Pakistan Braces For Retaliatory Strike From India
December 2, 2008 by national
Filed under World Report
Pakistan was bracing last night for a retaliatory airstrike by India against the sprawling headquarters of the al-Qa’ida-linked Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist organisation near Lahore.
As Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari warned the LET militants “had the power to precipitate war in the region”, India demanded that Islamabad hand over a list of about 20 people, including India’s most-wanted man Dawood Ibrahim.
India’s military chiefs were exerting strong pressure on the country’s political leaders to give permission to attack the headquarters, an 80ha site at Muridke, close to the Punjab capital of Lahore, just across the border from India.
The reports came as the Indian Government summoned the Pakistani high commissioner in New Delhi yesterday to demand “strong action” against the Pakistani militants who it says were responsible for last week’s attacks on Mumbai.
New Delhi warned Shahid Malik that India expected Islamabad to take “swift action” to deal with the evidence of involvement by LET operating from bases inside Pakistan.
India demanded that Islamabad extradite Ibrahim, a fugitive Mumbai mafia don who it believes has links to LET, the terrorist group long allied to Pakistan’s ISI spy agency.
India also asked for Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the LET founder, and Maulana Masood Azhar, the head of militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad, who was freed in exchange for passengers on a hijacked Indian Airlines flight in 1999.
Ibrahim, Mumbai’s most notorious underworld don, is the head of D-Company, a feared crime syndicate, and one of the world’s five most wanted men. He is widely believed to have worked closely with al-Qa’ida. He is also thought to have masterminded the 1993 Mumbai bombings, a series of 13 explosions that claimed 250 lives.
New Delhi issued its demands after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Pakistan to co-operate with India as she prepared to visit New Delhi to mediate between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
The heavily guarded LET complex near Lahore, known as the Markaz-e-Taiba Holy Centre, includes mosques and madrassas with more than 3000 students. Theoretically it is the headquarters of the Jamaat-ul-Dawah Muslim welfare organisation that is closely identified with LET.
Saeed, the LET founder and spiritual leader, lives in the complex.
Reports yesterday said that if India attacked the complex — possibly to kill Saeed — an attempt would be made to justify the action by pointing to the way in which the US was launching pre-emptive strikes inside Pakistani territory using unmanned drones to kill al-Qa’ida and Taliban targets.
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In South Asia, it’s possible to pay (or bribe) many people to do just about anything. Probably someone in ISI who figures he isn’t making enough (as salaries in the developing world are notoriously low) is taking bribe from someone in the opium business in exchange for otherwise secure information and/or material support stolen from the Pak government. It’s hard to believe that a run-of-the-mill terrorist organization can operate with such efficiency without either authorized or unauthorized government support. Bribery is a systemic problem, and common in S Asia. For instance, you can bribe a low-paid traffic policeman Rs 10 to look the other way while you park illegally. Some of these people base their livelihoods on taking bribe since salaries are often pathetically low, even given the lower cost of living there as compared to the developed world. (Of course, there’s a huge difference between victimless and non-victimless bribe. In the case of illegal parking, one can reasonably presume that no one is getting hurt.)
Go for it India, the more dead terrorist out there the better off we all are!!!!
Pakistan has been described by Bill Roggio (host of longwarjournal.org, as the “living, breathing, heart of terrorism.” Don’t just take Mr. Roggio’s word for it. When you study the subject, you find this is true.
But if Pakistan–because of the country’s twisted supporters of Al Qaeda and Taliban–is indeed the “heart of terrorism,” what is stopping all civilized countries from reaching into this cancer and cutting out this tumor? The answer is a strange one: the Bush administration believes it can nurture Pakistan as an ally in the War on Terror by sending it billions of dollars in aid and U.S. arms–all in exchange for half-hearted cooperation.
My opinion: if the Pakistanis want any kind of future at all, they need to seek help from the U.S., India, NATO, etc., to wipe out the scourge of Islamic fanaticism. But that is not likely to happen. Pakistan’s body politic is nearly terminal from this cancer, which will surely kill the country. Who wants to bet that the collaborators of the jihadists are stocking in their Swiss bank accounts as we speak, so if Inda attacks and the jihadists turn on the collaborators, they will still escape to a life of comfort far from the trouble.
India should focus in on the “tribal areas” and turn them into “ruble areas”, it’s as simple as that! It is obvious that Pakistan will NOT take action to rid the terrorists!