Author:
Publication: CBS News
Date: August 23, 2006
URL: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/23/world/main1928722.shtml
London Terror Arrests Turn Eye Back To Pakistan's
Militant Camps
"Those who die in the service of god
are martyrs and they shall be rewarded."
So reads the inscription in Arabic and Urdu
on the gravestone of Gen. Muhammad Zia ul Haq, Pakistan's late military dictator.
On Aug. 17, the 18th anniversary of his death, he is still revered for his
enduring legacy of taking Pakistan towards a long period of jihad - starting
with its backing of the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Devoted followers of the general, as well as idle spectators, pass by the
grave next to Islamabad's towering Faisal mosque.
And just as the general still has a following,
Pakistan continues reconciling itself to fresh concerns over its links to
militant groups.
The recent terror arrests in London of mostly
Pakistani men has not helped Pakistan radically change its image. The suspects
are accused of a failed plot to bomb a number of commercial airlines leaving
Heathrow Airport for U.S. destinations.
In the London case, up to seven men were arrested
in Pakistan in connection with the plot - including Rashid Rauf, a British
citizen of Pakistani origin - described by Pakistani officials as a key figure
in the thwarted plot.
Pakistani officials have refuted claims that
the case demonstrates the country's position as a hotbed of global terrorism.
Instead, they point towards an Afghanistan-based al Qaeda cell for planning
the attack.
One Pakistani intelligence official told CBS
News that the al Qaeda cell specializes in developing new explosive techniques,
and that its members are based outside of Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials have also refuted stories in western newspapers suggesting
that a prominent Islamic charity known as Jamaat-ud-Dawa - which actively
worked to provide relief to victims of last October's devastating earthquake
- channeled funds to some of the planners of the London plot.
"If I was planning something as big as
this, would I go to a source which is infamous for militant connections or
would I work discretely" asked the Pakistani intelligence official, who,
in view of the sensitivity of his position, asked not to be named.
But independent observers warn that the Pakistani
government has a difficult challenge denying such allegations, given the country's
history. In the 1980s, a network of Islamic seminary schools known as madrassah
were actively sponsored by Pakistan's intelligence services with the backing
of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency as the key centers for training volunteer
fighters.
Those volunteers were first trained in techniques
of guerrilla warfare before being armed and sent across the border to Afghanistan
to attack Soviet troops. Almost 17 years after troops from the former Soviet
Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, as many as 12,000 madrassah schools
remain scattered across Pakistan.
Their links to global militancy became the
subject of intense discussion among western officials when it was revealed
that at least one of the four suspects who carried out last year's suicide
bomb attacks in London was a British citizen of Pakistani origin who had visited
a madrassah a few months before the attacks.
"The exact nature of that visit has triggered
fresh concerns over the future of madrassah schools. People want to know if
they are still central to promoting militancy by helping militants get the
knowledge for carrying attacks" said a western diplomat in Islamabad,
who spoke on the condition that his identity not be revealed.
Critics have seized the opportunity to launch
vigorous attacks on Pakistan's ruling military regime. They argue that the
military has established ties with such groups over the past three decades
and is known to treat them as valuable assets. Critics say the military uses
the madrassahs to help unleash insurgencies in places such as Kashmir, in
the part of the Himalayan region under Indian control. Or in Afghanistan.
"The strong arm of the Pakistani state
is the military, which then has contacts with militant groups working covertly"
says Abida Hussain, Pakistan's former ambassador to the United States. Hussain
is a vehement opponent of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's present day pro-Washington
military ruler. "The strong arm of the state allows the jihad legacy
to continue. It wants to clamp down but it doesn't want to end this legacy
permanently."
Standing by Zia's grave site, the few mourners
who turned up for last week's anniversary included those who relentlessly
defend militant causes.
"Islam is under attack in different countries.
The United States has troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we have just seen
Israel launch an unjust war against Lebanon," said Naseem Orakzai, a
laborer from Pakistan's northwestern frontier province. He said he is an ardent
support of Islamic militant groups.
Western diplomats say that in spite of the
concerns over Pakistan's ties to militant causes, the country's rulers receive
recognition for supporting the U.S.-led war on terror. This comes more than
five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks forced Pakistan to
turn against Afghanistan's Taliban rulers.
"There are two issues here, not one.
Pakistan is a credible ally of the U.S., but it also has a history whose effects
still linger on," concluded the western diplomat who spoke with CBS News.
