PAKISTAN - THE NEW YORK TIMES SPIN

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Pakistan: the New York Times spin

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/world/asia/30pakistan.html

Local Pakistani Militants Boost Qaeda Threat

By Carlotta Gall

The New York Times

Sunday, December 30, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan The Qaeda network accused by Pakistan9s

government of killing the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto is

increasingly made up not of foreign fighters but of homegrown

Pakistani militants bent on destabilizing the country, analysts and

security officials here say.

In previous years, Pakistani militants directed their energies

against American and NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan

and avoided clashes with the Pakistani Army.

But this year they have very clearly expanded their ranks and turned

to a direct confrontation with the Pakistani security forces while

also aiming at political figures like Ms. Bhutto, the former prime

minister who died when a suicide bomb exploded as she left a political

rally on Thursday.

According to American officials in Washington, an already steady

stream of threat reports spiked in recent months. Many concerned

possible plots to kill prominent Pakistani leaders, including Ms.

Bhutto, President Pervez Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif, another

opposition leader.

3Al Qaeda right now seems to have turned its face toward Pakistan

and attacks on the Pakistani government and Pakistani people,2

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters in Washington on

Dec. 21.

The expansion of Pakistan9s own militants, with their fortified

links to Al Qaeda, presents a deeply troubling development for the

Bush administration and its efforts to stabilize this volatile

nuclear-armed country.

It is also one that many in Pakistan have been loath to admit, but

that Ms. Bhutto had begun to acknowledge in her many public statements

about the greatest threat to her country being in religious extremism

and terrorism.

Those warnings have now been borne out with her death and in the

turmoil that has followed it and shaken Pakistan9s political fault

lines. Rioting over the last two days has left at least 38 people

dead and 53 injured, and cost millions of dollars of damage to

businesses, vehicles and government buildings, according an Interior

Ministry spokesman. Protesters have accused the government of failing

to protect Ms. Bhutto, or even conspiring to kill her.

On Saturday, Mr. Sharif, now the country9s most prominent opposition

figure, ventured to the political stronghold of his assassinated

rival to lay a wreath on her grave, but also to make common cause

against President Musharraf and the Bush administration9s support

of him.

The government has tried to deflect that anger, blaming militants

linked to Al Qaeda, specifically Baitullah Mehsud, for having

masterminded the attack. But on Saturday, through a spokesman, Mr.

Mehsud denied he was responsible and dismissed the allegations,

adding fuel to the notion of a government conspiracy.

3Neither Baitullah Mehsud nor any of his associates were involved

in the assassination of Benazir, because raising your hand against

women is against our tribal values and customs,2 the spokesman,

Maulavi Omar, said in a telephone call from the tribal region of

South Waziristan. 3Only those people who stood to gain politically

are involved in Benazir9s murder,2 he said.

One of Pakistan9s leading newspapers, The Daily Times, noted Saturday

that such denials were a common tactic used to obscure the origins

of the militants9 attacks, and in particular to extend the myth

that the bombings are the work of foreign elements, rather than of

Pakistanis.

Al Qaeda in Pakistan now comprises not just foreigners but Pakistani

tribesmen from border regions, as well as Punjabis and Urdu speakers

and members of banned sectarian and Sunni extremists groups, Najam

Sethi, editor of The Daily Times, wrote in a front-page analysis.

3Al Qaeda is now as much a Pakistani phenomenon as it is an Arab

or foreign element,2 he wrote.

Senior American intelligence officials said all credible threat

information in recent weeks had been passed to Pakistani authorities,

mainly through the United States Embassy in Islamabad. But the

officials said they were not aware of any specific reports of an

attempt on Ms. Bhutto9s life in Rawalpindi.

A senior American intelligence official said it was clear from his

reading of recent threat reports that 3the political process was

not going to go untouched,2 adding that militants almost surely

would go to any length 3to create political disarray.2

And while Ms. Bhutto had perhaps the longest list of enemies among

Pakistan9s most prominent politicians, the official said: 3It almost

didn9t matter which one was attacked Musharraf, Bhutto or Sharif.

The militants were looking for multiple target sets, whether in the

capital area, which would carry more weight, or in Karachi or

Peshawar.2

In the face of that danger, American lawmakers pressed for tighter

government security around Ms. Bhutto. Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr.,

a Delaware Democrat who heads the Foreign Relations Committee and

who is running for president, released a letter last week that he

and two Senate colleagues had written to Mr. Musharraf at Ms.

Bhutto9s request, urging him to increase her security.

The letter, written six days after the Oct. 18 bombing attempt on

Ms. Bhutto9s life, urged Mr. Musharraf to provide her 3the full

level of security support afforded to any former prime minister,2

including 3bomb-proof vehicles and jamming equipment.2

After Ms. Bhutto9s death, Mr. Biden said in a statement, 3The failure

to protect Ms. Bhutto raises a lot of hard questions for the

government and security services that must be answered.2 But a

Defense Department official said Saturday, 3I don9t know how foolproof

you can make any security when people are willing to kill themselves.2

The tribes on the border have a long history of fighting invading

armies. But since 2001, when Qaeda and Taliban forces fled the

American intervention in Afghanistan and took refuge in Pakistan9s

tribal areas, the Pakistani militants have steadily grown in strength

and boldness.

Today they have been bolstered by the foreigners among them. Those

include a smaller number of hard-core Arabs, like Osama bin Laden

and Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda9s second in command, as well as a

larger number of Uzbeks, Tartars and Tajiks who have influence them

to take on new agendas, Pakistani security officials familiar with

the region said.

The Arabs in particular have brought money and fighting and explosives

expertise, as well as ideology that includes religious justifications

of tactics like suicide bombings and beheadings, which Afghans and

Pakistanis had not used before, they said.

More and more, those tribes and foreign networks have overlapping

operations and agendas.

3The country is facing the gravest challenge from these terrorists

and extremist elements,2 Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, the director of

the National Crisis Management Cell and main spokesman for the

Interior Ministry, said Friday as he accused Al Qaeda of Ms. Bhutto9s

assassination. 3They are systematically targeting our state

institutions in order to destabilize the country.2

Mr. Mehsud, he said, was of the 3same brand of Al Qaeda and Taliban

terrorists,2 and was 3behind most of the recent terrorist attacks

that have taken place in Pakistan.2

Some security officials in the North-West Frontier Province have

warned, however, that it has become the norm for the government to

blame Mr. Mehsud for just about any attack, without providing real

evidence.

Mr. Mehsud is in fact one commander in a broader terrorist network

who runs just one of an estimated five groups that train and dispatch

suicide bombers from Pakistan9s isolated tribal areas, according

to officials.

Another man known to be sending out suicide bombers is Qari Zafar,

a militant from southern Punjab who was connected to the banned

Sunni extremist group Sipa-e-Sahaba and then Jaish-e-Muhammad.

Mr. Zafar escaped capture in Karachi and is now based in South

Waziristan, where he trains insurgents on how to rig roadside bombs

and vests for suicide bombings, a former security official said.

But it is Mr. Mehsud who has emerged this year as the most visible

proponent of Al Qaeda9s ambitions in Pakistan, security officials

said. He has claimed to have hundreds of suicide bombers ready to

attack government and military targets.

Barely two years ago Mr. Mehsud, 32, was just a Pashtun tribesman

who did not register on the radar screen of the intelligence services

or government officials. He is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan

in the 1990s, when he trained and fought with the Taliban, according

to one Pakistani intelligence official.

He became a follower of Abdullah Mehsud, the one-legged commander

who was captured when fighting with the Taliban in 2001 in Afghanistan

and detained by the United States at its military base in Guantanamo

Bay, Cuba. Abdullah Mehsud was later released and took up the fight

against American forces in Afghanistan from his home base in South

Waziristan.

Both Abdullah and Baitullah share the name of the Mehsud of South

Waziristan, a large warrior Pashtun tribe that is renowned for never

being pacified by the British forces.

Abdullah Mehsud was killed in July by Pakistani forces in Zhob, a

district south of the tribal areas in the province of Baluchistan.

But even before then, Baitullah Mehsud had been promoted over him

by the Taliban leadership.

Baitullah Mehsud is now believed to be responsible for some of the

most spectacular and damaging attacks inside Pakistan in recent

months, including suicide bombings against army and intelligence

targets as well as prominent politicians like Ms. Bhutto.

He has also been identified by officials in Afghanistan as one of

the main sources of the suicide bombers who carry out attacks there.

But Mr. Mehsud9s master strike came at the end of July when he

captured nearly 300 soldiers who were escorting a supply convoy

through the Mehsud lands in Waziristan. He beheaded three soldiers

and demanded that the government withdraw from his area and cease

operations against militants.

It took the government two months of negotiations to win the release

of the soldiers. Only on Nov. 3 did it do so. As part of the deal

the government handed over 25 of Mr. Mehsud9s men on the same day

that President Musharraf imposed emergency rule, saying he needed

the extra powers to combat terrorists.

Since then, however, the government, wary of the retaliatory attacks

Mr. Mehsud can employ, appears to have done little to rein him in.

He now leads Tehrik-i-Taliban, a newly formed coalition of Islamic

militants committed to waging holy war against the Pakistani

government.

The government has outlawed the group but not moved against it. The

army has instead concentrated its efforts in recent weeks on clearing

militants from the Swat Valley. That region is some distance from

the tribal areas on the border, and the fight there an indication

of just how far the militant influence has spread.

Pakistani officials who have worked in the tribal areas say that

it is still possible to contain the threat of someone like Mr.

Mehsud through tribal pressure, if he can be separated from the

foreign elements. 3The only problem is these foreigners,2 the

official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. 3You remove these

foreigners and the rest is no problem.2

Yet to remove the foreigners, namely a small number of Arab leaders,

who are well protected and well hidden, from among the tribesmen

is a task that Pakistan so far has failed to do and according to

some may not be capable of. 3That can only be done with an operation,2

the official said.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.

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