Bombs claim victims elsewhere

Ripples of the pounding of Afghanistan may travel far and wide to unexpected areas

Three cities were targeted in U.S. air attacks against Afghanistan, but most of the damage took place in Pakistan.

What the bombs destroyed is still generally unknown but Quetta in Pakistan was worst hit by violence, the mob made up of Afghan refugees and religious party activists.

Two cinemas halls, showing U.S. movies, several banks, a police station and assorted vehicles were torched by demonstrators protesting the U.S. attack and Pakistan's tacit support of it.
Other cities saw roads blocked, buildings attacked and vehicles damaged, stoning and burning of tires and effigies by small bands of youthful protestors, mostly in their teens.

Protests were expected and were fairly widespread throughout the country, but relative to South Asia's normal standards, they were negligible.

Overall, they rioted in small groups and religious activists were not joined in by the other parties. The administration did well in allowing them to let off steam in a controlled fashion.

An exchange of fire between the Frontier Corps (FC) troops and Taliban guards took place when some enthusiastic refugees tried to break into banks in a border town.

What gives reason for concern was the armed mob of a thousand plus, (mainly Afghans supported by Maulana Fazlur Rahman's JUI) and their attack on vehicles, some commercial, on the road leading to Chaman.

Given the purity of their noble purpose, what is driving these religious zealots to such crass commercial motives as looting banks and commercial vehicles? The TV clip of the Afghan protester in Quetta shouting on prime-time CNN, "We will first destroy Pakistan, and then America", should be re-run again on Pakistan TV to show our public how grateful the Afghans are for the help and support by Pakistan over the years.

With very little to write about, journalists from all over the world are no doubt, unduly excited by the sporadic brickbats being thrown at the government. Rumours of a military coup swept through Pakistan on Wednesday, sparked by a routine fire in a storeroom in GHQ, Rawalpindi and the round of postings and promotions of Lieutenant Generals necessitated because of the vacancies created when Usmani and Mahmood retired after they were superceded, and Musharraf's giving up of the Chairman JCSC post. Well, the Pakistan Army is fairly monolithic and stands together, very firm and united behind their chief. Some facts are blatantly misrepresented. The news item that a major English newspaper carried about Lt Gen Mahmood was outrageous. Mahmood may not have been well liked but he is a professional.

"Aabpara" happens to be Islamabad's Hyde Park, a small crowd there is hardly of consequence, as at Regal Chowk in Lahore and Karachi. The protests may still be miniscule but the anger is very much there, too widespread to simply ignore. Evidence can always be manufactured, and in power games between nations usually is.

But bin Laden vowing to perpetrate "more" suicide bombings against the U.S. has helped the Western case by giving due credibility to their cause. That "smoking gun" will turn off a great many Osama sympathisers.

As the bitter truth sinks in that their "hero" has tacitly (if not directly) acknowledged the killing of innocent civilians drawn from almost 80 countries, there will be reaction among the faithful.
Every religious party in Pakistan has condemned the September 11 atrocity, and incidentally so have foreign ministers meeting at the Organisation of Islamic Countries in Qatar. Is Osama in step with them? Osama bin Laden was once a "freedom fighter", he is now a terrorist, pure and simple, caring little for whom he targets as long as it fulfils his convoluted logic. He is simply using Islam to camouflage his perverted ideology. If our Ulema have the courage (and the character) they should face the truth – Osama is turning Islam into a violent travesty of what it really is, a peaceful one which forbids violence and which abhors killing.

If our intelligentsia does not act now, different sects and factions within Islam could be further polarised. Already a divide is taking place between the haves and have-nots, this could lead to a full scale conflagration. It will certainly create more terrorists, some having access to weapons of mass destruction. Make no mistake, there is widespread anger in the country with respect to the U.S. air attacks, mainly because of anti-Americanism but also because innocent civilians would be caught in the crossfire.

With U.S. air attacks very focussed on military and logistics targets, the simmering resentment within most of Pakistan's population (and one believes almost the entire Muslim world) has been somewhat contained.

But what will happen today (Friday)? Will the masses join the religious activists? As a potential target, Afghanistan is so helpless in conventional terms, it attracts sympathy as the underdog. Because of the seeds of terror emanating from Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden has given Afghanistan a "terrorist super-power" status.

The air-dropping of 37,000 packets of food and medicine will accomplish far more than bombs. Against the Taliban, air power as an instrument of policy has far less potency than a conventional target, like Iraq.

A conventional war mind-set aims to destroy the Taliban's military and logistics potential, destroy the civilian infrastructure supporting their rule, destroy the public and Taliban regime morale, causing the public to turn on or away from the Taliban, encourage defections among the not-so committed against the Taliban and create conditions for support of ground operations by U.S. (and other allied) troops within Afghanistan.

There are limits to the use of airpower as a battle-winning factor in future wars "of the new kind". Afghanistan is another proof of this.

Damaging the Taliban's war potential with respect to ground-to-air missiles, heavy weaponry, equipment and supplies, the air attacks have achieved very little except to kill a few commanders here and there.

Major defections are rumoured, none have been confirmed. Quite a bit of Afghanistan's urban population decided discretion is the better part of valour and left for the borders of neighbouring Pakistan, reducing the strain on the Taliban regime which was attempting to stock up on food, water and other utilities which otherwise they would have had to provide as governors.
The lack of any "Organization and Method" (O&M) in the Army helps the Taliban to pursue their form of warfare.

Without heavy equipment and logistical supply lines to bog him down, the Taliban foot soldier becomes foot-mobile, far more effective in his chosen terrain. If the Taliban take to the hills then we should prepare for the worst for a long time.

The "Snatch and Run" heliborne raids being planned has to be mainly from bases in Pakistan. They will have to get very lucky to be successful. America should heed Gen. Patton, to quote "no man ever won a war by dying for his country, he won the war by letting the other (man) die for his country". Militarily the only route potentially successful is to arm the various anti-Taliban factions and give them military and material supp