Why it's difficult to believe Pakistan's statement on Dawood, Saeed

There are two ways of interpreting the rather remarkable statements of Shahryar Khan, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Special Envoy to India, on India’s most wanted terror duo Dawood Ibrahim and Hafiz Mohammed Saeed. One, Khan’s utterances are nothing but an attempt to float a trial balloon by Nawaz Sharif’s civilian government which stands to lose more rather than gain from ratcheting up tensions with India. The covert agenda behind Khan’s sweet talk (which is no revelation for a common Indian) may be to extend an olive branch to New Delhi in the wake of widespread disgust in India over the Pakistan Army’s ghoulish act of killing five Indian soldiers inside Indian territory on 6 August. Khan’s sweet nothings appear to be aimed at coaxing India into not shelving the peace talks as well as facilitate the summit meeting between Sharif and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New York next month. Two, the Pakistan government has suddenly had a change of heart and is now willing to turn a new leaf in its bilateral relations with India. By choosing an important interlocutor like Shahryar Khan and making him say what he said on Dawood and Hafiz Saeed, Islamabad is signaling to New Delhi that henceforth it will take on board India’s concerns on these two terror fountainheads. [caption id=“attachment_1024655” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Hafiz Saeed. AFP.[/caption] This writer has no doubt that the first interpretation is closer to the ground realities and the second one needs to be trashed; the quicker, the better. Sharhyar Khan must have had the backing of Nawaz Sharif in floating this trial balloon. But it is well nigh impossible that the Pakistani military establishment would be happy with Khan’s statements.  On the contrary, one should not be surprised if Rawalpindi (where Pakistan Army is headquartered) has already demanded an explanation from Islamabad. One has to wait and watch to see whether Shahryar Khan retains his crucial post in the next few days. Khan’s averments can be taken seriously only if Pakistan’s military leadership comes up with statements supporting Khan’s views. But then that is asking for the moon and hoping snowflakes to survive in an oven. This is certainly not going to happen. Another point of interest will be how the Rawalpindi-Islamabad relationship pans out in weeks to come. Nawaz Sharif is on the crest of a momentous decision just a few months after he has started an unprecedented third term as Pakistan Prime Minister. Pakistan is to have a new Army Chief as the tenure of present incumbent, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, comes to end in November this year. Gen Kayani was scheduled to retire on 28 November, 2010 but the then government found it much simpler and wiser to give him a three-year extension. This is the most challenging task that Nawaz Sharif finds himself up against so early in his third tenure. As they say, past foretells the future. History shows that Sharif has had a roller-coaster ride when it comes to his relationship with the army chief. Both of his previous tenures were aborted by the Pakistan Army and during both these tenures he clashed with three army chiefs. Sharif’s ego clash with General Pervez Musharraf, whom he had hand-picked for the post of army chief and who eventually deposed Sharif in a bloodless coup on 12 October 1999, must still be raw on his nerves. It is against this backdrop that Shahryar Khan’s statements on Dawood and Saeed must be seen. If Shahryar Khan were to outlast Gen Kayani in his present post of Prime Minister’s Special Envoy to India – a highly unlikely scenario – then one can assume that Sharif enjoys the confidence of the army. But then Pakistani policies, particularly defence posture and foreign policy, have traditionally borne a made-in-Rawalpindi stamp and there is nothing to suggest that Sharif is such a towering personality to reverse this decades-old trend. India will do well to remember the “Triple A” factor before attaching much significance to Shahryar Khan’s averments: Army, Ayatollahs and America. While the first ‘A’ factor has already been discussed, the Ayatollah factor also promises to take the same old familiar route – that of berating any talk of smoking the peace pipe with India. Perhaps the most important ‘A’ factor will be America, as far as the Shahryar Khan-speak is concerned for India. The reason that India’s two most notorious bug bears – Dawood and Saeed – have prospered and flourished in Pakistan despite the United States nailing down, rather half-heartedly, on both of them is because Washington never walked its talk with regard to the terror duo. The American crackdown on Dawood goes back to almost a decade. On 17 October, 2003, had designated Dawood as a “global terrorist” for his role in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts and frozen his assets in the US. But Dawood continued to lead a plush life in the upmarket Clifton area of Karachi, guarded by Pakistani soldiers. Pakistan governments always remained on a denial mode of his presence on Pakistani soil. As for Saeed, the US had announced on 2 April, 2012 a $ 10 million bounty on the founder chief of the Lashkar-e-Toiba for masterminding the 2008 attacks in Mumbai. Since then Saeed has openly cocked a snook at the Americans and challenged them to arrest him. Now consider Shahryar Khan’s pronouncements on 9 August 2013 on Dawood and Saeed. This is what he said on Dawood: “I don’t know where Dawood is now. He was in Pakistan. I believe he was chased out. My feeling is he is in UAE right now… He should be hounded out. We can’t allow gangsters like him to target both Pakistan and operate against other countries. (Nawaz) Sharif is very much in favour of strong action against criminals who have settled in Pakistan”. On Hafiz Saeed, this is what Shahryar Khan said: “Pakistan needs to lock down 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed and can’t allow him to walk freely on the streets of Lahore. We need to bring such people under control. Mr Sharif realises something needs to be done about Saeed. We have to impose the law and take him in for inciting people against India." Dawood and Saeed have been strategic assets of Pakistan and there is nothing to suggest that this unwritten, unannounced and never-acknowledged policy of Pakistan has undergone an iota of change. They have continued to flourish primarily because they have so far not launched a direct attack on American interests in Pakistan or globally. They will continue to fly below the American radar and remain safe. It is a universally acknowledged fact that the US has never been fixated on Dawood and Saeed the way it has been on Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri and Mulla Omar. They will continue to serve strategic interests of Pakistan as long as they do not lock horns with the Americans. In any case, the Americans have a plate full of pressing priorities in their global strategic matrix; Dawood and Saeed figure nowhere in the Americans’ to-do-now list. What a pity! The writer, a Firstpost columnist, is the author of three Pakistan-centric books, notably “Global Jihad: Current Patterns and Future Trends”. His Twitter handle is @Kishkindha.