Emergency:Militants Might Gain More Ground

WASHINGTON — President Pervez Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule in Pakistan , which he said is intended to curb Islamic extremism, could actually aid the growing insurgency by militants allied with al Qaida and the Taliban, U.S. officials and experts warned Monday.
Musharraf's brutal suppression and arrests Monday of thousands of opposition protesters also could endanger U.S. congressional approval of a $750 million plan to help curb the insurgency, they said.
Senior U.S. officials indicated that security aid will continue to flow to Pakistan despite the crackdown, underscoring the Bush administration's fears over the potentially serious consequences of Musharraf's moves for the U.S. war on terror.
"We are reviewing all of our assistance programs (to Pakistan ), although we are mindful not to do anything that would undermine ongoing counterterrorism efforts," Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said during a news conference in Beijing .
Musharraf, who is also the army chief of staff, took power in a 1999 coup and became a key ally in fighting terrorism after the 9/11 attacks, sending his army into the tribal areas and arresting several senior al Qaida operatives.
In imposing the state of emergency on Saturday, Musharraf said he intended to crush Islamic militants, who have extended their deadly assaults beyond the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and staged a growing number of suicide bombings in urban centers.
But the insurgency isn't the only crisis Musharraf faces. The others are a loss of political support for his grip on power and court challenges to the legality of his dual role as president and chief of staff. His declaration of emergency rule came ahead of a Pakistan Supreme Court ruling that might have de-legitimized his recent re-election as president.
Musharraf's "focus will be on stabilizing his power base, which means dealing with dissidents, opposition parties and law and order in general," said Seth Jones , an expert on Pakistan with the RAND Corp. , a think tank that advises the U.S. government.
All of that will leave Musharraf little energy or time to conduct counterinsurgency operations against the extremists, who have imposed harsh Islamic rule in parts of the so-called Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA, bordering Afghanistan . As a result, militants could have more freedom to carry out their operations and recruit.
"It's going to be difficult to see how Musharraf can take new initiatives up in the tribal areas," said a State Department official, who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the issue.
Musharraf also will have to keep close tabs on the army for signs of a mutiny.
The officer corps is angered by hundreds of casualties that the army has sustained in operations against the militants launched under pressure from the United States . It's also upset over the tarnishing of the military's image caused by Musharraf's rule, experts said.
Musharraf has kept the army in its barracks since the crackdown, relying mostly on police and paramilitary units, because many officers and troops would be unwilling to use force against fellow Pakistanis, said several U.S. officials and experts.
The Bush administration has been pressing Musharraf to step up military operations in the FATA, since U.S. intelligence agencies reported earlier this year that a rejuvenated al Qaida has established a sanctuary, complete with training bases, in the region.
The State Department official said that there are concerns that the Democratic-controlled Congress could react to Musharraf's crackdown by withholding approval of a new $750 million plan designed to help Pakistan contain the insurgency.
Sen. Patrick Leahy , D-Vt., the chairman of a Senate subcommittee that oversees aid to Pakistan , appeared to justify those concerns.
"U.S. aid to the Musharraf government should stop until constitutional order, civil liberties and judicial independence are restored, until political prisoners are released, and until free and fair elections are allowed," he said.
The money that would be dispersed under the plan would be used to provide new equipment and training for Pakistani security forces and to create jobs in the destitute tribal region through the construction of roads, hospitals and schools.

Pakistan Sends Tribal Leaders to Salvage Truce Broken by Taliban

The government on Monday dispatched a team of tribal elders to meet with leaders of militant groups in Pakistan’s tribal region in an attempt to salvage a fragile peace deal that unraveled in the wake of last week’s siege of the Red Mosque.
The location of the meeting was in North Waziristan’s main town, Miran Shah, an intelligence official told The Associated Press.
The already fractious North-West Frontier Province tribal region was beset over the weekend by bombings and suicide attacks by militants, who have been angered by the assault on the mosque. The death toll exceeded 70, nearly as many as the government said had been killed last week in the Red Mosque standoff in the capital, Islamabad.
Taliban leaders in North Waziristan called off the peace deal over the weekend, after Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, deployed troops to several checkpoints in the region.
Under the truce, signed last September, the military had agreed to pull back to its barracks and take down checkpoints in exchange for a suspension of hostilities from the militants, who agreed to halt cross-border attacks on American and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Government officials said they would allow tribal elders to enforce the peace deal in return for millions of dollars in financial aid. Critics said all the deak did was let the Taliban and Al Qaeda to regroup and plan attacks inside the country and across the border.
The September agreement was the latest in a series of sometimes contradictory steps taken by the Pakistani government to restore law and order in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where civilian administration has steadily eroded in recent years.
The Musharraf government has alternately tried to bludgeon, buy off and appease militants operating in the tribal areas, sometimes sacrificing Pakistani troops, and other times negotiating deals with some of the most feared militant commanders, who now appear to have rejected the agreement altogether.
A letter circulated Monday by the Taliban in North Waziristan said the peace pact had been scrapped “in the larger public interest.” It warned the tribal police not to aid military and paramilitary troops, and urged tribal elders not to cooperate with the government.
It also called on local tribesmen to refrain from harming civil servants working for public service departments like health, education and agriculture. “Anyone caught by the Taliban while causing any harm to employees of these departments would be considered thieves, and would be punished publicly,” the letter said.
The government team dispatched to salvage the peace accord was led by Maulana Syed Nek Zaman, a tribal member of Parliament, who met with various militant commanders at a seminary on Monday.
At the same time, Akram Khan Durrani, the chief minister of the North-West Frontier Province, warned at a news conference that any annulment of the peace pact would have dangerous repercussions for the country.
The scuttling of the accord comes as General Musharraf faces mounting troubles, including a backlash from militants and the religious right in the aftermath of the Red Mosque standoff, as well as months of pro-democracy protests from a wide cross-section of Pakistani citizens.
Even before its failure, the peace accord had not brought the security the government intended. American and NATO commanders in Afghanistan say the Taliban continue to use Pakistan’s tribal areas as a rear base. In early June, the United States National Security Council warned that the Taliban had regrouped and reorganized inside Pakistan. That same month, the Interior Ministry warned General Musharraf that the Taliban’s influence was increasingly spreading outside the tribal areas to other parts of the country.
What connection the Taliban or Al Qaeda may have had to the militants holed up in the Red Mosque remains unclear; what is known is that the clerics leading the mosque and its adjoining seminary had been agitating for Taliban-style rule in Pakistan.
They had also long enjoyed the support of the government. But they became an embarrassment for the Musharraf administration after they sent vice squads across the capital, most recently kidnapping several Chinese nationals who worked in an acupuncture clinic that the seminary students said was a brothel.
The eight-day siege of the mosque and its adjacent seminary for women and girls ended Wednesday after intense fighting for more than 36 hours between Pakistani special forces and the militants. The military put the death toll at 76.
Government officials have said in recent days that they suspect that the dead included foreign fighters. The government has also repeatedly said the fighters surrounded themselves with civilian hostages, but furnished no details.