COUNTERTERRORISM CHALLENGES Pakistani security forces have at times struggled to muster the capacity and will to confront domestic militants, even though the army and police are increasingly targeted by militant groups. Some experts say that since the bloody encounter between Pakistans security forces and militant Islamic students in Islamabads Red Mosque in 2007, some groups previously under state patronage broke away. In October 2009, militants attacked army headquarters in Rawalpindi and held around forty people hostage for over twenty hours. Such attacks heralded a new period in army and ISI relations with many of these militant groups, analysts say. Even though the Pakistani army and the ISI have been more willing to go after militants, analysts say they continue to form alliances with groups such as the Haqqanis that they can use as a strategic hedge against India and Afghanistan. In a September 2011 congressional testimony, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen referred to the Haqqani network as a strategic arm of Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Pakistans security establishment has denied these charges. The revelation in May 2011 that Osama bin Laden had been hiding in a compound around the corner from the Pakistan military academy at Kakul raised new questions about the ISIs commitment to counterterrorism. CIA director Leon Panetta said the agency ruled out partnering with Pakistan on the bin Laden mission out of concern that it would be compromised. President Asif Ali Zardari, writing in the immediate aftermath of the operation, said allegations that Pakistan harbored terrorists amounted to baseless speculation. The CIA has conducted an extensive targeted killing campaign to supplement Pakistani counterterrorism efforts, particularly in the rugged, remote terrain of North and South Waziristan. U.S. drones are currently launched from Afghan soil, but its unclear whether this arrangement will continue after the scheduled U.S. withdrawal in 2014. If the targeted killing program is called off, veteran intelligence analyst Bruce Riedel argues, Al-Qaeda will regenerate rapidly in Pakistan. Its allies like the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba will help it to rebuild. The ISI will either turn a blind eye or, worse, a helping hand. The programs detractors have questioned the United States ability to distinguish between militants and civilians, and argue that strikes may contribute to radicalization in the frontier provinces. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who began an unprecedented third term in June 2013, has railed against U.S. drone strikes as an affront to Pakistani sovereignty while advocating for talks with the TTP. Yet, the International Crisis Group notes, Ample evidence exists of tacit Pakistani consent and active cooperation with the drone program. Pakistans leadership seeks greater say over targeting, the ICG says, often to punish enemies, but sometimes, allegedly, to protect militants with whom the security services have cooperative relations—including elements of the Haqqani Network and Taliban.
Posted on: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 20:55:40 +0000
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