Dangerous Ground

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The dreariness of a Karachi slum is broken by a portrait of Benazir Bhutto, who was a self-styled fighter for the poor

David Guttenfelder / AP

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In recent weeks, Pakistan, one of the world's most dangerous countries, has been further shaken by, of all people, a bus driver, a ski-lift operator and a gym rat. On June 28 Pakistani paramilitary forces chased militants led by Mangal Bagh, who used to drive a bus, from the fringes of Peshawar, a key transit point for supplies for U.S. and NATO forces fighting the Taliban insurgency in neighboring Afghanistan. While the operation was nominally successful — Bagh and his men were driven from the area and his compound was blown up — the militant leader was back on his pirate radio station a few hours later, vowing to continue his fight for an Islamic state. In Swat, once a tourist haven 100 miles (160 km) from the national capital Islamabad, militants burned down the country's only ski resort and torched 21 girls' schools. A spokesman for Mullah Fazlullah, the local Taliban leader who used to work the resort's chairlift, said their group was forced to act because government security forces were using some of the schools as bunkers. In the forbidding tribal zone of Waziristan, followers of Baitullah Mehsud, the physical-education teacher turned assassin (both the CIA and Pakistan's intelligence agencies say he is behind the attack that killed former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in December), slaughtered 22 government negotiators seeking to cement a cease-fire accord. And on July 6 a suicide bomber blew himself up near Islamabad's Red Mosque, killing 19. While no one has claimed responsibility, it's assumed that the attack was in revenge for the death of some 100 Islamic militants who died in clashes with security forces at the mosque exactly a year ago. "Radicalism is on the rise," says political analyst Talat Masood. "The government has not been able to take control of the situation."

Five months after elections brought a civilian government back to power, Pakistan is reeling. It's not just the attacks by militants. The economy, which had been growing steadily, has been hit hard by spiking fuel and food costs. The parliamentary coalition that eclipsed the former military leader, Pervez Musharraf, promised to bring peace and progress. Instead, the new leaders are preoccupied with wrangling over who is in charge. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, a stalwart of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP), bows to Asif Zardari, Bhutto's widower, who is co-chair of the party but does not hold government office. The government is an unwieldy coalition between bitter enemies: the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League-N, led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif; the two parties traded power three times in eight years before Musharraf put an end to their bickering by overthrowing Sharif in a 1999 coup. Their power-sharing agreement, formed out of a common desire to oust Musharraf, is now riven over how to accomplish that. Musharraf, meanwhile, has been reduced to a largely ceremonial role as President. Says Masood: "The people are disappointed with the leadership and they are losing faith in democracy."

In order to fix Pakistan, the new government must move simultaneously on several fronts: besides tackling militancy, also the slowing economy, skyrocketing inflation, a nationwide electricity shortage and the integration of the troubled tribal areas that operate under colonial-era laws separating them from the rest of the country. But first the coalition partners need to figure out how to cooperate. "Nobody is minding the store," says Shaukat Qadir, a retired brigadier. "If they don't start paying attention, we will be in trouble."

A Failing State
The most immediate casualty of the political shenanigans in Islamabad is the global war on terror. According to a report released by the Pentagon on June 27, Taliban militants in Afghanistan have regrouped after their fall from power and "coalesced into a resilient insurgency." That resilience, say Western military officials in Afghanistan, has a lot to do with their ability to find sanctuary in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas along the border. The day before the report's release, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a press briefing that he had "real concern" that Pakistan was contributing to Afghanistan's instability by failing to prevent militants from crossing into Afghanistan to carry out attacks on coalition forces. Cross-border attacks on U.S. troops in eastern Afghanistan have gone up some 40% in recent months. Gates attributes the increase to cease-fire accords between Pakistani authorities and Islamic militants, under which Islamabad agreed to pull its military out of areas controlled by the radicals in exchange for their promise not to attack government institutions. The deals meant that "the pressure was taken off" the militants, who are now "free to be able to cross the border and create problems for us," said Gates. Not that Americans are the only target — on July 7 a suicide bombing outside the Indian embassy in Kabul killed at least 40 people — an attack Afghan authorities blamed on Pakistani elements.

To be fair, Pakistan's new government came into power after the military, at the behest of Musharraf, decided to negotiate with militants. The administration embraced the peace effort in the hope that diplomacy would succeed where force had failed. Perhaps over time the accords would have worked. Says Ayaz Wazir, a former Pakistani ambassador who hails from Waziristan: "We have a saying in Pashto [the local language], that if you fight for 100 years, on the last day you will again sit around the table and find a solution. So why not just start it now?"

But negotiations require effort, attention and political will — all of which the current government, embroiled in power plays in the capital, has not been able to muster. Though the government has granted the army full authority in the tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the army has refrained from retaliation. "We are awaiting the results of the jirga [the peace meeting between tribal heads and government negotiators]," says Lieut. Colonel Baseer Haider, a military spokesman. "Then we will decide the next course of action." A Western military official compares the government's approach to that of a man seeking to buy a house without deciding ahead of time how much he is willing to spend, for how long he is willing to pay a mortgage and what conditions would not be acceptable. "[The government is] going into these talks unprepared and that's why a lot of people don't have confidence in the results."