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20 September 2014

Great Game South Asia - dangerous portends

17 Sep , 2014

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting the US this month. It is but natural that in his two-day summit with President Obama many issues will be discussed, like: taking the Indo-US strategic partnership to the next level; US investment in India; joint ventures in defence; developments and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific; the cancer of ISIS; Afghanistan, Pakistan, China; situation in Iraq and Syria; the economic and energy scene; Al Qaeda refocusing to South Asia; Xinjiang; Tibet and many more. Issues that will however remain ambiguous or may not evoke response from Obama if asked, will likely be: why the American administration continues to chaperon the Pakistani military despite bulk of US-NATO casualties in Afghanistan through Pakistani proxies; what are the long-term plans of the US with respect to Pakistan, and; what are western plans to thwart the rapidly increasing Chinese influence, particularly in South Asia and the IOR.

Terrorism continues as state policy with sham democracy and military’s total hold on Pakistan. Periodic statements that democracy is getting stronger in Pakistan are misnomer…

Radicalism in Pakistan, as per their own media has been institutionalized not only through some 32,000 madrassas and seminaries but also in schools in urban areas. Nasir Abbas Mirza in his article ‘A Monstrous Experiment’ wrote in the Daily Times of Pakistan on 11 May, 2009, “There are thousands of madrasas spread all over Pakistan’s urban centres that are producing millions of neo-drones ……Take a little boy and incarcerate him in a remote madrasa. Indoctrinate him with a distorted version of a religion and tell him that he does not belong to this world. Teach him about the fanciful world that awaits him in the heaven, and that in order to attain that he has to destroy everything that stands in his way, including his own body …… At full steam ahead in Pakistan, this is a monstrous experiment in brainwashing and it is on a par with, if not worse than, Nazi Germany’s eugenics. They did it in the name of science; here, it is being done in the name of God and religion. On a very large scale, this is a hugely successful experiment in which nurture triumphs and nature takes a beating.”

Terrorism continues as state policy with sham democracy and military’s total hold on Pakistan. Periodic statements that democracy is getting stronger in Pakistan are misnomer, as democracy is captive by the military. Stephen P Cohen wrote in his book ‘The Future of Pakistan’ published in 2012, “Pakistan is stuck between being an outright military dictatorship and a stable democracy. Neither are likely, and an even less likely future would be a radical transformation and the rise of Islamists or a breakaway movement led by the Baloch or other separatist groups. … the negative aspects of Islamist globalisation have hit Pakistan hard. Some of the weirdest ideas in the Islamic world have found rich soil in Pakistan, and the country is regarded as an epicentre of terrorism. Pakistan, which was once held up as the most moderate of the Islamic states, seems to be embracing extremists and their dysfunctional violent ideas”.

Above is why sections of military-ISI and administration in Pakistan are linked with Taliban, Al Qaeda, Haqqanis and other terrorist organizations. Over the years, the military has become very powerful and Pakistan’s foreign policy especially with reference to India and Afghanistan is on its bidding. The hold of the military over Pakistan is so strong that it has infiltrated every sector of Pakistan – both government and non-government. Ayesha Siddiqa wrote in her book ‘Military Inc’ in 2007 that the then private-corporate complex of the Pakistani Military was pegged at US$ 20.7 billion. This would have multiplied manifold in last seven years. In order to retain this power and money, the military continues with the state policy of terror, particularly against neighbours India and Afghanistan.

The notable issue is that in following this policy, the Pakistani military is buoyed by international intransigence to sponsoring terrorism and China’s strategic footprints in Gilgit-Baltistan. Pakistan eyes an opportunity in Afghanistan post US-NATO withdrawal and hence has trained 20 Mujahid battalions to operate like and in conjunction Taliabn. That Pakistan will facilitate Al Qaeda ingress in India is of little doubt.

The ISI has had links with Haqqanis (who indeed are Al Qaeda) for over three decades and are using them against Indian interests in Afghanistan.

The LeT (covert arm of ISI) was created specifically by Pakistan for targeting India. India was subject to terror attacks by Pakistan more than a decade before the US launched its so called GWOT with Pakistan as frontline partner. However, not only was the LeT left untouched, there was an understanding between US and Pakistan that drone attacks inside Pakistan would not target LeT. In the bargain, the LeT became an international terrorist organization as dangerous as Al Qaeda. Since 2005 when Colonel Bashir Wali, former Director Pakistan’s Intelligence Bureau and active member of Tabligi Jamaat was appointed Pakistan’s High Commissioner in Colombo, LeT has been employed to establish the ‘Osama Brigade’ in North and North-East Sri Lanka with Sri Lankan Muslims to establish bases for attacking South India. LeT arranged IED / explosives training for Indian Maoists by LTTE and now has invested Maldives.

The ISI is known to have links with many radical organizations including Al Qaeda, Haqqanis, Taliban, ETIM, LeT, HuM, HUJI, JeM, LeJ, IM and PFI in India, and in Bangladesh with HUJI BD, AHAB, JMB and JMJB. Yet, Pakistan has a free run and even naming LeT as terrorist organization has not gone beyond theoretical. Not that terrorist organizations do not avoid sanctions through name change like Bangladesh recently discovered that JMB has raised its hydra head again by reorganizing as Jamaat-ul-Muslemin (JM).

As for the Haqqanis, Pir Zubair Shah and Carlotta Gall had reported in New York Times two years back, “The Haqqani family, which runs the network like a mafia, maintains several town houses, including in Islamabad ….. known to visit military facilities in Rawalpindi ….. Experts say leaders ….. may be hiding in plain sight in cities rather than in remote tribal areas.” Eyewitness accounts reveal the farce of the so called military offensive Zarb-e-Azb where the TTP and Haqqani leadership was warned in advance to flee, there is little ground action and air attacks are killing more civilians than terrorists. The ISI has had links with Haqqanis (who indeed are Al Qaeda) for over three decades and are using them against Indian interests in Afghanistan. Kayani’s machinations were remarked upon by Michael Hughes by saying, “In a movement that should have floored US policymakers, Kayani was brazen enough to try and inveigle Afghanistan to strike a power-sharing arrangement with the Haqqanis. And Kayani, apparently the spokesperson for the Haqqani group, said they’d be willing to split from and denounce Al Qaeda, which is President Obama’s primary rationale for the war. However, there is a higher probability of General Kayani converting to Hinduism than there is of the Haqqani Network ever being decoupled from Al Qaeda”.

ISI has been instrumental in facilitating move of Mullah Omar and Mullah Fazlullah between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It is because of Al Qaeda-ISI links that Ayman Zawahri has appointed militant Asim Umar as Al Qaeda’s South Asia head. Shaped in radicalized seminaries and madrassas of Pakistan, he is intimately linked with ISI and was instrumental in facilitating Osama bin Laden’s move to a safe-house in the Pakistani city of Abbotabad, where he lived undetected for years before US forces finally detected him. Asim Umar has been tasked to head Al Qaeda activates from Afghanistan to Myanmar capitalizing on HUJI (his mother organization) cells in Kashmir, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Then you have the two Talibans, which the ISI was able to sell as daggers drawn, plus the business of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban. Both the Taliban are inexorably linked and the ISI maintains links with both despite them attacking the military-government. ISI has been instrumental in facilitating move of Mullah Omar and Mullah Fazlullah between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Daniel S Markey, Council on Foreign Relations recently exposed the nexus between the two Taliban, when he wrote, “If we say that the Pakistani government supports Taliban, and we say Pakistani government is target of Taliban, we are telling the truth in both instances….. you could even say that Afghan Taliban is playing a double game on the Pakistani state…. they more or less get safe haven inside the tribal areas along the Afghan border …… on the other hand, Afghan Taliban help Pakistani Taliban; provide inspiration, provide training, access to financing, and sometimes even fighters.” Then is the TTP-ISIS nexus that in turn links the ISI with the ISIS. It had been reported few months back that some 5000 TTP cadres were fighting alongside the ISIS. Now the Jamaat-e-Ahrar has broken up with TTP and announced allegiance to ISIS – some cross sections believe the split was engineered by the ISI. Now you have a number of Wahabi-Salafi groups in Af-Pak region, backed by Saudi Arabia pledging support to ISIS. As significantly, groups like Ahraul Islam (another TTP splinter) and ETIM also think on lines of ISIS. The training of 100 Uighurs with ISIS has reportedly been organized by the ETIM based in Pakistan, which is linked to the ISI, much that China would not like to believe it. Writing about the TTP, Agha H Amin, defence analyst and former Pakistan Army officer describes them as “Pakistan sponsored Taliban who regard all Shias, Ismailis, non-Pashtuns, moderate Pashtuns as infidels who deserve to be massacred…”.

It is significant to note that the very same ideology is followed by the Afghan Taliban, Al Qaeda and the ISIS even though the latter is barbaric in the extreme.

Why a country like US which supposedly honours the military and their martyrs took no action against the TTP-Haqqani hideouts on the Pakistani side of the Afghan-Pakistan border…

What intrigues most Indians and Afghans is why has Pakistan been given a free hand in generating and employing terrorism at will? Why no branding it as a Pariah State? Why no international sanctions worth the name? On the contrary funds, grant and donations are liberally pouring in and the largesse of arming Pakistan continues endlessly, despite US reports that these are being used against neighbours, not terrorists. All this despite accounts of Pakistani duplicity by US military officials and scholars like Michael Hughes penning down in 2010, “Nine years, nearly $300 billion dollars and 1900 dead coalition soldiers later, the U.S. has officially verified that the entire war effort has been focused on the wrong side of the mountains.” Why a country like US which supposedly honours the military and their martyrs took no action against the TTP-Haqqani hideouts on the Pakistani side of the Afghan-Pakistan border like Tora Bora was cleared despite call by US-NATO military commanders serving in Afghanistan to do so? Isn’t the lament of Afghanis valid that while their country was war ravaged for past 13 years, no action was taken against the womb of terrorism in Pakistan? US mollycoddling surpassed all limits when blatant nuclear proliferation by Pakistan too was ignored. Compare this to the invasion of Iraq under the façade of a nuclear program.

Even the father of Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation, AQ Khan, was never questioned by the US, leave aside international community. All this despite knowing that China’s nuclear proliferation to Pakistan aimed at targeting the West, loudly brought out by Thomas C Reed and Danny B Stillman (former Secretary USAF) in their book ‘Nuclear Express’ saying, “During regime of Deng Xiaoping: …… use of nuclear weapons against West by radical and rogue countries would be good for China, …. not traced back to China, hence covert nuclearization of Pakistan and North Korea”. And how many people are aware of the number of Indian and Iranian nuclear scientists wiped out over the years through ‘accidents’ and ‘purported suicides’ but none in Pakistan.

Of course there is no question of any international protests against Saudi Arabia funding radical Wahabi terrorism globally, including ISIS, because of financial backing it gives to US politicians and latter’s investments in oil resources in Saudi Arabia.

…there is no question of any international protests against Saudi Arabia funding radical Wahabi terrorism globally, including ISIS, because of financial backing it gives to US politicians…

Western behaviuor vis-à-vis Pakistan is actually explainable. It has nothing to do with strategic location of Pakistan as the case is made to be because India and Afghanistan are as strategically located if not more. Over the years, irregular or asymmetric forces have emerged with greater strategic value over conventional and even nuclear forces. Even economic giant like US felt the pinch in terms of lives and economic costs in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. That is why the change in policy from ‘boots on ground’ to ‘boots on ground by proxy’. That is why condemnation of Pakistan (the mother of terrorism in the region) remains mere lip service as Pakistan’s ISI retains the strategic potential to assist the West in containment of Russia and China through her proxies, in tandem with her global terrorist links. Both Pakistan and the West know it and West will always forgive Pakistan all her trespasses as they did in the case of Osama bin Laden.

The word containment of course is for lack of a single word signifying degrading the adversary’s influence. The same is applicable to China in using Pakistani proxies notwithstanding the blowback in Xinjiang that has started taking shape. In case of the West, this equation may only change if major catastrophe (s) occurs in the West that is traced back to Pakistan. It is for this reason that Ashley Tellis, Carnegie Foundation had remarked, “India being continuously subjected to terror actually suits many …… India is a sponge that absorbs terrorism.” So, despite the glib talk about international cooperation in counter terrorism, at best India should expect only sharing of intelligence – that too when it suits national interests of the provider.

But what should be of serious concern to South Asia is the Great Game that has begun to contain the growing influence of China in the region, given that importance of the Indo-Pacific has started overtaking that of Asia-Pacific. West is obviously also worried about improvement in India-China relations, possibility of a political solution to the vexed border problem and as follow up to that, development of Russia-China-India economic, transportation and energy corridors linking right down to Indian ports. Then are warnings like by former Pakistani military officer Agha H Amin saying, “There is no doubt that Pakistan will be a semi autonomous Chinese province by 2030 or so… Pakistani Baluchistan by 2030 would be a completely Chinese run show.”

…the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan was created by the US-Saudi-ISI nexus also to against the Soviet Union, as admitted by Hillary Clinton. That is the reason Zawahri is renewing his support to Mullah Omar.

Containment of China in South Asia is shaping up on following lines: premature US-NATO withdrawal without letting Afghanistan stabilize politically would ensure instability with more turmoil in South and East Afghanistan; Zawahri’s renewed call supporting Mullah Omar plus ISIS inroads is setting stage for increased ethnic clashes and armed conflict with Northern Alliance in Afghanistan; an unchecked and imploding Pakistan will step up terrorism In South Asia; the sinister shadow of ISIS and Al Qaeda (though both not united) supported by TTP, its factions and other terrorist organization, all coordinated and supported by Pakistan with financial support from Saudi Arabia and allies looms large over South Asia; latent radicalism in Bangladesh and Muslim-Buddhhist strife in Myanmar and Sri Lanka will likely be exploited using Al Qaeda and Pakistani proxies; ISIS inroads in South Asia and Xinjiang may be faster than envisaged, and; there are increased chances of CBRN terrorism even as Zawahri threatens India with car bombs.

The Taliban were created by the US to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan but that was not all. Simultaneously, the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan was created by the US-Saudi-ISI nexus also to against the Soviet Union, as admitted by Hillary Clinton. That is the reason Zawahri is renewing his support to Mullah Omar. The refocusing of Al Qaeda to South Asia is primarily to terrorize the region and create instability to contain China and possible Russia-China-India partnership. The air attacks on ISIS are no more than a façade – air attacks against Al Qaeda and Taliban didn’t finish those organizations. Created by the US-Saudi alliance primarily to topple the Assad government in Syria, the ISIS will be used for effect in South Asia just like Al Qaeda.

Interestingly, the Times of India of 17th September 2014 talks of reports about ISIS terrorists injured in Iraq being ferried by helicopters for treatment in Israel. In his recent article ‘NATO intends to prohibit Russia’s and China’s Development’ Thierry Meyssan writes, “The glitzy NATO summit in Newport has not publicly announced major decisions but it is likely that they were taken in secret; to prevent Russia and China – but also India – from continuing their development. NATO can count on Terrorism from the Islamic Emirate (read ISIS) which it pretends to condemn and fight”. As significantly, a leaked 2004 classified US document titled ‘Mapping the Global Future’ exposes the ‘Caliph Project 2020’ – presently being enacted through Baghdadi.

As part of justifying continued support to Pakistani military, Western Think Tanks and scholars harp on the need for India to reduce presence in Afghanistan for fear of Pakistani backlash. Western presence in Afghanistan for 13 years did ‘nothing’ to improve the economy of Afghanistan and similarly made ‘no’ effort whatsoever to resolve the Afghanistan-Pakistan border issue. Indian economic involvement in Afghanistan endangers the required instability, as part of the Great Game in South Asia. Recently, a US scholar talked of Pakistani proxies attacking Indian projects in Afghanistan but what is new. When US advised Pakistan decades back not to attack India conventionally not advise Pakistan now that continued instigations could lead India to respond in similar fashion – unconventionally.

…if the West orchestrates a refugee problem of strategic proportions, as it has done in Syria, India will need to cope with the situation.

The West also keeps ranting the bogey of nuclear exchange in the Subcontinent, which is outright stupid and fools no one, much that Pakistan would like to continue with the façade. In a recent international seminar in New Delhi, a US scholar spoke of visions of full scale wars and invasions in the South Asian region. He had to be reminded that the last war between two conventional armies was in 2005 between Russia and Georgia, what full scale US invasions have achieved in Iraq and Afghanistan is for all to see and one must be naïve to think India will invade Pakistan to finish off terrorism.

Besides when US and Russia haven’t had a nuclear exchange, why would the Subcontinent think of mutually assured destruction? Then is the issue of possible breakup of Pakistan and its consequences for India that Western scholars keep harping upon knowing full well that it is Western support to Pakistani military in generation of terrorism, instead of supporting the elected government that has brought Pakistan to this state. Yes, if the West orchestrates a refugee problem of strategic proportions, as it has done in Syria, India will need to cope with the situation.

Elated at having played the duplicity successfully against both US and China, Pakistan seems to forget that while she has the proxies to provide there are no permanent friends and enemies in the Great Game. Getting the PLA embedded in Gilgit-Baltistan is no insurance to peace, prosperity and territorial integrity no matter the chumminess with US and Saudi Arabia – remember US sacrificing its own ambassador – exploding mangoes. In the game of containing China, would Pakistan remain untouched? John Pilger in his article ‘In Ukraine, the US is Dragging Us Towards War with Russia’, dated 14 May 2014 published in ‘The News’ writes, “Every year the American historian William Blum publishes his ‘updated summary of the record of US foreign policy’ which shows that, since 1945, the US has tried to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democratically elected; grossly interfered in elections in 30 countries; bombed the civilian populations of 30 countries; used chemical and biological weapons; and attempted to assassinate foreign leaders”. He adds, “In many cases Britain has been a collaborator”.

It would be prudent for South Asia, China and Russia to focus on the Great Game South Asia, which has the potential to plunge the region into chaos and irregular conflict akin to the Middle East and Ukraine. Central Asia perhaps may be next in line. After all this mass of radical forces must be diverted somewhere. South Asia can be ravaged as long as West comes winner in the Great Game. Meanwhile Obama can continue with the sweet talk of wanting a strong India and cooperation on the high seas of Indo-Pacific. Now if all this is allegory, would President Obama put the cards on the table when he meets Prime Minister Modi?

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