Pakistanis are at a loss over how to deal with the violence plaguing their society -- they only know what doesn't work, writes Graham Usher in Islamabad On 10 January a young man with long hair strolled towards 60 policemen gathered outside the High Court in Lahore -- they were in full riot gear to quell a demonstration by lawyers against Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. The explosion ripped through the throng, throwing the bomber's disembodied head 100 metres from the site and leaving 19 policemen dead in a shambles of helmets, charred sticks and moaning, wounded survivors. For a people still raw from the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto the carnage in Lahore conjured up the worst of all futures. "We fear we are becoming Iraq, we are becoming Afghanistan," said human rights lawyer, Faryal Gohar, at the scene of the blast. She was laying a wreath. Pakistan has just lived through its worst year since 1971, when its eastern wing became Bangladesh after a bloody civil war. In the last 12 months at least 800 people have been killed in more than 50 suicide attacks. They ranged from small ambushes on soldiers in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan to the slaughter of 137 people in Karachi on Bhutto's return to Pakistan on 18 October. By way of comparison there were six suicide attacks in 2006: two in 2005. What has brought the deluge? Most see the tipping point as July -- after army commandos stormed the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad and the Pakistan Taliban scrapped a nine-month-old peace deal with army in the North Waziristan tribal agency. It was then that a nebulous movement for the Taliban resistance in Afghanistan hardened into an Islamist insurgency in Pakistan, says military analyst Hassan-Askari Rizvi. "The militants based in the tribal areas and elsewhere viewed [the Red Mosque and North Waziristan] incident as the beginning of a direct government assault. They were already fighting the security forces in the tribal areas, and decided to launch retaliatory actions in settled areas. The Lahore [attack] shows that the militants retain the capacity to hit the Pakistan government any time at a place of their choosing." But who are the militants? The government says Al-Qaeda, under the local leadership of its Pakistan "facilitator", Baitullah Mehsud, who it also blames for Bhutto's assassination. "Perhaps they think they can take over Pakistan," Musharraf told Newsweek magazine on 13 January. But all the evidence shows the Islamist insurgency is larger than one man and one organisation. Mehsud is "the most visible Taliban leader in Pakistan", says Brigadier Mahmoud Shah, former head of Military Intelligence in the South Waziristan tribal agency. Last month Mehsud was appointed emir of the Tehreek-e-Taliban (Pakistan Taliban Movement), an umbrella of pro Taliban tribal militia and other jihadi groups formed to resist army operations in the tribal and North West Frontier districts. There is not much doubt that the Taliban are behind many of the attacks on the army and police in the last six months, say sources in the Frontier. But few believe Mehsud's reach goes much beyond the tribal areas or that he has the resources or the will to mount a hit as spectacular as the Bhutto assassination. He has also denied involvement. This should not be taken lightly, says journalist Ismail Khan. "Mehsud's statement disowning Bhutto's assassination is unusual for a Taliban commander. It could lose him face among his own people. He offered sympathy to the Bhutto family and said such killing was against tribal and religious traditions. I'd take it seriously." Things are no clearer with Al-Qaeda. Last July a US national intelligence estimate said Al-Qaeda had "regrouped" in the tribal areas with "bases" in North Waziristan. But much of this "intelligence" appears to have been extracted from Al-Qaeda suspects captured in Afghanistan. Pakistani sources are less categorical. They say North Waziristan is an "ungoverned space". It hosts "thousands" of foreign fighters, including Uzbek Islamic militants, once allied to Al-Qaeda but now aligned with Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Uzbeks are said to be behind many of the suicide attacks. Only one thing is sure. Since the Red Mosque confrontation, Al-Qaeda has championed the Pakistani Islamists like never before. Osama bin Laden and Ayman El-Zawahri have issued calls for jihad against Musharraf and his "apostate" regime. But it is homegrown jihadists who are likelier to execute attacks, especially "political targets" like Bhutto or the attempted assassinations of Musharraf, say sources. How can they be combated? Last month the army launched a major operation to flush out militants from Swat in the North West Frontier Province. A similar offensive may be prepared in South Waziristan, with Mehsud as the main quarry. But military operations alone will not defeat the militants, says Rahimullah Yousefzai, an expert on the tribal areas. "You have to win over the tribes, resolve their problems and reform their governance -- in short, empower them. In Swat it wasn't just the militants against the government. The people wanted Sharia law and the government promised it. But the promise was never implemented." There is another action that also won't work. Last week George Bush, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice debated whether to authorise the CIA and the US army to "conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan," reported the New York Times. There could be no surer way of losing against the militants, says Shah. "If US soldiers entered Pakistani territory, it would massively complicate things for the government. There is already anti-US sentiment. As for the Taliban, they would welcome it. It would allow them to attack the Americans on their own turf and increase their support, including in the settled areas."
