured by the Pakistan spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI, to stage attacks in both Indian Kashmir and elsewhere in the country. And while Pakistan denies providing more than moral support to Kashmiri groups, it has never cracked down on Lashkar-e-Taiba, based in Punjab and Pakistan-held Kashmir, in the same way that it has begun to tackle militants from al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

Lashkar-e-Taiba’s charitable wing, the Jamat-ud-Dawa, earned popular support by working to rescue victims of the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, as discussed in this article by Steve Coll in the New Yorker. And much to India’s irritation, the Jamat-ud-Dawa continues to operate openly in Muridke outside Lahore. (more…)

                  By Robert Birsel and Zeeshan Haider

Pakistan’s Taliban have indignantly criticised what they said were India’s “unfounded” threats against Pakistan in the wake of  the Mumbai assault and they vowed to rally to the defence of the country in the event of an Indian attack.
 
“If they dared to attack Pakistan then, God willing, we will share the happiness and grief with all Pakistanis,” said Pakistani Taliban spokesman Maulvi Omar.
 
“We will put the animosity and fighting with the Pakistani army behind us and the Taliban will defend their frontiers, their boundaries, their country with their weapons.

“We will defend the Line of Control in the same way as we are defending the Durand Line,” he told Reuters by telephone referring to the frontier  with India in disputed Kashmir and the border with Afghanistan.
 
“We will show Pakistanis whether we are miscreants or defenders of the country.”

Pakistan has already said if the tension with India escalates,  it would have to move troops from its Afghan border,  where the Pakistani military is putting the Taliban and their al Qaeda allies under unprecedented pressure, to the Indian border.
 
The last time that happened was after the December 2001 attack on India’s parliament when the Taliban and al Qaeda  were also under tremendous pressure in the weeks after U.S.  special forces and their Afghan allies ousted the Taliban government in Kabul.
 
Are those behind the Mumbai carnage hoping that another face- off across Pakistan’s eastern border will again see Pakistani forces leaving the Afghan border virtually unattended?
 
Perhaps it’s just a coincidence the Mumbai assault came as the  militants seem to be under serious pressure on the Afghan  border.
 
Speaking of coincidences, some in Pakistan see the hand of  India behind the latest round of blood-letting in Karachi.
 
At least 40 people have been killed in Karachi since Saturday in clashes between activists from the city’s majority community of Urdu-speakers and ethnic Pashtuns from northwest Pakistan.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was on television on Tuesday saying it was strange the violence in Karachi erupted just after the Mumbai attack.
 
Conspiracy theorists will no doubt note that six small bombs  exploded in ethic Pashtun neighbourhoods on Karachi on July 7,  in what authorities said was a bid to stir up ethnic unrest.
 
The bombs went off hours after a suicide car-bomber killed 58 people in an attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul. India said  Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency was behind that attack

The language is deliberate, the signals unmistakable: India is turning up the heat on Pakistan for the Mumbai attacks that have  killed at least 195 people, and there is no knowing where this downward spiral in ties between the uneasy neighbours will end.

Beginning with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s warning that a cost will have to be paid by neighbouring nations that allow militants to operate,  to Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s direct call to Islamabad to “dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism”, there is a sharp, cold edge to the tone that you can’t miss even factoring in the immediate anger and sense of outrage the attacks have evoked  across India.

Then the signs: Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi in India on a previously scheduled visit to review the peace process packing his bags and heading home because Indian political leaders cancelled meetings with him following the attacks.

We have been here before, for sure. A 2001 attack on the Indian parliament, for which like the Mumbai attacks, the  Lashkar-i-Taiba was blamed, triggered a set of measures by New Delhi including breaking sporting and cultural links, downgrading diplomatic relations, and the deployment of the military in full combat readiness all along the Pakistan border.

That military stand-off ended six months later after considerable diplomatic pressure from the United States, Britain and other powers worried about two nuclear-armed nations on the brink of war.

So what are the options for Delhi this time around, beyond striking a menacing posture to force Pakistan to go after elements there which it believes are responsible for violence in India?

It can’t risk another extended military deployment - you can only do that sort of “coercive diplomacy” once a while for it to be taken seriously. Limited military strikes on the militant camps that New Delhi says exist across the border?

The New York Times raised that possibility following what were arguably the most audacious attacks India has ever seen even its violent history as a free nation.  It’s hard to tell, especially now that those training camps don’t exist so openly, given the Americans’ scrutiny of Pakistan. And India has always been reluctant to cross the Line of Control dividing Kashmir, fearing this would undermine its status as a de facto border and basis for a permament settlement to the Kashmir dispute.

Ending a five-year ceasefire along the Line of Control, which has in recent months come under strain? Or a freezing of ties, turning back the four year-peace process which if nothing else ensured the foes kept talking?

All bets are obviously off . The Times said American military and intelligence officials believed there was mounting evidence that the Lashkar–Taiba was most likely involved in the Mumbai attack. That can only strengthen New Delhi’s case as it confronts Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence with evidence when its representative arrives in India to discuss the attacks, itself an extraordinary move.

Islamabad had earlier agreed to send the head of the ISI to India but it later lowered that to a representative.
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Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has blamed a group with “external linkages” for coordinated attacks which killed more than 100 people in Mumbai. The language was reminiscent of the darker days of India-Pakistan relations when India always saw a Pakistan hand in militant attacks, blaming groups it said were set up by Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, to seek revenge for Pakistan’s defeat by India in the 1971 war.

An attack on India’s parliament in December 2001 triggered a mass mobilisation along the two countries’ borders and brought them close to a fourth war.  That attack was blamed by India on the Pakistan-based Kashmiri militant groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed - hardline Islamist groups with links to al Qaeda.  Both have been associated with the kind of “fedayeen” attacks – in which the attackers, while not necessarily suicide bombers, are willing to fight to the death — seen in Mumbai.

So does the assault on Mumbai spell the death-knell for what had been gradually warming ties between Pakistan and India?

Pakistan has condemned the attack, just as it did when gunmen attacked the Indian parliament in 2001. And the Pakistani context today is quite different from that of 2001. Then a military ruler, former president Pervez Musharraf was in power, whereas Pakistan is now run by a new civilian president, Asif Ali Zardari, who has made clear he wants peace with India over Kashmir.

But Singh’s comments, made in a televised address to the nation, were remarkably strong for the usually mild-mannered prime minister:

“It is evident that the group which carried out these attacks, based outside the country, had come with single-minded determination to create havoc in the commercial capital of the country,” he said. “We will take the strongest possible measures to ensure that there is no repetition of such terrorist acts. We are determined to take whatever measures are necessary to ensure the safety and security of our citizens.”

The strength of the language may have been fuelled by the scale of the Mumbai attacks, and could refer to either Pakistan or Bangladesh, which has also been accused by India of harbouring militant groups. But it sounded similar in tone to that of Singh’s  predecessor, Atal Behari Vajpayee, who following the 2001 parliament attack warned Pakistan that India’s patience was wearing thin. And they also contrasted with India’s reaction to bombings which killed at least 63 people in the western city of Jaipur earlier this year, when the Indian government notably refrained from pointing a finger at Pakistan.

So was this a deliberate attempt to undermine India-Pakistan relations?  And if so, what will that mean for Pakistan’s fragile civilian democracy? Zardari has staked his reputation on making peace with India to improve trade and help lift Pakistan’s struggling economy.

Much will depend on how Singh, under pressure to show a firm hand ahead of a national election due in India by May 2009, reacts.

(Rueters photo of Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai/Punit Paranjpe)

In the absence of any claims, and a denial of involvement by the main local separatist group, the Indian media is  are starting to point the finger at a Bangladeshi militant Islamist group for Thursday’s multiple bombings that left 65 left dead and more than 300 wounded in Assam state.

If it is indeed the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (HuJi) Bangladesh that orchestrated one of the most deadly attacks in the far flung northeast state, then it could end up hardening the mood in India against not just Bangladesh, but also once again against Pakistan.

For the group, which was formed in the early 1990s to establish Islamic rule in  Bangladesh, is an organisation with tentacles running all the way to Afghanistan and to Osama bin Laden and in so doing, is seen as linked with Pakistani militant groups, some of whom have enjoyed backing in the past from the Inter-Services Intelligence. (more…)

Pakistan has replaced the head of its powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency, following months of questions from the United States about its reliability in the battle against the Taliban and al Qaeda.  Lieutenant-General Ahmed Shujaa Pasha, formerly head of military operations, will replace Lieutenant-General Nadeem Taj.

The change was part of a major overhaul of the military leadership by Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, who also replaced the head of the 10 Corps in Rawalpindi, the most powerful corps in the army.

So to what extent was the United States responsible for the move? Or how far was it Pakistan’s own attempt to shore up its security operations as it cracks down on Islamist militants, who according to U.S. military commander David Petraeus threaten Pakistan’s “very existence”?

Washington has long suspected elements within the ISI of passing sensitive information to the Taliban –with whom the spy agency worked closely before the 9/11 attacks on the United States — undermining its campaign in Afghanistan. India and Afghanistan also accused the ISI of involvement in the July bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul. Pakistan has denied the allegations.

The New York Times reported at the weekend that President Asif Ali Zardari had held an unpublicised meeting with Michael Hayden, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, during his visit to the United States last week, amid ongoing U.S. pressure about what it called “the double game played by Pakistan’s spy agency”.

But it also quoted Zardari as saying that: “The ISI will be handled, that is our problem.” He added that ”We don’t hunt with the hound and run with the hare, which is what (former president Pervez) Musharraf was doing,” and said that ”Anyone not conforming with my government’s policy will be thrown out.”

Besides asking how much the change of leadership at the ISI was dictated by Washington, the other question is how much the army and the government worked together on it.  

Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper said in carrying out the overhaul of the military leadership, General Kayani ”has put in place a new team to implement his vision for reviving the prestige of the armed forces and for enhancing the security of the state.” The army’s authority has been challenged by U.S. military incursions across Pakistan’s border, in what Pakistan sees as a violation of its sovereignty.

The News added however that the trend of the reshuffle demonstrated “full coordination between the civil and military leadership”.

Just two days after a suicide bomb attack on the Marriott killed 53 people in the heart of Islamabad, there were reports of trouble both on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan and on the Line of Control with India.  

On the Afghan border, Pakistani troops fired on two U.S. helicopters that intruded into Pakistani airspace on Sunday night, forcing them to turn back to Afghanistan, according to a senior Pakistani security official.  On the Indian side, Pakistani and Indian troops exchanged fire across the Line of Control dividing Kashmir, in the latest breach of a ceasefire agreed in 2003. And as if that was not enough, Afghanistan’s top diplomat was kidnapped in Peshawar.

None of this is new in the sense that we have known about the tension on Pakistan’s borders, and its fragile internal security situation, for a long time. What is new is the scale of it. And how everything seems to be happening at once. And also the number of players involved — not only the United States (in mid presidential election), Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, but also the Pakistan Army and Pakistan’s new civilian government, along with the other powers on the sidelines, Saudi Arabia, China, and U.S. allies in NATO.

So which of these many players do you track most closely to assess what is happening in Pakistan? My hunch is to watch the Pakistan Army, and Pakistan’s powerful spy agency, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).

In a posting on the Pakistan Policy Blog, Arif Rafiq wrote about how army chief General Ashfaq Kayani had gone twice to the frontlines with India, each time after the civilian government had talked of making peace over Kashmir (small quibble - the photo in his blog looks like it was taken at the brigade headquarters at Yuching, rather than on the Siachen glacier, which is in Indian hands).

The Pakistan Army, and by extension the ISI, rightly or wrongly, sees itself as the ultimate defender of Pakistan. It would seem obvious that the Pakistan Army would not tolerate its authority being challenged on both fronts – by U.S. raids over the border with Afghanistan on one side, and by peace moves with India on the other. I realise too that there are many who argue that only democracy can save Pakistan.

The point of this posting is not to say who to judge. Simply who to watch. And who do you watch when a country’s borders are fragile and its capital city attacked?
 

One of the questions that repeatedly came up during Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s rather eventful trip to the U.S. last month was who was in charge of the Inter-Services Intelligence , especially after the botched attempt to bring the powerful spy agency - that critics see as a state within a state - under the interior ministry.

But at home, Pakistanis are asking an even more fundamental question: Who really is in control of  their country ? A very rough poll conducted by All Things Pakistan among people who visit the blog found that nearly 40 percent thought nobody was in control of the nuclear-armed Muslim nation of 160 million and from where at least the Americans are convinced the next major militant attack is coming.

About 28 percent said Pakistan People’s Party chairman Asif Ali Zardari was in control while 18  percent saw President Pervez Musharraf still calling the shots. But nobody, not one person, thought Gilani who, by all accounts was given a rather blunt message by his American hosts about his government’s failure to fight militants and their allies within, was in charge.

For Pakistan’s transition to democracy after nine years of military rule this is hardly inspiring. “The image of a prime minister who noone thinks has any power is sad and disturbing,” ATP notes in a later post and asks whether he is on his way out. Or, it asks, is the poll a broader warning of a country sliding further into chaos?

Gilani’s government is faced with Islamist militancy across Pakistan’s northwest and an America that is breathing hard down its neck asking for action. On top of that tensions with India on the eastern borders have suddenly and inexplicably risen, which doubtless increases the pressure on an army already overstretched on the Afghan frontier

 Gilani’s four-month-old coalition is fractured following the withdrawal of ministers belonging to Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League over the issue of reinstatement of judges fired by Musharraf. On Tuesday, the two sides were meeting to break the stalemate.

Adding to the sense of crisis, is an economy at risk of meltdown with acute power shortages, and higher fuel and food prices that have hit hard the poor majority.

Time magazine called Gilani an “accidental” prime minister leading a government too weak to act on any front including the faltering campaign against militancy or even the economy. Pakistan’s respected Dawn newspaper has gone to the extent of questioning Gilani’s authority in promising Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh an investigation into allegations that the ISI helped plan the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul last month. How could he have done that without taking the country  into his confidence, the newspaper asked.

Not surprising then, that the Daily Times reports that Gilani may quit if he is not allowed to function as a chief executive with a definite say in government.