Top Pakistani military officials are concerned that their ranks have been penetrated by Islamists aiding militants in a campaign against the state, The Washington Post reported late Friday. Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Kayani was shaken by the discovery of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden close to a Pakistani military academy, the newspaper said. He told US officials in a recent meeting that his first priority was “bringing our house in order,” the paper reported, citing an unnamed senior Pakistani intelligence official.
“We are under attack, and the attackers are getting highly confidential information about their targets.” One Pakistani security official said the attack on PNS Mehran had prompted the military to begin a ‘thorough overhauling’ of the armed forces. But, he asked, “If someone is helping the militants from inside the forces, why are they doing it? And the answer, to us, is their disdain for the US and anger at Pakistanis cooperating with Americans,” reported The WP. Some say they doubt Kayani or Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, head of the military’s Inter-Services Intelligence, had direct knowledge, the report said.
Others, however, find it hard to believe they did not, particularly because Kayani was head of the ISI in 2005, when bin Laden is believed to have taken refuge in Abbottabad, the paper noted. According to The WP, Pakistan’s top military brass claimed to have purged the ranks of Islamists shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Since then, the nation’s top officials have made repeated public assurances that the armed forces are committed to the fight against extremists, and that Pakistan’s extensive nuclear arsenal is in safe hands.
But US officials have remained unconvinced, and have repeatedly pressed for a more rigorous campaign by Pakistan to remove elements of the military and intelligence services that are believed to cooperate with militant groups. According to the newspaper, it is unclear how authentically committed Kayani and other top military leaders are to cleansing their ranks. US officials and Pakistani analysts say support by the nation’s top military spy agency for insurgent groups is de facto security policy in Pakistan, not a matter of a few rogue elements. But Kayani is under profound pressure, both from a domestic population fed up with the constant insurgent attacks and from a suspicious international community.
One senior military official said military courts had in recent years convicted several soldiers for roles in attacks on security installations – convictions that have not been made public. Four naval officers previously arrested on suspicion of links with militants were questioned this week in connection with the assault on the naval base in Karachi, another security official said, according to The WP. The WP quoted a senior military official as saying that the belief in militant jihad – long glorified in the national education curriculum – is prevalent in the rank and file, making screening for it a daunting task that the military has been loath to perform.
The newspaper further says that the ISI is believed to have an entire branch – ‘S Wing’ – devoted to relationships with militant organisations. Some analysts believe the wing operates with relative independence, whether by design or default, denying the top brass the plausible deniability when cooperation between the spy service and insurgents comes to light.Pakistani officials say the pressure from the US over the issue included demands that the military purge Islamists in its ranks and identify agents connected to bin Laden. Working against any reform effort is the fervent anti-Americanism felt throughout Pakistan, including within the armed forces. Some Pakistani officials and soldiers accuse the United States of using the bin Laden raid to embarrass the nation into doing American bidding. This week, talk-show pundits condemned the navy’s security lapse at the Karachi base but also brimmed with conspiracy theories about CIA orchestration of the siege.
