BBC : Pakistan's role in fight against terror

Pakistan's role in fight against terror

By Paul Reynolds | World affairs correspondent, BBC News website | November 19, 2006

The UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's visit to Pakistan indicates how important Pakistan is, not just to the war against the Taleban in Afghanistan, but also to the UK's own efforts to stop British citizens of Pakistani origin from turning to terrorism.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair
Pakistan has provided intelligence to the UK in the fight against terror

Mr Blair's provision of more aid to encourage the Pakistani President General Musharraf's plan to reform the Islamic religious schools (madrassas) shows how concerned the UK government is that young British Muslims might fall under the influence of extremists in them.

Pakistan is both a help to the British authorities in the fight against terrorism, and a source of the terrorist threat itself.

It is a help because it has provided intelligence and it has made arrests.

In August, for example, the Pakistanis arrested a suspect named Rashid Rauf as part of the investigation into the alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners.

Pakistan is said to have played a key role in the investigation, which has led to a number of people being charged.

After the London bombings of 7 July 2005, Pakistan tracked the movements of two of the bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, both of whom visited Pakistan in late 2004 and early 2005.

They are thought to have developed al-Qaeda contacts during this visit.

British links

President Musharraf has emerged as a key ally in countering terrorism, not just for the UK but also for the US.

Indeed, so important was he in helping to overthrow the Taleban, which was protecting al-Qaeda, that Pakistan escaped American punishment even though its leading nuclear scientist, A Q Khan, was found to have provided nuclear weapons technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

Pakistan, however, is also a source of the threat because of the links between it and young British Muslims whose families originally came from there.

Three of the four London bombers - Khan, Tanweer and Hasib Hussain - were second generation Britons whose parents emigrated from Pakistan.

Pakistan is a source of inspiration to potential terrorists because of its proximity to Afghanistan and the history of Kashmir.

During the war against the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan, jihadists like Osama bin Laden were encouraged by the CIA, which co-opted Pakistan's intelligence service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), to be one of the main channels of arms and aid to the mujahideen.

This spawned a whole generation of fighters, some of whom turned on the West after the fall of the Soviet Union and founded al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda remains a source of inspiration to some young Muslims around the world.

Kashmir connection

There is also some suspicion that the ISI, or elements of it, remains ambivalent about helping the West too much. And India certainly accuses the ISI of organising the terrorist attacks that are inflicted on India from time to time.


Kashmir is a source of burning anger to many Pakistanis and their descendants in Britain and elsewhere

UK and Pakistan forge terror pact
These are usually connected with the second aspect of the threat from Pakistan - Kashmir.

In an article in New Republic magazine in August this year, entitled "Kashmir on the Thames", a leading al-Qaeda watcher Peter Bergen wrote: "Though conventional wisdom holds that anger toward US foreign policy is most responsible for creating new terrorists, among British Pakistanis, Kashmir is probably just as important."

A majority of British citizens of Pakistani origin came originally from the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir.

Invasion launched

Kashmir is a source of burning anger to many Pakistanis and their descendants in Britain and elsewhere. This is because the state of Kashmir, as it existed during the British rule in India, became divided when the British left in 1948.

What happened was that the state's ruler, Maharaja Harri Singh, a Hindu, could not make his mind up whether he would join India or Pakistan. All states had the right to choose.

The majority of the population was Muslim and they became restive at the indecision, eventually launching an invasion towards the capital Srinagar from tribal areas in the west of the state.

Harri Singh called on the Indians to help but the Governor-General Lord Louis Mountbatten insisted that, before India sent troops, Kashmir had to join India. It did so. Or half of it did.

In the subsequent fighting, it became divided between India and Pakistan and continue to be so, remaining also the main source of tension and conflict between India and Pakistan.

It is also a reason why young British Muslims become inspired to join their fighting brethren from Kashmir.

From that, it is but a short journey to identifying Kashmir's problems with those of Muslims in general and thence to attacking the West, or Britain in particular.