Paying the price for fighting US's proxy war

In January, two US emissaries visited Musharraf in Islamabad and discussed the possibility of expanding presence of US Special Forces in Pakistan. Although, apparently Musharraf has rejected the possibility of such an operation but the question is “how can a person who is patronized by US reject the demands of US? So came up another solution in the name of Kunar base.

In past US Special Forces have carried out clandestine operations and Pakistan was not even aware of it. We saw this when 80 innocent people in a religious seminary were killed in Bajaur tribal area in October 2006 by US predator drones which was claimed by Pakistani authorities that they carried out the attack whereas when the attack was carried out Pakistani authorities weren’t even aware of it. Similar contradictory statements of the authorities in the killing of Al Libi also suggest that US forces may have carried out the attack without Pakistan’s consent.

Now an American base in Kunar (which is few kilometers from Pakistan tribal area) will allow US Special Forces to carry out such clandestine operations without Pakistan's consent. This would certainly give rise to unrest inside Pakistan and would only increase terror operations inside Pakistan as a warning from the militants that they should be left alone.

We recently saw militants used improvised explosive devices near Peshawar to blow up a military convoy. This is the first of its kind in our cities. Previously, such events only happened in the tribal areas.

Recent unearthing of a militant cell in Rawalpindi suggests that militants were planning devastating attacks on military installations and terror operations in the federal capital of Islamabad.

Suicide attack on the 4^th February in Rawalpindi on Armed Forces that killed 8 and injured more than 40 people, firing on the rally of PPP leader Nabeel Gabol and the killing of ANP leader Fazal ur Rehman Atakhel in Karachi shows that Musharraf has stretched Pakistan to its limit in fighting proxy war for the US and has destabilized the whole country leaving us fatally exposed to the militants.

Asim H. Akhund