MILNET
Analysis Pakistan
Crackdown and the Future of Musharraf 8/02/2007
For weeks Pakistani militants have savaged across that country, with
events culminating in a standoff at the Red Mosque. The violence
began a number of months ago as Perez Musharraf's government began a
U.S. urged
crackdown against Jihadists and Jihadist training centers, both
educational and vocational, so to speak.
The results are an indicator of what MILNET has been saying for some
years now. Pakistan IS the breeding ground for much of the Militant
Islamic Jihadist threat to the world. As the U.K. is well
aware Pakistani grown or influenced Jihadists pose one of the greatest
dangers to the world --
the MIJs from Pakistan contributed in a huge way to the ongoing attacks
both in London and Glasgow.
There was Pakistani Jihadist influence in the first attacks on the
World Trade
Center and foiled terrorist operations that have been broken up
worldwide has been very apparent -- Jihadists from Pakistan were
instrumental in building cells in Yemen and Pakistani Madrassas
contributed to the education of a number of the leaders including the
blind sheik currently serving a life sentence in the U.S. for the
attacks.
And of course, there is that "original" tie to Afganistan the Taliban
and Al Qaeda --
these two malevont influences crossing from Pakistan into and for a
time occupying Afghanistan.
Today that influence remains, as the Taliban are thought to be behind a
series of killings and the capture of a Mosque in northern
Pakistan. Indeed the Taliban fighters have renamed this newly
captured Mosque the
Red Mosque "in memory" or "in memorial" to the Red Mosque where
government troops cornered and eventually killed off many Islamic
Extremists in mid to late July, 2007.
The fact that the Taliban still lives is more a testament to the
insidious tribal nature of the wild northwestern Pakistan-Afghani
border than to their resilence as a fighting group or as Democrats
would like us to believe -- a failure of the Bush Administration or the
U.S. and European militaries. Ejected
forcefully as a capable army from Afghanistan, the Taliban live
hand-to-mouth
on the border between the two nations, rallying east or west as they
see fit to threaten or on occassion take on pretty much defenseless
villages. On rare occassions the Taliban will attack military
units, but increasingly, that has proven a lost cause for them.
NATO troops are more than enough aware of the Taliban and their
dealings, having targeted them both miltarily as well as through
negotiations with villages and tribes surrounding the areas the Taliban
are thought to hide in. So far in Afhanistan, the NATO efforts
appear to be working, but their success will largely depend upon
Pakistan's efforts to forcefully evict the Jihadists from their
country. Success does not mean the will disappear anytime soon,
but their ability to shape events in any major way is gone and has
remained so since the original invasion of Afghanistan. Again,
the Democrats want you to believe it is all a big failure -- not
so.
Pakistan and Musharraf, however, have a touchy situation on their
hands. Musharraf's rule in Pakistan is based upon appeasement of
much of the same crowds who support the Jihadists, if not many of the
Jihadists themselves. It is not clear if his government can
withstand the political fallout of the recent crackdowns -- and we are
witnessing the beginnings of the big test for a Muslim leader who
defies the Mullahs and Jihadists who want extremist Islamic rule for
the world. He deserves our support in that effort, if not our
"coaching" him to do more. By the end of the year, we should know
if he can withstand the Jihadist pressure on him and the the people of
Pakistan.
