ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — More than ever, Pakistan is the key to victory in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. Paradoxically, it also is the place where it is most likely to go terribly wrong.
Osama bin Laden and other top al Qaeda members are believed to be hiding in the remote tribal lands along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, and the cooperation of Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf is crucial to finding them.
Yet escalating domestic unrest caused by Gen. Musharraf’s pro-American policies suggests that his continued cooperation could be difficult to maintain. February’s fruitless military operation along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan — where a Pakistani force reported casualties against a small but fierce contingent of fighters — could further weaken his support.
“Pakistan’s increased military role in the [war on terrorism] poses enormous political and military risks for General Musharraf,” said Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist and expert on regional politics. “There will be serious consequences for Pakistan’s domestic peace and stability.”
Gen. Musharraf’s major challenge has been to balance the White House’s demands for help in the war on terrorism against pressure from his political rivals to steer clear of Washington. Two assassination attempts against the president in December emphasized the perils he faces from opponents at home.
Among U.S. officials, Gen. Musharraf has garnered nothing but praise.
Since the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration has given almost unlimited support to Gen. Musharraf, who took control of the country in a 1999 coup, because “Pakistan was critical to the success of [U.S.] strategy” against al Qaeda, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told Congress last month.
To show its appreciation, Washington lifted long-standing sanctions on Pakistan’s ability to buy the latest U.S. weapons. These prohibitions were slapped on the country in the 1990s as punishment for Pakistan’s ambitious nuclear weapons program.
Additionally, the White House let Pakistan off with only a mild rebuke after it was disclosed last year that a revered Pakistani nuclear scientist had been selling nuclear technology to rogue nations North Korea and Libya. In February, Gen. Musharraf pardoned A.Q. Khan, the man known for creating the “Islamic bomb” and considered a national hero among Pakistanis.
The ongoing hunt for bin Laden required such leniency, according to Western diplomats in the region. Without Pakistani cooperation, they say, the new U.S. offensive in Afghanistan wouldn’t succeed.
Operation Mountain Storm, which targets the 1,400-mile-long Afghan-Pakistani border, is based on a “hammer and anvil” strategy in which Pakistan’s military pushes fugitive militants out of the mountainous border areas into Afghanistan, where U.S. forces would be free to capture or kill them.
But people in Pakistan remain deeply divided over whether their government should aid the U.S. battle against Islamic militants and their supporters in Pakistan’s tribal zones. Many say Gen. Musharraf has sold out national identity and priorities to keep power.
“The men wanted by the government now were in the past trained by our generals and praised as mujahideen. Today these same men are being defamed as terrorists to accomplish the agenda of the Washington administration,” complained Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, acting secretary-general of the Islamic political alliance called Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal.
Islamic nationalism has been the most powerful political force in Pakistan since the nation’s birth in 1947 as an independent homeland for Muslims on the South Asian subcontinent.
Support for domestic and international Islamic movements runs deep, both in government circles and corner tea shops. Pakistan’s intelligence agency played a key role in the creation of the ultraconservative Taliban movement in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s. Today, Pakistan’s tribal leaders are believed to harbor many Taliban and al Qaeda members who fled Afghanistan after the U.S. invasion in the autumn of 2001.
After September 11, Gen. Musharraf said he would sever historic ties between the Pakistani government and Islamic militants. But the results so far resemble a fumbling balancing act rather than a convincing strategic about-face.
Gen. Musharraf has done little to purge the ranks of the country’s army and intelligence agency, both of which analysts say are full of pragmatists convinced that relations with Islamic guerrillas are helpful to Pakistan.
Additionally, the president has been slow to counter the educational and religious establishments run by domestic Islamic political parties and considered breeding grounds for religious warriors.
Yet this lenient treatment has not increased support for the president from within these institutions.
Many observers believe that the two assassination attempts in December were organized by al Qaeda sympathizers in Pakistan — or within the military. Gen. Musharraf has blamed al Qaeda for the failed car bombing and suicide bombing.
“Musharraf has always tried to act the good guy [against political foes] … but the [assassination attempts] have convinced him that being a good guy is fruitless,” said Hamid Gul, a retired Pakistani intelligence chief.
Apparently chastened by the attempts on his life, Gen. Musharraf approved the military operation in South Waziristan province against a major tribe that is believed to be sheltering al Qaeda sympathizers.
The president said the offensive, the largest of its kind in Pakistan’s history, was necessary to rid the country of dangerous extremists. However, fierce fighting between the army and gunmen did not net any senior al Qaeda figures, while more than 45 soldiers and at least 13 civilians had been killed so far in the fighting.
The lack of battle trophies has led to speculation in the nation’s newspaper editorials that Gen. Musharraf initiated the operation for cynical political reasons rather than military necessity.
The timing of the offensive coincided with Mr. Powell’s visit to Pakistan, and the country’s record for encouraging nuclear proliferation was expected to dominate the talks — an embarrassment that Gen. Musharraf wanted to avoid, analysts said.
The bloodshed in South Waziristan has increased political tension in the border zone to a potentially explosive point. By the latter half of March, unrest had spread from a localized assault by the army on three villages to a series of guerrilla-style attacks against army forces stationed in two provinces.
Politicians promised nationwide antigovernment demonstrations amid warnings from the tribal areas that the army action could precipitate a civil war. The provincial governments of Northwest Frontier Province and Baluchistan, two of the border regions where al Qaeda leaders could be hiding, are under the control of Islamic fundamentalist parties.
“If Musharraf killed his own people to keep the heat from America off of him, then he himself will be a dead man soon,” said Hamid Yusufzai, a shopkeeper in the capital, Islamabad, whose family lives along the border.
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