Questions on Bajaur madrassa bombing

[Saddle Bronc 124]

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The US role against militants in Pakistan

By Aamer Ahmed Khan

BBC News, Islamabad

Monday's aerial attack on a seminary in Pakistan's tribal area of Bajaur that killed 80 people has again triggered a debate about who is actually carrying out such attacks.

President Musharraf's opponents, led by the country's religious leadership, are insisting that the latest strike was carried out by US forces based in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Military officials have strongly rubbished such assertions, claiming it to be a "purely Pakistani operation".

Amid these conflicting claims, the problem of sifting fact from fiction has been compounded by the government's decision to block media access to Bajaur.

Monday's strike was the deadliest in the tribal areas in recent history.

Contours

Defence analysts in Islamabad say the confusion over the architects of Monday's strike may have more to do with the nature of the intelligence sharing agreement between Pakistan and the US than anything else.

Few details of this agreement were made public when it was first ironed out in the wake of the September 2001 attacks in the United States.

But enough has surfaced over the last few years to help analysts piece together its various contours.

It is widely believed that the agreement was originally confined to intelligence sharing between the two countries on the presence, movement and activities of al-Qaeda suspects in and around Pakistan.

The focus was on preventing al-Qaeda suspects from taking roots in major Pakistani cities such as Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi.

The success of this intelligence sharing arrangement was obvious from the number of important arrests made in these cities.

Among those nabbed were major al-Qaeda activists such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Abu Zubaida.

Snags

Senior Pakistani military officials say it was their successful intelligence sharing in the urban centres that encouraged them to replicate the model in the tribal areas.

But the arrangement that had worked so well in the cities soon ran into policy as well as practical snags in the lawless tribal territory on two counts.

On the policy front, there was no disagreement between the two countries on weeding out al-Qaeda from the cities.

But their security perceptions were found to be poles apart in the tribal areas where al-Qaeda operatives were given refuge by the Taleban.

Pakistani officials say the US was strongly advised to isolate al-Qaeda through political initiatives before resorting to military action in the area.

US officials, however, were said to be "resistant to suggestions that al-Qaeda and their Taleban protectors be treated differently".

More importantly, the kind of stealth operations that had led to important arrests in the cities were almost impossible in the tribal areas because of the difficult terrain and the highly integrated tribal structure.

It was only logical for Pakistan to use sophisticated US technology of aerial surveillance and remote identification of possible targets before taking action anywhere.

And once a decision was taken on decisive action, how it was to be done was an issue that essentially boiled down to the question of capability.

In many situations, the US was in a position to act more swiftly than Pakistan.

In the January attack on Bajaur for example - which Islamabad admitted had been carried out by the US - Pakistani authorities were informed of the intended attack just a few hours before it was actually carried out.

Intelligence officials describe it as a cooperation that is typical in most covert joint operations.

'Evidence'

A day after this Monday's strike on Bajaur, Pakistani military officials gave a select group of journalists in Islamabad a background briefing on the "evidence" that had led to the strike.

Journalists, who attended that briefing, say they were shown photographs and videos of people "involved in rigorous physical exercises as early as 4 o'clock in the morning".

These were infrared images apparently shot from spy planes that are not known to be owned or operated by the Pakistan army.

Some of the "training" scenes depicted in the videos seemed similar to a Taleban propaganda video released to a popular television channel in Pakistan last month.

Officials, briefing journalists, said as far as they were concerned, it was convincing evidence that the madrassa was being used for training militants.

Analysts say if there is one thing that this sequence of events points to, it is the extremely close coordination between the two countries in what they define as anti-terror operations.

According to one senior official, if an operation involves US surveillance technology and advanced precision weaponry provided by the US, then who actually pulled the trigger is of academic interest only.

Notes:

• It is notable that during Zia's tenure (1977-1988), considerable quantities of sophisticated armaments (such as F-16) were sold to Pakistan; even more was given to be transferred to Afghan mujahids (how easy do you think it is to siphon off aid, when you're the intermediary?)
  
• As for a "US reconnaissaince drone" being seen before the attack, it beggars the question of whether such a drone would be painted with such identifying marks (doubtful, as it would undermine the purpose); and the fact of the earlier transfers makes it easily feasible that Pakistan has some US-made reconnaissance drones in stock--quite tenable that it was "Pak-mil only" operation
  

That would belie the article's last comment.