The Hindu : A major breakthrough

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 04, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

A major breakthrough

THE ARREST NEAR Islamabad of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, considered the brain behind the September 11, 2001, attack on the U.S., is an important breakthrough that can prove to be a turning point in the drive against the terror network. One of America's most wanted men, Khalid topped the Federal Bureau of Investigation's list of top fugitives, and his capture, coming in the wake of other successes in trapping senior Al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan in the past six months, will be seen as a triumph for the combined efforts of the intelligence agencies of the U.S. and Pakistan. Other than Osama bin Laden, there is practically no one the U.S. agencies would have liked better to have in their custody. Khalid's capture, more than the arrest earlier of Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi Binalshibh, can be a devastating blow against Al-Qaeda for what he might reveal during interrogation by his American investigators. In the months since the devastating strikes in New York and Washington, the terrorist group has shown that contrary to American claims it is far from broken or shattered by the bombing campaign and that its capacity for networking and causing devastation is inexhaustible. The Khalid arrest has the potential to turn the tide against the outfit.

The arrest confirms widely expressed fears that the sponsors of the Taliban fleeing Afghanistan might have found safe havens in parts of Pakistan across the border. With support from local people, Al-Qaeda operatives were thought to have built up a tight network in Karachi, the Pakistani port city. After the arrest of Ramzi following a bizarre shootout, Pakistani police admitted that while they were able to disrupt Al-Qaeda activities they had not succeeded in eliminating them. Khalid's arrest, following a raid on a suspected terrorist hideout, could prove to be qualitatively different. In the investigations after the September 11 strikes, Khalid had emerged as the suspected central architect of the entire plot. He had come under the American radar in the Philippines seven years ago when he was part of a plot to blow up commercial airliners over the Pacific. He may have more valuable insights into Al-Qaeda than any other of the approximately 400 detainees with the U.S.

If the Khalid arrest brought relief in Washington, it also brought into sharp focus the dilemmas and challenges facing Pakistan today. On the positive side in the global fight against terror, it demonstrated the often-restated resolve of the Musharraf Government to be an active partner in the American campaign against Al-Qaeda. Doubts had been raised about the genuineness of Pervez Musharraf's promised crackdown on Al-Qaeda elements in the wake of continuing terrorist outbreaks in the region. Some of this scepticism may end with the latest arrest. But more worrisome for the President must be the political fallout from such operations against Al-Qaeda carried out in conjunction with American agencies such as the FBI and the CIA. The role of these agencies is a highly sensitive issue in Pakistan in these troubled times. The resurgence of Islamic hardliners following their showing in parliamentary and local elections late last year has if anything made it an explosive issue, and reinforced doubts about the capacity of the Government to keep its promise to the international community, especially the U.S., to maintain the pressure on Al-Qaeda. The six-party religious alliance, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, whose "million man" march against a possible war on Iraq coincided with the arrest of Khalid, has been quick to contest Government claims that Saturday's raid was conducted solely by Pakistani security forces and that American agencies had no hand in the actual operation. Though Gen. Musharraf has ridden such political waves before, the coming days can prove extremely challenging as the war drums beat louder in the neighbourhood.

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