Ally and Obstacle: Pakistan's Role in the War on Terror

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 7, 2006 — -- In the five years since Sept. 11, 2001, Pakistan has become simultaneously America's most important ally in the global war on terror and the greatest obstacle to winning it.

Sometimes it's hard to come to grips with that inherent contradiction.

Pakistani intelligence agents were crucial last month in uncovering what appears to be the most ambitious al Qaeda plot since 9/11.

Yet their work revealed an embarrassing truth: The plan to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners was being coordinated by Pakistanis in the southern Punjabi heartland.

Five years after 9/11, Pakistan still has four times as many troops in its volatile tribal belt than America has soldiers in Afghanistan, and it's suffered more than twice as many casualties.

Yet the buffer zone that stretches along the country's wild, craggy border with Afghanistan remains the closest thing al Qaeda and the Taliban have to a sanctuary these days.

It's not just a launching pad for cross-border attacks that kill U.S. and NATO troops, intelligence officials says.

It's not simply a safe haven for their fugitive leaders. It remains, they say, a vital planning and propaganda center: the crucible of their global jihad.

Five years after 9/11, senior U.S. officials say denying them this sanctuary is the single most important military task ahead.

U.S. troops and their allies, however, are still banned from operating on Pakistani soil.

These days, the tribal belt is becoming too hot even for Pakistani troops.

After months of heavy casualties along the border, Pakistan's military has sealed what officials call a "peace deal" with the militants.

To many, the deal sounds more like a retreat.

According to the deal, the military will pull back from check posts, hand over captured militants, and even pay retribution for properties it destroyed during the fighting.

"Is this the birth of Talibanistan?" an Islamabad diplomat asked.

Five years after 9/11, Pakistan remains the country where the most al Qaeda leaders have been caught: from 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to theoretician Setmarian Nasar.

Foreign intelligence agents believe the top terrorist leadership remains here, but faces major obstacles to communicating and moving about.

As President Pervez Musharraf put it, "We have broken their command and control structure."

But into the void has stepped a cadre of Pakistani extremists, many of them former members of local sectarian groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed or Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and they're putting a Pakistani face on al Qaeda's global struggle.

Again, it's that nagging contradiction at work: Islamabad manages to clamp down on foreign extremists, so al Qaeda digs its roots more deeply into Pakistan.

Five years after 9/11, troubling links remain between Pakistan's government and the country's homegrown jihadist groups.

Senior officials here often talk about the policy U-turn Pakistan made after that famous September 2001 "with us or without us" phone call from President Bush.

Initially, it even seemed to be true.

Jihad camps were closed. Extremist leaders were rounded up. Musharraf ordered a crackdown on the country's religious schools.

Now the picture is murky.

After the October 2005 earthquake in Kashmir, sectarian groups like Lashkar-e-Tayeba re-emerged, claiming to have morphed into aid groups, with new names and apparently endless sources of equipment and funding.

Several groups still run massive relief camps across Kashmir.

The government says they are doing God's work.

But after the July bombings of Mumbai's rail network, the Indian government handed Pakistan a list of 47 locations, many of them in Kashmir, that it said supported terrorist activities.

It seems some of these groups have reverted to less than altruistic activities.

As with the plan to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners, the Mumbai plot used locals, Indian Muslims, to plant the bombs.

But the brains and planning of the operations all came out of Pakistan, Indian officials say.

According to the British government, that was also true in the July 7, 2005, attack on the British public transportation system.

Two of the British Muslim suicide bombers had visited Pakistan and made contact with al Qaeda operatives here.

Five years after 9/11, which is it?

Is Islamabad with the jihadists or against them? Or does it simply look the other way?

A report in Wednesday's New York Times says U.S. intelligence officials believe Pakistan's spy agency, the ISI, actively advises the Taliban as they battle U.S. and NATO troops across the border, helps wounded Taliban fighters make their way to Pakistan for treatment, and even shelters their fugitive leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Intelligence officials say evidence of ISI links to al Qaeda is less well documented, but most agree it still exists.

Surely there is no other world leader who has survived as many assassination attempts by jihadists as Musharraf.

Yet all indications are that his government cannot and will not disentangle itself entirely from the jihadists.

Islam is, after all, the only banner that brings this fractious nation together -- and jihadists are useful from time to time against India.

"It's hard for many people to understand how all these groups have been to bed together, and yet they also try to kill each other," said Ajai Sahni, a Delhi-based counterterrorism specialist.

Five years after 9/11, extremism here is like an inoperable cancer, threatening the life of Pakistan's leader and the very survival of the nation itself.

There seem to be sporadic attempts at chemotherapy, but they never last too long.

Cutting out the tumor entirely, it seems, could be life-threatening to Pakistan.

Whether it's Baluch separatists setting off bombs in Quetta, or tribal gangs beheading enemies in Waziristan, sectarian groups skirmishing in the Punjab, or Karachi riots over power shortages, this country seems on edge, like it's coming apart at the seams.

Most blame the muddled policies of Musharraf, the general who took power in a bloodless coup eight long years ago.

Under Musharraf, a self-proclaimed moderate, the religious parties have flourished like never before.

The National Assembly has been largely eviscerated.

Business leaders say corruption is more widespread than it had been during Benazir Bhutto's scandal-plagued administration.

There are disturbing disappearances of political opponents and journalists.

Five years after 9/11, however, most U.S. officials and many Pakistanis will tell you that, nonetheless, Musharraf remains the best hope this nation has.

The United States has helped prop up his regime with huge sums of money, but his coziness with Washington has cost him dearly in a country where anti-American sentiment boils over.

Furthermore, even with the backing of the United States, Musharraf is barely hanging on by a thread.

U.S. officials acknowledge tremendous frustration over the situation along the border, but say they can't hold the general's feet any closer to the fire.

"What are we going to offer Musharraf, a week's pass to Disneyland?" asked author and former CIA agent Robert Baer. "The guy is sitting on a volcano."

Still, many worry that another major terrorist attack will change the game entirely.

If that happens, a senior U.S. intelligence official warns, and it turns out it was planned in Pakistan, "that's when our patience runs out."

Five years after 9/11, Pakistan is as much in the eye of the storm as it was in the days after the strikes on New York and Washington.