Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
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<strong>Frontline</strong> <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong><br />
It was General Mahmood’s second visit to Washington as the ISI<br />
chief. His previous trip in April 2000 followed President Clinton’s short<br />
stopover in <strong>Islam</strong>abad. <strong>The</strong> visit was arranged by the CIA with a view to<br />
cultivating <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>’s new chief spymaster. He was hugely pampered<br />
as the CIA officials tried to win his confidence. 2 At the General’s<br />
request, the agency had arranged a private tour of Gettysburg, the<br />
venue of a crucial battle during the American Civil War in 1863. General<br />
Mahmood had a special interest in the battle of Gettysburg and had<br />
done his thesis on the subject at the National Defence College. He<br />
would talk endlessly on the tactics and other aspects of the battle.<br />
<strong>The</strong> CIA officials, however, were not sure whether all that effort won<br />
his cooperation. <strong>The</strong> trip went sour at the end when he received a<br />
dressing-down from Thomas Pickering, the US Under-Secretary of<br />
State, for helping the Taliban regime. He went back home angry and<br />
humiliated. 3 <strong>The</strong> incident did not help improve relations between the<br />
USA and <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>, which had already become strained after the return<br />
of military rule and imposition of democratic sanctions. <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>’s<br />
patronage of the orthodox Taliban regime, which had provided a base<br />
for bin Laden and thousands of other militants from different countries,<br />
was a serious concern for the Bush administration.<br />
General Mahmood was the second-most-powerful man in the<br />
<strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>i military junta. after General Musharraf. A stocky man with<br />
a long handlebar moustache, he was ruthless and highly ambitious.<br />
Because of his brashness and arrogance he was not very popular<br />
among his fellow officers. As the commander of the key 10 th Corps<br />
based in Rawalpindi, he was one of the two coup-makers who brought<br />
Musharraf to power on 12 October 1999. His troops seized control<br />
of <strong>Islam</strong>abad and arrested the Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif. He was<br />
rewarded for his loyalty when Musharraf appointed him director<br />
general of the ISI. During his tenure as head of the country’s premier<br />
intelligence agency he had accelerated support for <strong>Islam</strong>ic militant<br />
groups. <strong>The</strong> jihadist activities in Kashmir saw an unprecedented rise<br />
and <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong> got much more deeply involved with the Taliban’s efforts<br />
to expand their control in Afghanistan.<br />
During his second stay in Washington, General Mahmood had met<br />
with senior CIA, Pentagon and National Security Council officials.<br />
Terrorism coming out of Afghanistan was the central issue of their<br />
discussions. He defended <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>’s policy of engagement with the<br />
Tailban and told George Tenet and other CIA officials that Mullah<br />
Omar was a pious and religious person, not a man of violence. <strong>The</strong>