So, what will America do?

The fact remains that the Quetta Shura and the Haqqani Network operate from Pakistan with impunity...

Pakistan’s military and political establishment, one often indistinguishable from the other, have for long been disingenuous if not outright deceitful while claiming to dismantle the sprawling jihad complex which is the mainstay of that country’s established policy of using terrorism to further its ‘strategic objectives’.

Those ‘strategic objectives’ range from “inflicting a thousand cuts” on India to gaining control over Afghanistan; from blackmailing Western donor countries, especially the USA, to simply terrorising the world.

That in the process thousands of Pakistani citizens have fallen victim to the insatiable appetite for flesh and blood of the monster the Pakistani state has bred is of no consequence to the Generals in Rawalpindi and their handmaidens in Islamabad.

Strangely, or perhaps not so, Pakistanis continue to live in denial of this reality. The Pakistani military and the Government, or what passes for it, deny any links with terrorist organisations. If confronted with evidence, they either brazen it out or slyly ask for more dole to do what is expected of them.

The world is aware of how Pakistan has emerged as the epicentre of global terrorism. The US, which is the principal benefactor of Pakistan, knows that the hand which reaches out for civilian and military aid is also the hand which loving rocks the cradle of jihad’s nursery.

But that has not stopped the US from writing out billion-dollar cheques to Pakistan. Nor has it made Washington, DC demand answers to some tough questions.

On the contrary, the US continues to describe Pakistan as its ‘staunch ally’, its ‘frontline ally’ in the war on terror. Pakistan remains the US’s ‘most-favoured non-Nato ally’. Pakistan has America wrapped around its little finger.

In a sense, if Pakistanis are living in denial, so are the Americans.

That Osama bin Laden was found living in a ‘safe house’ at Abbottabad, obviously protected by the Pakistani military and its terror-sponsoring agency, the ISI, has not shaken America’s faith in Pakistan.

That other Al Qaeda leaders have been traced – and killed through targeted drone attacks – in Pakistan has not deterred Washington from standing by Islamabad.

That Pakistan continues to flout UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions aimed at defanging terrorist organisations like the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba is of no seeming relevance to the US Administration.

Occasionally we are told that the US has read out the riot act to Pakistan, that senior Pakistani politicians and Generals have been admonished, that Islamabad has been sternly told thus far and no further. That’s so much finger-wagging amounting to nothing.

For instance, we are told that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was less than pleasant with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar (of Birkin bag fame) who did look discomfited in the customary photo of the recent meeting in Washington that was released to media. Hillary is supposed to have told Hina that the Pakistani military-political establishment was working hand-in-glove with the Haqqani network to unleash terror in Afghanistan.

In response, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik (who is partial towards flashy ties) has, in his characteristically belligerent style, demanded, “Where is the evidence?” That’s not the first time Pakistan has sought ‘evidence’ of its misdeeds.

Interestingly, in separate testimonies before the US Senate Armed Forces Committee on September 22, 2011, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta have spoken in great detail of the nexus between jihadi terror and the Pakistani state.

Mike Mullen says in his testimony:

“The fact remains that the Quetta Shura and the Haqqani Network operate from Pakistan with impunity. Extremist organizations serving as proxies of the government of Pakistan are attacking Afghan troops and civilians as well as US soldiers. For example, we believe the Haqqani Network — which has long enjoyed the support and protection of the Pakistani government and is, in many ways, a strategic arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency — is responsible for the September 13th attacks against the US Embassy in Kabul. There is ample evidence confirming that the Haqqanis were behind the June 28th attack against the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul and the September 10th truck bomb attack that killed five Afghans and injured another 96 individuals, 77 of whom were US soldiers. History teaches us that it is difficult to defeat an insurgency when fighters enjoy a sanctuary outside national boundaries, and we are seeing this again today. The Quetta Shura and the Haqqani Network are hampering efforts to improve security in Afghanistan, spoiling possibilities for broader reconciliation, and frustrating US-Pakistan relations. The actions by the Pakistani government to support them — actively and passively — represent a growing problem that is undermining US interests and may violate international norms, potentially warranting sanction…”

The full text of Mullen’s testimony can be read here.

Leon Panetta was understandably more tactful:

"We have a difficult campaign ahead of us in the east, where the topography, cultural geography, and continuing presence of safe havens in Pakistan give the insurgents advantages they have lost elsewhere in the country. Additionally, as relations with Pakistan have become strained over the past year, and as we have met Pakistan’s requests to reduce our training and liaison presence in their country, our diminished ability to coordinate respective military operations in the border regions has given insurgents greater freedom of movement along the border. Our forces are working in the east to cut off insurgent lines of communication and deny their ability to threaten Kabul and other population centres. Nonetheless, progress in the east will likely continue to lag what we see elsewhere in the country..."

The full text of Panetta’s testimony can be read here.

So what does the US plan to do? Pretend that its ‘staunch ally’, its ‘frontline ally’, its ‘most-favoured non-Nato ally’ remains committed to waging war on terror?

That’s more than likely. Which prompts the question, after such knowledge, what forgiveness?

Update

On Friday, September 23, Pakistan's Inter-Services Public Relations issued the following statement:

While taking note of the recent statements made by Admiral Mullen, Chairman Joint Chief of Staff United States, Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, termed these as very unfortunate and not based on facts. This is especially disturbing in view of a rather constructive meeting with Admiral Mullen in Spain.

On the specific question of contacts with Haqqanis, the COAS said that Admiral Mullen knows fully well which all countries are in contact with the Haqqanis. Singling out Pakistan is neither fair nor productive.

Categorically denying the accusations of proxy war and ISI support to Haqqanis, the COAS wished that, the blame game in public statements should give way to a constructive and meaningful engagement for a stable and peaceful Afghanistan, an objective to which Pakistan is fully committed.

It would be interesting to know what "Admiral Mullen knows fully well" as to which all countries are "in contact with the Haqqanis".

Why doesn't Gen Kayani spill the beans? Or, get an ISPR affiliated journalist, of whom there is no dearth, to tell all?


[Time has an interesting story on the massacre of Shias of Balochistan by Pakistan's Sunni militia, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.]

The Pakistani Connection!

This audio recording, courtesy Al Jazeera, reminds us of Kargil, 26/11 and the perfidy of the Pakistani military-jihadi Establishment.

Recording reveals Afghan attack plot

Intercepted calls show Taliban and Pakistan-based group planning June attack on Kabul hotel.

Afghan security officials have released a recording of intercepted phone calls between a Pakistan-based group and Taliban fighters planning an attack on a Kabul hotel.

Twenty-one people died when eight suicide bombers stormed the hotel in a nighttime raid in late June.

Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith reports from Kabul.

Taliban's barbarism in name of Islam

What awaits Afghanistan

The August 9 issue of Time featured a cover story on the plight of women in those parts of Afghanistan where the Taliban enforce their barbaric interpretation of sharia’h. The magazine had a shocking picture on the cover: That of 18-year-old Aisha whose nose and ears were sliced off on the instructions of the local Taliban commander. Aisha was punished for running away from an abusive husband and parents-in-law.

UPDATE
The Taliban publicly flogged and then executed a pregnant Afghan widow by emptying three shots into her head for alleged adultery. Bibi Sanubar, 35, was kept in captivity for three days before she was shot dead in a public trial on Sunday by a local Taliban commander in the Qadis district of the rural western province Badghis. The Taliban accused Sanubar of having an "illicit affair" that left her pregnant.

Aisha’s story is symbolic of persecution of girls and women by the Taliban in the name of Islam. There are innumerable examples of young girls, some just past their puberty, being forced into marriage with members of the Taliban militia to serve as no more than sex slaves for the adherents of Deobandi Islam. Woe betide those girls who try to escape from their life of forced misery.

Jihad Watch provides a glimpse of what it calls “Unspeakable barbarism among the Taliban, the students of Islam.”
Time has raised a fundamental question: What happens if we leave Afghanistan?
That question has been posed from the American perspective, reflecting American concerns over US President Barack Hussein Obama’s plan to pull out troops from Afghanistan in the summer of 2011. But it’s a question that should really bother democracies across the world. The issue raised by Time has several aspects involving the liberty, rights and dignity of Afghans, especially women.

If the Taliban were to regain power in Aghanistan, as it seems likely with the US preparing to hand over control over Kabul to the Generals of Pakistan, then all those who claim to stand for freedom, liberty and dignity would stand indicted of complicity in this crime.

The years when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan will be remembered for the contempt with which Mullah Omar and his men trampled upon women’s rights. Not only were young and old women made to disappear under burqas, they were virtually banished to the darkest corners of their homes. Girls were prohibited from attending school. In the joyless world of ‘pure Islam’, along with music and art, women’s rights disappeared to as they were deemed to be ‘un-Islamic’.

That period of terror came to be symbolised by the public execution of two women in Kabul’s football stadium.

That was in the past. As for the future, a glimpse of what awaits Afghanistan has been provided by AP in this news despatch from Kabul on August 16:

Taliban stone couple for adultery in Afghanistan

By AMIR SHAH

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Taliban militants stoned a young couple to death for adultery after they ran away from their families in northern Afghanistan, officials said Monday. It was the first confirmed stoning in Afghanistan since the fall of Taliban rule in the 2001 US-led invasion.

When the Islamist extremists ruled Afghanistan, women were not allowed to leave their houses without a male guardian, and public killings for violations of their harsh interpretation of the Quran were common.

This weekend's stoning appeared to arise from an affair between a married man and a single woman in Kunduz province's Dasht-e-Archi district. The woman, Sadiqa, was 20 years old and engaged to another man, said the Kunduz provincial police chief, Gen. Abdul Raza Yaqoubi. Her lover, 28-year-old Qayum, left his wife to run away with her, and the two had holed up in a friend's house five days ago, said district Government head, Mohammad Ayub Aqyar.

They were discovered by Taliban operatives on Sunday and stoned to death in front a crowd of about 150 men, Aqyar said. First the woman was brought out and stoned, then the man a half an hour later, Aqyar said. He decried the punishment, which he said was ordered by two local Taliban commanders.

The ancient practice of death by stoning has been abandoned in all but a handful of countries. It is still a legal punishment in some countries, like Iran, which justify it under Sharia’h, or Islamic law.

Last month, Iran's religious authorities called off the planned stoning of a woman convicted of cheating on her husband. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani's sentence -- which would have been Iran's first stoning since 2008 -- was lifted following a campaign around the world.

Two witnesses to the horrific double murder in the name of Islam told the BBC that the Taliban asked the villagers to attend the stoning through an announcement on loudspeakers in the mosque. "There was a big crowd of people... We were also asked to throw stones. After a while, the Taliban left. The woman was dead but the man was still alive... Some Taliban then came and shot him three times. The Taliban warned villagers if anyone does anything un-Islamic, this will be their fate.''

Anybody for ‘good’ Taliban?

So, Congress wants to cut a deal with Taliban!

By Kanchan Gupta

The venerable Wall Street Journal, which still takes the business of journalism seriously, has carried an interesting news story in its Wednesday’s edition. Headlined “Indian Minister Urges Afghan Political Settlement”, it is based on an interview with Minister for External Affairs SM Krishna, who apparently spoke to the writer, Joe Lauria, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, which is now in session. The opening paragraph of the story is truly attention grabbing: “India, one of the biggest investors in Afghanistan, believes there is no military solution to the conflict in that country and that NATO combat operations should give way to a political settlement with the Taliban, according to Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna.”

The newspaper quotes Mr Krishna as saying, “India doesn’t believe that war can solve any problem and that applies to Afghanistan also... I think there could be a political settlement. I think we should strive towards that.” According to the daily, Mr Krishna “dismissed suggestions that India’s growing involvement in Afghanistan is intended to encircle Pakistan, a fear prevalent in some circles in Pakistan. ‘I think that is a baseless allegation,’ he said.” Mr Krishna, in his interview, “charged that Pakistan’s disruptive role in the Taliban insurgency continued”, and said “the military situation in Afghanistan was complicated by the ongoing aid for the Afghan Taliban provided by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency”.

A full reading of the news story and the extensive quotes of the Minister published alongside would reveal that he has not suggested a “political settlement with the Taliban”, at least not in so many words. But it is only logical to deduce that this is what he meant when he talked of a “political settlement”. Given the political reality of Afghanistan where the Taliban are determined not to allow democracy and modernism to take root, and want the country to return to the joyless, dark days when a one-eyed monster called Mullah Omar ruled that benighted nation with ruthless force in the name of Islam, the only people you can strike a deal with and come to a “political settlement” are the Taliban.

“If India can work happily with Great Britain after they having ruled us for so long, it only shows that we can play the game,” Mr Krishna told The Wall Street Journal. That is an allusion which only the naïve would miss or misinterpret. In interpreting foreign policy, each word, especially when uttered by the Foreign Minister of a country, is dissected many times over. And the most casual reading of Mr Krishna’s comments would suggest that they indicate a major shift in the Government’s policy on Afghanistan and a break with the national consensus that has helped its evolution: The Congress-led UPA is now willing to “play the game” and cut a deal with the Taliban.

What Mr Krishna has also signalled is the UPA Government’s rethinking on American involvement in Afghanistan. Till now, although India has steered clear of the US-led military intervention in Afghanistan, it has been a beneficiary of everything that has followed the fall of the criminal Taliban regime and the installation of the Government headed by President Hamid Karzai. New Delhi would not have been able to reopen its mission in Kabul and set up consulates elsewhere had Mullah Omar still been in power. Nor would India have been able to re-establish its people-friendly profile among the Afghan masses through infrastructure development and healthcare projects.

It would be foolish to believe that the ‘Indian presence’ in Afghanistan will remain untouched and undiminished if the US and NATO troops were to abruptly pack up and leave that country. A “political settlement” — or, to put it more bluntly, a deal with the Taliban — may please those in the UPA Government who believe Islamism is a benign idea and Islamists are the natural allies of ‘secularists’, but it will be disastrous for India and its national interest.

Since Mr Krishna is the Minister for External Affairs, we must presume that whatever he has told The Wall Street Journal, as well as the implied meaning of his statement, reflect current thinking in South Block. More important, since Mr Manmohan Singh unilaterally frames foreign policy these days, Mr Krishna’s comments must be taken to reflect the Prime Minister’s views — unless they are refuted or denounced by the Government’s drum-beaters in the media. It may not be entirely coincidental that the Prime Minister’s prescription for redrafting India’s policy on Afghanistan bears close resemblance to the current thinking in Washington, DC.

As US President Barack Hussein Obama watches his much-touted AfPak policy unravel, his strategists work overtime to convert the 21st century’s Great Game into a Grand Bargain. Mr Obama spoke of a ‘surge’ in the deployment of US troops, but there are as yet no signs of 40,000 more Americans being sent to win the war against the Taliban. And while policy-makers in the Obama Administration dither, Gen Stanley McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has submitted a ‘confidential’ report — whose contents have been leaked to The Washington Post! — to the American President, underscoring the problems posed by “inadequate resources” at his disposal. “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible,” he has said.

While Gen McChrystal has made a case for the immediate deployment of additional soldiers to bolster the presence of 64,000 troops in Afghanistan, Pentagon appears to be divided on the issue. It would like Mr Obama to take a political call on whether to go ahead with the ‘surge’ or begin pulling out troops from Afghanistan, and then strategise on the next steps to be taken. Interestingly, Gen McChrystal is also believed to have said in his report that “while Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan people, increa-sing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures in Afghanistan or India”.

That’s an understatement, but it nonetheless accurately reflects the Afghan reality which is intimately enmeshed with the reality of Pakistan’s ‘strategic depth’ policy that visualises Islamabad’s control over Kabul with the Taliban’s help and the imposition of Islamist absolutism. In such a scenario, it is amusing to think of the UPA Government cutting a deal with the Taliban.

[This appeared as the main article on the edit page of The Pioneer on Wednesday, September 25, 2009. The same day, alarmed by the possible fallout of SM Krishna's comments, the MEA spokesperson issued a statement, saying, "The Minister has been misquoted in his interview with The Wall Street Journal." A classic example of the adage -- What did the politician have for lunch? What he said at breakfast! A related news story of interest in The Wall Street Journal which appeared a day later: Dubious Afghan Vote Drove U.S. to Revisit Strategy.]

Asif Ali Zardari is Barack Hussein Obama's blue-eyed boy as Hamid Karzai falls from grace

It pays to let Taliban and Al Qaeda flourish. Or else Hamid Karzai would not have fallen from grace with the Americans!



Comment by Kanchan Gupta / May 6, 2009.

In a story headlined "OBAMA'S WAR: A New Approach to Karzai -- Administration Is Keeping Ally at Arm's Length; Skepticism of Afghan Leader Shapes Policy", filed by Rajeev Chandrasekaran, Tuesday's Washington Post makes a couple of interesting points:

Today, as the two leaders meet in the White House, that skepticism drives the administration's evolving policy toward Afghanistan and the battle against Taliban insurgents, a conflict whose outcome will in part define Obama's presidency.
In assessing the nearly eight-year struggle from Washington, senior members of Obama's national security team say Karzai has not done enough to address the grave challenges facing his nation. They deem him to be a mercurial and vacillating chieftain who has tolerated corruption and failed to project his authority beyond the gates of Kabul.
"On all fronts," said a senior U.S. official, "Hamid Karzai has plateaued as a leader."

These need to be taken note of along with the great faith that US President Barack Hussein Obama has placed in Pakistan's dissolute President Azif Ali Zardari and rewarded him for allowing Pakistan to descend into chaos and the Taliban to occupy vast tracts of land where they have let loose a reign of terror in the name of enforcing shari'ah. Zardari's prize: $ 7.5 billion in American aid. The money could also be candyfloss to keep Zardari happy as the Americans plot with former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif whose PML (N) could join the Pakistani Federal Government with him as the Prime Minister.
It is interesting to note that while Obama is 'reaching out' to Pakistan and appeasing those who are responsible for the rapid march of the Taliban, he has been slyly introducing measures that can only be described as anti-India.

Who killed Gen Zia?

Pak One blew up with him, US Ambassador Raphel and eight Pakistani Generals

Who killed Gen Zia?
General Zia-ul-Haq, military dictator of Pakistan, patron of Khalistani terrorists and a 'staunch ally' of the US who collaborated with the CIA in the American funded and armed jihad against Soviet troops in Afghanistan, had hoped to win the Nobel peace prize in 1988 for halting the spread of Communism. At least that was what he had been led to believe by the Americans.
Instead, Gen Zia died in an air crash on August 17, 1988. The US-supplied Hercules C-130 aircraft, a sturdy turboprop transport plane with multiple, fail-proof back-up systems, in which he was travelling, did loops in the sky and then nose-dived to the ground, its tail doing a 'whiplash' before it turned into a huge, roaring ball of fire. Along with Gen Zia, US Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Raphel, head of the American military aid mission Gen Herbert M Wassom, chairman of Pakistan's chiefs of staff committee Gen Akhtar Abdur Rehman, and eight other Pakistani generals and the crew, were incinerated in that blaze.
Pak One could not have gone down in so dramatic a manner within four minutes of taking off from Bahawalpur, a dusty outpost in Punjab province where Gen Zia and the Army top brass had gathered for the field trial of Abrams M-1 battle tanks which the US was trying to sell to Pakistan.
The plane had been double security checked and had done a dummy mission the previous day to ensure all systems were working fine. 'Code Red', the highest security alert, had been in force for some time in Islamabad and nobody could have had access to the aircraft, barring those whom Gen Zia trusted. And there weren't many in this rarest of rare category of military officers in Pakistan.
Foul play was suspected and Gen Zia's grieving widow openly declared that "his own" had killed him. With Gen Zia no longer scowling at them menacingly, Pakistani journalists had a field day speculating on what could have happened. The Reagan Administration was remarkably calm in its response; the Pakistani establishment, now headed by a new Army chief, reacted with astonishing haste.
No autopsy or forensic tests were performed on the bits and pieces of human bodies, charred bones, disfigured heads, scorched torsos and boots with severed feet recovered from the crash site. Families of the victims were "strictly instructed" not to open the coffins containing their remains and to bury them immediately. Arnold Raphel and Gen Herbert M Wassom were buried with military honours at Arlington Cemetery.
For all the speculation that followed the crash and the exit of a particularly vicious dictator who ordered men and women to be flogged in public and adulterers to be stoned to death as part of his 'Islamisation' programme, nothing definitive ever came out of the joint US-Pakistan inquiry. The Pakistanis insisted the plane had been "sabotaged"; the Americans vaguely suggested "mechanical failure".
The real story remains an abiding mystery 20 years after the event. If it was, indeed, an assassination then Gen Zia is the only assassinated South Asian Head of State whose assassins remain unidentified. His fiery exit cannot but haunt others, especially Gen Pervez Musharraf, who is believed to have been sufficiently alarmed on reading recent media reports that a military aircraft was on standby for him to leave the country if push came to shove, to issue a formal denial and get the US State Department to issue one, too. The objective situation that prevails in Pakistan -- a President under siege, a dysfunctional Government, widespread disquiet and Americans desperate to retain control -- is similar to that which prevailed during the last months of Gen Zia's 11-year-reign.
Seen in the context of the political turmoil, the uncertain future that stares Gen Musharraf in the face, the Army buying peace with Al Qaeda elements and the US waging a reverse jihad against the very jihadis it had once nourished to fight the Soviet troops, Mohammed Hanif's spectacular book, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, published by Random House this week, acquires a certain importance. Hanif describes his book as an "alleged novel", but its characters, barring the person telling the story and a few others, are far from fictitious.
A Case of Exploding Mangoes is a painstaking recreation of the weeks leading to Gen Zia's plane crash. Laced with dark humour, it tells the story of a man doomed to die the way he did, his death foretold by a sura of the Quran which he chances upon. The book also reopens chapters that had been presumably closed, reviving all the conspiracy theories that had gradually disappeared from Army mess gossip and Pakistani newspapers over the past two decades.
Hanif has effectively revived the big question: Who killed Gen Zia? He dismisses the crafty assertion of the Americans that the plane went down because of "mechanical fault" by not even touching on it. Instead, his book unfolds the various possible plots and unmasks the potential assassins and conspirators, pitilessly exposing the underbelly of the Pakistani establishment, dominated by the Army and the ISI, and the nexus between Pakistan and the US, which is frighteningly destructive for the former and cynically self-serving for the latter.
What A Case of Exploding Mangoes does is to present the various conspiracy theories in their specific context and then integrates them into a big picture where the central purpose of each conspirator is to get rid of Gen Zia for reasons that range from self-aggrandisement to liberating Pakistan from a man who made a mockery of Islam while pretending to be a fanatical believer, from national security to international geo-politics. Hanif forays into uncharted territory armed with slivers of the truth behind the crash of 1988, and paints a fascinating picture of low intrigue in high places, including those in Islamabad and Washington. So who did it?
Theory One: The CIA did it. Arnold Raphel was the American ambassador co-ordinating the US-funded jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan. But was he really in the loop? Hanif's account has it that William (Bill) Casey, then CIA director, had a direct hotline with Gen Zia and, along with his friend Prince Naif of Saudi Arabia, would drop in for a hearty Punjabi meal at Army House without bothering to inform Raphel of his arrival in and departure from Pakistan.
On a day-to-day basis, Chuck Coogan was running the show for the CIA in Pakistan and Afghanistan. There were many others representing various US agencies.
Raphel would often wonder whether he was in command, a point highlighted during the Kabul-Texas barbeque he hosted for his 'friends' where 'OBL' -- Osama bin Laden -- strolled in and was warmly welcomed by Coogan. Later that evening, Gen Akhtar, yet to be stripped of his job as ISI chief, got the feeling that the CIA was done with Gen Zia and had little use for the man with shining white teeth and a dancing moustache now that Moscow was pulling out its troops from Afghanistan.
But why would the CIA also kill Raphel and Gen Wassom? Here the theory splits into two possibilities. First, the CIA carries out its missions on the basis that there could be collateral damage. Second, Raphel and Gen Wasson were supposed to travel by their own aircraft, parked at Bahawalpur, after attending the field trial of the Abrams tanks. Gen Zia insisted they travel with him on the C-130 at the last minute, virtually forcing them to join him on the journey.
The CIA had enough contacts in the Army to have ensured a "mechanical fault" in Pak One while it was parked at Bahawalpur. The US State Department and the Pentagon were prompt in denying permission to the FBI to investigate the crash although American officials had died in the disaster. Congressional hearings were short-circuited and a 250-page file, stamped "Top Secret", remains classified in the vaults of the US National Archives. What has fuelled this theory is the stunningly meek response of the US Administration, then headed by President Ronald Reagan, to the crash and the calm manner in which a National Security Council member, Robert Oakley, was despatched to take over the American mission.
Theory Two: The ISI did it. This is where Hanif's book comes alive. Gen Akhtar was unceremoniously removed by Gen Zia from his job as ISI chief after it was discovered that he had bugged Army House and was not only recording the dictator's telephone conversations but also filming him with a spy camera embedded in the monocled eye of Mohammed Ali Jinnah in a portrait of the Quaid-e-Azam. The job went to Gen Aslam Beg, an ambitious soldier who was then vice-chief of Army staff.
Slighted, humiliated and stripped of all power, Gen Akhtar plotted Gen Zia's assassination with the help of his factotum, Major Kiyani, and other loyalists. They placed a can of lavender air freshener, laced with VX gas -- which knocks people out in two minutes and kills them during the third minute -- in the air-conditioning duct of Pak One. The can would be activated during Gen Zia's return journey.
Gen Akhtar was not supposed to accompany Gen Zia to Bahawalpur, but was summoned to join the delegation on the morning of the visit. He tried to break off after the Abrams field trial, but was buttonholed by Gen Zia into accompanying him. Before the flight took off, Hanif tells us, a panic-struck Gen Akhtar told the crew not to switch on the air-conditioning system as Gen Zia was 'unwell'. As luck would have it, the pilot tried to duck a crow and the sudden loss of altitude switched on the system, releasing the deadly VX gas.
Hanif's account mentions radio transmission being picked up by Gen Beg's aircraft, following Pak One, according to which the pilot and the crew in the cockpit were dead within three minutes of the air-conditioning system being switched on. With nobody in control, the C-130 crashed to the ground, nose first, and then blew up, four minutes after taking off. So, if the ISI did it, its plan was botched by Gen Zia's insistence that the plotters fly with him.
Theory Three: The Army did it. Despite Gen Zia's zealotry, the majority of the officers in the Pakistani Army was appalled by the dictator's insistence on injecting Islam into every sphere of Pakistani life and converting soldiers into mullahs. Gen Beg is depicted as a cold, calm and calculating officer of the old school, who is not easily charmed by Gen Zia or forced into doing anything against his better judgement. He could have decided to deliver the Army from Gen Zia's vicious grip.
Gen Zia tried to convince him also into accompanying him on the return journey from Bahawalpur, but the wily General managed to steer clear of the doomed delegation and insisted on travelling in his own Cessna. He saw Pak One going down but did not return to Bahawalpur. Instead, he proceeded to Islamabad to take charge as Army chief and preside over Pakistan's return to democracy.
As ISI chief, he may have come to know of the plot hatched by Gen Akhtar and decided to ignore it. This would also indicate why he steadfastly refused to board Pak One even at the risk of offending Gen Zia. After the crash, the Army showed little interest in getting to the truth.
A sub-plot of the Army being behind the crash has it that a disgruntled cadet -- Ali Shigri in Hanif's book -- decided to avenge his father's murder by those running the American jihad. The cadet dips the tip of his sword in a phial of krait's venom and nicks Gen Zia while he is inspecting a drill at Bahawalpur. But the theory is flawed because Gen Zia's death by itself would not have caused Pak One to go down, unless it coincided with the CIA and ISI theories.
Theory Four: A Case of Exploding Mangoes. Gen Zia was gifted crates of Bahawalpuri mangoes which prompted him to have a 'mango party' on board Pak One. He dragged Gen Akhtar, Raphel and Gen Wassom along with him on the return journey for the 'mango party'. One of two things could have happened subsequently. Bombs hidden in the crates of mangoes may have exploded, bringing the aircraft down. Or, they may have been laced with poison, killing those who consumed them. But since the flight had not yet stabilised, it is unlikely the mango party had begun. And according to eyewitness accounts, there was no mid-air explosion; the plane blew up only after hitting the ground.
Members of the Pakistani-American investigation team who rummaged through the crashed aircraft are believed to have found traces of phosphorous, potassium and other chemicals on burnt mangoes that can be used for making an explosive device. What if the plane did explode midair and then crashed?
After all, the eyewitness accounts may not be as truthful as they have been made out to be. Frankly, nobody saw Pak One going down, except Gen Beg, and he would have good reasons to steer clear of giving an honest version of what he saw.
So who was behind the exploding mangoes? It could have been the Mago Growers Association, a Communist organisation miffed with Gen Zia for being a "staunch ally" of the Americans. It could have been the Afghan secret service getting back at the man who helped destabilise that country in so awful a manner. It could have been the CIA. It could have been the Army. Or, it could have been 'OBL' testing his skills at blowing up planes in preparation of 9/11.

------

Cover story, Foray / Sunday Pioneer / June 9, 2008

(c) CMYK Printech Ltd

Mush should fear exploding mangoes!

Recall how Zia made his exit!
Mush should fear exploding mangoes
News from Pakistan provides the much-needed levity in these otherwise dreary times when we live in fear of rampaging Gujjars demanding their community be excluded from the Hindu caste system, declared a tribe and thus be pushed down the social hierarchy that is sustained by the cynical politics of caste identity practised by every political party, the BJP included. Over the past week, two major stories have emanated from Islamabad.
The first was based on comments by AQ Khan, the man who stole nuclear know-how from European countries to build an 'Islamic Bomb' and then sold technology and hardware to rogue states, among them Iran, Libya and North Korea, made to mediapersons during a funeral. Khan, who has been under house arrest ever since the Americans went public with his illicit trade, has now claimed that he peddled blueprints, centrifuges and the glowing stuff at the behest of Gen Pervez Musharraf. The Americans, who are still shoring up their favourite Pakistani, have responded with a banal statement that neither confirms nor refutes Khan's assertion. "We have not changed our assessment that AQ Khan was a very major and dangerous proliferator. He sold sensitive nuclear equipment and know-how to some genuinely bad actors," an unnamed US official has told ABC News.
Here are two facts about the 'dangerous proliferator'. Khan travelled to Pyongyang, Tehran and other such destinations, hawking technology to build nuclear bombs, after Gen Musharraf had been appointed Army chief by a gullible Nawaz Sharif, whom he was to later depose in a coup, and during his early years as Pakistan's military dictator. Second, Khan would use military aircraft, which cannot take off without clearance from what we refer to in this part of the world as 'highest level', for his foreign travel from Pakistani bases under the Army's control. For Gen Musharraf to pretend astonishment over Khan's nasty business is as laughable as the Americans feigning outrage over the father of the 'Islamic Bomb' wanting to spawn its siblings with other mates. Khan has merely said what everybody has known for long, including Gen Musharraf's minders in Washington, DC.
The other story which has had the Pakistani media in a tizzy for the past few days, and has been strangely ignored east of Wagah, is about Gen Musharraf preparing to flee Pakistan to seek shelter in another country. Colourful details, all of them strenuously denied by Gen Musharraf but not the Government of Pakistan, of which he is the notional head of state, have appeared in Pakistani newspapers -- about how he has had a raging row with Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, his hand-picked successor as Army chief; how the military he once headed has now turned against him; and, how a plane has been kept parked and ready to fly off with him into the sunset. Americans have swiftly come to the aid of their beleaguered 'staunch ally', letting it be known that he continues to enjoy their support.
But wait. Let's not rush to conclusions. Pakistan has a long history of Army chiefs viciously biting the hand that once lovingly fed them; of Americans dumping favourite dictators like cads dump women after bedding them; of politicians selling their souls to the devil for loaves and fishes of office; and, of people swinging from one extreme to another. Gen Ayub Khan came to power in October 1958 because the Americans didn't want the Pakistanis to elect a Government. He went on to famously declare, "We must understand that democracy cannot work in a hot climate. To have democracy we must have a cold climate like Britain." His job done, Gen Ayub Khan was given the boot by Gen Yahya Khan, who, after seizing power, remained closeted with 'General Rani' (a name that should ring a bell here) as Gen Tikka Khan let loose his rapacious soldiers on the Bengalis of East Pakistan.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, still smarting under Pakistan's humiliation in 1972, sacked the military's top brass and appointed Gen Zia-ul-Haq as Army chief. To stop Bhutto from going ahead with his 'Islamic Bomb' project, the Americans facilitated an Army coup on July 5, 1977, which led to the installation of Gen Zia as 'Martial Law Administrator'; less than two years later, on April 4, 1979, Bhutto was executed by his favourite General. The Americans went on to use Gen Zia to wage the Washington-sponsored jihad against Soviet troops in Afghanistan. With the law of diminishing returns setting in, his utility became questionable. On August 17, 1988, a US-supplied C-130 Hercules, carrying Gen Zia and the American Ambassador, Arnold Lewis Raphel, exploded soon after take-off from Bahawalpur. Raphel's death was what Americans describe as 'collateral damage'. Gen Zia's grieving widow claimed he had been killed "by his own"; whiskey-induced cantonment gossip placed the blame on "exploding mangoes".
It's mango season this time of the year and Gen Musharraf, who has darkly hinted in his memoir, In the Line of Fire, at what may have caused Gen Zia's plane to explode, would be stupid not to worry about his future now that the Bush presidency is nearing its end. If a crate of mangoes, gifted to another military ruler, could have exploded in mid-air, what's there to stop something from blowing up in his face? Given the ignominious exit made by Pakistani Generals who seized power to 'set things right' in Mohammed Ali Jinnah's Neverland, he may put up a brave face but deep within would be an extremely troubled man.
To rid himself of stress in his trying time, he could order a copy of Mohammed Hanif's hugely entertaining novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, published by Random House and due for release later this week, and look for insights between the lines into the way the Pakistani military, the ISI and the Americans work in tandem to get rid of Generals -- and lesser individuals -- who have outlived their utility. He may think he knows it all, but he would be surprised to find out what all he doesn't know. For starters, he could begin by checking whether Jinnah's portrait in his living room blinks at him. The rest he can read in Mohammed Hanif's account of the days leading to Gen Zia blowing up with exploding mangoes aboard a C-130 Hercules 20 years ago.

Coffee Break, Sunday Pioneer, June 1, 2008.
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