Center for a New American Security

I just got back to Pakistan after a two month stay back in London that was initially only supposed to last two weeks.

I've been catching up on the stack of newspapers that greeted me on my return. Not to mention the dust, cockroaches and dodgy plumbing. With me is Ms. Londonstani, also known as Ms Henley-on-Thames, who is whipping things into shape with fearsome efficiency.

The two biggest events while I've been away have been the attacks in Lahore and Mohmand. The Lahore attack did receive substantial coverage in the Western press, however Mohmand, in most hardcopy newspapers, was buried around page eight. And mostly consisted of reprinted wire copy. I suspect the issue in editorial meetings across the world is how to "refresh" the Pakistan story. How to take it beyond a list of attacks on places with funny names, where the only thing that seems to differ is the number of dead.

I'll be doing some more in-depth analysis of events over the coming weeks. In the meantime, during my reading-in this morning a couple of things caught my eye.

From a very interesting NYT article about US military training Pakistani army people: "The scouts face a battle-hardened enemy that has lived in the mountains around here for decades. "We've been here one-and-a-half years," said Col. Ahsan Raza, the training center's commandant. "They have been preparing for the last 20 years.

I might be wrong about this.. rather, Wikipedia might be wrong about this.. but haven't the Frontier Corps been hanging out in the mountains since 1907?

NYT has had a brilliant series of articles getting to the bottom of the conundrum facing Pakistan-Western relations - namely Pakistani mistrust of US intentions. And yes, Pakistani-Western relations rather than Pakistani-US relations, since the view of the US transfers to the West in general. Which is great...if you are al-Qaeda. I met a former Pakistani law maker from the opposition party. As a young man he had worked in the UK, gotten married there, lived there a good number of years. He was convinced the US wanted to see the break up of Pakistan and was probably sponsoring the Taliban. Did he think the UK was working for the same goal? "The UK is working to America's plan. It's not their aim to break-up Pakistan, but it is their aim to further their relationship with the United States," he said.

Going back to the NYT article, this last one by Jane Perlez and Eric Schmitt shows what such views translate to when the two "allies" try to work together.

"Pakistan also restricts the number of American trainers throughout the country to no more than about 120 Special Operations personnel, fearful of being identified too closely with the unpopular United States - even though the Americans reimburse Pakistan more than $1 billion a year for its military operations in the border areas."

"...the American-led war in Afghanistan and its continuing campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas have made the United States suspect at all levels of the military, and among the Pakistani population, as anti-Americanism has hit new heights."

It seems to me that without addressing the image problem, all other Western efforts in Pakistan are in trouble. The drone strikes are no more than a convenient tool when all your other options have been blunted. But in the final analysis, they only serve to stuff the future for the sake of "doing something" in the present.

Any hopes Londonstani had that Pakistan would be trouble-free while Ms Henley-on-Thames made a slightly nervous visit didn’t last long… about 7 hours to be exact.

The day Ms HT arrived at Islamabad International Airport, two grenade attacks on schools in Quetta wounded 17 people. Considering that the attack took a relatively minor toll, it seemed a military officer’s statement (as reported by the local press) that Taliban resistance was dying down reflected a bottoming out of Taliban violent capabilities in general.

The average reader might have felt that things are calming down in Pakistan as less reports of horrific attacks made it on the front pages and the hourly bulletins. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. The violence picked up again after the Quetta attack and bomb attacks or near misses have occurred on a near daily basis. The deluge of death and destruction seems to have exhausted the international media. When the same thing happens time after time, its importance for news organisations falls. The BBC website relegated the depressingly similar stories coming out of Peshawar to its "other top stories" subsection of the South Asia section. Reuters wrapped up most of the reports on bomb attacks into stories with a wider political scope. To be fair, even Pakistani media is becoming inured to reports of bombs going off in crowded places.

To give a realistic account of what's been happening in Pakistan, here is a run down:

Nov 8: A suicide bomber killed 15 in Peshawar including the main target - the head of a Lashkar who had formerly been in the Taliban. A spokesman for the group claimed the attack. On the same day, local papers quoting police statements reported that a police "sharpshooter" had killed a suicide bomber on the outskirts of Islamabad. A couple of the newspapers did wonder where a "sharpshooter" suddenly came from, since Islamabadies are used to seeing slightly nervous policemen awkwardly holding AK47s rather than anyone matching the word "sharp".

Nov 9: A suicide bomber killed a policeman and two civilians at police checkpoint in Peshawar.

Nov 10: A suicide bomber in a car killed about 26 and wounded 104 in a market in Charsadda, a town in NWFP about 30 kms from Peshawar. In response Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani said the attacks were likely to continue as "the militants are on the run". Which suggests that "miitants are on the run" whether the frequency of attacks is increasing or decreasing, making them a useless indicator of success. 

Nov 11: No civilian deaths it seems, but the Pakistani army lost seven soldiers to a IED in Mohmand. The interior ministry ordered an enquiry into the shooting of the suspected suicide bomber on Nov 8 after reports his death was an extra judicial killing by police.

Nov 12: Iranian consulate official shot dead in Peshawar

Nov 13: Two suicide car bombs, one at intelligence (ISI) offices in Peshawar and another in Bannu, killed 17 people. The Taliban later admitted the attack.

Nov 14: A suicide car bomb killed 12 people in Peshawar. It seems the bomber was trying to enter a military area but detonated when he was approached by security at a check point. At tabout the same time, the military killed 13 fighters in Swat - yep, that would be the area that's supposed to have been cleaned up.

Nov 15: The authorities announced something of a coup with the arrest of a Taliban leader responsible for Punjab and Islamabad. The figure, who was not identified, was reported as coming from a "Middle Eastern" background. The newspaper reports, citing police sources, said the Taliban commander was probably planning a large-scale attack in the capital and had been monitored as he moved about the Margalla Hills trying to enter the city. It should be noted the hills are practically part of Islamabad, with a number of hiking trails and restaurants.

Nov 16: Four people died today when a suicide car bomber attacked a police station in Peshawar.

The predictable increase in dead bodies was pushed from people's minds (at least editors' minds) by the Seymour Hersh New Yorker story that the United States was talking to the Pakistani military about helping secure the country's nuclear arsenal. Our own AM posted on the topic, wondering about the accuracy of Hersh's reporting. 

Predictably, in Pakistan, Hersh's report carried more baggage than just the burden of accuracy.

The foreign ministry called the story "totally baseless and utterly misleading". The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Tariq Majid said there was "no question" of allowing a foreign power access to "sensitive information about our nuclear assets". The American embassy in Islamabad also denied the story.

The flag-waving "Pakistan right or wrong" element of the media showed through its coverage where exactly the sensitivity lay.

One of the main "right or wrongers" is called Shireen Mazari. In an article entitled "Fantasies, Falsehoods and a Forewarning" she spends much time talking up the competence and professionalism of the Pakistani army and rebutting Hersh's suggestion that extremist elements within the army could seize the nuclear bombs. In a little ironic turn, Mazari sets out to disprove one of Hersh's points that Pakistani nuclear weapons material is kept "de-mated" from triggers and delivery mechanisms in order to provide pause for thought. Mazari reckons Hersh has screwed up as she knows that the weapons are not "de-mated", but only kept on non-hair-trigger readiness. So, thank you to Ms Mazari, if she's correct, for telling any newspaper reading militants that if they do get to the weapons, they just have to flick the on switch rather than assemble the whole thing. Great. That'll show Hersh!

Pakistani sensitivity surrounding nuclear weapons is based around the central position the weapons - or more accurately, building and owning the weapons - occupy in Pakistan's image of itself. To Pakistanis, their country mastered the most technologically advanced science on earth with minimal resources. No one wanted them to have nukes, but they got them anyway. And now they have them - like a kid with a knife on a housing estate - they feel their weapons make the world look on them with a little respect. All this talk of the security of the nukes sounds to Pakistanis like the world is saying "Ok, you got them. But obviously, you aren't sensible enough to keep hold of them. So pass them on to an adult for safe keeping."

No one likes to be told they aren't good enough and questioning the army's ability to guard its pride and joy is about the same as getting a multimedia, television, internet, newspaper and magazine campaign with some viral marketing thrown in that endlessly repeats "You're rubbish Pakistan, and you know you are." In case anyone is thinking Flashman-like thoughts about the "childish underdeveloped brains of the natives", it's worth looking back a month or two to the reaction of the British media when Americans dared to tarnish the image of the NHS, which the same papers pour scorn on regularly themselves.

A useful news feature from AP summed up well the relationship Pakistanis have with their nukes:

"Such reactions — a mix of defensive outrage and fury that their own government might be giving nuclear secrets to Washington — don't surprise people who watch this country.."

"Look here, this is our most important totem pole, our nuclear capability," said opposition lawmaker Ayaz Amir..."

"Pakistan's nuclear weapons program is many things here. It is a sign of Pakistan's technological prowess and it's a point of pride that Pakistan has the Muslim world's only nuclear missiles. It is also, they say, a strategic insurance policy, a way to ensure that Pakistan cannot be obliterated in an atomic firestorm launched by India. At the very least, Pakistan will be able to fire back"

"The New Yorker article, though, insists Washington is — in private — very worried...But inside Pakistan, it is heresy to raise such concerns, and many people can reel off the nuclear safeguards: strict oversight of personnel, physical separation of weapon components, complex locking systems.

A few people have been wondering about what Pakistanis make of the recent attacks that have taken place all around the north of the country. Londonstani has been travelling around the region for the past couple of weeks, and unsurprisingly the most recent violence, mainly aimed at civilians, has been a hot topic of conversation. People's opinions are sometimes bewildering, insightful, thought provoking and/or frustrating but they are by no means monolithic. And since it's rare to hear the views of the average Pakistani citizen in daily news reports.. at least anything more than a 5 second sound bite... Abu Muqawama brings them to you here, in technicolour.

Meet Shahid Aslam, from the Punjab-Kashmir border

"I know the kind of people who volunteer to fight for the sake of God. They aren't the kind of people who blow up women and children in mosques. I grew up with people who went to fight in Indian Occupied Kashmir and they were good God-conscious people. The people who blow themselves up in market places are not people of God. They are people with no God. They are just people who want to kill and murder.

"But I tell you one thing, whoever is doing this is Pakistani. That's for sure. They might not be doing the right thing, but they aren't coming over the border from India.  Whoever is paying them and convincing them to do this might well be from abroad, but those people are finding recruits out here. I blame the mullahs to some extent. When Pakistan was fighting India, the mullahs were on hand to say that it's OK to go to certain death when you have no other option. Now they are saying suicide operations are wrong. It's confusing for simple young people. But more than that, it makes the population even more convinced that the mullahs who are working in official circles are 'bought mullahs' whatever they are told to say, they say. So people have now decided not to listen to them.

"In this area, we all think the government is paid for by the Americans. This isn't a Pakistani government. It's a wing of the American government. They do what the Americans want and not what we want. I remember when things were a bit better. I remember learning about what Pakistan could be. What our hopes were. But the young people now don't see that. They just see a government that helps the Americans fight in Afghanistan while it robs us.

"It doesn't matter what government we have. We (Pakistan's average citizen) still lose. Every government we have will go towards the Americans because the Americans give them money. If they didn't get money from the Americans, they would just rob us more."

Meet Mehboob Sherif, from southern Punjab

"The Indians are doing to us what we did to them. It makes me laugh when I read the newspapers. I see articles about fighting in Kashmir where we call the gunmen in Indian "fighters" and in the next article about what is happening in Pakistan, we call the same people "militants" or "terrorists" because they are fighting us! That says it all really doesn't it? Do we like these people or not? We can't like them if they are on that side of the border and not like them when they are on this side. That just doesn't work.

"Pakistan is in a rough neighbourhood. We have a new world power on one side, a little below that we have a sworn enemy that is quickly becoming powerful. On the other side the Americans are in Afghanistan. While at the same time, they seem to be making trouble here. And then there's Russia. Pakistan played a pretty large part in the beating they got in Afghanistan. I'm sure their hand is behind some of what is happening because they want some revenge.

"Big city people only talk about what happens in Islamabad and Lahore. We have been suffering for years. There are smaller bombs everywhere in Punjab. If it's not the Taliban then it's shia trying to kill sunni and the other way around. People are getting caught in the middle like always and paying the price.

"In my village, people have died in attacks that don't even make the newspapers. We also have people getting taken away in kidnappings. Then, once the police get involved, then its even worse because they just start arresting people all over the place and you don't know where that person is or when they will come back to their families."

Meet Abdul Malik, from the Punjab-NWFP border area

"No real Muslim would kill civilians and the Taliban have said they don't target civilians. But what I'm saying is that the Taliban who do this are not Muslims.

"We definitely have a huge extremism problem. And those extremists are not Muslims. They are young people who have been led astray. Maybe some of them just want to fight and they say its in the name of Islam because it's better than saying 'I like to fight and kill'. If they did that the government would bomb them to hell and no one would care. You can cover many sins in the name of Islam.

"It's a real tragedy because religion is supposed to make people better. The Taliban are blowing up shrines and talking about killing people who go to them. Is this the act of proper Muslims? No way.

"This extremism problem is spreading everywhere. People used to be interested in poetry, in peace and in doing good works now its all about banning television and killing people who play cards, people who smoke hookah, people who sit in tea houses. The sad thing is that there are people saying this is Islam, and there are more and more people believing it."

Conclusion:

In Londonstani's view, people have a really hard time accepting that people who are similar to them could take something they see as a positive force and use it to justify killing innocent people. The far easier explanation is that other people are to blame and they are trying to discredit your shared religion/culture etc. This is true not only for Pakistanis but for other Muslims and applies equally to people in the UK and US who have a hard time imagining "Our Boys" committing war crimes. It's easier to accept that criminality is to blame for death and destruction because criminality is an aberration of normal society anyway, but its harder to accept when it looks like the destruction is supposed to be an authentic growth out of your own society, when you "know" it's not an authentic expression of your society.

At the moment, people just want the attacks to stop. Questions of who is to ultimately blame have pushed to the back of people's minds. It looks like a small window off opportunity when Pakistani public opinion and Western understanding is on the same page. However, as soon as the immediate threat has receded, opinion polls suggest the mistrust will be back with a vengeance. Figures in the newspapers (that arent to hand now) show that way over 50 percent of Pakistanis see America as the country's biggest threat, 17 percent see India as the biggest threat and just under 10 percent put the Taliban in that position.

It has to be said, from the point of view of your average citizen, like the good people above who gave me some of their time, there was no Taliban in Pakistan when there was no America in Afghanistan. And in much the same way that Americans and Europeans can say, "Just leave them to kill each other", Pakistanis can say, "al Qaeda attacking America is not our problem. America pissed them off not us." But then your average Pakistani citizen knows or cares little about how successive Pakistani militaries were building up the capacity of extremists to fight wars for them on the cheap. And if they did, they probably wouldn't give much thought to the fact that such a relationship is ultimately not sustainable, because at some point the two parties' interest will diverge. If it wasn't the "war on terror" that made the Pakistani government "infidel" in the eyes of the Lashkars, Sipahes and Jamaats, it would have been something else.

In terms of WTF is going on... Londonstani has spent time in a couple of places where conflict is brewing or escalating and has found that such situations have a logic and momentum of their own. In such circumstance, societies rapidly move in directions that locals struggle to comprehend and actors come to the stage with motivations and outlooks that the majority of the population don't even recognise. In that sense, many Pakistanis might think they "know" their fellow countrymen, but does a southern Punjabi really know where a tribesman is coming from? And in say five years, would they understand the motivation of a 17-year-old suicide bomber who equates the word Pakistan with venal officials and military action that killed his family and friends? And right now, how much would a Karachi trader who sells knock off TVs from China really understand what's going through the head of a kid from a dirt poor family who's been in a madrassa where he was taught relentlessly that only when the country adheres to "pure Islam" will God see fit to bring social justice to the land?

And like everything else, in essence that's a situation as true in Pakistan as it elswhere, as Londonstani recently found out when he worked on a documentary based around a white working class sink estate in England and found that many viewers from middle class backgrounds struggled to accept what they saw could happen in their country.

Newspapers reported today that the F8 incident reported with much ensuing panic yesterday was a hoax. However, it wasn't long before the small sense of relief was overshadowed by new episodes of death and destruction.

A mine exploded under a bus in Mohmand killing 15, mainly women and children, various news outlets reported. It seems this time the civilians might not actually have been the target since the road where the blast happened is used frequently by the miiitary. Although of course, you have to wonder if the people who put the mine there decided a few dead civilians was a risk worth taking.

A suspected car bomb in Peshawar wounded 13, nine of whom are in critical condition. While a suicide bomber attacked a military aircraft servicing facility 75 km from Islamabad killing seven.

The capital itself got a respite, but the streets were pretty quiet. Londonstani toured the various markets on his daily chores and found most of the shops to himself. The downside was that there were no cabs.

While the blow back is clear for everyone to see, no one really knows what is happening in the tribal areas themselves. Reporter friends have been up to Dera Ismail Khan and Peshawar to talk to those fleeing the conflict zones but their stories of having to flee after government forces suggested (in no uncertain terms) that it's time to leave did little to shed light on how the fighting is actually unfolding. Of course, the government and the militants claim to be heaping humiliation on each other in buckets, but its anyone's guess what's actually happening. 

The latest government numbers put Taliban deaths at 142 and their own losses at 20. The latest figures from aid agencies suggest 120,000 have been made homeless.

But while the military operation and the attacks away from the frontline are getting the headlines, it seems to Londonstani that the predictable see-saw of Pakistani politics is thinking of double backing on itself once more. There are whisperings amongst the English speaking super elite, the taxi drivers and the very low level government clerks that maybe it's time the army took over once more.

From Londonstani's point of view this is just wierd. It wasn't that long ago that everyone seemed to be on the streets shouting death to Musharraf. Now, I've heard a possible Pakistani future leader say, "You know if Musharraf hadn't made a couple of small mistakes towards the end, he would have been remembered as the man who saved the nation."

At the time of the most stringent anti Musharraf hysteria, Londonstani remembers sitting in a newsroom asking a visiting Pakistani analyst, "But who's gonna replace Musharraf? You think the same people who ran the country into the ground before him are suddenly going to start amending their ways?"

The analyst said he thought they had learnt their lesson. But it seemed much like bringing Afghan warlords back to Kabul. And, the fear is that the results could actually be much the same.

The complaints of the upper sections of society is that this present government is completely venal, corrupt and incompetent. "'What's new?" Someone with a sense of history might ask, but it seems that this government is setting new records at such a pace that the whole "only the army can run Pakistan" has come back into popular usage a year and a bit after they were last in power (it normally takes a few years). But of course, there is a conspiracy that this is actually what they have been planning all along anyway.

It would be pretty depressing if it wasn't for the fact that there does seem to be a growing sense among young upper and middle class Pakistanis that its time to step the plate. That the old paradigm is very, very broken and their only other option - going abroad - is not really all that appealing. After all, how many financial professionals with qualifications from their country's best institutes actually want to drive cabs?

Londonstani is going to be off on a world wind tour of Pakistan over the next few days.. so hopefully more on what people are thinking behind the scenes.

This post follows on from the earlier information about the attacks today in Islamabad:

Three attacks in three days in the Pakistani capital as the Waziristan operation goes on.

The latest is still happening about 2km from where Londonstani is now. Television news is saying an attacker wearing a suicide belt and carrying an AK47 started shooting near the city's courts in the F8 sector. The area is one of Islamabad's upper income districts. Details are confused but it seems the gunman is still on the loose. Police are evacuating the area, saying that he planted an explosive device before fleeing.

Earlier this morning, gunmen opened fire on a passing army jeep carrying a senior officer. Three or four soldiers were killed. Media is reporting most of the attackers escaped.

The day before yesterday, two suicide bombers killed four students at the Islamic University.

More soon....

UPDATE:

Islamabad is in a near state of panic.

A friend said today that a relative of his had rung him in a panic saying that she had seen men with guns pulling people out of cars on one of the main roads. This hasn't been reported anywhere and Londonstani is tempted to think its one of those situations where people are so worried they see one thing and imagine another.

A foreign security official told Londonstani that he had never seen Islamabad in such a state of nervousness. The attack in F8 particularly shook people up. The target seems to have been the courts, but the area is very residential, and pretty well heeled residential at that. Initial reports said the gunman was on the loose. A three mile radius from the central market area of F8 encompasses most of the shops, restaurants and cafes frequented by the local expat residents and Pakistani business and professional types.

Quite a few shop keepers told Londonstani that they were tempted to shut up shop when they heard through their televisions that a desperate armed man wearing a suicide belt could well be heading their way.

There was definitely less life on the street.. but there was still some.

Now, what does this mean for public opinion? As far as Londonstani is concerned it looks like his theory that the downfall of militant Islamists is hardwire into their DNA holds. They always seem to descend into pure bloodlust and lose whatever support they get through articulating popular grievance to Western policy. This is something AQ leadership warned against when they started their enterprise at the end of the Soviet-Afghan war and it's something they reiterated when Zarqawi went postal in Iraq and it's also something Zawahiri had to address in his internet Q&A session 18 months or so ago.

OK, so many Pakistanis feel that somehow the Indians, Americans and/or Israelis might be behind all this. But when the attacks mount up and the residents of your well guarded capital are too afraid to step outside their front doors, public opinion reaches a "I-don't-know-what-it-is-but-I-want-it-stopped" situation.

It's at times like this that the people who support a Taliban-type world view are temporarily silenced. That's not because they have changed their minds. It's because they feel deep down that their "just warriors of Islam" can't possibly be responsible for bombing civilians, eventhough the evidence seems to be mounting up. If that's your worldview, you don't abandon it because of a few bombs. Instead, you go away to figure out how you and square the circle.

Want to see what Londonstani's talking about? Check this out:

"Regarding the most recent bombing at Islamic University in Islamabad, note that the Taliban have not claimed responsibility for it (you can imagine that they’d be a bit pre-occupied to release a statement denying it right now). Despite that, all the govt officials and media outlets are pointing the finger of blame at them (even though they themselves are forced to acknowledge that they have not claimed responsibility for it).

"For those of you who choose to take the word of the Govt and Army (who are currently stooges of the Americans and are falling over themselves to lick their shoes) over that of the mujahideen, consider this: WHY ON EARTH WOULD THE TALIBAN INTENTIONALLY TARGET CIVILIAN AREAS WHEN THEY HAVE NOTHING TO GAIN FROM IT?"

In Londonstani's experience, the answer is pretty simple. Violent groups - no matter what the stated noble aims - tend to attract a far share of complete nutters who need absolutely no justification to kill people. But, hey, if you are offering up one dressed up as God, country, flag or whatever, then, hell yeah, that'll do. And those sorts of people are pretty hard to control or weed out if you are running a professional modern army, let alone a volunteer militia made up of people with disparate aims.

It's also funny how people are quite happy to look for the logic when they are excusing their own side, but the "standard of proof" drops several notches when they are faced with something that confirms their own beliefs.

To give you an idea of that feeling of having had enough, check out this nice little mash up by Pakistani channel Geo. The title translates as "We Are Ready!" Actually, a more idiomatic translation would be, "We are ready for you!".

UPDATE II

As if all that wasn't enough excitment for one day.. we just had a minor earthquake!!

Three attacks in three days in the Pakistani capital as the Waziristan operation goes on.

The latest is still happening about 2km from where Londonstani is now. Television news is saying an attacker wearing a suicide belt and carrying an AK47 started shooting near the city's courts in the F8 sector. The area is one of Islamabad's upper income districts. Details are confused but it seems the gunman is still on the loose. Police are evacuating the area, saying that he planted an explosive device before fleeing.

Earlier this morning, gunmen opened fire on a passing army jeep carrying a senior officer. Three or four soldiers were killed. Media is reporting most of the attackers escaped.

The day before yesterday, two suicide bombers killed four students at the Islamic University.

More soon....

So a suicide bomber today killed "several top commanders in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards" and the Iranians blamed the US and the UK. So far, so predictable. But away from the grandstanding, it was a slightly different story.

One of the Pakistani news channels just reported that the Iranian foreign minister called in the Pakistani ambassador to complain that his country's territory was being used as a launch pad by terrorists to attack Iran.

BBC is reporting that Jundullah, a Sunni terrorist group operating in Iranian Balouchistan, claimed responsibility for the attack.

The obvious question that springs to mind is whether an instable Pakistan is leaking fall out. It's one thing if Pakistani actors are cultivating mini armies to use against neighbours in a competition for influence or to bleed an opponent. It's quite another if Pakistani territory is being used by armed groups in a pre-9/11 Afghanistan type situation. In fact, it has the potential to be worse, because Afghanistan's Taliban government hadn't spent decades training mini armies that had support networks and physical assets all over their territory. Of course, it didn't also have nuclear weapons.

If something similar happens in China's Xinjiang provice, does Pakistan get like a toaster... free refill, or something?

Londonstani woke up this morning to find out Lahore had turned into a war zone.

The city, which until earlier this year felt largely insulated from the problems on the western border, was the victim of three co-ordinated attacks in which reports say 24 people have been killed. Gunmen and suicide attackers stormed the Manawan Police Academy, the Elite Police training institute on Bedian road and the Federal Investigation Agency on Thursday morning, as officials continue to debate when to launch their offensive in Waziristan.

The authorities say the FIA incident happened first, at about 10am local time, when gunmen dressed in black with grenades and assault rifles stormed the building. The same building was attacked a few months ago.

Troop are still attempting to clear the attackers from the training institute on Bedian road. News channels are saying "security forces are avoiding a hostage situation such as in GHQ", a reference to another major attack on security forces last week. Considering that the news channels did not report hostages had been taken at GHQ, there is a real possibility the situation is worse than is currently being reported.

There was also a suicide attack at a police station in Kohat in NWFP. It's not clear how many were killed in that attack.

Psychologically, Lahore had thought itself far from Pakistan's insurgency problem until a string of attacks (including an attack on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team) late last year and earlier this year made the reality of the situation painfully clear. There has been talk since the attack on GHQ last week that anti-Pakistan militancy is gaining followers in Punjab, Pakistan's biggest and most economically important province. When the Taliban claimed responsibility, they said a local cell had participated in the attack.

There are differences of opinion on whether the "Punjabi Taliban" are just fighters from FATA living in another part of the country. The key point for the authorities is whether Punjabi militants (if they exist in substantial numbers) are interested in fighting in Afghanistan, or are keen to take on the army at home.

Dawn news channel, which is owned by the same group that owns Dawn newspaper, Pakistan's oldest English language daily, had a retired brigadier general offering military analysis. With a hint of admiration the officer described the operation as "bold, accurate and precise". He added that the attackers had been better trained and more effective than the Pakistani army soldiers assigned to guard the facilities.

The military analysis at the moment seems to have accepted that like the attack on GHQ last week these operations are beyond the usual huge-bomb-packed-with-nails style usually favoured by low-tech mountain fighters. The brigadier general described al Qaeda as a high tech and capable organisation that has definitely had a hand in improving the quality of training of Pakistani militants. However, it's got to be said (and other military analysts have made the point) that the Pakistani army previously made sure these same sort of guys received pretty decent training. Londonstani remembers family members who served in the Pakistani army saying how ordinary Pakistani soldiers were pretty much always in awe of the dedication, quick wittedness, skill and resilience of the men they were training and sometimes serving with.

Dawn is known for its more considered editorial line (ie it's not about knee-jerk nationalism). The studio presenter made the point that "this is a homegrown problem". The retired officer added; "If India is behind this, then it is doing to us what we did to them in Kashmir. So, in a way, it's fair." Which underscores the point that Pakistani media opinion is defintely not monolithic and there is a place for voices that aren't parroting official lines

How to see this latest attack? The media, foreign and domestic, seems to be split between two narratives "Militants are getting stronger and we are stuffed" or "This is the last gasp of militants who are about to be ground to pulp by the army".

Londonstani sees it slightly differently. Historically, in the wider Muslim world and this part of the world in particular, the downfall of militancy of this kind is built into its success. It can only really thrive when it is seen as a by product of unpopular government policies, foreign occupation etc. But when the militancy gets powerful enough to pull off spectaculars like the operations today in Lahore, that's when the local population see it as a threat in its own right. When it starts looking like a realistic possibility (even if pretty distant) that Taliban types might soon be telling you how to live, ambivilance towards their activities falls away.

A classic example of this is Syed Ahmed, who rallied Pashtun tribes under the banner of Jihad to kick the Sikhs out of Peshawar in 1823. His downfall came after his army captured the city and he set about telling his allies how to be "proper Muslims". It wasn't long afterwards that he died in a battle against Sikh forces coming up to take advantage of internal divisions.

So basically, Londonstani is counting on their own successes shooting them in the foot instead of having any faith in interventions done by the Pakistani government or army, the Americans or anyone else.

Interestingly, Sayed Ahmed undertook his religious instruction with the son of Shah Waliullah. It's thought that Waliullah and Mohammed Ibn Wahhab (who developed the takfeeri ideology in its present form) had a teacher in common when they both studied in Medina (or that Wahhab was Walliullah's student). So when Saudi diplomats say; "Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have a people-to-people relationship that goes beyond governments" it's not just diplo-speak.

Pakistani news channels are reporting that there has been an explosion in Swat, killing over 30 people. The explostion occured in an that is supposed to have been cleared by the army. Here is the BBC story.

To anyone keeping count, this is the fourth major attack by militants in a week.

The attacks are increasing as official pronouncements suggest the operation is coming closer to kick off time. The Dawn newspaper had an article today saying it would be launched in the next 48 hours. The sourcing, however, looked a bit dodgy.

Londonstani has not seen this reported in Western newsagencies, but earlier this morning Express TC, one of the local channels, was reporting two other smaller attacks; one in Faisalabad, Pakistan's third largest city. Either these are considered too minor to report, or the channel screwed up. It's worth mentioning here, that Londonstani has worked for a newsagency in the past were there was an unofficial policy of reporting deaths. The general rule of thumb was; 1 foreigner (Western) was equal to 10 locals. In other words, an incident that killed 8 locals, was not deemed worthy of coverage.