March 04, 2003
 

Politics

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the alleged brains behind the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, New York, was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He is supposed to be one of the main operations chappies in the Al-Qaeda network. The US President, George W. Bush expressed his deep appreciation and gratitude to President Musharraf and the government of Pakistan for their efforts that led to the capture. Of course, not a word about how such a most-wanted-on-the-FBI-list man was in Pakistan. Either Bush is absolutely unaware of where Rawalpindi is, or he just couldn't care as long as he got his man.

Now increasingly the Pakistani government is facing a critical situation within the country because it has sided with the US on Afghanistan and last week helped capture Sheikh Mohammed. In fact the government has been desperately trying to convince its critics that Sheikh Mohammed is being interrogated by Pakistani authorities and has not been handed over to the FBI or US agencies. Pakistan is also a non-permanent member of the Security Council currently. It is being pressurized on all sides (US, UK, France, Germany, Gulf countries and within itself) on what position it should take regarding the US-UK attempt to bring Iraq to its heels.

If Pakistan go with the US & UK, it risks a civil war within. If it opts to abstain or votes against the US/UK, then it risks being the next target, as Musharraf prophetically mentioned last year. Interesting times ahead for Musharraf, Jamali & co.

Labels: al-qaeda

Rambled @ 12:23 PM

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