OPINION:
The Pakistan government’s move on radical Islamic militants suspected of participating in attacks on Indian border military installations in early January is good news, and not just for the region. It’s good news for the United States, too.
Guerrilla forces have been a plague on the border for years, supporting Pakistan in the dispute over Kashmir, the Muslim-majority state in the Himalayas that is largely governed by India. These groups often operate with the support of the Pakistani military, especially the intelligence agencies. But the rogues inevitably expanded their grim work beyond Kashmir. With Pakistan’s population of 185 million, nearly all of it Muslim, there’s a growing fear that Kashmir could become a recruiting ground for radical Islamist terrorists, making it a threat to the United States and the West. Some Pakistanis have already appeared in the ranks of the terrorists.
Prime Minister Sharaz Sharif has authorized the arrest of 13 Islamic militants, including Masood Azhar, a notorious hard-liner, an arrest without precedent, in response to Indian request for help in the investigation of the attack on an Indian air force base. This followed impromptu meetings between Mr. Sharif and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The arrests surprised most Western observers, given that the two leaders share radical pasts. Mr. Sharif is close to the Saudi Arabian royal family and Miss Modi is a member of the ruling party in India, which has origins in Hindu revivalism.
It’s not clear, with bitter remembrances of four wars since British India was split between India and Pakistan, that the cooperation can continue. Indian officials insist militants from Jaish-e-Mohammad, the group led by Mr. Azhar, carried out the attack in early January on the strategic base near the India-Pakistan-Kashmir border. But a senior Pakistani government official confirms that while Mr. Azhar had been taken into “protective custody” he has yet to be charged with a crime. “Once India gives us evidence of Masood Azhar’s involvement in the air base attack,” says a Pakistani official, “we can then formally charge him. So far there is no hard evidence.”
Mr. Azhar became a leading radical Muslim figure in 1999 when, released from an Indian prison in a hostage swap following the hijacking of an Indian airliner, he went to Kandahar in Afghanistan, then under Taliban rule. His release and alliance with the Taliban was taken by Western observers as an important gain for Muslim terrorists.
That Mr. Azhar has been allowed to remain free until now is a reflection of the conflict within the Pakistan regime, both civilian and military, and their ambiguous relationship with the terrorists. Pakistan’s alliances with both the United States and China have strengthened the radical anti-Muslim elements in the regime. The United States wants to halt Pakistani assistance to the radical Islamic insurgencies, and China is plagued with a growing anti-Han revolt in its strategic province of Sinkiang, bordering Pakistan, which has a history of dealing with Ughur terrorists trained in Pakistan.
The arrest of Mr. Azhar marks a new and tougher policy by the Pakistani authorities toward Muslim radicals, plaguing both their own regime and its neighbors in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s relations with its longtime American ally have weakened with the warming collaboration between the United States and India. But with Congress approving a new aid package of $7.5 billion over five years, the Obama administration must turn its attention, quietly and even reluctantly, to the new reality of Pakistan-Indian cooperation.
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