As more details emerge about alleged Pakistani links to the three-day siege in India’s financial capital last week, a rare national unity is coalescing in Pakistan, centered on its old enemy. Although debate continues about how to manage attacks on politicians and government institutions by armed Pakistani groups, the Indian accusations against Pakistan after the Mumbai attacks have reminded many of India’s 60-year role as the primary security threat here.
…Tensions with India have prompted pledges of support for the government even from the Taliban, the growing insurgent force based on the tribal agencies of the country’s North-West Frontier Province.
This week, several leaders of armed Islamist groups in that region vowed to lay down their arms against the government and stand with Pakistan’s military in the event of a clash with India — a turnaround for groups that in the past six years have killed more than 1,200 Pakistani troops.
That promise of assistance has not gone unnoticed in Islamabad.
In a briefing with reporters after the Mumbai attacks, several top officials of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, said they welcomed the offers of support from Nazir and Taliban leaders such as Baitullah Mehsud.
Only a year ago, Mehsud, who reportedly commands thousands of foot soldiers in his native South Waziristan, was Pakistan’s most wanted man.
Rahimullah Yusufzai, a Pakistani journalist based in the northwestern city of Peshawar, said the current mood among insurgent leaders such as Nazir and others in the region is sharply anti-Indian and pro-Pakistani. But Yusufzai cautioned that an opportunistic impulse lies beneath the groups’ recent avowals of support for the government against India.
“Right now, these are only statements. They are offering support, but they are also saying that in return for their support the military must stop its operations in the tribal areas, in Swat and other places,” Yusufzai said. “They are trying to seize the moment and say, ‘Look we’re not anti-state, not anti-Pakistan.’ But the government has to be careful. It should not respond by pulling out troops.”
Many ordinary people in northwestern cities such as Peshawar are wary of expressions of national unity and more inclined to empathize with India’s position, Yusufzai said. Hundreds of civilians have been killed and wounded in insurgent attacks this year, and the mounting violence has sensitized the population to the government’s failure to rein in terrorists within Pakistan.
“There is a feeling that these jihadi groups need to be cut down to size,” Yusufzai said. “People here have seen up close the results of their activities, so they are probably more inclined to believe some of the Indian accusations.”
Before the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan was already deeply divided over how to deal simultaneously with the internal threats posed by extremist groups and the external pressures from countries such as India and the United States. Since the attacks, that fracture has given rise to a heated public debate. (see full article)
After decades of diplomatic brinkmanship with India, many ordinary Pakistanis are skeptical of India’s assertions of a Pakistani tie to the massacre in Mumbai. Yet many also appear to agree that another armed conflict with Pakistan’s nuclear rival in the region should be the last option on the table.