Ten years later….

On Sunday night US Special Forces entered Pakistan’s territory, conducted an operation in the vicinity of the cantonment city of Abbottabad for more than forty minutes, killed Osma bin Laden and removed his body to a US navy ship. A little later, a jubilant President Obama telephoned Zardari to inform him about the success of the operation. Pakistani people too heard about the incident from reports emanating from the US media on Monday morning and from Obama’s speech. For more than 13 hours after the operation Pakistanis failed to get any official version of the events from their government. The statement that was finally issued by FO has left vital questions unanswered.

Did the ISI know about the presence of OBL in Abbottabad? If so, why didn’t it call on the authorities to take timely action against the man? If it really did, why was the operation not led by Pakistan’s own security forces and left to the US special troops? If the ISI simply didn’t know that Osama was staying in the vicinity, made sensitive both by the proximity of the military cantonment and Pakistan Military Academy, allegedly for the last four years in a custom made compound, this is the height of negligence. Pakistan would have been in a win-win position by capturing or eliminating the chief terrorist. As things stand pressures are likely to mount, among other things, on mounting operation in North Waziristan.

The only way out is for the government now to take an initiative to redefine Pakistan’s strategic paradigm. Military doctrines are too important to be left to the generals alone. It is ironic that the chief architect of terrorism should be found nestling in comfort in Abbottabad while our 36,000 civilians and 3,500 military personnel have fallen victim to terrorist attacks. Instead of making more India specific nuclear capable missiles, the funds and the energy should be directed to eliminating the terrorists. Unless this is done, along with better civilian control over the security agencies, we may one day awake to find the country has been bracketed by the world with North Korea as an irresponsible state.