Second Pakistan Assassination Attempt Means Trouble For Key Bush Ally

by M.B. Naqvi

The assassination bids took place at an area where intelligence hounds are patrolling every inhabited nook and corner. Pakistan has many intelligence services, some big and some small.

So it is strange that they did not stop and check the explosives-carrying vehicles, standing idly at two opposite petrol pumps close to the bridge that was the site of the mid-December attempt on life of Musharraf, who is also army chief.

The incident took place in the Rawalpindi cantonment area, not far from Corps headquarters. General Headquarters itself could not be more than two kilometers or so away, not to mention military's police checkpost.

The assassination attempts on Dec. 14 and 25 occurred at a time when Pakistan is an important member of the coalition against the 'war against terror' led by the U.S. government. Thus, the powers in this war can only take the attacks seriously.

The U.S. government would like to know who wants to kill Musharraf. Pakistan's officials are stressing the al-Qaeda network as the main suspect.

According to the current theory, the would-be killers are Islamic fanatics who had no problem acquiring the vehicles, the explosives, and full briefing of what to do, when and how.

Clues emerge from the Dec. 14 assassination attempt. There, the would-be killers expertly tied explosives to the underside of a bridge over which the President, with his security detail, was to pass.

The bridge is situated on the main thoroughfare and its vicinity is well populated by military families. It is not more than a few hundred meters from an Army Corps headquarters and there is a military police checkpost on either side.

The placing of the explosives must have occured at least an hour prior to the President's crossing. The military and civilian sleuths were supposed to be thick on the ground, as the President passes over the bridge several times a day. How could the unknown assailants do their work undetected?

ALso puzzling is that the intended killers knew the exact time, down to minutes and seconds, that Musharraf was to pass over the bridge.

That presupposed help from someone along the route who could calculate the exact time the presidential motorcade would reach that bridge. In the end, the assassins' timer was late in exploding by less than a minute -- the delay was caused by a jamming device fit to the President's car.

This prompted several Pakistanis to suspect help from inside. The government indignantly denies such suspicions, though it continues to hammer away at the theme that al-Qaeda -- and foreigners at that -- is after Musharraf's blood for his supposed betrayal of the Taliban and now the cause of Kashmir, the subject of a decades-long dispute with India.

That motivation can scarcely be doubted, though the exact ideological identity of the assassins is still being debated. Al-Qaeda's footprints are everywhere in Pakistan, and Pakistani authorities have arrested the maximum number of its leaders.

It is true that Pakistan is a magnet for all Islamic militants from everywhere. For one reason or the other, Pakistan's name pops up every time a terrorist is arrested anywhere.

He has either visited Pakistan or was trained there or has transited through it. Its religious parties' leadership, particularly of Jamaate Islami (JI), has high prestige among Arab intellectuals that are attracted by militant Islam.

But it was Jamiate Ulma-i-Islam (JUI), in its two main factions, that was the progenitor of Taliban and is extraordinary powerful in the two Pakistani provinces of Baluchistan and North West Frontier Province, which adjoin Afghanistan.

Thanks to the popularity of ideas that militant Islam is supposed to inspire, both Taliban and al-Qaeda have a lot of popularity, support and protection there. The question is whether the major religious parties in Pakistan share any part of blame.

Few Pakistanis accuse either JI or JUI of any terrorist action, though each has many front organizations that are virtually militias, well-armed and quite well-funded. Also, these parties, which constitute the bulk of the religious parties' alliance called Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), have just made a constitutional deal with Musharraf.

They have a share in the power in the governments of the two western provinces that the MMA controls. But the leadership gives no indication of being inclined to violence. On the contrary, it projects an image of moderation, reason and anxiety to strengthen democratic institutions in the country.

Thus, the question is - are the would-be killers related to MMA? No one has raised a finger of accusation at MMA leaders. Musharraf himself is quite at home with them and has just cut a key political deal resolving a dispute row over constitutional amendments.

MMA leaders do exercise a significant amount of influence over Musharraf: they support his regime's key policies from outside while sitting on opposition benches in Parliament.

It is an astute ploy: they have their eyes on the next election that cannot be too far away and they do not want to be seen on the side of a dictator, yet enjoy power in two provinces. Their workers can meantime go on spreading the message of establishing what they believe are Islam's injunctions.

At the same time, they have disassociated themselves with their earlier progeny, the Taliban and the Kashmir militants. But the latter groups are out there armed and well-funded, though perhaps operating autonomously with the help of some sections of the security apparatus itself. Without this link with the security apparatus, the Kashmir militancy cannot be sustained in the way it has so far been.

The question remains to be answered about the link between these autonomous militant groups with the MMA. In formality they may be different, but ideologically they are not.

Yet Musharraf's position has to be understood. The government is committed to a pro-U.S. policy, masterminded and run by Musharraf. Indirectly, the military is also committed to the causes for which Musharraf has become persona non grata with militant Islamic elements.

How are the militant groups tolerated, then, and how can Musharraf cut political deals with godfathers of Taliban, if not al-Qaeda?

Circumstances suggest that militant groups, the soulmates of al-Qaeda, have the support of powerful elements who use them when needed. They are focusing on just one person, not all the government or its policies about religious extremists.

Ideology may not be the sole motivation in the assassination attempts, but the personal hurt felt in Musharraf's betrayal of the Taliban and the Kashmir 'mujahideen'. Otherwise, the rest of the religious lobby in Pakistan is happy enough to cooperate in the political sphere with Musharraf.