By AMIR MIRHyper-reality seems to be dogging Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf nowadays. Otherwise, how do you explain these 'deadly' statistics: in the first week of October, there were three reported attempts made on his life, bringing the grand total of assassination bids on him to nine, from the time he grabbed power through a coup in 1999. But it seems that Musharraf, like the proverbial cat, enjoys nine lives—he's survived without sustaining even a minor wound. Now, like his innumerable critics here, you could smell mischief in this incredible coincidence and ask: are these assassination attempts engineered?
But first, the attempts on Musharraf's life last week. On the night of October 5, a powerful explosion rocked the Ayub National Park, Rawalpindi, a stone's throw from the Army House where the president lives. Twelve hours later, in the early hours of Oct 6, two 107 mm live rockets were recovered a kilometre from the President's House, his office. On October 7, securitymen recovered two more rockets, fitted with launchers and plugged to mobile phones, from a green belt along the Kashmir Highway, close to the headquarters of the Inter Services Intelligence. This is the highway the president takes daily to commute between his residence in Rawalpindi and office in Islamabad. Obviously, officials summarised, the rockets were positioned there to target the president's cavalcade and/or the ISI office.
Partly, last week's reported attempts on Musharraf's life test credulity because these weren't anywhere as serious as the bids on his life in late 2003, says Jamaat-e-Islami leader Syed Munawar Hassan. He explains, "In December '03, Musharraf's convoy was targeted twice by suicide bombers as his cavalcade crossed the bridge leading to Army House." Hassan says assassins are dogged in their approach, risking their lives to get close to their target to kill him. But the blast at Ayub Park wasn't anywhere in lethal proximity to Army House.Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan points out other loopholes. For one, he says there's no explanation as to why live rockets fitted with launchers weren't or couldn't be fired. Second, Imran points out that initially Islamabad police chief Chaudhry Iftikhar described the October 7 recovery of rockets as "a successfully concluded mock exercise with two dud rockets hidden by the authorities to test the preparedness of their multi-disciplinary force". By the same evening, recalls Imran, Islamabad SSP Sikandar Hayat issued a statement saying that Iftikhar's statement had been a result of a misunderstanding—and that the rockets were the purported weapons in an attempted act of terrorism.
Following these alleged assassination attempts, the security agencies arrested 200 labourers from the construction site of the Pakistan National Council of Arts. On October 10, the Islamabad police chief claimed to have arrested a college student from Rawalpindi on suspicion of Al Qaeda links and involvement in placing the rocket launchers in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Imran refuses to believe that a college student could get hold of Russian-made rocket launchers, then smuggle it into Rawalpindi and Islamabad and fix them at sensitive spots in the high-security zones there. The cricket legend says Musharraf has failed to suppress the Taliban insurgency and deliver Osama bin Laden to the US. "These assassination attempts have been engineered by Musharraf to absolve himself of the blame for the failure to help America realise its goals," Khan told Outlook.
Adds Pakistan Peoples Party leader and former federal minister Jahangir Badar, "By stage-managing the recovery of live rockets, Musharraf actually wanted to rectify the mess created by his recent admission in Washington...that he didn't willingly align with the US, that he joined hands with the Bush administration post 9/11 after threats that Pakistan would be bombed back to the Stone Age. In other words, these stage-managed assassination attempts are aimed at winning back the sympathies of the Bush administration—and the West.
Some say the recovery of rockets close to the ISI headquarters was also aimed at bolstering the reputation of the intelligence agency. As former federal minister and central general secretary of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) Zafar Iqbal Jhagra points out, "The recovery from close to the ISI building was meant to convey a message to the West—that contrary to their oft-repeated allegations that the Pakistani ISI was aiding and abetting the Taliban, it was actually under threat from the same elements."
Doubts about the credibility of assassination attempts on Musharraf had been raised in some earlier instances as well. On March 23, 2002, it was said that terrorists armed with grenades and AK-47s had planned to storm the Independence Day celebrations in Islamabad's Parade Area and assassinate Musharraf. The parade, however, was cancelled because it was to take place on the eighth day of Muharram, the day of mourning. On December 6, 2002, two suicide bombers were ready to explode themselves while embracing Musharraf during the Eid-ul-Fitr prayers at Shah Faisal mosque in Islamabad. They failed to penetrate the security cordon around him. Three months later, on March 23, 2003, terrorists had planned to fire four missiles from Islamabad's Margalla Hills during the Pakistan Day Parade to kill Musharraf. However, the parade was cancelled after a tipoff about the planned attack. On April 26, 2003, a car laden with C-4 explosives parked close to the Karachi airport failed to explode as Musharraf's convoy swept by.
The fifth attempt, on December 14, 2003, though appears genuine: a jamming device installed in Musharraf's car prevented a bomb planted at the Jhanda Chichi Bridge from exploding as the presidential cavalcade sped past. In the sixth and the most lethal attempt, on December 25, 2003, two suicide bombers tried to ram their cars packed with explosives into Musharraf's convoy not far from the venue of the December 14 attack. In his autobiography, In the Line of Fire, the general says he prays that God grant him more than the nine lives of the proverbial cat. He'll need the extra lives. For, by his count, he's already exhausted all his chances.