Today's dispatch from Inter Services Public Relations...For all the doubts about PakistanÂ’s commitment to fighting the Taliban, a recent wave of suicide attacks on its soldiers and cities belies suspicions that they might be in cahoots, analysts and diplomats say.
Hardly a week passes without President Pervez Musharraf having to fend off accusations, mostly from Kabul, that the Pakistani Army tolerates Taliban sanctuaries and its spies support the insurgents in Afghanistan.
“I don’t see that there would be any sense in supporting the Taliban when it is killing our troops and creating embarrassment with the international community,” commented Talat Masood, a retired general-turned-analyst.
Last November, a suicide bomber killed 42 Pakistan Army recruits in revenge for an air strike on a militant madrassa in Bajaur tribal agency that killed about 80 men and boys. Over the past few weeks close to 30 people, many of them police and soldiers, have been killed in similar attacks believed by intelligence officials to have been ordered by a Pakistani Taliban commander, Baitullah Mehsud, after an air strike on one of his bases in South Waziristan on January 16.
Yet, for the past year the Afghan government has fuelled suspicions that Pakistan has not given up its old habit of using militants to further its interests in neighbouring countries. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has good reason to look for a scapegoat given his sagging popularity amid rising violence and his failure to deliver economic improvement despite billions of dollars poured into Afghanistan, analysts and diplomats say.
US President George W BushÂ’s public support for Musharraf shows he doesnÂ’t doubt the Pakistani leaderÂ’s sincerity, and the White House swiftly opposed moves by the House of Representatives last month to make military aid to Pakistan conditional on results.
On January 10, NATO forces intercepted and killed about 130 insurgents crossing the border, three weeks earlier a top Taliban commander was killed in an air strike. NATO thanks Pakistan for its role in both operations.
Nor has the CIA joined in criticism of its counterpart, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), since Musharraf rang changes at the spy agency, after switching support from the Taliban to the United States, after September 11 attacks.
“All the arrests and killing, apprehensions, have been through the good services, good performance of ISI, and the CIA knows it,” Musharraf told a news conference last week, defending his spies against “preposterous” accusations that they helped the Taliban.