The jihadi raid on Pakistan's GHQ prompted immediate discussion on our blog and others, complete with conspiracy theories (the army did it to prepare public opinion for the waziristan operatiion, the CIA did it to prepare the army opinion for the same, the jihadis did it, T.H..E.Y did it, and so on). I am posting my comment (posted in response to the theory that the army arranged this "show") and look forward to your comments.
Dr T,
I assume you are asking about the GHQ siege. I think the commando action sounds like it was capable and well executed. You are being cynical about why the suicide bomber did not blow himself up, but it is not impossible to kill a suicide bomber before he explodes. Commandos executing such a raid are always taking a risk, but there is always the chance of success. This is what they are trained to do. They can use stun grenades, which can disorient and stun the terrorists for a few moments. In that time, the commando sharpshooters have to shoot the terrorists without killing hostages. The first reaction of the terrorists is to fire back at the attackers, not to turn and start shooting hostages. Anyway, in our history, we have had good operations (this one and the one in lal masjid) and really bad screw-ups (the Pan Am hijacking in the eighties when the commandos seem to have killed more hostages than the hijackers managed to kill).
The bottom line is, even I find it hard to believe that anyone in the army would be as stupid as to have these martyrdom seekers attack their own GHQ. I think this was a bona-fide terrorist attack. Its a huge embarrassment for the army that they got into even the outer buildings of GHQ. Still, once they had been embarrassed, the army did take the risk of having the hostages killed and went for an early commando raid and as such raids go, they seem to have succeeded.
I think the more important thing is to notice that the person leading the terrorists is supposed to be the same SOB who attacked the Sri-lankan cricket team in April. Why was he still at large? renting houses, arranging white vans with army license plates, getting terrorists in place for a well planned raid? This is not a good reflection on the state of law enforcement and anti-terrorist operations in the country.
Also, this is old news for many of us, but worth pointing out that this jihadi terrorist, like all the others now being hunted or asked to go to Indian Kashmir ASAP, was initially trained by our own blessed intelligence agencies and their pet proxies. And he and his ilk are able to survive until today because parts of the jihadi infrastructure (supporters, sympathizers, financiers, facilitators) share space with "India-specific terrorists" and still do not face a situation where the entire network is under attack from the state. More important, the educated public in Pakistan is still confused about what is going on. The army's powerful psyops operation is very quick to manufacture outrage about Hussain Haqqani or Asif Zardari, but has not made a systematic effort to disown and attack the armed jihadis. Their patrons (like Hameed Gul and company) and bull#### artists like Ahmed Qureshi and Zaid Hamid are still being invited on the media to cloud the issue with conspiracy theories about Indian hand and American embassy staffers and their cars. This is a very serious handicap because it means that "moderate islamists" (a large constituency in educated Pakistan) and ordinarly Pakistanis in general are still not clear about who the enemy is. Without the cooperation of the general public, no anti-terrorist campaign can succeed.
Having said that, I would also add that I continue to believe that the longer term trend is clearly against the jihadis. There is just no way that the "settled areas" of Pakistan will opt for taliban style rule. The hardcore jihadi enterprise is not compatible with survival in the modern world and will eventually be confined to places like Waziristan and isolated small groups (the islamist equivalent of the Baader Meinhof gang and the Red brigades). All the above comments are part of the messy mechanism of getting from the age of Hameed Gul and General Mahmud to the age of co-existence with India and the modern world.
Omar