Post-op care

In the immediate reckoning, Pervez Musharraf8217;s move to decisively storm Islamabad8217;s Lal Masjid 8212; Operation Silence 8212; in the early hours of Tuesday is a courageous one. This is not because of the timing. Hindsight is a cruel interrogator, and it is bound to show up the government8217;s action as coming months too late. Clerics and students at the complex have been thumbing their noses at the writ of the state all this year, announcing their parallel courts and regularly abducting persons in their anti-vice campaign. All this within a mile8217;s radius from Pakistan8217;s key federal offices. And certainly, in the last week, with talks failing between government and mosque emissaries and with Musharraf talking of dreaded militants being present in Lal Masjid, there was the inevitability of armed action. Musharraf8217;s move is courageous, nonetheless, because its very delay will be seen to commit him to a sterner campaign against militants and vigilantes elsewhere in Pakistan.

This past week8217;s events have etched more deeply the battlelines between radical militants and the security forces. The ferocity of resistance from within Lal Masjid8217;s premises reveal the recent inhabitants to be greatly more diverse than just energetic students enrolled in its seminaries. These militants, Pakistani forces are now confirming, have strong linkages in the tribal areas and on the Afghan border. In the past Musharraf8217;s government has been accused of treading softly around such militant strongholds, most conspicuously with his deal in North Waziristan. The action at Lal Masjid could now spill over to these areas, demanding greater alertness and possible action from the state.

He may have no choice but to widen the ambit of the current operation. Take one example. One strand of opinion connects the timing of the Lal Masjid action to the recent abduction by its vigilantes of Chinese workers in the vicinity. This week, as the security cordon around the mosque was strengthened, three Chinese citizens were killed in Peshawar. Already, the emotive potential of the operation can be seen from the widening discrepancy between the death tolls put out officially and by radical clerics. But more than such possible repercussions, Musharraf must know that the stiff challenge of militants exhibited this week gives him a way of making common cause with political parties. Because even before the dust of the operation settles, Musharraf will be drawn back to the political crisis set off by suspension of Pakistan8217;s chief justice.