Trump blocking $255-mn aid is perhaps the biggest jolt to Pakistan after Abbottabad raid
Donald Trump may have forced Charlie Wilson to cringe in his grave. The swashbuckling, swaggering playboy-US Congressman from Texas and Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq were brothers in arms literally - Pakistan was the conduit for channelling Stinger missiles to the Mujahideen, who finally started shooting down the lethal, much-feared Soviet Hind copters (Mi-24s) - or "Shaitan-Arba" (Satan’s Chariot) - with pinpoint accuracy in Afghanistan.
As more planeloads of Stingers and other weapons landed in Pakistan, Wilson and Zia bonded closer. “Yes, Charlie did it,” remarked Zia after the Soviets met their Waterloo and made an ignominious exit. While Wilson loved Pakistan, he hated India. His hatred was evident when he dubbed India hypocritical and a satellite of the erstwhile Soviet Union in an interview with the Associated Press in 2003.
“My general experience of Indians is that they are rather arrogant, know a lot more than anyone else about most things and are stiff-necked. Just like the Americans. But I noticed that they changed very quickly once the Soviets collapsed.”
However, the Faustian pact the US had struck with the dreaded Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to counter the Soviets continued as Zia bled J&K under Operation Topaz with Uncle Sam turning a blind eye. The devilish deal would come back to haunt the US with Wilson’s rampaging "Frankenstein" in Afghanistan transforming itself into Godzilla - the very Mujahideen mutated into the Taliban and the ISI, under its rugged and foxy director Hamid Gul, nurtured the Taliban with Saudi money.
Washington continued to nurture the relationship with Pakistan and billions of dollars in aid flowed into the country. From 2002 to 2016, the US has provided more than $14 billion in aid to Pakistan with the highest assistance of $2,100 million in 2011 - the same year in which al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was hunted down by the Navy Seal Team Six in a house close to Pakistan’s military academy in Abbottabad.
The Afghan abyss still stares at the US. Trump blocking $255-million in military aid to Pakistan is perhaps the biggest jolt for Islamabad after Operation Neptune Spear in Abbottabad.
Despite billions of dollars of aid, Pakistan and the ISI has been helping the Taliban, the Haqqani network, LeT and JeM. With the Islamic State (IS) entering Afghanistan, America faces a two-headed snake. Although the US has not given the specific reason for the aid blockade, Trump’s Afghanistan policy - which targeted Pakistan for not doing enough to rein in terrorists - and the threat from the IS and the LeT seem to have prompted the president.
As the IS is rapidly losing ground in Iraq and Syria, Afghanistan could be its next bastion. The threat of IS plotting attacks on the US in Afghanistan looms large. According to the New America Foundation, there have been several IS-inspired attacks on US soil.
The IS had claimed responsibility for the attack on an exhibition of Prophet Muhammad cartoons in Garland, Texas, in 2015. In the first IS-inspired attack on US, the two attackers had been in touch with an online recruiter for the terror outfit. In the latest IS-inspired attack in October 2017, Uzbek immigrant Sayfullo Saipov rammed a rented truck into pedestrians and cyclists near the World Trade Center, killing eight. In the worst terrorist attack since 9/11, the IS claimed responsibility for the Orlando gay nightclub attack in which Omar Mateen shot dead 50 people.
Although the LeT primarily focusses on India, it poses threat to the US as well. Times Square bomber Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad was trained by the LeT in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir.
Way back in 2013, Jonah Blank, senior political scientists at RAND Corporation, had raised the possibility of a 26/11-like attack in the US. She told the Committee on Homeland Security, “A Mumbai-style attack - that is, an attack dramatic and shocking enough to inspire widespread terror even without the use of weapons of mass destruction or a casualty-count in the thousands - remains a realistic near-term threat to the homeland. Such an attack might be termed, "Boston Squared" - that is, an attack similar to the Boston Marathon bombing in April, but much larger in effect.”
Stressing the LeT’s capability, experience and resourcefulness, Blank said the terror outfit had “enjoyed virtually open support from the Pakistani state throughout the 1990s, and has received at least tacit protection from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate since the group was officially banned by Islamabad in 2002”.
Top al Qaeda commander Abu Zubaydah was captured in Faisalabad, Pakistan in 2002, in an LeT safe house. “Lashkar-e Taiba is a de facto affiliate of al Qaeda, and is believed to have joined Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front for jihad sometime after the umbrella group's famous fatwa in 1998,” Blank added.
Trump is riled by the continued ISI support to the Taliban and the Haqqani network, which has been frustrating US efforts to come out of the Afghan imbroglio.
After more than 15 years and thousands of casualties, the US has failed to beat the battle-hardened Taliban, which now hold sway over 60 per cent of Afghanistan.