Al-Qaeda shadow is for real

Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden’s call for overthrowing President Musharraf is apparently an effort to kill many birds with one stone. The statement is also a message that contrary to media reports Osama is alive, kicking and calling the shots. It is also a threat that the radical Muslims groups are active in Pakistan and they have enough support to take on America and its stooges.

Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden is not the one to remain out of news for long. The Americans might argue endlessly that he has been upstaged by his number two Al-Zwahairi but the truth is that he still appears to be in control of the popular imagination of the radical Muslim world. Close on the heels of the western propaganda he has called on Pakistanis to overthrow President Pervez Musharraf and has thus once again brought President Musharraf and Pakistani militancy top the fore.

In a new audio tape, Bin Laden promised what he called retaliation for the storming of the radical Red Mosque in the capital, Islamabad, in July. He said the army operation, in which more than 100 people were killed, made Gen Musharraf an infidel. The new audio message was heard on the internet over previously released footage of the militant leader. In the tape, Bin Laden says it is now the duty of Muslims to rebel against what he calls the "apostate leader".

The storming of the Red Mosque "demonstrated Musharraf's insistence on continuing his loyalty, submissiveness and aid to America against the Muslims... and makes armed rebellion against him and removing him obligatory", Bin Laden said. The transcript of the tape was released by Laura Mansfield, an American terror expert who monitors militant traffic on the internet

Bin Laden was quoted as saying on another American web site, Siteinstitute.org, that Gen Musharraf's ministers and soldiers were "all accomplices in spilling the blood of those of the Muslims who have been killed". "He who helps him knowingly and willingly is an infidel like him."

It is not the first time the al-Qaeda leader has called for the overthrow of Gen Musharraf, a key US ally in the "war on terror". Since the attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001 he has released a number of videos and audio messages.

Experts believe that Osama Bin Laden may well consider this a timely intervention given the current political turmoil in Pakistan and growing unpopularity of President Musharraf as a poll released earlier this month suggested the Pakistani president was less popular in his own country than the al-Qaeda leader himself.

Even before Bin Laden's latest message, violence by pro-Taleban militants had shot up in Pakistan following the storming of the Red Mosque. There have been almost daily suicide bombings as well as a number of kidnappings of Pakistani soldiers in tribal areas near the Afghan border and in North West Frontier Province.

The threat from Bin Laden - which referred to radicals in the mosque as "champions of Islam" - was immediately rejected by the Pakistani government.

However, it needs to be remembered that there was no sign of joy on the face of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf when he had declared that Islamabad's Red Mosque and its affiliated religious school for women had been "liberated from terrorists".The release of the tape coincided with an announcement by Pakistan's election commission that presidential elections would be held on 6 October. President Musharraf has said he will give up his post of army chief if he is re-elected by parliament and provincial assemblies for another term.

Understandably so, as the battle for the radical institution in the heart of the Pakistani capital may have pushed the country's military leader into a war that he had been working hard to avoid since 11 September 2001.

The 102 people killed in the week-long siege included 11 soldiers and an as yet unknown number of extremists and their hostages. It was the fiercest battle fought by security forces in mainland Pakistan since Gen Musharraf vowed to dismantle the militant jihadi network in the country in the aftermath of the attacks on the US.

Now, he might be wondering what message the battle may have sent to other religious extremists camped in mosques, religious schools or secret hideouts across the country and it is a known fact that there is dearth of such hideouts.

Among the many questions about the Red Mosque episode which remain unanswered are the critical issues of who the militants were and what exactly they wanted. Did they really believe that they could defeat Pakistan's half-million-strong army?

Security officials say that they had reasons to believe that most of the militants holed up inside the mosque belonged to the supposedly defunct Jaish-e-Mohammad (Army of Mohammed). Jaish-e-Mohammad was formed by a radical cleric, Maulana Masood Azhar, in early 2000 to support the insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Before that Maulana Azhar had been arrested and jailed in India and he was released by the Indian authorities in 1999, in exchange for passengers on a hijacked Indian Airlines jet. The aircraft was allegedly seized and flown to Kandahar in Afghanistan by his supporters. This incident had remained contentious in India too as it had gone a long way in questioning the intent and will of the BJP and the NDA government.

He had formed the Jaish-e-Mohammad soon after returning to Pakistan and, according to Pakistani security officials, the Red Mosque was used by its members to regroup. Despite this, Pakistani intelligence reportedly failed to monitor what the group was doing.

Midway through the week-long siege of the mosque, interior ministry officials of Pakistan had said that they had "a very good idea" of who the militants were and to which group they belonged. Many of the militants inside the mosque had clearly worked with Pakistani security forces and they knew how best to deal with them. In fact the deputy leader of the mosque, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, who was killed in the final assault, had never been secretive about his contacts with the intelligence services.

Although it seems highly unlikely that he and his supporters believed they could defeat the Pakistani army and take over Islamabad, it was obvious before the final confrontation that they were itching to take on the security forces.

In the hours before the final assault, many leading religious and secular figures, including politicians from the ruling party, were involved in efforts to find a last-ditch peaceful settlement.

Ghazi himself said that many of the proposals floated by the negotiators were acceptable to him but not to his "friends".

"Our analysis of the failed negotiations only points to one direction - the militants were determined to trigger a full-fledged battle," a senior security official of Pakistan now claims. If that indeed is the case, then the logic driving their determination could have been similar to the one that had led them to attack the Indian parliament.

These officials further say the militants probably wanted to demonstrate to others across the country that their worldview had no political space in Pakistan. None of the political parties, including the religious ones, were likely to come to their support if the government turned on them. And very few people across the world were going to be concerned if militants were killed on the pretext of eliminating extremism.

The obvious conclusion for an extremist mind was that the only way they could establish an Islamic state in Pakistan was through an armed and bloody uprising. Security officials have said that if this was the message the militants wanted to send, then it may be the beginning of a new low-intensity conflict between religious fanatics and law enforcers across Pakistan.

The coming weeks and months may therefore see a series of clashes, probably starting in the conservative North West Frontier Province and then spreading elsewhere in the country. Hence the reports of widespread troop redeployments in recent days.

President Musharraf must be painfully aware that such events could further erode his credibility as a bulwark against radical Islam, and force him to turn his army against its own people - a possibility inimical to his agenda of enlightened moderation. Hard pressed as he is from the political challengers in the civil society of Pakistan, the statement of Osama is likely to add fuel to the fire. This can, however, also prove to be a double edged sword.