And prospect of inside help
The defence minister not ruling out ‘inside help’ for the Taliban in the matter of the Karachi dockyard attack must have sent a shiver down some spines, especially in the defence analyst industry. It’s not that the phenomenon presents a novelty for the army, though. They have come across their fair share of turncoats; from Hizbut Tahrir to attempts on Gen Musharraf to the Mehran Base attack. But there was talk of the top brass getting a handle on things during Gen Kayani’s time. And by the time Zarb-e-Azb took off, such concerns seemed a bygone issue. Now that they are making the news again, however, some steps need to be taken that the military would no doubt be aware of.
Firstly, confronting a mindset, especially an ideology that can turn able officers into destructive machines like the astonishing, and irritating, Adnan Rashid, is easier said than done. It’s not as if an investigating team can go from jawan to jawan asking about their deep, secret allegiances. Then there is the senior batch, some of whom are known for their right leaning, but command respect of rank, and it would take an ambitious effort to weed them out.
It bears noting that often the actions of an insignificant minority can cause problems for the larger system. The military seems to be confronting just such an issue. No doubt any al Qaeda penetration of its rank and file is negligible, or there would not be such unanimity over the NW operation. It is for the agencies to immediately isolate and interrogate such elements. Just like the dockyard incident showed, captured personnel can carry valuable information, and affect the fate of the war from this point on. For the moment, however, despite the limited impact of the dockyard attack, TTP has scored another point. It has shown that it not only remains active, and is capable of the blowback it talked so much about, but it also commands some influence, however limited, within the military. Surely the army has prepared contingencies for just such situations. It’s time we saw them enacted.
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