Call it Sunrise
The full gamut of implications of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s orders to commandos to storm Islamabad’s Lal Masjid in the early hours of July 10 have still to be fully debated. But two days later, a quick scan of the headlines on Dawn’s front page covered almost all bases. “It’s ‘Operation Sunrise’, not ‘Silence’.” (The operation name had come in for much anlaysis. As Ejaz Haider wrote the same day in The Daily Times: “Could it be that the government did not want Ghazi to remain alive and at some point talk to the media? The operation was codenamed ‘Silence’. It makes sense to dub it such if there is an urgent need to ‘silence’ someone.) “Musharraf gets a pat from Bush.” “US envoys remarks criticised” (by the religious parties, for extending support to the government on the operation). “Karzai supports operation.” “Protests continue in NWFP.” “Measures to protect Chinese ordered.”
The next morning, on July 13, Dawn quoted sources to report: “The army started deploying troops in NWFP’s southern districts, adjoining the Waziristan region, amid reports that an operation to curb militancy and extremism was imminent.” Troop re-inforcement was said to be in Tank, Dera Ismail Khan, Lakki Marwat, Bannu, Swat and Lower Dir districts. The report added: “Local Taliban expressed resentment over the troops’ redeployment in North Waziristan. They asked the government to pull troops back by July 15 and threatened that if it was not done, they would not abide by the peace agreement (of September 5, 2006, under which it had to withdraw all troops).”

Thirty-three minutes
On Thursday night PTV telecast an address on the issue by President Musharraf. “It was the president’s shortest speech, lasting only 33 minutes,” noted Dawn on Friday. The Daily Times listed the highlights: “Militancy, extremism and terrorism will be crushed; operation against Lal Masjid was inevitable; Ghazi to blame for failure of talks, demanded amnesty for himself and foreign militants; kidnapping of Chinese was ‘most unfortunate’ event; government tried to minimise casualties in operation; Lal Masjid extremists tarnished image of Islam; Militants had links in NWFP, FATA; Ulema, Wafaqul Madaris must help bring madrassas into mainstream; army backing NWFP government to fight militancy.”

Why the state matters
In the July 13-19 issue of The Friday Times, Moeed Yusuf takes up an interesting aspect of the response to the Lal Masjid operation and tries to answer “why citizens don’t back the state”: “While it is usual for conspiracy theorists to be at play in such situations, the ease with which people have bought into arguments that suggest that the state has engineered the entire drama is alarming. A large segment of the populace in urban towns holds the state responsible without having understood the complexity of the situation... In the initial phases of the episode, when the government was reluctant to take on Lal Masjid cadres, authorities were criticised for attempting to appease clerics. The call was for tougher action. When the ‘operation’ began, the opinion completely changed and the government was blamed for conducting an operation that was putting human life in danger.” The point, he says, is not whether there is something in the conspiracy theories. It is this: “The state is increasingly being considered an enemy, rather than a caretaker. In that sense, the Jamia Hafsa episode is only the latest in a host of events in the recent past where an anti-state posture has been adopted. Growing resentment vis-à-vis the state is a grave and potentially explosive concern... Under an antagonistic outlook towards the state, governments would naturally be inclined to shy away from pushing aggressive decisions through.”

With or without BB
Last weekend in London, former PM Nawaz Sharif hosted a multi-party conference, which highlighted some of the problems of getting together all political parties to take on General Musharraf. Benazir Bhutto — who supported the government’s Lal Masjid operation (Dawn, July 11) but blamed the rise of extremism on military rule (The Friday Times, July 13-19) — was not part of it, though she sent representatives from the PPP. And as Daily Times explained in an editorial on Friday, “The host of the London opposition all-parties conference (APC), the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN), has formed an All Parties Democratic Alliance (APDA) for the restoration of democracy in Pakistan. But the PPP is not a part of it.” Taking into account the ideological range of the opposition brewing against Musharraf especially after Lal Masjid, it concluded: “The country needs a bipartisan system... If the purpose of the APC was to destroy this bipartisanship, it was not good for Pakistan, Musharraf or no Musharraf.” Bhutto explained her decision to turn down the alliance citing its absence from the APC agenda and “strong reservations against the MMA” (The News, July 13).

Late delivery?
On Wednesday, Daily Times also reported: “The United States on Tuesday started the long awaited delivery of F-16 aircraft to Pakistan when two of the aircraft, which had directly flown from the US in an eight-hour journey, were handed over to the Pakistan Air Force in a ceremony at Sargodha... These aircraft were manufactured in the 1990s and their delivery to Pakistan was stopped after the Pressler amendment. Air Chief Marshal Tanvir Mehmood Ahmed said the rest of the F-16 fleet of 10 aircraft would be given to Pakistan in batches up to the middle of next year.”