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Bomb casts al Qaeda shadow on heart of Pakistan
Sun Jan 13, 2008 4:28am EST
By Simon Cameron-Moore - Analysis
LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomb attack
that killed 19 people in Lahore, which had been a
haven from violence, demonstrates an intensifying
show-down with militants at a time when Pakistan is in
a volatile political flux.
The blast in the country's political nerve centre on
Thursday, near the High Court on the historic Mall
boulevard, carried an ominous message ahead of
February's national election.
That vote is deemed vital to the future of U.S. ally
President Pervez Musharraf.
While other cities reeled under a wave of suicide
attacks last year which killed hundreds of people and
climaxed with the assassination of opposition leader
Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi on December 27, Lahore,
the capital of Punjab province, was untouched.
Now, nowhere is safe.
"We fear that we are becoming Iraq, we are becoming
Afghanistan," said Faryal Gohar, a television writer
and rights activist, after laying a wreath at the
curtained-off site of the blast, which killed 16
police and three passers-by.
The West shudders at the thought of nuclear-armed
Pakistan sliding into chaos with Islamist extremists
at the gates of Islamabad. Sections of the Western
media say Pakistan is the most dangerous country on
the planet.
Many Pakistanis live in virtual denial of the scale of
the threat, and believe there is some grand conspiracy
to take away Pakistan's nuclear weapons, but
realization of the internal threat is dawning.
"I couldn't care less about our nuclear assets. The
people of Pakistan are our assets," said Gohar,
pulling an elegant brown Kashmiri shawl round her
shoulders as she berated Musharraf and the past and
present policies that have locked Pakistan into what
she and many others believe is a self-destructive
relationship with the United States.
Even if the man who blew himself up in Lahore wasn't
part of al Qaeda's network, there is little doubt
where he got his inspiration. Al Qaeda has plenty of
proxies in Pakistan.
The government doesn't broadcast its own alarm, but
close aides of Musharraf say privately that al Qaeda's
long-term goal is to destabilize Pakistan and
Afghanistan in order to turn them into a home for
global jihadis.
Because Musharraf's grip appears shaky, there are
fears the government will use the dire security
situation to put off an election that was already
postponed after Bhutto's death.
Delaying democracy, according to opposition
politicians and some Western think-tanks, would be a
recipe for more violence. A rigged election that
pushes the losers into street demonstrations was
another worst-case scenario.
"Pakistan will be in chaos," said Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a
political analyst at Lahore University of Management
Sciences.
ALL BETS ARE OFF
Musharraf is not running in the February 18 election.
He secured his own second five-year term last November
after imposing emergency rule. But the February vote's
outcome could seal the military-backed president's
fate.
He stepped down as army chief in late November. If
support from the army wavers, he will lose all power,
analysts say.
They reckon massive rigging and dirty tricks by the
intelligence agencies would be required for
Musharraf's old political friends to emerge winners in
the poll. He has said he will resign if the next
parliament moves to impeach him.
Analysts see two alternatives. One is that Musharraf
reaches an understanding with Bhutto's widower, Asif
Ali Zardari, which may yet be possible, even if it
seems unlikely in today's bitter climate.
The other is that the parties of Zardari and former
prime minister Nawaz Sharif gang up to bring Musharraf
down. Sharif would like nothing better than to unseat
the general who ousted him in a 1999 coup.
Fewer and fewer people have faith in Musharraf's
ability to provide security or fulfill a vow to usher
in real democracy.
He gets blamed for almost everything bad, and many say
Pakistan can't move forward with him at the helm.
"I'm optimistic that if this government goes the
terrorism will soon disappear," said Hamid Zaman, a
leading member of the Concerned Citizens Forum.
That's a forlorn hope, according to analysts who say
the coalition of al Qaeda, the Taliban and Pakistani
jihadis is stronger than ever.
Someone else might be able to run Pakistan better.
Democratic institutions might grow stronger, they say.
But Musharraf's departure won't undo ties forged
between urban jihadis from Punjab and tribal zealots
from the remote badlands of North West Frontier
Province.
Nor will it automatically clean out any bad apples in
Pakistan's security agencies covertly helping them.
(Editing by Jerry Norton)
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.
---------------
Jusfiq Hadjar gelar Sutan Maradjo Lelo
Allah yang disembah orang Islam tipikal dan yang digambarkan oleh al-Mushaf itu
dungu, buas, kejam, keji, ganas, zalim lagi biadab hanyalah Allah fiktif.
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