From: S. Kalyanaraman
http://sites.google.com/site/hindunew/jihadi
http://www.dailypioneer.com/215766/Pakistanuncensored.html
Pakistan,uncensored
[This book, writes Anil Bhat, throws the lid off all the lies and contradictions dished out on a daily basis by Pakistan's military and military-influenced establishment]
Talibanisation of Pakistan: From 9/11 to 26/11
Author: Amir Mir
Publisher:Pentagon Security International (An imprint of Pentagon Press)
Price: Rs 995
"Talibanisation of Pakistan: From 9/11 to 26/11", a book that was released two months ago and is already a bestseller is, in a way, the third in a trilogy of books by one of Pakistan's most prolific journalists, Amir Mir, his earlier two books being Gateway to Terrorism (2003) and The Seeds of Terrorism (2005), both translated from the Urdu. While the earlier two are invaluable reference books for analysts, the third one throws the lid off all the lies and contradictions dished out on a daily basis by Pakistan's military and the military-controlled Government, which is losing its governable ground at a disturbing pace to the very Frankensteins spawned by the Pakistan Army over the past decades.
The Pakistan Army's grand ambition of achieving "strategic depth" through its ubiquitous Inter-Services Intelligence in Afghanistan in 1980-88, followed by Kashmir (which not only continues till date, but whose effect has since 1999 spread all over India), and again Afghanistan post 9/11, has transformed Pakistan into one of the most dangerous places in the world.
Khaled Ahmed, in his foreword, clarifies that Talibanisation was certainly not imported to Pakistan from abroad through the Al Qaeda, but was in fact a follow-up of the process of Islamisation initiated by General Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s. An interesting fact the author mentions about the apparently suave General Zia, who was in the armoured corps of the Pakistan Army, is that he was the son of a prayer leader and an ardent Islamist closely leaning toward the Jamaat-e-Islami, whose plans to expedite Islamic law in Pakistan were spurred by the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan immediately afterwards. These two events also brought about a drastic change in the syllabus of Deobandi madrassas, not only by almost or fully doing away with maths and science, but also changing focus and interpretation in the teaching of the Quran and the Ha'adith, subsequently resulting in a shift from prayer, charity and pilgrimage as pillars of the faith to the obligation and rewards of jihad. He points out that the Taliban, whether in Afghanistan or in Pakistan, are all products of Pakistani madrasas, which have swelled from barely 250 in 1947 to 11,000 now. These are the registered ones. The unregistered madrasas, at a conservative estimate, could number another 45,000.
Mir cites an April 2009 research report by the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, titled 'From Af-Pak to Pak-Af: A Response to the New US Strategy for South Asia', which states: "The Talibanisation of the Pakistani Pashtun belt is gradually moving eastward into settled districts, creating new terrorist safe havens in once-tranquil locales. If the rapid Talibanisation of Pakistan continues, the next generation of the world's most sophisticated terrorists will be born, indoctrinated and trained in that nuclear-armed nation. Today Al Qaeda's top leadership is most likely based in Pakistan along with top Taliban leaders, both Afghan and Pakistani."
The book's first chapter is called 'Pakistan on the Verge of Talibanisation'. By the time of the book's release in September 2009, a fair part of governable Pakistan had already been effectively Talibanised. 2009 has been marked by a series of very audacious attacks in Pakistan, by Pakistani Taliban as well as jihadis loyal to it on Army, police and other targets. Meanwhile, the Army has been launching an offensive against the Taliban in Swat, Buner and Dir using heavy artillery, aerial bombardment and missiles, killing, maiming and displacing over two million people of that region. But they have managed to merely disperse the Taliban rather than capture or kill them. The net result, however, is that 2009 has been one of the bloodiest in Pakistan's history. A whole lot of persons, organisations and developments leading to Pakistan's utterly precarious current state have been covered in this book.
Also, what this book dwells on is not only the disturbing aspect of Pakistan yet again reaching the brink with unprecedented (but not unpredicted) developments, but how many of these adversely affect India, Afghanistan, the United States in its "war on terror", and even Britain to some extent, and obviously Pakistan itself. It also throws a lot of light on how these countries and all those involved in Afghanistan are affected by post-26/11 developments; and is another reminder to the United States to do a meaningful and serious rethink. It documents how the exorbitant financial oxygen that American taxpayers provide Pakistan with is being misused by that country to add to its anti-India and nuclear arsenals, and sets forth what the US should do, and what it might eventually be forced to do in Pakistan.
The 80,000 troops that the Pakistan Army has deployed on the Afghanistan border following its Swat offensive have neither been able to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), nor have they been able to prevent the spread of terror to the country's major urban hubs such as Peshawar, Quetta, Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi and of course its capital, Islamabad.
Of the 28 chapters in the book, almost the entire first half relates to 26/11, including Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Maulana Masood Azhar and Dawood Ibrahim, and the operations of Pakistani jihadi groups in India. The remaining ones are about Benazir Bhutto's murder, Baitullah Mehsud, the Lal Masjid operation, Pakistan's sectarian war and the major jihadi groups, ending with those on ISI-Al Qaeda-Taliban as the axis of evil, Pervez Musharraf and the Swat operation.
The chapters on 26/11 are extremely interesting and informative, including references to the 70-page dossier handed over by India to Pakistan, and mentions the Pakistan Navy commando unit which trained the 10 young Lashkar-e-Tayyeba terrorists. It is a "must-read" for a wide range of professionals dealing with defence and security, particularly those in India, Afghanistan, the United States, Britain and other countries affected by terror and, of course, Pakistan.
Amir Mir deserves more than just an award.
-- Anil Bhat, a retired Army officer, is a defence and security analyst based in New Delhi
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