"Covert forces behind terrorism" - Roman Ahsan

 

COVERT FORCES AT PLAY BEHIND ‘TERRORISM’

I wrote the following article in February 2009 while working as Sub-Editor in magazine section of THE NATION but since I switched to Content Writing field afterwards it never got published in the paper. The info is a bit outdated but hopefully it still covers the basics. The objective is to provoke a thought-process. It might seem a little hardcore so brace yourself !!

COVERT FORCES AT PLAY BEHIND ‘TERRORISM’

S ROMAN AHSAN reflects on the continuing chaos surrounding Pakistan & Afghanistan

FEBRUARY 2009: Our President’s plea for enhanced US economic assistance to crush terrorism has been heeded by the US President. With promise of $1.5 billion annual aid to Pakistan in the next five years, the US has laid down a new strategy which aims at building more cooperation between Pakistan, Afghanistan and US in fighting terrorist forces. There is a positive message of developing the infrastructure in Pakistan with emphasis on schools, hospitals and roads, however the deployment of 17,000 more US troops in Afghanistan has also been announced. A month ago, a cover story ran in Newsweek “Learning to live with radical Islam” in which the writer confesses that the Afghan Taliban and the Saudi Al-Qaeda carry different ideologies. It was further mentioned that the Afghan Taliban were not implicated in the 9/11 incident but the US treated or confused the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda as one and the same group. US made a big error in invading Afghanistan after 9/11 intensifying frustrations and fuelling passions amongst the locals who are after all only fighting for their freedom. It is like a vicious circle of hate that continues spreading its wings since those fighting US and NATO forces on Afghan soil earn sympathies with their fellow Muslims across the border. In this way, the ‘war against terror’ so coined by the US might have disastrous repercussions with chances of extending to the other parts of the world instead of a short voyage.

The Afghan Taliban though rigid in their interpretations were bent on enforcing their interpretation of Islamic Shariah in their own land without any designs of harming the outer world compared to Al-Qaeda. However, they also brought an end to poppy cultivation which is flourishing again under the present peacekeeping forces in the country. With the US sending more troops to Afghanistan, things could take a new turn. The term ‘peacekeeping’ has a very noble connotation, however when evil takes its place, it should not be tolerated.

When US forces landed in Iraq in 2002 (on the pretext of uncovering WMDs), they committed many atrocities as well. Hundreds of US citizens themselves protested against the US decision to attack Iraq before it was carried out. Videos have been forwarded by the Americans on the Internet showing US fighter jets bombing and killing innocent civilians on roads trying to find shelter, US marines throwing a puppy off the cliff, making small Iraqi boys run behind their vehicles for a bottle of water, destroying the sanctity of mosques and turning them into rest areas, the list is endless. However, these issues have never been touched upon by the Western media rather the focus has been on ‘wrongly’ projecting Afghan Taliban as terrorists and human rights violators who oppressed their wives or forbade the Afghan girls to attend education institutes. It is completely ignored that one of the ways Taliban emerged as the leaders of Afghanistan was when they punished individuals for criminal assaults on female students attending classes in universities.

It is sad when our own people from the elite circles blame the extremists charged with Islamic fundamentalism as the ‘sole’ factor responsible for the current terrorism scene in Pakistan. They simply close their eyes to the bigger picture where external enemy elements could be operating under the guise of religious fanaticism to destabilize the country. The interesting thing is that this trend is mostly found amongst such Muslims who are not keen themselves in following and applying the Islamic code of life. Since they are unable to comprehend the beauty of true Islam, hence it is a favorite option for them to condemn the ‘religious fanatics’.

If we try to analyze the forces acting behind such actions of religious fanatics in the tribal areas of Pakistan, we will find that many of those actions could be reactions against the army invasion where many innocent local tribesmen who had nothing to do with terrorism also lost their lives. What would a person do if his father or brother died at the hands of armed forces especially if they were peaceful people? If you are a person who has never handled a weapon, you will just mourn and move on with your life. However, the men in tribal areas are of a different kind. They are groomed with the use of weapons at a very early age. The fire of vengeance could make them blind compelling them to join forces with the militants landing from across the border. In this way, the strength of the militants keeps on multiplying with some of them even volunteering for suicide missions across the country since they are brainwashed that the state is ‘Kafir’ (opposed to religion). Apart from this, circumstantial evidence has revealed some other significant points. Many corpses of militants when examined, were found to be uncircumcised clearly not Muslims, while there have been US marines dressed as Pathans and terrorists wearing fake beards.

On March 27th, 2009 a mosque in Jamrud was targetted while on Monday, March 30th, 2009 young police trainees institute had been targeted. The trend of terrorist attacks shows that they strike when we least expect them. The attack at a religious institution like mosque in Jamrud killing 70 persons is a clear indicator that a Muslim would never carry out such an act since his religious spirit would never allow him so. The suicide bomber entered the mosque during weekly Friday prayers, and blew himself up when the Imam just said ‘Allah-o-Akbar’. However, if those really are Muslims aspiring to achieve martyrdom this way, then nothing could be more terrifying than this.

Last year, a Polish journalist was kidnapped by the terrorists and beheaded very mercilessly while a video recording was also made of the whole scene. Behind the masked terrorists, a bold banner displayed ‘kalma’. The execution style reminded of a windows media file video being forwarded through email three years ago, which showed a similar killing of a white in exactly the same manner. This makes one wonder that if the terrorists wanted to kill someone, then why would they observe the same details repeatedly presenting the execution in the form of a recorded show and relaying the video across the world? Who are the actual people behind the masks? Are they really Muslims devoid of any compassion or are they saboteurs who want to tarnish the image of Islam in front of the world?

In these times, the nation as a whole should be vigilant and we should equip ourselves with disaster management programs, instead of continued mourning for the dead. The Pakistanis reject terrorism in any form but the foreign covert forces operating behind it is also a big reality and cannot be ignored. While offering economic assistance, the US leadership must recognize and accept the presence of those covert forces also if it really wants to help Pakistan, for it is due to the ‘error’ on part of US to invade Afghanistan that Pakistan is surrounded by chaos!