Pakistan’s commandos did not take too long to end the brazen daylight attack and the hostage siege at the Army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi over the weekend. Pakistan has also apparently captured an attacker — one Dr Usman — who had once served in the army medical corps and is currently associated with militancy in Pakistan. Despite the shock waves that the attackers sent out by storming the GHQ, it would be premature to conclude that the army and the ISI will end their dalliance with extremist groups. That these attacks were a warning to the military leadership in Rawalpindi is not in doubt; they were in fact promised in recent days by the leaders of the Pakistani Taliban. Direct attacks on the security forces have become a new element of the Taliban strategy, onewe first saw in March with the penetration of a paramilitary force compound in Lahore; and so have bold attacks on such highly visible targets as the Sri Lankan cricket team in the same city.

The storming of the GHQ has come on top of suicide bomber attacks on a United Nations office in Islamabad and a marketplace in Peshawar last week. Their political objective was to undermine the morale of the Pakistan army, which is reportedly ready to launch a major campaign against militant strongholds in the tribal regions straddling its western frontiers with Afghanistan. It took prolonged political pressure and economic incentives from Washington to nudge the Pakistan army towards South Waziristan.

Reports from Pakistan suggest that the latest attacks involve not just elements of the Taliban and other Pashtun groups from the frontier but also militant outfits in Punjab that were directed to launching attacks in Jammu and Kashmir and beyond in India.

... contd.