Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad have become agents of jehadi operations abroad. Addressing the Pakistani media on Friday at the end of his week-long tour to the US, he said groups like Lashkar and Jaish have become agents of jehad in many countries and had become active participants in international politics. "Such meddling is wrong. ... It is because of this that Pakistan is being accused of promoting terrorism all over the world," he was quoted as saying. He said organisations which were founded in Pakistan have begun claiming to operate in Afghanistan and Chechnya. This could not be allowed and he had taken the necessary action.
But what he didn't say was that he was taking actions to actually dismantle the two organizations, despite their obvious al-Qaeda links - especially those of Jaish. He seems to be backing off on that resolution. Since these remarks came on his return from his visit with Bush, he must not have gotten what he wanted. But if he's going to harbor what are two of the world's most vicious terror networks, he's put himself on the list. The US should dump him, publicly and hard, and start large-scale covert operations against Pak. A close US-India alliance is a much more natural fit anyway.Interesting question is what will happen first:
a. The jehadis go back to business as usual and pull some dramatically stupid attack in India, and then Vajpayee sends the troops over the Paki border. Or,
b. Vajpayee feels like the Indian electorate wants action NOW and does a handful of cross border operations into Paki Kashmir.
In either case, I suspect with Afghan ops winding down and Central Asian bases being available, the only thing holding back the Indians is the nuke issue which is more diplomatic than military in significance. BTW, notice how the US and Russia have just inked two big arms sales deals with India? Musharraf got stiffed last week, and its the Army who is Musharraf's biggest mouth to feed.
Posted by Tom Roberts 2/16/2002 2:50:38 PM |