Round The World

New Delhi, 4 October 2011

Haqqani Network

US-PAK TIES IN ICU

By Monish Tourangbam

(Research Scholar, School of International Studies, JNU)

United States-Pakistan alliance is indeed in the intensive care unit (ICU). Since the American special forces hunted down Al-Qaeda’s Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, the US as well as Islamabad officials have regularly attacked and counter-attacked each other viz their cooperation in the war on terror. While the US accused Pakistan of not doing enough to fight terrorism, Islamabad has hit back accusing the Americans of infringing on Pakistan’s sovereignty. Since then, various lawmakers in the US have argued for cutting the amount of aid being flown into Pakistan.

This fragile relationship between the two nations was recently given a deathly blow when recently retired US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen, categorically pointed to links between the dreaded Haqqani network and the powerful but much-maligned Pakistan’s intelligence ISI.

The comments from the US top military leader threw a fireball into the inferno that the US-Pakistan relationship has become. He commented that the ISI-Haqqani association was “very well known”, and that he didn’t expect it to end soon, but asserted that Islamabad needed to sever the link. “But the intensity of the recent events and the strategic support that the ISI and the Pakistani military both give to the Haqqani network directly and indirectly, is what I was focussed on,” he further stated.

Besides, hunting down Osama, the US forces have had some substantial successes against the Al-Qaeda and international terrorism at large, with the killings of terrorist leaders such as Ilyas Kashmiri and the American born Al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen.

However, the future shape of international terrorism will most probably be determined by the events playing out in the Af-Pak region and by what comes out of the current crisis in US-Pakistan ties. The Haqqani network is at present the most violent and arguably the most powerful of the Taliban warlords. The group considered a real threat to western forces in Afghanistan might turn out to be a dodgy thorn to peace building efforts. Admiral Mullen had also accused the ISI of maintaining contact with the Haqqani network (which he called a “veritable arm” of the ISI) during the daring attack at the American embassy in Kabul.

Sadly, Islamabad has flatly rejected the accusations and warned the US from carrying out any unilateral ground attack on the Haqqani group, believed to be entrenched in North Waziristan. Pakistani officials are yet again spitting fire over the issue of sovereignty infringement with Interior Minister Rehman Malik asserting: “The Pakistan nation will not allow the boots on our ground, never. Our government is already cooperating with the U.S. ... but they also must respect our sovereignty.”

The dreaded network’s operational chief Sirajuddin Haqqani, while being concerned with the potency of the drone attacks blatantly claimed that the “The US will suffer more losses (in North Waziristan) than suffered in Afghanistan.” The peace efforts in Afghanistan have been dealt a heavy blow with the recent assassination of the leader of High Peace Council and a former president Burhanuddin Rabbani.  

The Haqqani network, by dint of its sheer influence, even if violent, needs to be taken into serious consideration as the US and the Afghan government devise plans to open talks with some sections of the Taliban. This apart, the current crisis concerning alleged links between the ISI and the Haqqani network, has made the  US government slap sanctions on five of the group’s top operatives to choke their fund-raising activities.

Clearly, all these years, Pakistan seems to have fed on its own state of insecurity. Islamabad’s lack of control and its inability to police elements detrimental to its own interests is often used as an excuse to garner sympathy and aid from other countries. Pakistan is a big-time receiver of American aid, by dint of being an important ally in the US counter-terrorism campaign in the region. But, it absorbs aid money like a sponge without any tangible results.

As the furore over the fragile state of US-Pakistan ties worsened, a resolution was reportedly tabled in the US House of Representatives, seeking to cut most of the American aid given to Pakistan. Congressman Ted Poe, Republican of Texas, tabled H.R. 3013, also known as the Pakistan Accountability Act, a piece of legislation which, if passed by Congress, will freeze all U.S. aid to Pakistan with the exception of funds that are designated to help secure nuclear weapons.

In defence of his call to rethink the aid policy towards Pakistan, Poe candidly remarked: “Since the discovery of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan has proven to be disloyal, deceptive and a danger to the U.S.” Opinions in the US Congress have been quite volatile, with many members arguing for the need to seriously look into the whole aid-driven relationship with Islamabad.  

In fact, Washington and Islamabad in many ways have largely had a supply-and-demand relationship, where Pakistan’s geo-strategic location has been squeezed continuously by its establishment, especially its military, which is hands-down the most important institution in Islamabad’s political structure.

Public as well as official condemnation for the US Government has increased in Pakistan,  where one sees one of the highest rates of anti-Americanism notwithstanding all the aid that have flown in from Washington. With the US-Pakistan bilateral ties standing at a critical juncture, the coming days will test the strength of the alliance to the very core. While seeking to expose Pakistan’s double-standards and pressurizing it to mend its ways, the US would be mindful of not pushing it too far, where distrust and suspicions would be disastrous for America’s geopolitical interests in the region.

However, this time around the accusations and counter-accusations from both sides have reached a level quite unseen before. While Pakistan's Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar unleashed a verbal storm accusing the Haqqani network as being the CIA “blue-eyed boy”, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, commented that one could not keep a wild animal in one’s backyard and expect it to go only after one’s neighbour, implicitly critical of Pakistan exporting terrorism to India and Afghanistan.

Clinton could be referring to the current state of insecurity where insurgent groups are unleashing mayhem even in some of the most fortified and well-guarded places inside Pakistan. In a way, the Pakistani establishment that for years has been nurturing anti-India terror groups is fighting the “Frankenstein’s monster”.

In all this, New Delhi has commented that the exposed links between the ISI and the Haqqani network is nothing new for India. “We have always been saying it. I am glad US finds it has also suffered under the ISI,” asserted External Affairs Minister SM Krishna.

Washington’s spars with Islamabad, exposes the fault lines of an alliance built on the perceived value of Pakistan’s geostrategic location and a frontline State against Islamic terrorism. Pakistan’s shadowy and unclear role in the war on terror has highlighted some serious concerns, putting the US-Pakistan cooperation under serious strain. The big question arises: “Is America finally willing to use outsized sticks and meagre carrots in dealing with Pakistan?” ---INFA

(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)