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Of Games That Some Nations Play. Military Games, That Is

Martin McCauley writes: You’ll never guess who is providing the main military muscle to Pakistan. Go on, have a guess. Is it the United States? No. Is it Britain or Russia? Certainly not. Is it India? Get real, people, India is Pakistan’s main enemy. I will spare you all the torturous pondering: it’s good old China. Sino-Pakistani military cooperation goes all the way back to 1966. And it got more and more sophisticated with time. Last month it was revealed that China is to deliver 36 modern J-10 jet fighters to Pakistan, at a cost of $1.4 billion, making up 70 per cent of China’s arms exports this year. It is significant that Pakistan will become the first foreign recipient of this third generation jet fighter. Islamabad has dismissed reports that the overall deal... 

Uzbek Militants In Pakistan Are Being Forced Out

Martin McCauley writes: The situation in Waziristan, where the Pakistan army is conducting an offensive against Islamic militants, remains tense. After meeting strong resistance Pakistani armed forces have captured the towns of Sararogha and Kaniguram, in southern Waziristan. The latter is the main base of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a militant group which has been operating in the region since being forced out of its bases in Afghanistan in 2001.The Pakistani military says that over 360 militants were killed since the beginning of Operation Rah-e-Nijat. The ground offensive involves around 30,000 troops but the slow pace of the operation allowed many militants to withdraw and relocate. The continuing suicide bomb attacks against leading urban centres by the Tehrik-e-Taliban... 

A Cynical Look At The Mini-War In Pakistan. Do The Yanks Know What They’re Doing?

Anton Goryunov writes from Moscow: We, Russians, are cynical people. It comes from our Soviet past when cynicism helped us to keep our sanity intact. We always treat what politicians tell us with deep suspicion, bordering on total distrust most of the time. And, being cynical, we have our own way of looking at world events and drawing our conclusions from what we see and read. If you ask us what, in our opinion, is happening in Afghanistan and around it at the moment, we would say that things are going from bad to worse over there because the United States and other NATO countries have no idea what to do next and how to pull out without losing their face. They boxed themselves into a stupid situation, pretending that most of the world’s terrorism originates from Afghanistan, and now... 

China Emerging As A New Naval Superpower

Martin McCauley reports from the United States: Western intelligence sources are keeping a close eye on China’s military preparations. The thing that puzzles them is: how does one explain the fact that at a time when China is not facing a military threat its defence expenditure is rising fast? Does Beijing perceive a threat to its security in the near future? Surely not. The most plausible answer is that it is a natural concomitant of its rising economic power. Take, for instance, the expansion of its navy. President Hu Jintao declared at the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Chinese navy at Qingdao in April that China would never seek military ‘hegemony’ or pose a threat to the security of its neighbours. He also talked of ‘harmonious oceans’. What did he mean by... 

The Relentless March Of The Taliban: Can It Be Stopped?

Martin McCauley writers: The ongoing battles between the Taliban and the Pakistani army have been provoked by two factors. One is that the power deal brokered with the Taliban in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has been broken by the Taliban. They have attempted to extend their rule into other parts of the NWFP and beyond. The other reason was the pressure exerted by Washington on President Asif Ali Zardari to confront the Taliban militarily. The agreement reached by the NWFP government with the Taliban in February 2009 permitted the imposition of the Sharia’s Nizam-e-Adl (Islamic System of Justice) in the Malakind Division and the Kohistan district of Hazara Division. The deal sounded alarm bells in the international community because it appeared that Islamabad was conceding... 

Why Is The Swat Valley So Important To The Taliban?

Martin McCauley writes: Despite an offensive by the Pakistani Army the Taliban claim control of about 90 per cent of Swat Valley. It is part of the North West Frontier Province and is just over 100 miles from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. President Zardari is now in Washington to discuss the fight against the militants with US officials, headed by Richard Holbrooke, the special representative to the region. Unlike the Afghan Taliban, who have to rely mainly on the drugs trade for funding, the Pakistani Taliban has a wide range of goods which can oil its war machine. These range from timber, precious stones to marble and foodstuffs. Not to mention the taxing of minority religious communities. Under pressure from the militants Islamabad agreed to impose the Nizam-e-Adl (Islamic Jurisprudence)... 

Baluchi Nationalism: A Growing Problem For Tehran

Martin McCauley writes: The celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Shah in Iran might have given the impression to outsiders that the country is ethnically and religiously homogeneous. This is far from being the case. Only just over half of the 70 million inhabitants are ethnic Persian and Farsi speakers. There are, in addition, sizeable Azeri, Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen and Baluchi ethnic minorities. The Baluchis, who number between two and four million, and are Sunni Muslims, are probably the most alienated minority in Iran. Iranian Baluchistan, which embraces the south east of the country, is the poorest and least developed part of the country. Baluchis also reside on the other side of the Iranian-Pakistani border and they can be found in Afghanistan. Nationalists tend to speak... 

Sino-Pakistani Economic Relations On The Up. The Future Looks Bright

Martin McCauley writes: Traditionally, an incoming Pakistani President’s first foreign trip is to Beijing. Ali Asif Zardari broke with tradition and nipped off to London to lobby for a loan from the International Monetary Fund. Only then did he set off for China to ask for a $1.5 billion to ensure that Pakistan did not default on its foreign debts. The Chinese obliged with $500 million, at a low rate of interest. The rapid decline in Pakistani’s currency reserves is due mainly to the high price of oil this year. A projected trade turnover in 2009 of $56 billion would have resulted in a trade deficit of $14 billion. This is far in excess of present currency reserves. The good news is that oil prices next year are almost certain to be low and this will make it easier for Pakistan... 

Tribal Lashkars in Pakistan: Friend Or Foe To Pakistan?

Martin McCauley writes: Even before the attacks on Mumbai had been contained the Indian Prime Minister was claiming that some of the terrorists were ‘outsiders’, hinting that they came from Pakistan. But if so, the terrorists could have actually been trying to damage Pakistan’s interests rather than simply hitting at India. Reports have surfaced from Kashmir, the disputed province, about Pakistani forces attacking a Lashkar-e Taiba (Soldiers of the Pure) camp there. Allegedly the only terrorist captured in Mumbai alive was trained at that particular camp.The term ‘Lashkar’ generally refers to a hoc group of tribsmen, brought together to deal with a particular problem. Lashkars can include tribal elders as well. They get together to hunt down criminals, resolve a... 

India Is Blaming Pakistan For The Attacks In Mumbai. But Something Is Not Right Here

Well, that turned out nicely for the Indian government, didn’t it? The terrorist, Mohammed Amir Kasab (even the name sounds right), the only one of the ten attackers in Mumbai to be captured alive, confessed to his interrogators to being part of a terrorist group that was based in Pakistan’s tribal areas.Where else could he have come from? Kasab said that he was born in the Pakistani village of Faridkot, that he always fancied becoming a terrorist and that he was trained by some people, who looked suspiciously like former Pakistani special forces. He also revealed that the group that attacked Mumbai was planning to take hostages at the railway station, Victoria Terminus, hijack a boat and return to – you’ll never guess – Karachi, expecting to receive a hero’s... 

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