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Pakistan and the triangle of
terror
By Mushahid Hussain
ISLAMABAD - Events in South Asia in the past 72
hours are testimony that a "triangle of terror"
embracing Pakistan and Kashmir has emerged and which is
now the principal focus of the global war on terror that
began after September 11.
On Monday, the trial
in Pakistan of those responsible for the January
kidnapping and killing American journalist Daniel Pearl
ended with the death sentence meted out to the main
accused, British-born Pakistani Ahmed Omar Sheikh.
On July 13, nine European tourists travelling in
a coach through Mansehra, a city in Pakistan's Northwest
Frontier Province (which borders Afghanistan), were the
targets of a grenade attack.
Although there were
only minor injuries to the tourists and no deaths, the
attack is viewed by Pakistani investigators and American
security officials as part of an emerging pattern of
attacks on Western targets in Pakistan after Islamabad's
unstinted cooperation with Washington in its military
action against Afghanistan and its war against terror.
In March, two Americans were killed after a
church was bombed in Islamabad. In May, a bus carrying
French engineers was bombed and left seven occupants
killed. In June, the US consulate in Karachi was
attacked, without any American casualties.
On
July 14, the Pakistani police announced the arrest of 20
persons from an Afghan refugee camp in relation to the
attack against the European tourists.
The day
before, on Saturday, an incident that threatens to add
further tension to already cold ties between India and
Pakistan took place - 28 civilians died after
indiscriminate firing on a shantytown near Jammu in the
Indian part of Kashmir.
Although India quickly
blamed Pakistani-based groups for the attack, without
substantiating its claim, the government of Pakistan was
prompt in denouncing this act of terrorism.
On
Sunday, Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha said "it
is clear that all this is being carried out with the
inspiration of Pakistan", a charge vehemently denied by
Pakistan.
This was the biggest act of terrorism
in the Indian-occupied part of Kashmir since the May 14
attack, again in Jammu, that killed 34 people, including
families of Indian soldiers.
That act had raised
tensions between India and Pakistan, which put a million
men under arms facing each other on the border. The
standoff was defused after active Western diplomacy.
Just a day before the latest Jammu attack,
Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf in his
address to the nation on July 12 said that "the whole
nation must fight terrorism".
Referring to the
joint Pakistan-US military campaign against al-Qaeda
remnants on the border with Afghanistan, he added, "We
cannot tolerate foreign elements, whether they are on
our borders or had entered our cities."
These
events have brought into focus Pakistan's vital role in
the United States' campaign against terrorism - and
three aspects are key in understanding the emerging
regional scenario.
First, the disputed territory
of Kashmir where some 750,000 Indian troops have battled
a homegrown insurgency since 1989 will remain a
flashpoint until efforts are made to resolve the
question at its roots.
Recurring acts of terror,
condemned both by Pakistan and India plus the
international community, have the potential to
destabilize the region and bring the nuclear-armed
neighbors to the brink of war.
In its July 11
special report on "Kashmir: Confrontation and
Miscalculation", the Brussels-based International Crisis
Group (ICG) underlined that "militancy in Kashmir and
the subsequent heightened risk of an India-Pakistan war
will not disappear until many things are done".
The ICG urged "steps by New Delhi to grant
political autonomy to Kashmiris, improve their economic
well-being and end all human rights abuses by its
security forces in the territory".
It also
expressed hope that the Indian government would
"reconsider its longstanding objection to deploying
monitors on the Indian side of the Line of Control
[LoC]".
This is something Pakistan has
repeatedly suggested in a move to address charges by
India of infiltration across the LoC, which divides the
two-third Indian part of Kashmir from the one third
Pakistani part.
Second, the international
community remains keen to defuse tensions through
intense diplomacy, highlighted by repeated visits by
Western officials to the region over the past months.
Later this week, British Foreign Secretary Jack
Straw will visit South Asia. He had already stated that
he was "horrified by this attack on innocent civilians"
in Jammu.
In another fortnight, US Secretary of
State Colin Powell will also visit South Asia again. In
a strongly worded statement condemning the Jammu
killings he said, "The people of this region deserve
peace and development, not the suffering imposed upon
them by terrorist thugs who are outside the pale of the
civilized world".
A day before the Jammu strike,
a US spokesman had publicly stated that there had been
"a significant decline in infiltration", in effect
saying that Musharraf had kept a June 6 commitment he
made to the visiting US Deputy Secretary of State
Richard Armitage.
Third, after helping defeat
the Taliban in Afghanistan last year, Pakistan has now
become the key player in its anti-terrorism campaign for
the United States. Indeed, "Pakistan has become a
laboratory for how American power could be used to
combat terror," the 'New York Times reported on Sunday.
Referring to the US role in concert with
Pakistan, the newspaper stated that "the deployment,
which includes intelligence officers in Pakistan, marks
a shift in the Bush administration's anti-terrorism
strategy".
"The new approach is driven by the
recognition that after the American military successes
in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda's center of gravity has shifted
east, first into the tribal areas of Pakistan, and then
into its cities," it added.
Given this context,
the United States is likely to remain actively engaged
in diplomacy to defuse tensions and to ensure that
Kashmir does not become a flashpoint to destabilize a
region that is now crucial in Washington's war against
terrorism.
(Inter Press Service)
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