THE AL-QAEDA CONNECTION BY IMTIAZ GUL

The Al Qaeda Connection by Imtiaz Gul; Published by Penguin ; Pages 308 ; Price Rs499/-
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An adviser to Commander Petreus wrote presciently,“Pakistan has 173 million people, 100 nuclear weapons, an army bigger than the US Army, and al-Qaeda headquarters sitting right there in the two-thirds of the country the government doesn’t control…if Pakistan went out of control, it would ‘dwarf’ all the crises in the world today.”.This is precisely the backdrop to this frightening account of Al Qaeda by Imtiaz Gul, a highly respected Pakistani journalist who has covered Islamist groups in Afghanistan for a long time and written authoritatively for several papers.He is a star participant on Al Jazeera and frequently takes part in discussions in Indian and Pakistan T.V channels on Afghanistan, Pakistan’s tribal areas and military isues. Author of two books, Gul heads the Centre for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad.
In the book under review Gul recounts his personal reporting experience and meticulously records the developments in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) from the time Pakistan became a party to the US-led “war on terror”, to the present time. The FATA regions are governed by the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), which the British introduced in 1901. They wanted a buffer zone between Afghanistan and United India because they failed to conquer Afghanistan. After Partition in 1947, Pakistan did not pay any attention to the area. With no centralised law enforcement, the FATA regions increasingly cater to drug running and offer shelter to people who have committed crimes in federally
administered Pakistan as well as Afghanistan. According to the author ,“This allows the militants to find a foothold. It began in the early 1980s when the Soviets were in Afghanistan. The CIA in partnership with Inter Services Intelligence launched a jihad against the Russians. These FATA areas were used as the launching pad.” Things deteriorated when more and more criminals and militants entered the area, particularly after 9/11. Most of the Taliban came and took shelter, posing a threat to the Americans. The al-Qaeda militants moved to North and South Waziristan and took shelter there. More and more militant groups started converging particularly on Waziristan because this province shares a long border with Afghanistan. It looked at that time as if this area would turn into a major focus because al-Qaeda started regrouping there. Imtiaz Gul feels such groups crop up because of the absence of governance. The indifference of the ruling elite and the tribal chiefs numbering around 35,000 who work as a bridge between the government and the tribal people is one main reason for the mushrooming of these groups. These people have a vested interest in ensuring that these areas remain away from mainstream Pakistan. The fact that Pakistani laws do not extend to these tribes make things worse.
Since 2006, 3,500 soldiers and policemen have died at the hands of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which has links with Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Toiba. “Many Kashmiri militants are trained in the area. So Pakistani territory is being used for all these purposes which have become a real threat to Pakistan.”

These groups were partners till recently because of their interest in Afghanistan, with which Pakistan shares a 2,560-km border. The turning point was when the army woke up to the realisation that FATA would slip out of its hands during March 2004, when it came under attack from these groups for the first time.
The attempt earlier this year by the Taliban to conquer the Swat region came as a blessing in disguise. “It was then that everyone realised that their only objective was to occupy the state and implement their political agenda, not because they want to establish an Islamic justice system,” However, the extremist ideology is spreading. “People are increasingly getting influenced by this strain day by day and the main reason is poor governance. When the state fails, non-state actors cash in. The government is not doing enough because of internal political turmoil.” If we turn our attention to the western border we find 27,220 square kilometres of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas – Bajaur, Khyber, Kurram, Mohmand, North and South Waziristan, and Orakzai – are beyond Pakistan’s control. Some 5,337 sq km of Swat and the areas around it are, by virtue of the presidential approval of the Nizam-e Adl Regulation 2009, beyond the Constitution of Pakistan de jure. At the same time, Pakistan’s writ in most of Balochistan, a total of 452,243 sq km, or 58 percent of Pakistan’s landmass, is increasingly challenged and getting weaker by the day. Forces mow down police and paramilitary forces at will, and sow terror in the hearts and minds of security forces and people at large.
Colossal is the list of failures to account for, the gravest being the failure to integrate FATA, and the Federally Administered Northern Areas , since 1970 into mainstream Pakistan. The surrender of Swat is the latest addition to the areas characterised as “ungovernable” by the state of Pakistan itself.
A number of studies conducted in Washington- and London maintain that Pakistan itself is unable to handle the spiral of violence unleashed by Al Qaeda and its local associates. If the West does not help the country might splinter into Taliban fiefdoms. “It is their incompetence, absence of commitment and vision, as well as sheer indifference, backed up by a pliant and conniving bureaucracy, that has brought this country to the brink; conjectures about Pakistan’s survival or disintegration have become an inevitable element of discussions even at home.”
The situation in vast parts of the NWFP (Swat and Buner in particular) and FATA shows clearly what preceded and followed the Taliban emergence in Afghanistan: governance broke down, central authority melted away, and the country degenerated into medieval fiefdoms controlled by individual warlords, who at times also operated in a well-knit network under one umbrella.
“Will this combination of little governance, increasing insecurity and incapacity and a continuous state of denial take the country down into disintegration or still keep it teetering in instable conditions?. The answer lies with the ruling elite: both military and civilian rulers have to demonstrate unflinching resolve regarding these real and perceived threats. The crisis today warrants extraordinary unity of command to prevent Pakistan from falling apart.”
Gul documents, with painstaking detail, how many of these areas fell victim to the Al Qaeda and the Taliban after the latter were forced out of Afghanistan. A combination of big money, the seductive power of radical Islam and the de facto patronage of elements of Pakistan’s establishment created the conditions for Al Quaedism to find roots in FATA.
As is well known, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the ISI used American and Saudi money to train and motivate many of these groups. But even after 9/11, the relationship is far from over. The ISI is convinced that the West will abandon Afghanistan in a few years, and then these “strategic assets” will need to be reactivated. For instance, as Gul states: “after their retreat from Afghanistan, the majority of foreigners had settled down in the North and South Waziristan and Bajaur region, where networks operated by Afghan war veterans Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbudin Hekmetyar became instrumental in securing shelter for bin Laden’s surviving fighters. Haqqani and Hekmetyar also acted as the umbrella group for the reorganisation of the Al Qaeda.” Both Hekmatayar and Haqqani are still considered to be ISI’s important assets with the latter blamed for the bombing of the Indian embassy in Afghanistan.
What is the solution? King Nadir Shah of Afghanistan said in 1931: “In my opinion, the best and most fruitful policy that one can imagine for Afghanistan is a policy
of neutrality. Afghanistan must always entertain good relations with its neighbours as well as all the friendly powers that are not opposed to the national interest of the country. Afghanistan must give its neighbours assurances of its friendly attitudes while safeguarding the right of reciprocity. Such a line of conduct is the best one for the interests of Afghanistan.” In other words, the only way out is for Afghanistan’s neighbours and the great powers to guarantee its neutrality.
Imtiaz Gul’s account is a penetrating analysis of the face of terror that recounts graphically the transformation of the militant groups and the death and destruction that they have caused. He provides a rare list of the leaders who are based in FATA-the breeding ground of Al Qaeda.
P.P.Ramachandran