USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: [NaijaBusiness] How to break Boko Haram’s network-LESSONS FROM PAKISTAN

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From: Lawal Ishaq <lawalishaq_66@yahoo.com>
Date: 5 June 2011 09:47
Subject: [NaijaBusiness] How to break Boko Haram's network
To: Business Naija <NaijaBusiness@yahoogroups.com>

 

How to break Boko Haram's network

Sunday, 05 June 2011 00:44 Theophilus Abbah & Aisha Umar-Yusuf

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General Asif Duraiz Akhtar (rtd)

Just before the  invasion of Afghanistan by Western forces, the then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, alleged that the Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf, said there was compelling evidence that Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network carried out the 9/11 attack on the US World Trade Centre. Can you recall what that evidence was?

 

That is a very interesting question. That evidence is still in the air. No one knows. If something was shared with former President Pervez Musharaff, he must be keeping it to himself. I must tell you that I was very much in the armed forces at that time. We had no idea of what the evidence was. If there was one, we should have known. One other important thing is that the US didn't use Pakistani air base to invade Afghanistan initially.  Basically, they came for Osama bin Laden and his party. At that time, it was not known as Al-Qaeda. It was later that it was named al-Qaeda. It was with a small group of people that they came and at that time, they bombed the Tora Borah and other notorious idol locations. It was believed that after that, nothing would have been left. But who brought Osama bin Laden to this region? It was the Americans. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, then the Mujahedeen, the so-called fighters, started fighting back. When the West discovered that they were successful, everyone jumped on the boat. People were giving them money and arms, and in broad daylight, they would be off-loading their weapons and transported by trucks to those areas which were our territory bordering with Afghanistan. These Afghan fighters were refugees in Pakistan, about three million of them! They were organising people to go back to Afghanistan to fight. The arms and ammunition were being taken to them, not to Pakistan. Obviously, people took the fighting as Jihad, such that people from Pakistan must be participating with them. We know that they were participating in the fight to help their neighbours to force the occupants, the Soviet Union soldiers, out of Afghanistan. It was the face-off with the Soviet Union that brought in people like Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan. There were volunteers from all over the Muslim world, and it was then that Osama bin Laden came. He was a very rich guy from Saudi Arabia. He could put in a lot of money into the fight. At that time, he had a lot of money, and it was after September 11, 2001 that his nationality of Saudi Arabia was denounced. Then, I think, he also lost access to his own money.

 

Even before September 11, 2001, there were attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which were blamed on Osama bin Laden. There was pressure on Saudi Arabia to revoke his nationality…?

Yes, after that he started losing money.

If there was no evidence, why did Musharraf co-operate with the West in the effort to capture or to kill Osama bin Laden?

You must understand that dictatorship is a very bad form of government.

But he was a civilian president at that time?

No. No. No. He was a dictator. He had taken over power in a coup; and it was a manipulated coup. There were no circumstances that would have warranted a coup. He deposed a properly elected democratic government in Pakistan and became a one-man government. He was a very ruthless dictator. Look at what he did to his political opponents – he threw them out of the country.  At that time Benazir Bhutto was out. He didn't want any opposition of any sort. He stopped sharing information with even his own colleagues in the army. He would not share anything. It was just his words with the others. When he conceded to the American request, he did not discuss with his chief-of-staff! It was a one-man decision. It was not a national decision. When a nation takes decisions, it takes consideration of all the pros and cons of such decision; the nation takes into account all the consequences of it and then decides to support the action. Here, the decision was taken by one man, a mad man, who did not consider even consulting some of the most senior officers in the armed forces.

Can we, therefore, say that since Musharraf did not consult anybody before taking that decision, the government that succeeded him did not cooperate with American intelligence in the search for Osama bin Laden?

We did cooperate with Americans. You have had dictatorship in this country. When a dictator takes a decision, then everyone follows it. He is the man who hired and fired. There was no law. He suspended the High Court, Supreme Court and all that. There was no law; no justice at that time. There was no opportunity for people to go and appeal the case at any point, so people had no choice. He was giving orders to the army to do whatever he wanted them to do. As a matter of fact, he thought that the decision to cooperate with Americans to capture Osama bin Laden was the right thing at that time. He thought that if he supported the United States, they would strengthen his grip on power. And that was exactly what happened. He ruled unchallenged for a long time because he was getting support from Western countries because they wanted his support. He was going out of the way to please them. It was a blunder he was committing again and again. As he was doing that, our nation was suffering. That was how he cooperated with them. As for the evidence (that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda supporters were responsible for 9/11), no one in Pakistan knew the evidence. Up till today, no one knows that evidence.

After the US claimed to have killed Osama bin Laden last month, some newspapers in the US quoted a Pakistani newspaper, The Observer, saying it reported in 2005 that Osama bin Laden may have died that year. The Fox News of the US said there was an announcement and a kind of funeral that he had died. What can you tell us about when the man died?

Now, you want to drag me into the politics of it and I would not like to go into that. But the fact remains that, to date, there are a lot of speculations. What led to speculations is that there are certain facts which are not shared with anybody. For example, the truth about the dead body of Osama bin Laden has not been shared with anybody. The photographs have not been shown to people. That may be for some reasons known to them, but if these things are shared, if funeral prayers were offered, that could have been shown to the world that it happened. That's how people would have believed. When these things are not told to the world, then there will be speculations. As far as Osama's death is concerned, we, in Pakistan, have already had so much about that. When Torah Borah took place, when the massive, ferocious bombings took place, no one expected anyone to have survived that attack. At one time, there were rumours that Osama bin Laden had been killed in the Torah Borah bombings. Then, at another time, there were statements that some people attended his funeral. But, if that was the case, then someone should have pointed out where the grave of Osama bin Laden is. Even if it was in Afghanistan or the border with Pakistan, someone would have said, 'look, this is the grave of Osama bin Laden.' Nothing of this sort has ever been mentioned. So, his death is still speculation, and this speculation will continue.  If, as a journalist, you write a story and do not substantiate it with evidence, people will start doubting the credibility of your story.

But the Pakistani authorities can debrief his family members who were said to be there when he was killed by Americans. It is even said that the Pakistanis knew he was in a military town and were shielding him. If you talk to his family, can't you find out the truth?

One thing I must tell you is that, the Pakistani government never denied that Osama bin Laden has been killed. This is because the family of bin Laden is with them: his three wives and nine children. According to some news, his girl said Osama bin Laden was killed in front of her. We go by the government's account, and our government has not denied that he was killed. The second thing is that, bin Laden was there. You must understand the circumstances: in the last four to five years, he was not heard of; he was not seen. He was not active in managing the affairs of al-Qaeda. Again, according to reliable sources, he was a sick man. He was said to have kidney disease. You can imagine a man having kidney disease, who has to be running to hide himself. After some time, he must have reconsidered, and said, 'look, enough is enough, I can't go on.' He would need medicine; he would need dialysis. You know a person on dialysis cannot remain in the cave to receive treatment. I think he must have told himself, 'I want to go into hiding; I don't want to have anything to do with people.' His organization may have decided to take him to a place which was already built. It was not built for him.

Are you saying that was what happened?

No, these are assumptions. He lived in Pakistan; he had sympathizers in Pakistan, and they may have agreed to do all this for him. They call the place, Abbottabod, a military town. But is Abuja a military town? No. But you have barracks here. So, Abbottabod is not a military town. It is a tourist resort. We have a military academy there. We also have two institutions which train recruits into the Army. That's all. There's no fighting unit in that city; none. This is because the town is not bordering anywhere. It is in the middle of the country. We have military cantonments along the borders. Abbottabod is not a military city. We have to correct this misconception that people have. It is a wrong propaganda to state that Osama bin Laden was living 'under the nose of the army.' It is wrong. It's like Abuja. If today, someone is living in my house, do you expect the soldiers in the barracks in Abuja to know that the person was living there? No. Abbottabod is a normal city. You find people from all over the world in that city. People build houses for tourists to rent and live in. Some live there for two months, three months, some go there on holidays. So, we have to correct this wrong impression that it is a military town. It's not. You have a War College in Abuja, Niger Barracks, Mogadishu barracks, etc, but this does not make Abuja a military town. It's a normal city, a hilly town, like Jos.  It has high plateau, with very nice weather.

If you look at the pictures of the house, you will discover that it is not a $1 million or $10 million house. It's an ordinary house, one storey building. If you talk about the high walls, I tell you that if you travel round Pakistan, you find higher walls than that. This is part of our culture. In Northern Nigeria you have high walls around buildings. There are always two houses within a house. One is for the male, and the rest is for the whole family. If you go to my village, I have my house in two-fold. One is for the male members, while the other is the family quarters. They are partitioned by the walls and the doors. There's nothing extraordinary about the building that it should have been a source of focus of the people. Did you see the pictures that came from inside the building? Every Pakistani doesn't live in such a dirty environment.

With the attack on Osama bin Laden, the US violated your sovereignty. Why didn't your government complain about that?

We complained at the highest level.

Did you go to the United Nations?

No, when you have friendly relations with any country, you don't rush to the UN immediately. You go to the UN when you cannot discuss with the other party any longer. But, in this case, we have protested at the highest level. Even our army chief has warned that no more would such venture be tolerated by Pakistan.

The US authorities are complaining that in spite of all the support given to Pakistan, your authorities harboured Osama bin Laden. How would you react to that?

We are taking a very strong stand on that. We have handed over more 250 most high-value al-Qaeda members to the US. Look at Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11. He was caught and handed over by us. If you want the list of names, it is there on the internet. We handed over all of them to the US. Pakistan is a victim of this terror war. Whether at that time when Osama bin Laden's groups were collaborating with the US, when they were operating from our country, or now that the US has turned against the groups, we are victims.  They are using the same area to operate against us. Why are they against us? It's because of our support to the US. Now, we are victims of terrorism. How can we protect anyone who is involved in terrorism? I will give an example:  If Boko Haram is destroying you, would you protect them? No way! Our nation has suffered so much! Over the years, 36,000 have been killed by explosions, suicide bombings and all sorts of attacks! Do you think anyone in our country would support such a group? Yes, they may have some sympathizers.

You must understand also that it was through our Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) that they reached Osama bin Laden. In 2009 and 2010, this was shared with the CIA officially - that the compound was where bin Laden's family was living, but that there was no sign that the man was living there. It was from that point that the CIA started monitoring the compound. It took two years to get him. If he was there from Day One, they would have got him since. But you should have this fair assumption that such a fugitive, the most wanted man in the world, would not stay in a place for more than a day or two. What happened to Eric Randall Rudolph who did the bombing in Atlanta '96? It took eight years for the US to arrest him, but the man was hiding there in the US. So there's nothing very strange that bin Laden was not living at one place at a time. That's why the western intelligence with satellite and all sorts of hitech couldn't catch him until now. So it is not our intelligence failure, though some lapses may have been committed. This is my own assessment, that after having shared with the US intelligence, and knowing that they the US has better facilities, ISI may have relaxed about the need to arrest Osama bin Laden, since the US was involved. If a junior man tells the senior man what has been discovered, the junior man would say, 'I've told him what he should know. He will take care.'

There is this school of thought that Osama bin Laden had long been dead and his family members had been living in that house, so now that US President Barrack Obama wants to improve his rating, he decided to say he had been killed – without showing any evidence. What is your take on this?

I have no comment on that.

The US claims to be fighting terror, and the main target was to capture Osama bin Laden. Now that the man has been killed, would you ask the US to quit Pakistan?

We're not worthy to ask the US to leave Afghanistan.

We're talking about them leaving Pakistan?

No, they're not in Pakistan. One thing is very clear, that after the death of Osama bin Laden, the purpose of Western powers in Afghanistan is supposed to come to an end. Otherwise, there is not an end to it. Terrorism is everywhere in the world – in small forms; in bigger forms. If they say they will stay there until they finish fighting terrorism there, then they should be everywhere in the world.  The purpose has been achieved, and there is every indication that they're going to pull-out by the end of summer this year. I think this was Obama's policy pronouncement when he took over as President of the US.  The mission was not to fight the Taliban, because Talibans are citizens of Afghanistan; they are sons of the soil. You can't go on fighting them; there's no justification for that. Osama bin Laden is dead, the majority of the leaders of the group we have captured and handed them over to the US. More than half of the people have been killed.

Your country has been fighting terrorism by alleged religious extremists. In Nigeria, we are facing a similar situation with the Boko Haram sect which has been accused of several bombings. What can we learn from Pakistan?

We have been going through this fight for over 30 years.  First, the Soviet Union was there in Afghanistan. For 10 years, they remained, and we were being punished. We were being punished for protecting Afghan refugees, and these refugees were also fighting back. There were explosions; there were improvised explosive devices by roadsides. They were detonated and people were dying. The Russians left. Then came September 11, 2001, and Western forces invaded Afghanistan. Again, this is affecting Pakistan. They are not happy that we are cooperating with the US. Our own people, who are their sympathizers, are against the government of Pakistan and the armed forces. Our armed forces have lost up to 5,000 soldiers, to the rank of Major-Generals, in the fight against these groups. We're paying a very heavy price. After 2001, we have lost 36,000 people, and 5,000 soldiers! We've gone through what Nigeria is experiencing with Boko Haram – the bomb blasts, suicide bombing, etc. We, as I was telling you, have learnt a lot. Our security agencies have learnt a lot. We have modified our operations. We have redesigned our security strategies.

How did you do that?

It will be too deep to explain to you. To break the network of terrorist groups, the first and foremost thing is intelligence. Two, is the support of the people. You've got to motivate the masses. Your people must support you, because this terrorist network will survive only if it gets support from the people. Someone gives them food, transport, someone hides them, some give them money, etc. You must, therefore, win over the support of the people. And your intelligence network must be wide and elaborate so that you know where they live, who are their sympathizers, what they are planning, etc. My advice is that Nigeria must learn from the experience of Pakistan. We've come a long way. We've regrouped our intelligence, we've restructured our intelligence network, and we've done a lot. Then you have to educate the masses about what they should look out for and how they could pass information to the authorities. Certainly, there is a lot of infrastructure that must be developed, and my advice to Nigeria is that they should try to benefit from us.

In Nigeria, we've deployed soldiers to Maiduguri, for instance. How did your own army tackle those terrorists?

You must know the psychology of terrorists. They want their own influence. If it's Islam, he would say his brand of Islam is the best. They will say 'my type of Islam must be implemented here, otherwise, I will kill.' He wants his own influence and leadership. They will say, 'you must pray six times,' for example. They would say, 'you will not get out of the house without wearing this or that.' And, if anyone disobeys, they would start giving punishment. That is how it happened in my country and the whole community was terrorized. When we tried to persuade them to stop and they didn't we had to send in the military. That was how the military was launched against our own people. They were misguided, mislead people, who were creating problem for Pakistanis. You hear explosions taking place in Islamabad, Lahur, everywhere. Who were they killing? Pakistanis!

Do we have the Nigeria police or security agencies coming to you to say, we want to learn from your experience?

We have a very good relationship with the Nigerian government. Pakistani and Nigerian armed forces are very close to each other. At this moment, there are very many officers from the Nigerian Army, Navy and Air Force undergoing training in various courses in Pakistan. Our intelligence agencies are also having interactions with them. I'm waiting for this inauguration to end so that I can meet the officials on how we can share our experience with Pakistan on how Nigeria can tackle this terrorist group.

One of the problems with giving information to Police is that if Boko Haram discovers that anyone gave information about them, such a person would be killed. They've killed Imams, district heads and several other people that way. How do you tackle such situation?

I must tell you about our experience. We didn't have one group like Boko Haram. We had many of them in Pakistan, not just one! They have small cells everywhere, but we wouldn't call them by their cell names; we call them religious extremists. They want to impose what they think is the right thing; they want to impose their thinking of Islam. They say no more education! In our country, they destroyed girls education! They said, 'no girl should go to school. They should be locked up in the house.' In some areas, they would enter houses and when they find a girl they would say, 'oh, what's this girl doing? She should be married.' And they would bring one of the men and say, 'from today, this is your wife.' Not only that, anyone who gave out information about them to the police, they would hang him in the open for days to make him an example to the people that, 'anyone supporting the government, we'll do this to you.' But the government's resolve must not finish. It is the foremost duty of government to provide security to the masses. That's what we did, and that's how we broke the back of the terrorists.  We've been successful in dealing with them, and the last of them remaining, by the grace of God, we will defeat them. You have to ensure that security is provided to your people in large numbers. Ensure that the freedom of the terrorists is reduced in the areas they operate. If you have a lot of security, their freedom to operate will reduce. Then you build up intelligence.

The Boko Haram group was not violent until the police killed some of their members?

Well, I'm not talking about Boko Haram, but in our country some would not appear violent. They would go to a house and marry off young ladies; they destroyed girls' school, if they found a widow they would marry her out, preventing them from going to school, they would ask people why they play music. They were taking the people to the Stone Age. We've gone through all that; you people have not gone to that extent.  But they cannot succeed unless they are supported, some from inside the country, some from outside the country.  Tackling them is time-consuming.  When a soldier goes to war, he knows his enemy and where he can find him. Here, you don't know who they are because they are like every other person, wearing the same dress and speaking the same language. That's why I said it's a difficult task, but the government's resolve must not finish. That's what we are doing in Pakist

 

M. Lawal Ishaq Esq.,

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