Atlantic Council

Hakimullah Mehsud makes an eloquent practical argument for development of the East-West Corridor that runs from the Black Sea to the Caspian, across Georgia and Azerbaijan.  His Taliban guerillas are attacking NATO supply convoys traveling from Pakistan to Afghanistan and they recently struck a major logistics depot in the Pakistani town of Peshawar. 

Pakistan is reportedly moving large numbers of troops to its border with India and canceling leave for soldiers.  At the same time, however, it is signaling that it wishes very much to avoid war.

Pakistan has diverted troops away from anti-terrorist operations in order to safeguard against an attack from India.  Meanwhile, India and Saudi Arabia are calling for "joint action" against terrorists.  BBC: The Pakistani military has scaled down its operations against Islamist militants in the north-west following tensions with India, officials say.

India is playing it close to the vest with information on last month's deadly terrorist attacks in Mumbai.  Interpol secretary general Ronald Nobel says that his agency has been kept out of the loop, BBC reports.

Pakistani security forces have conduced a raid on a major Laskhar-e-Taiba training camp and captured a dozen terrorists, including Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, allegedly the mastermind of last month's Mumbai massacre.  It remains to be seen whether these are in fact the responsible parties and what follow-up action will be taken.

A raid on poorly secured supply depots left 160-plus NATO vehicles burned today.

Militants blasted their way into two transport terminals in Pakistan on Sunday and torched more than 160 vehicles destined for U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, in the biggest assault yet on a vital military supply line, officials said.

The U.S. military said its losses in the raid near the northwestern city of Peshawar would have only a "minimal" impact on its operations against resurgent Taliban-led militants in Afghanistan. However, the attack's boldness will fuel concern that Taliban militants are tightening their hold around Peshawar and could choke the supply route through the famed Khyber Pass. Up to 75 percent of supplies for Western forces in landlocked Afghanistan pass through Pakistan after being unloaded from ships at the Arabian sea port of Karachi. NATO is already seeking an alternative route through Central Asia.

[...]

The attackers fled after a brief exchange of fire with police, who arrived about 40 minutes later, [Terminal manager Kifayatullah] Khan said. The nine other guards who were on duty but stood helplessly aside put the number of assailants at 300, Khan said, though police official Kashif Alam said there were only 30.

Naturally, the enemy is going to attack at the weakest point in the chain.  Depots guarded by a token force of unmotivated security forces are an obvious choice.  One presumes security will be stepped up in the future.

A prankster put India and Pakistan on the brink of war.  That this is possible demonstrates just how fragile that relationship is. That it didn't escalate, though, tells us something important, too.

Israel's ambassador to India has suggested that the Pakistani group behind the Mumbai terrorist attacks may be linked to al Qaeda. The Independent:

Mark Sofer said Lashkar-e-Toiba, which has been linked [sic] the attacks, "has never taken a position on Middle East affairs". "Is this small organisation part of a much wider global jihadi group, such as al-Qa'ida? I fear the answer to that is yes," he said.

An ultra-orthodox Jewish community centre was one of the targets during last week's attacks in Mumbai. Six people died at Nariman House, including the rabbi and his wife who ran it. If the attackers were part of a global network, the response should be "unified international action against fundamentalist terrorism," said Mr Sofer.

[...]

Mr Sofer said that anti-Semitic attacks were unknown in India and suggested it was no coincidence that the attackers targeted the ultra-orthodox Jewish centre, which served as a hostel for Jewish backpackers and businessmen.

The Mumbai attacks do possess a certain al Qaeda flavor: Islamic purpertrators chanting "Allah Akbar" as they murdered in cold blood; the targeting of Hindus, Christians, Jews, atheists and other so-called infidels; the use of modern technology (BlackBerrys) to coordinate pre-planned attacks; and finally, the complete lack of any tangible temporal objective other than to kill, main or injure as many completely innocent people as possible.

Condemndation of the Mumbai attacks has not been as vocal throughout the Muslim world as one might have hoped. Pakistanis have their priorities backwards states Thomas L. Friedman writing in the International Herald Tribune:

On Feb. 6, 2006, three Pakistanis died in Peshawar and Lahore during violent street protests against Danish cartoons that had satirized the Prophet Muhammad. More such mass protests followed weeks later. When Pakistanis and other Muslims are willing to take to the streets, even suffer death, to protest an insulting cartoon published in Denmark, is it fair to ask: Who in the Muslim world, who in Pakistan, is ready to take to the streets to protest the mass murders of real people, not cartoon characters, right next door in Mumbai?

After all, if 10 young Indians from a splinter wing of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party traveled by boat to Pakistan, shot up two hotels in Karachi and the central train station, killed at least 173 people, and then, for good measure, murdered the imam and his wife at a Saudi-financed mosque while they were cradling their 2-year-old son - purely because they were Sunni Muslims - where would we be today? The entire Muslim world would be aflame and in the streets.

It should be noted, however, that Pakistani officials were quick to express sympathy with India and denounce terrorism in all forms. Friedman continues:

But while the Pakistani government's sober response is important, and the sincere expressions of outrage by individual Pakistanis are critical, I am still hoping for more. I am still hoping - just once - for that mass demonstration of "ordinary people" against the Mumbai bombers, not for my sake, not for India's sake, but for Pakistan's sake.

Why? Because it takes a village. The best defense against this kind of murderous violence is to limit the pool of recruits, and the only way to do that is for the home society to isolate, condemn and denounce publicly and repeatedly the murderers - and not amplify, ignore, glorify, justify or "explain" their activities.

Related Posts:

• Mumbai Attacks Must Bring India and Pakistan Closer
• Mumbai Attakcs Sophisticated bu Likely Not al Qaeda
• Mumbai Attacks Dagger to Heart of India Commerce

On December 3 the Atlantic Council, in collaboration with Asia Society Washington, hosted a panel discussion on the Pakistan economy. This event was the second in a series of events about Pakistan; the first, on October 22, dealt with civil-military relations in the country.