Pakistan is paying the price of collaborating with the US in the war on terror, reports Iffat Idris from Islamabad Pakistan is a front-line state in the war on terror. This was the point stressed by President Pervez Musharraf in his address to the UN General Assembly in New York last week. The evidence to back this assertion is all too readily available in the restless country. Soon after Musharraf left the United States, security forces in Pakistan announced they had killed Amjad Farooqi. Of Pakistani origin, Farooqi was one of the key names on Pakistan's most wanted list. Among other things, he was believed to have been behind two attempts to assassinate Musharraf in December last year. The second attack, involving two suicide bombers in separate vehicles, narrowly missed their target. Musharraf thus had personal reasons to boost Pakistan's own "war on terror". Coming in the middle of his official visit to Italy, the timing of Farooqi's death allowed the Pakistani president to stress to the international media Pakistan's essential role in the war on terror. The Pakistani government and security forces are trying hard to capture wanted militants and Al-Qaeda fugitives. Several have been captured in large cities like Karachi and Faisalabad, but many remain underground. Farooqi was easily captured, analysts believe, because he was hiding in a relatively small town, Rahimyar Khan, in southern Sindh. In such a "backwater" Farooqi stood out like a big fish in a small pond, while he would easily have gone underground in a city like Karachi. But the main hiding place for Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other militant groups in Pakistan is the country's north-western tribal belt. Officially referred to as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), this was for many years an autonomous region in which the rule of law did not apply. Under a long-established arrangement dating back to the days of British rule, the tribal belt was run by a political agent of the central government who got things done by clinching deals with local leaders. All this changed after 9/11 and increasing US pressure to capture Taliban and Al-Qaeda fugitives. As a result, Pakistani army troops entered the tribal belt for the first time ever. And in March this year the army launched a major offensive in the South Waziristan region of the FATA. To date fighting has led to dozens of deaths on both sides, including a significant number of civilian casualties. Last month Pakistan's newly- installed Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz announced that he was lifting the blockade. But it will take much more to heal the rift between local tribesmen and the authorities. Tensions are fast escalating. On Friday a bomb blast killed three students in Waziristan. Such incidents only fuel the local sense of anger and injustice. Many analysts fear that Pakistan could be dealing with the fallout from Waziristan for years to come. The analysts' fears seem to be well founded. In the 1980s Pakistan extended considerable support to the mujahidin fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Fighters trained in camps in Pakistan. In addition, religious schools or madrasas provided a constant stream of new recruits to wage jihad. In the short-term the strategy worked and the Soviets were ousted from Afghanistan. But the long-term consequences for Pakistan proved to be dire. A "drug and Kalashnikov culture" is thriving, especially in mega-cities like Karachi. Soon radical and sectarian off-shoots of the jihadi groups emerged. They attacked targets inside Pakistan, notably members of the minority Shia community. Even before 9/11, Musharraf pledged to wipe out sectarian violence in Pakistan. It is a pledge he has so far failed to keep. On Friday, over 25 worshippers in the Punjabi town of Sialkot were killed when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device hidden in a briefcase. The victims had gathered for Friday prayers in the mosque. Anger and grief in Sialkot soon turned into violence. The army was called in to keep order, but failed to prevent a mob from attacking and burning the office of the mayor, the district nazim. Federal Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed condemned the attack, but defended the government. Ahmed declared that while security had been stepped up and terrorists were being caught, the authorities could not protect every potential target. Nevertheless, Sialkot showed that people are tired of hearing excuses from the authorities. The incident in Sialkot and the trouble in Waziristan encapsulate the dilemma facing the government. Musharraf was right to stress to the UN General Assembly the major contribution that Pakistan is making to the war on terror. As recent events in Pakistan prove, waging that war is not easy.
