Team Infidel
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New York Daily News
December 28, 2007 Mush may have to use the army to patrol streets
By James Gordon Meek, Daily News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda’s leaders hiding in Pakistan’s mountains will have an easier time plotting mayhem after the murder of Benazir Bhutto — whether or not they pulled the trigger.
The unfolding chaos likely will play into the terror network’s hands by forcing President Pervez Musharraf to focus on internal security instead of fighting Osama Bin Laden’s loyalists in the rocky provinces bordering Afghanistan, experts say.
“There is a considerable chance that in the near future, Pakistani security forces will have their hands full just to maintain order,” Paul Pillar, the CIA’s former top counterterror analyst, said yesterday.
Angry street protests in some Pakistani cities in the aftermath of Bhutto’s killing in Rawalpindi may continue — or worsen — and draw Musharraf into taking a harder and more unpopular stance against militants, the Georgetown University scholar said.
“The more they have to focus on controlling the streets in Karachi, the less they can control the [tribal areas],” he said.
The security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is a secondary concern to most analysts. Last month, President Bush said he felt “pretty comfortable” it was safe.
Counterterrorism officials mainly worry that the army’s already weak challenge to Al Qaeda and the Taliban’s growing influence in the tribal belt — where both have regrouped since 2005— will evaporate as Musharraf struggles to keep power.
“Political stability for Pakistan benefits U.S. security interests in that part of the world,” said one official. “Any time you have an internal event like this, it may steer the Pakistani government’s attention away from terrorism.” It has happened before. Late last year, Musharraf’s aides made a truce with tribal militants. Last summer, the U.S. intelligence community released a National Intelligence Estimate that made clear the truce bought Al Qaeda time to “regenerate” itself in Pakistani safe havens, where they stage hit-and-run attacks on G.I.s in Afghanistan.
When the truce fell apart this year, the army battled Al Qaeda allies in border towns such as Miram Shah with rare air strikes.
When Musharraf declared a state of emergency in the fall following Bhutto’s return from exile, the border fighting ceased.
Now Musharraf, whose army was trained to battle archenemy India in the Punjab, not guerrillas in the Hindu Kush mountains, has an excuse to abandon the fight, said Michael Scheuer, who founded the CIA’s Bin Laden unit in 1996.
The fallout from Bhutto’s murder “certainly is not good for Afghanistan or us,” Scheuer said.
Anwar Iqbal, a respected journalist in Washington for Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper, said nobody will benefit from Bhutto’s death, including Al Qaeda, given her immense popularity.
“I think it could turn people against them,” Iqbal said.
Her death leaves a political void because she has no successor, and Musharraf appears bent on holding national elections next month, despite a boycott by the only remaining opposition leader, former premier Nawaz Sharif.
December 28, 2007 Mush may have to use the army to patrol streets
By James Gordon Meek, Daily News Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda’s leaders hiding in Pakistan’s mountains will have an easier time plotting mayhem after the murder of Benazir Bhutto — whether or not they pulled the trigger.
The unfolding chaos likely will play into the terror network’s hands by forcing President Pervez Musharraf to focus on internal security instead of fighting Osama Bin Laden’s loyalists in the rocky provinces bordering Afghanistan, experts say.
“There is a considerable chance that in the near future, Pakistani security forces will have their hands full just to maintain order,” Paul Pillar, the CIA’s former top counterterror analyst, said yesterday.
Angry street protests in some Pakistani cities in the aftermath of Bhutto’s killing in Rawalpindi may continue — or worsen — and draw Musharraf into taking a harder and more unpopular stance against militants, the Georgetown University scholar said.
“The more they have to focus on controlling the streets in Karachi, the less they can control the [tribal areas],” he said.
The security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is a secondary concern to most analysts. Last month, President Bush said he felt “pretty comfortable” it was safe.
Counterterrorism officials mainly worry that the army’s already weak challenge to Al Qaeda and the Taliban’s growing influence in the tribal belt — where both have regrouped since 2005— will evaporate as Musharraf struggles to keep power.
“Political stability for Pakistan benefits U.S. security interests in that part of the world,” said one official. “Any time you have an internal event like this, it may steer the Pakistani government’s attention away from terrorism.” It has happened before. Late last year, Musharraf’s aides made a truce with tribal militants. Last summer, the U.S. intelligence community released a National Intelligence Estimate that made clear the truce bought Al Qaeda time to “regenerate” itself in Pakistani safe havens, where they stage hit-and-run attacks on G.I.s in Afghanistan.
When the truce fell apart this year, the army battled Al Qaeda allies in border towns such as Miram Shah with rare air strikes.
When Musharraf declared a state of emergency in the fall following Bhutto’s return from exile, the border fighting ceased.
Now Musharraf, whose army was trained to battle archenemy India in the Punjab, not guerrillas in the Hindu Kush mountains, has an excuse to abandon the fight, said Michael Scheuer, who founded the CIA’s Bin Laden unit in 1996.
The fallout from Bhutto’s murder “certainly is not good for Afghanistan or us,” Scheuer said.
Anwar Iqbal, a respected journalist in Washington for Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper, said nobody will benefit from Bhutto’s death, including Al Qaeda, given her immense popularity.
“I think it could turn people against them,” Iqbal said.
Her death leaves a political void because she has no successor, and Musharraf appears bent on holding national elections next month, despite a boycott by the only remaining opposition leader, former premier Nawaz Sharif.