Pakistan's extremists

The slide downhill

Apr 8th 2009 | ISLAMABAD
From The Economist print edition

In the world’s most dangerous place

EPAModerates on the march

Correction to this article

THE prognoses for Pakistan’s future grow grimmer by the day. It is, said President Asif Zardari this week, “fighting a battle for its own survival”. In the latest violence 24 people were killed on April 5th in a suicide-bomb attack, calculated to foment sectarian hostility, on a Shia mosque in Chakwal in Punjab province. The day before, eight troops were killed in a similar attack in the capital, Islamabad, and a suicide-bomber drove a vehicle into a group of civilians in the tribal area of North Waziristan, killing at least eight.

Responsibility for the attacks in Chakwal and Islamabad was claimed by the Fedayeen al-Islam, a group led by Hakimullah Mehsud, a powerful deputy to Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. The spate of attacks came a week after Baitullah Mehsud orchestrated a suicidal commando attack on a police training school in Lahore, in which eight police were killed and over 90 wounded.

Terrorist attacks have killed more than 1,700 Pakistanis since July 2007. Malik Naveed, the inspector-general of police of the insurgency-hit North West Frontier Province (NWFP), said this month that Taliban groups had merged with al-Qaeda and were spreading rapidly across the country.

President Barack Obama’s new regional strategy puts Pakistan at its centre. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy to the region, visited Pakistan this week. At a dinner for journalists the two men conceded that America was not winning in Afghanistan but seemed at odds over whether it was actually losing.

American prophecies for Pakistan are no more optimistic. A recent report for the Atlantic Council, an American think-tank, gave warning that “time is running out” for Pakistan. Separately, David Kilcullen, an adviser to the Bush administration, has said Pakistan might face “internal collapse” within six months. Mr Obama has dubbed the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier the world’s most dangerous place. Yet Pakistani officials criticise America for conducting a “transactional relationship” with Pakistan and demand that it shift towards a strategic alliance. America’s coffer of goodies is big: $1.5 billion in aid for each of the next five years and nearly $3 billion in counterinsurgency military aid. But mutual distrust prevails. American officials deem Mr Zardari corrupt and impotent, and accuse military intelligence of colluding with the Taliban.

At dinner, Admiral Mullen repeated the long-held view that the Taliban leadership is hiding in the province of Baluchistan. In turn, Pakistan is deeply suspicious of America’s plans for India to play a central role in the region. Far-fetched rumours that 150,000 Indian troops are to be deployed in Afghanistan are rife in Islamabad. More plausibly, Pakistani intelligence officials accuse India of fanning a burgeoning nationalist insurgency in Baluchistan.

The sense in Pakistan that the country has entered a downward spiral is palpable. It was enhanced by video footage of a 17-year old girl being flogged by an Islamist militant for being caught in the company of an unrelated man. The incident took place in Swat in NWFP, but reports conflicted over whether it was before or after the government signed a peace deal with militants in February. Officials blamed a Western conspiracy to scupper the deal. This week 100 Taliban marched from Swat into neighbouring Buner and killed a tribesman. And the police found the bodies of three Pakistani women who had been working on an education project in Mansehra, near Swat. In a statement, Mr Zardari insisted the government would not succumb to any pressure by militants. But doubts about his mettle are mounting.

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