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Al Qaeda's Karachi plans
While Pakistan's most immediate disasters (floods, an aircrash, wikileaks, diplomatic squabbles etc) have taken up the headlines, the political killings in Karachi haven't gotten the attention they deserve. Most of the news reporting is focused on tallying up the tit-for-tat death toll. But yesterday, the interior minister said he suspected militant outfits could have assassinated a key Karachi politician in an effort to kick of sectarian warfare in the already volitile city.
People dying in any circumstances is a bad thing. But the idea that militants could be manipulating the situation rachets up the possibilty of it all getting much, much worse. (About 70 people have already died in two days of mob violence) So, I was glad to see that Syed Saleem Shahzad, Pakistan bureau chief of the Asia Times and one of the most insightful journalists working in Pakistan today, did some digging on what's going on in Pakistan's largest city and commerical hub. What Saleem found out sounds really troubling.
"Asia Times Online investigations lead to the conclusion that al-Qaeda desires to jack up tensions in Karachi, open up a front in central Punjab and exploit the flood-affected situation in restive Khyber Pakhoonkhwa. The belief among al-Qaeda leaders is that NATO's combat operations will have to be abandoned by the end of this year."
A Pakistani counter terrorism official tells Saleem that militants seem to be planning a big attack on Lahore. Saleem's sources are usually pretty good. In Saleem's analysis, al Qaeda's plans are to force the Pakistani military to overstretch itself by having to deploy across the country.
"in al-Qaeda's view, Karachi, with its multi-national corporations, major banks and stock exchanges, is the weakest link and chaos in this city would be most detrimental to Pakistan - as well as to the war in Afghanistan as a major casualty would be NATO's supply lines. A chaotic and paralyzed Karachi, a disturbed Punjab and a crisis-hit Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa would effectively block all supply routes."
Again, read the whole thing here and keep an eye on Karachi.
I'd be really skeptical of
I'd be really skeptical of anything coming from Rehman Malik. Every time something happens, he blames "the terrorists,"--a ploy undoubtedly employed in most Middle Eastern/West Asian (and Bush-era America) states. But that hunch isn't enough to discredit the assertion that al-Qaida does want to cause chaos in Pakistan's largest city.
If al-Qaida is playing a role in the current madness, it's largely peripheral. It doesn't take much to stoke ethnic tensions, and there are enough disaffected ethnic Pashtuns--including those entirely opposed to al-Qaida's agenda--who are willing to attack MQM lawmakers/party officials.
I'm also highly skeptical of using Saleem Shahzad as a source. He writes: "As the battlelines now stand, all jihadi organizations and Pashtuns are in one camp. They are lined up against the MQM, the Sunni Tehrik (an anti-Taliban Sunni group), and all Shi'ite groups." The situation isn't as dichotomous as he describes it. There are enough Pushtuns, especially those under the ANP, who despise al-Qaida and the Taliban. He has a pretty clear pro-MQM bias, and I'd be averse to any generalizing statements like that.
You really can't take these
You really can't take these types of stories at face value. The only source Saleem cites is an anonymous Pakistani counter-terrorism official. Even if this official is telling the truth there is no way to have any confidence that we he is saying is what the Taliban is planning. It's a bit ridiculous.
Not to say that the story is all false. Rather, that you've got to take it with a bit of salt -- especially given the types of claims being made
Saleem Shahzad has a clear
Saleem Shahzad has a clear MQM bias and cannot be trusted in this case...He may be right about alqaeda's plans but his blanket demonization of all Pakhtoons in Karachi reveals his bias.
We should just allow
We should just allow Al-Qaeda to open a huge mosque near ground zero and surrender.
First time I've seen the
First time I've seen the plural form "Urdus" to mean Urdu-speaking muhajirs. I agree with the comments above - the story is speculative and sketchy. But I would definitely pay attention to Londonstani's warning. Karachi has just the right mix of governance and ungoverned spaces to breed urban terror and maybe more.
Thank you all for your
Thank you all for your comments. From my own point of view, I've followed Saleem's reporting for quite a while, particularly his work from Afghanistan when Western outlets were ignoring it in favour of Iraq. I haven't found him anti Pashtun and I've thought his sources were normally pretty good. I used to cover Iraq and what's happening in Karachi and what happened in Lahore at Data Durbar does seem to follow the pattern we saw in Samarra etc circa 2005.I got some generated nexon
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