Fairy tale of the US-Baitullah Mehsud ideology cum nexus!

Whenever the Pakistani nation is on the brink of consensus against the excesses of the Jihadi networks, some weavers of conspiracy theories invoke anti-Americanism to confuse the nation and destroy the consensus. The latest example of this trend is the fantastic story about Baitullah Mehsud, a man now clearly identified as a threat to the Pakistani state, as operating at the behest of the United States. Blaming the Americans absolves of any responsibility our own establishment and the grand Jihadi enterprise (which some call Jihad Inc.) that has existed since the days of the CIA and ISI-backed Jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan. It is much easier to shift blame to an outside power than to acknowledge that internal forces, nurtured for regional influence, have gone out of control and are threatening the fabric of society and the integrity of the state. This is not to say that the Taliban do not receive support from outsiders. But the outsiders that must be blamed - the al-Qaeda network, with roots in different parts of the Muslim world - and not the US must be seen as the source of this threat to Pakistani sovereignty.

Soon after the assassination of Mohtarma Benazir BhuttoBenazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s intelligence services produced a taped conversation ostensibly proving Baitullah Mehsud’s connection to this reprehensible murder. But within a couple of days of the assassination, the pro-Taliban elements in the Pakistani media reported extensively that the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan had nothing to do with Ms Bhutto’s murder and in fact saw it as a conspiracy against Pakistan.

In reports published in newspapers under the title ‘Baitullah denies hand in Benazir’s assassination,’ published on December 30, 2007, it was highlighted that Mehsud rejected the allegations of involvement in Benazir Bhutto assassination as “baseless”. According to a report, “We are equally grieved by the tragic death of Benazir Bhutto and extend our sympathies to her family and party workers in this hour of grief,” said Maulvi Omar, a Spokesman for Baitullah Mehsud and his Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, a conglomerate of all the militant organisations operating in tribal areas as well as the settled districts of the NWFP.

The report further said, “Baitullah Mehsud, Ameer or central leader of the recently-formed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, was accused by the Interior Ministry Spokesman Brig (R) Javed Iqbal Cheema of sending the suicide bomber who blew himself up near the vehicle of Benazir Bhutto outside the Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi.”

It explained, “Maulvi Omar, who made a call to the newspaper from an undisclosed location, on Saturday said Baitullah Mehsud, while sensing the gravity of the allegations levelled against him, convened an emergency meeting of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan Shura comprising senior militant commanders at a secret place somewhere between South and North Waziristan tribal region to clarify his position. ‘Why on earth would we kill her? We had no enmity with her and more importantly she had done no wrong to us,’ Maulvi Omar said while quoting Baitullah Mehsud as telling the Shura meeting. He said that it was against the teachings of Islam and Shariah as well as the centuries old rich traditions of the tribal people to harm a woman and added that the government allegations against the militant commander were part of face-saving moves it had resorted to ever since the incident took place.”

According to the December 30 news report, Maulvi Omar argued, “By blaming us for the murder of an important political leader like Benazir Bhutto, the government is in fact misguiding the world. Planning such actions is simply beyond our imagination. We want to assure the Pakistan People’s Party leaders and its workers that we can’t even think of killing their leader. We are with them in this hour of grief and sorrow.” He alleged that the government was attempting to portray the tribal areas as centres of terrorists so as to earn dollars from, what he termed as, Western masters. “This is why they keep the tribal belt in continuous grip of violence.”

The Tehrik-e-Taliban turned around and accused “the secret agencies for the crime,” claiming that “the modus operandi and precision of the strike revealed that the gruesome act was committed by professional hands.” It is interesting that the same media persons who are today propounding the theory that Baitullah Mehsud is not only responsible for Ms Bhutto’s murder but that he is connected to US intelligence were in the forefront of defending Mehsud in the immediate aftermath of the Bhutto assassination.

On March 1, 2008 Baitullah Mehsud was declared a “proclaimed offender” with a warrant of arrest issued for him by an anti-terrorist court in Rawalpindi for masterminding the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in that city on December 27, 2007. At that time, Pakistan’s media described him as “an unrelenting foe to the Pakistani military in the hard battleground of South Waziristan” and as someone who was “leading his Pakistani Taliban to aid the Afghan Taliban under Jalaluddin Haqqani and his sons in neighbouring Afghanistan during various forays against US-Nato forces.”

Long before some anti-American media militants started espousing the “Baitullah works for US intelligence” theory, an April 2008 report posited in alternative theory. It said, “It increasingly appears that Baitullah may have been more of a scapegoat rather than a perpetrator in the assassination of Bhutto. In the shadowy world of the many Islamist groups, renegade elements of [Pakistani intelligence] and rival politicians who have hated Benazir Bhutto, Baitullah registered more clearly in the public eye. The proscribed Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (Army of Jhangvi) could very well be the real culprit. But in the tradition of blaming all terrorist acts on Osama bin LadenOsama bin Laden, Pakistan’s military and the US government have found it convenient to lay the blame squarely on Baitullah, especially since he has become such a public figure in the global war on terrorism. The elimination of Baitullah would now meet with greater public approval.”

On December 1, 2008 reports and articles in newspapers say, “Army official calls Baitullah Mehsud, Fazlullah ‘patriots.’”

An article in a newpaper says: “All main militant groups fighting in Fata, from South Waziristan to Bajaur and from Mohmand to the Khyber Agency, have contacted the government through different sources after the Mumbai bombings and have offered a ceasefire if the Pakistan Army also stops its operations. And as a positive sign that this ceasefire offer may be accepted, the Pakistan Army has, as a first step, declared before the media some notorious militant commanders, including Baitullah Mehsud and Maulvi Fazlullah, as “patriotic” Pakistanis.”

It further says, “These two militant commanders [Baitullah Mehsud and Fazlullah] are fighting the Army for the last four years and have invariably been accused of terrorism against Pakistan but the aftermath of the Mumbai carnage has suddenly turned terrorists into patriots. A top security official told a group of senior journalists on Saturday: ‘We have no big issues with the militants in Fata. We have only some misunderstandings with Baitullah Mehsud and Fazlullah. These misunderstandings could be removed through dialogue.’”

It says, “The Indian allegations against Pakistan have suddenly forced the military establishment in Pakistan to finally accept that they [the Taliban leaders] are not fighting an American war inside the Pakistani territory.”

Other reports quoted Muslim Khan, a Spokesman for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Swat, as saying in the aftermath of the Mumbai crisis, “Whatever our differences are with the government, there is no second opinion on the sovereignty and defence of the country. We offer our unconditional support to the government at this hour of need.” The spokesman described Taliban leaders Baitullah Mehsud and Maulvi Fazlullah as “patriotic” Pakistanis. “They have no differences with Pakistan but with the government and the army,” suggested Khan. “We offer the government to hand over the western borders to us and deploy the army on eastern borders to defend any Indian invasion. We assure them that we are fully capable of defending the western borders, and India knows that very well.”

So, how are we to understand the more recent reports that suggest that Baitullah is an American agent and that all ills besetting Pakistan - from Benazir Bhutto’s assassination to the Talibanization of Swat —were somehow US-inspired projects? The explanation can be found in the inability of our establishment and leaders to come clean and reveal all facts about the past before making a new beginning.

The nation wants the Taliban to be confronted, fought and removed as a threat to the nation’s tranquillity. But those who have presented the concept of endless Jihad as a national security project for three decades, and the support industry comprising pro-Jihadi commentators, cannot accept this sudden loss of livelihoods. Having presented the Taliban as well-meaning Mujahids who simply resented US domination of Afghanistan and the region, these commentators now have the difficult task of changing their story at a time when popular sentiment in Pakistan has turned against the Taliban. What can be better than to twist the story and suggest that the Taliban’s offensive actions including the murder of Pakistan’s most popular politician were somehow connected to the United States. Hating America is easy so if the nation now hates Baitullah Mehsud, let him be linked to the Americans too. Why bother about facts when we have conspiracy theories?