Nov 18th 1999
*Free trade through the Khyber Pass
SHOULD you drive around Islamabad in a car with tinted windows, the chances are that the police will question you. The six rockets that were fired in the city centre on November 12th came, it is believed, from vehicles with tinted windows. The windows seem, in fact, to be the only clue, if they are a clue, to finding the rocketeers. No arrests have been made.
A further mystery is what the rockets were intended to do. They were set off close to the American embassy and an American library, and a building that houses some United Nations offices. They caused little damage, though one person, a security guard, was injured. It is assumed that they were intended to be a warning, rather than to kill.
The best guess about the identity of the rocketeers—one shared by many western diplomats in Islamabad—is that they belong to a group loyal to Osama bin Laden, whom the Americans believe planned the bombing of two of their embassies in East Africa last year and now want to face trial. Mr bin Laden, a Saudi, lives in Afghanistan. The Taliban government there has refused American demands to give him up. As a result, the United States has persuaded the UN to impose sanctions on Afghanistan. The Russians, who do not always support the Americans in the UN, share the view that Mr bin Laden is up to no good. They say that a spate of bombings in Russia was the work of Chechen rebels supported by him.
There are therefore some pointers to the rocket attacks in Islamabad being the work of Mr bin Laden, perhaps as a show of defiance, and perhaps with the knowledge of the Taliban, a group of zealots who showed their Islamic militancy this week by publicly executing a woman convicted of killing her husband. If so, what should Pakistan do about it? And how should Pakistan respond to the call for sanctions? It is a member of the UN, but is friendly to neighbouring Afghanistan. Indeed, it is one of only three countries to recognise the Taliban government.
Tanvir Ahmed Khan, chairman of Pakistan’s Institute of Strategic Studies, says that the Taliban’s leaders probably have nothing to do with the attacks. “It is probably one of the rogue elements, not the mainstream.” Security experts talk of finding a possible “trail” to the rocketeers, by tracking groups that resisted the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and were backed by Pakistan. But a retired intelligence man observes, “Even the Americans with all their technology, firepower and influence have so far failed to hunt down Osama.”
As for enforcing sanctions, Mr Khan says that the border has many “loopholes”. Enforcing a strict control of cross-border movements—through, say, the famous Khyber Pass—will be difficult. Diplomats also point out that the sanctions could hurt ordinary Afghans more than those in power. A ban on foreign flights by Ariana, the Afghan national airline, ends the main link with the outside world for the exchange of mail.
If it is confirmed that Osama bin Laden’s group, or another Afghan outfit, was involved in the rocket attacks, that would intensify worries about Pakistan’s internal security. Over 3m Afghans live in Pakistan, many of them linked to groups that support the Taliban. Such a group could attack again, perhaps more violently. Sanctions are unlikely to be approved of by the thousands of Pakistani students at religious seminaries, known as madrassa, who have gone to Afghanistan to back the Taliban. Many might return, if for nothing else, to launch street protests against the Pakistani government.
In Afghanistan itself, there have been protests against the sanctions. Although at first tolerated by the Taliban, they got out of hand when demonstrators broke into a UN office in Kabul. Police fired warning shots at the crowd: the UN returned to Afghanistan only after the Taliban promised that its officers would not be endangered.
Pakistan has not been immune to the crowds’ anger. Such tightening up on smuggling as Pakistan has put in place is unpopular. Afghanistan badly needs essential goods such as wheat, flour and sugar, which cross the porous border. But Pakistan itself faces a wheat shortage this year, so it cannot afford to be generous. It has not confirmed a claim by the Taliban on November 17th that Pakistan had agreed to sell it wheat. General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s new military ruler, is already finding that running a country tends to be an unsoldierly muddle
*Free trade through the Khyber Pass
SHOULD you drive around Islamabad in a car with tinted windows, the chances are that the police will question you. The six rockets that were fired in the city centre on November 12th came, it is believed, from vehicles with tinted windows. The windows seem, in fact, to be the only clue, if they are a clue, to finding the rocketeers. No arrests have been made.
A further mystery is what the rockets were intended to do. They were set off close to the American embassy and an American library, and a building that houses some United Nations offices. They caused little damage, though one person, a security guard, was injured. It is assumed that they were intended to be a warning, rather than to kill.
The best guess about the identity of the rocketeers—one shared by many western diplomats in Islamabad—is that they belong to a group loyal to Osama bin Laden, whom the Americans believe planned the bombing of two of their embassies in East Africa last year and now want to face trial. Mr bin Laden, a Saudi, lives in Afghanistan. The Taliban government there has refused American demands to give him up. As a result, the United States has persuaded the UN to impose sanctions on Afghanistan. The Russians, who do not always support the Americans in the UN, share the view that Mr bin Laden is up to no good. They say that a spate of bombings in Russia was the work of Chechen rebels supported by him.
There are therefore some pointers to the rocket attacks in Islamabad being the work of Mr bin Laden, perhaps as a show of defiance, and perhaps with the knowledge of the Taliban, a group of zealots who showed their Islamic militancy this week by publicly executing a woman convicted of killing her husband. If so, what should Pakistan do about it? And how should Pakistan respond to the call for sanctions? It is a member of the UN, but is friendly to neighbouring Afghanistan. Indeed, it is one of only three countries to recognise the Taliban government.
Tanvir Ahmed Khan, chairman of Pakistan’s Institute of Strategic Studies, says that the Taliban’s leaders probably have nothing to do with the attacks. “It is probably one of the rogue elements, not the mainstream.” Security experts talk of finding a possible “trail” to the rocketeers, by tracking groups that resisted the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and were backed by Pakistan. But a retired intelligence man observes, “Even the Americans with all their technology, firepower and influence have so far failed to hunt down Osama.”
As for enforcing sanctions, Mr Khan says that the border has many “loopholes”. Enforcing a strict control of cross-border movements—through, say, the famous Khyber Pass—will be difficult. Diplomats also point out that the sanctions could hurt ordinary Afghans more than those in power. A ban on foreign flights by Ariana, the Afghan national airline, ends the main link with the outside world for the exchange of mail.
If it is confirmed that Osama bin Laden’s group, or another Afghan outfit, was involved in the rocket attacks, that would intensify worries about Pakistan’s internal security. Over 3m Afghans live in Pakistan, many of them linked to groups that support the Taliban. Such a group could attack again, perhaps more violently. Sanctions are unlikely to be approved of by the thousands of Pakistani students at religious seminaries, known as madrassa, who have gone to Afghanistan to back the Taliban. Many might return, if for nothing else, to launch street protests against the Pakistani government.
In Afghanistan itself, there have been protests against the sanctions. Although at first tolerated by the Taliban, they got out of hand when demonstrators broke into a UN office in Kabul. Police fired warning shots at the crowd: the UN returned to Afghanistan only after the Taliban promised that its officers would not be endangered.
Pakistan has not been immune to the crowds’ anger. Such tightening up on smuggling as Pakistan has put in place is unpopular. Afghanistan badly needs essential goods such as wheat, flour and sugar, which cross the porous border. But Pakistan itself faces a wheat shortage this year, so it cannot afford to be generous. It has not confirmed a claim by the Taliban on November 17th that Pakistan had agreed to sell it wheat. General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s new military ruler, is already finding that running a country tends to be an unsoldierly muddle
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق