Many died and few gave the government credit for the operation because they sensed hypocrisy and deception in the way the problem was handled. How could so many weapons have been stored inside the mosque without the government knowing what was going on? Why did the government not act earlier? Imran Khan is among Pervez Musharraf’s fiercest critics. He refuses to allow his party to contest the February 18 election on the grounds that there can be no free and fair elections under Musharraf.

What Pakistan needs is real democracy, he says, that is the only solution to the violence. In his view there are different kinds of violence in different parts of the country and the common enemy is the Pakistani army. He sees the violence only as a response to repression and the denial of democracy.

To try and understand the roots of the violence, I drove to Rawalpindi to meet a man who is considered one of the main progenitors of the jihad. General Hamid Gul, former head of the dreaded ISI and someone closely associated with creating the Taliban in Afghanistan and those militant groups in Kashmir who converted the movement for ‘azadi’ into an adjunct of the worldwide jihad.

General Gul lives in a suburban villa in an area of the city reserved for retired military men and despite many years in retirement continues to take a keen interest in the jihad. When I asked if he thought there was any danger of Al Qaeda destabilizing Pakistan enough to be able to turn it into its headquarters he said, “Al Qaeda is a reaction to America’s attempts at world domination. The Americans want world domination and for this they need to get their hands on the energy tap of the world.”

... contd.