Zardari is even more afraid than Musharraf

24 September 2008

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Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi say the Marriott bomb in Islamabad shows how weak the new Pakistani President is in the face of the Talebanised sectors of this failing state

But Parachinar produced a special kind of horror. The Kurram Agency is surrounded on three sides by Afghanistan, and was the first refuge for bin Laden’s followers after the US bombing commenced in the aftermath of 9/11. Yet Kurram and Parachinar were inhospitable to al-Qa’eda. The Kurram Agency’s half-million residents are mainly Shia Muslims — sympathetic to the Afghan Northern Alliance rather than bin Laden, and hated by the Taleban as much as non-Muslims, secular Muslims, Sufis and other non-fundamentalist Sunnis.

In the past year hundreds of Shias have been slain in the most brutal manner by the Taleban in Parachinar — their deaths accompanied by dismemberment and other brutalities. By July of this year, ironically, the only safe road into Parachinar came from Afghanistan. The American Shia political leader Agha Shaukat Jafri insists that the jihadist elements in the ISI are as much responsible for the mass murder in Parachinar as for the Taleban invasion to the north. ‘The hand of the ISI is visible wherever blood is shed in Pakistan today,’ Jafri said. But calls for a clean-up in the intelligence organisation have been ignored for years.

There seem to be only two options for defeating the Pakistani Taleban. One, a unification of all moderate Muslim factions, appears utopian. The other is simpler and more realistic, but rejected by Zardari on the grounds that Western intervention in Afghanistan and US involvement with Pakistan already contribute to the influence of the radicals. That is foreign military action, uniting the US with Nato and other forces, to restore some semblance of the stability that first Musharraf and later Zardari have let slip away.

Stephen Schwartz is executive director, and Irfan Al-Alawi international director, of the Centre for Islamic Pluralism (www.islamicpluralism.eu).

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Joe Camel

September 25th, 2008 8:04pm Report this comment

I would like to ask the authors of this analysis, Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi, a couple of questions.

(1) They say (quote): “The Pakistani Taleban, as the radicals are increasingly known, will settle for nothing short of full control of the NWFP.” But why would they be content with just the NWFP, when they appear to be engaged in a bid to gain control of the whole of Pakistan?

(2) They examine the conflict in the light of political parties, personalities, Islamic sects, and the various jihadist factions and their ideologies. Would it not have been interesting to add something about the rivalries between the different ethnic groups � in particular, between the Punjabis, said to be heavily over-represented in the Pakistani army and in the ISI, and the Pashtuns, who make up a considerable proportion of the population in the frontier region, and on both sides of the border? The president of Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai, is a Pashtun. Does this ethnic identity have nothing to do with the fact that the Taliban are fighting against him?

William

September 28th, 2008 2:53am Report this comment

Messrs Schwartz and Al-Alawi know a lot about the ISI. Perhaps they can tell us about the ISI links with 911, particularly why the leader General Mahmoud Ahmad was in Washington at the time. Meanwhile Swat is in NWFP and therefore not a FATA district, and how is Kurram - a FATA district - also in the NWFP?
We need a more solid story. This is too much of a hotch potch. Also how should Pakistan be "second" to Iraq in an Anti Jihad war? Iraq should never have been "first" as "Jihad" clearly followed "Anti-Jihad" there.
I guessed that Pakistan with its knowledge of English and western connections, and anti-imperialist history, was an obvious source of Jihadism. However our (British) diplomats should be concerned with pursuing and maintaining peace with Pakistan not fomenting Jihadist-led or Antijihadist-provoked confrontations. We should withdraw all troops from the region and encourage our allies to do the same.
If some evil nutcase wants to fly a plane into a building in the USA how can a war to the death with 45 million Pathans and their allies stop him? Is anyone free and sane any more?

r.krishan

September 28th, 2008 2:33pm Report this comment

pakistan was blue eyed boy of the west, and continues to be a favorite even now.there is a thousand year conflict of islamising india, the first part having een achieved. pakistan is an ethnicalyy cleansed state which west cosidered legitimae. from maghreb to indonsia an islamic power is rising and the west willlive only 0nsufferance.

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