Why Has Pakistan Targeted Informants Who Helped Track Bin Laden?

In the days following the raid that discovered and killed Osama bin Laden, Pakistan’s top spymaster recalled that he had long made his feelings plain to his American allies. Where the two countries’ interests meet, Lieut. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha told a select group of journalists, there would be co-operation. But where the U.S.’s interests were deemed to be acting against Pakistan’s own, it would be a very different matter. “We’ll not help you,” the head of Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) quoted himself as telling his American counterparts. “We’ll resist you.”

Now, Pasha seems to be making good on that promise. Stung by the embarrassment of bin Laden’s discovery in a garrison town just two hours away from the Pakistani capital, and the humiliation of the U.S. carrying out a unilateral raid, the ISI has evidently gone after the Pakistanis who helped them pull it off. Five Pakistani informants, including an Army major, who furnished the CIA with crucial leads about bin Laden’s compound have been taken into custody by the ISI, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. On Thursday, a senior Pakistani official told TIME that the only Pakistani remaining in custody is Major Amir Aziz, the Pakistan army medic whose house in Abbottabad was used to monitor Osama bin Laden’s compound nearby. The rest of the suspected informants have been released.

The Pakistani military had initially denied that the major – reported to have tracked the license plates of cars visiting bin Laden’s compound – had been taken into custody. But a Pakistan army officer said that some 30-to-40 civilians in total were being interrogated, some of whom were already released earlier in the week. The nameplate on the house in Abbottabad said that the property belonged to a Major Amir Aziz has been taken down.

The move against the informants appears to be an attempt to stand up to what the ISI sees as American unilateralism and, in particular, an unauthorized expansion of the CIA’s footprint in Pakistan. The ISI, says a senior Pakistani official, is “trying to lay down the rule that the CIA does not operate independently in Pakistan.” Beyond the humiliation of bin Laden being discovered a mere kilometer away from Pakistan’s equivalent of West Point Academy, the Pakistani security establishment has been angered by widely-voiced but unproven suspicions of complicity. But what appears to have angered the powerful generals most is the lack of trust displayed by the unilateral raid – and the strategic vulnerability that it exposed.

At the time of the raid, senior Western diplomats in Islamabad predicted that the Pakistani security establishment would react in two ways. To efface the shame of the bin Laden raid, it would try and demonstrate its commitment to fighting al-Qaeda and other Islamist militants on its soil. Yet, aggrieved for the same reasons, the generals were seen just as likely to react aggressively in less helpful ways. The roundup of the informants and others suggests that more emphasis is being laid on being seen to stand up to the U.S.

Since the Raymond Davis affair, when a CIA contractor unknown to the ISI killed two Pakistani men in the city of Lahore in January, Pasha and his boss Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani have been keen to minimize the CIA and U.S. military’s presence in Pakistan. Last week, they expelled a group of U.S. military trainers who had been invited to the country to help enhance the counterinsurgency capabilities of Pakistani troops fighting militants in the tribal areas along the Afghan border.

Pasha has long been angered by what he sees as an uncontrollably expanding and independent CIA footprint in Pakistan. At the same May briefing with journalists, the embattled spy chief complained indignantly that his spies were on the verge of being “outnumbered” by foreign agents. It’s a scenario that spookily echoes the theme of David Ignatius’ latest spy thriller, Bloodmoney. In the novel, the fictionalized ISI chief learns of a new capability being run by the CIA beyond his knowledge. “It was an insult,” Ignatius writes. “The ISI chief had considered whether he should do something to hurt the Americans back.”

Reality is now rivaling fiction as relations between the two spy agencies plunge to fresh depths. The informants’ arrests came on the heels of the CIA’s allegation that the ISI may have tipped-off militants based at bomb factories in Waziristan. As first reported on TIME.com, CIA chief Leon Panetta (and the likely successor to Defense Secretary Robert Gates) traveled to Pakistan last Friday to confront Pasha with satellite images showing the militants flee the two sites within 24 hours of the CIA passing on their location to the Pakistanis. When Pakistani troops later arrived at the facilities used for the manufacture of improvised explosive devices, the pro-Afghan Taliban militants were long gone. The Times reported that it was at the same meeting with Pasha that Panetta raised the arrests of the informants.

Such alleged failures at intelligence sharing and action against militants who attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan are what led President Barack Obama to clear the intensification of CIA operations in Pakistan. Shedding the reliance on the ISI, Obama charged the CIA to proceed independently. One manifestation of that change of policy was an intensification of drone strikes, which almost daily continue to target suspected militants in the tribal areas along the Afghan border. Despite the Pakistan Army and government’s loud denunciations of the covert program, they have not tried to put a halt to them.

By striking a defiant nationalist pose, Pasha may be hoping to stanch the wave of pressure that has been piling on his institution, and his own position, over the past month. The ISI chief had offered to resign on three occasions. The Pakistani military as a whole has been made the focus of unprecedented criticism from civil society campaigners, journalists and opposition politicians. There is also tremendous pressure from below, with the military’s lower ranks registering anger at the U.S. in the wake of the bin Laden raid.

And yet, for others, there was always an element of inevitability about the ISI’s relations with the CIA. “They have been deteriorating for a long time,” says retired Lieut. Gen. Asad Durrani, a former ISI chief. “With every such event, they take a nosedive. It’s not surprising. We did not have the same objectives, and we didn’t have the same strategies.”

Pendulum of war

IN the past couple of weeks, Al Qaeda and its franchises have come back with a vengeance, attacking Pakistan, its security forces and the public. This also appears to be a prelude to an increase in violence in Afghanistan in the near future.

An important aspect of these new series of attacks is their concentration on Islamabad, Peshawar and locations along the Durand Line. In their latest onslaughts on urban centres, militants have used both improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers. Clearly, the militants are in good health and pose a serious existential threat to Pakistan.

The new attacks are significant in that they convey a message to Pakistan and the combined forces of more than 43 nations deployed in Afghanistan, that the recent loss of Osama bin Laden and one of Al Qaeda`s foremost commanders, Ilyas Kashmiri, have not stripped it of its fighting abilities. The attacks also reflect the resilience and institutional capacity of the second tier of the insurgent team which is proving itself adept at meeting new challenges.Another factor that has added significance to the recent militant activity is the capacity of Al Qaeda and its various branches in Pakistan and Afghanistan to carry out multiple border incursions, as seen in Dir, Kurram and South Waziristan, within a short span of time.

Add these capacities to the assumed presence of militant cells within the Pakistani security services and serious questions are raised about whether the strategy followed so far in dealing with the militants is actually effective. The militants` ability to field insurgent groups of up to 300 men, as seen in the two recent attacks on Dir in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, is worrying.

According to local officials, a Taliban force of more than 200 fighters who were armed with light and heavy weapons and some of whom wore military uniforms attacked a police station in Shaldalo village of Upper Dir on June 1. The incursion was resisted by the Pakistani police and paramilitary forces and the engagement lasted several hours. Pakistani helicopter gunships took part in forcing back the militants – 23 security personnel were killed and the Taliban are said to have suffered casualties, but no dead bodies were recovered.

The Taliban had earlier launched a similar attack on April 22, when more than 400 fighters attacked a police post in Kharakhai in Lower Dir district. They overran the outpost while killing 16 Pakistani police personnel. Both attacks originated from across the border in the Afghan province of Kunar, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda have established safe havens after the US forces made a questionable withdrawal from Kunar and Nuristan in March 2010, creating a security hazard for Pakistani forces.

The Taliban have learnt that if they are relentless in their resistance, the US does withdraw. In leaving Kunar and more specifically the strategic Korengal valley, the US followed the path taken by the erstwhile USSR when it too withdrew from this part after the Mujahideen attacks became deadly. This was heralded as the beginning of the end of Soviet presence in Afghanistan. Does the loss of control over Kunar and Nuristan also herald a similar retreat by the US from Afghanistan?

“The withdrawal is a great victory for us,” said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid in April 2010, when the Taliban forces occupied US posts in Korengal and Pech valleys. “The area is very, very important for us. Its mountains provide a good hideout, it can be used as training ground and lead our operations from the region there.” The severity of attacks on Pakistani territory in 2011 has proved him right.

It is not understood why Isaf commander Gen Petraeus told the US Senate Armed Services Committee on March 15 that the Taliban`s momentum had been reversed in most areas of Afghanistan. At best, the situation is fragile and easily reversible. The situation on the ground seems to contradict the general`s hopeful projection.

Gen Petraeus added that America`s “core objective” was to “ensure that Afghanistan does not once again become a sanctuary for Al Qaeda”. Yet the two attacks on Dir clearly show that Al Qaeda has become a formidable presence in this part of the Hindu Kush and that the US has not been able to deny it this sanctuary.

For Pakistan, the policy options are either to conduct hot pursuit into Afghanistan, or to fence the Durand Line to protect itself against attacks. To do nothing is dangerous.

Due to this security threat from Afghanistan, the recent Pakistani gains in Swat, Buner, Dir, Bajaur and Mohmand appear to be tenuous. It is also clear that the insurgents are now deeply embedded within the region.

So, what next?

The following predictions can be safely made: the gains made by the Pakistan military in Swat, Dir and Bajaur will be tested; it is also clear that while the Pakistani military holds sway in the valleys, the mountains mostly belong to the militants. Yet while the Hindu Kush range provides them with advantages, it also limits the type of war that they can wage: they cannot field large groups. However, the mountains give them the ability to easily change their axis of attack more quickly than the military, which is dependent on a long supply chain.

Furthermore, public opinion in Pakistan that is favourable to the militants allows them to receive a steady supply of volunteers. These factors provide them the ability to conduct a war of attrition against Pakistan for a long time to come. They also have the ability to extend insecurity to other parts of the country to lessen the pressure against them.

Saudi Kingdom: Women Start Driving Their Cars Today

By Radhika Marya

Saudi Arabian women plan to start driving their cars Friday, one month after Manal al-Sherif – a key figure in a social media campaign against a ban on female drivers – was arrested when she posted a YouTube video of herself driving around the city of Khobar.

The mass driving campaign is the result of an online movement that began around two months ago, when Saudi women’s rights activists called for the country’s women to start driving their own cars on June 17. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that prevents women from driving. Though there is no written law on the matter, religious rulings are enforced by the police, which has the same effect as a ban. Women are forced to rely on live-in drivers or male relatives for transportation.

Activists pushed the movement via Facebook, Twitter and other online outlets before some of those accounts were shut down. And al-Sherif was arrested and jailed after her YouTube video (pictured above) hit the web. Al-Sherif was eventually released from a women’s prison after nine days, pledging she would no longer drive nor take part in the Women2Drive initiative.

But online support for the campaign has lived on through copies of earlier Facebook groups. And people in other parts of the world have also taken up the cause. The Honk for Saudi Women viral campaign is one example, featuring videos of women and men from around the world, honking their horns in support of Saudi women who will drive on June 17. The campaign also has a petition on online activism platform Change.org, asking Oprah to make a similar video in a show of support.

Other petitions on Change.org call on U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Catherine Ashton – the European Union’s representative for foreign affairs and security policy – to publicly support Saudi women’s right to drive.

This isn’t the first time Saudi women have tried to organize such a campaign. The initiative has been in the works since November 1990, when 47 women drove around Riyadh before getting caught and arrested. Eman Al Nafjan, a female blogger and post graduate student in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, says the women were suspended from their jobs and faced widespread condemnation from mosque pulpits. Fliers were distributed with contact information for the women, and citizens were encouraged to call up and condemn them.

Al Nafjan says the backlash caused the campaign to quiet down for a while, but this year’s Arab Spring probably inspired women to speak up again – not just to be allowed to drive, but for other rights as well.

Though Al Nafjan, who lacks an international driver’s license, won’t be driving on the streets of Riyadh on Friday, she says she knows of many who are taking part.

“It’s a huge inconvenience not being able to drive,” Al Nafjan says, referring to the need for live-in drivers and a lack of public transportation. “And the taxis in Saudi Arabia are unsafe. They are not supervised, so getting into a taxi alone as a woman is dangerous.”

She adds that there are also a number of men supporting the campaign. “It is a huge burden on the men to have to drive all their female relatives around, or to have to provide them with drivers,” she says.

There are also quite a number of men and women against the campaign; Al Nafjan believes they are afraid of change. One Facebook page (now removed) called for women who drive on June 17 to be beaten. And while June 17 was a date chosen at random, Al Nafjan says, some opponents have linked it to a Shia Muslim holiday and claimed it is an Iranian conspiracy against Saudi Arabia. (Shia Muslims are a minority in Saudi Arabia, and a majority in Iran.)

Despite safety concerns, Al Nafjan says many women will still go through with their plans to drive on June 17 – though others might make their protest on a different date.

“If I drove today, or if I drove next week … the only thing that will happen to me is that I will be taken to the police station, but I wouldn’t be taken into jail,” she explains. “They would make me wait until my male guardian comes in and signs a document, pledging that he will make sure I won’t drive again, and that will be it.”

A statement from Saudi Women for Driving and Change.org makes clear that no one expects immediate transformation from the campaign. But many participants view it as a start. And Benjamin Joffe-Walt, Change.org’s human rights editor, believes the campaign’s momentum may stay alive – unlike the November 1990 event – through social media.

“It was a big story, it made international news. But the story kind of died in two weeks,” Joffe-Walt says of 1990. “Now, women can really reach out within Saudi society. They can organize themselves via email and Twitter in a way that’s monitored, but much safer.”

“Most importantly, they can get a lot of attention both domestically and internationally for their cause,” he says.