Al-Qa"ida Pakistan Plan Backfires
The airwaves are currently filled with questions about the results of the election in Pakistan and how this will impact our relationship with them.
What is even more important, is how this will affect our ability to fight the War on Terrorism.
We should be looking at what actions Al-Qa'ida (AQ) and their ally the Taliban have taken to influence the elections.
Were these groups successful or did they fail miserably? We should first ask what is one of the main goals of Terrorism? This question can be complicated since there are 109 different definions of terrorism but we will use this definition to explain our analysis of the AQ plan: • Terrorism is intended to strike psychological fear into the hearts of their intended victims, whether that is a specific group of people or a larger audience, and to affect a change of the targeted group.
Al-Qa'ida has been targeting Pakistan and Musharraf for the past couple of months with pleas to the people to overthrow the government.
However, if we probe a little deeper, Usama Bin Laden has been advocating the overthrow of Pakistan for nearly five years without any results.
UBL also asked the Ummah to overthrow the governments of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia over five years ago to no avail.
When it looked like AQ would get no support from the Pakistani candidates running for office they decided to eliminate Benazir Bhutto.
The following was reported by Syed Saleem Shahzad: • "We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat mujahideen.
" These were the words of al-Qaeda's top commander for Afghanistan operations and spokesperson Mustafa Abu al-YazidAQ hoped the death of Bhutto would hinder the elections and put the people of Pakistan on alert as to what would happen to them if they did not support AQ.
The exact opposite happened, the people reacted with horror to the assassination of their beloved Bhutto and it galvanized her base to continue with their political plans.
Over 100,000 supporters of Bhutto gathered for a political rally in spite of the threat of being targeted by terrorists.
• Mustafa Abu al-Yazid said the death squad consisted of Punjabi associates of the underground anti-Shi'ite militant group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, operating under al-Qaeda orders.
• "We will avenge the blood of Benazir.
We don't have bombs.
We are not terrorists, but we have political power and we will capitalize on this political power to avenge the death of Benazir," said Haji Jaffar, 75, a retired teacher.
"The passion and love for (her party) has increased after Benazir's assassination.
" Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of Bhutto, took up his wife's political cause and continued her message of fighting the Islamists [http://www.
freep.
com/apps/pbcs.
dll/article?AID=/20080217/NEWS07/80217011/1049/SPORTS01]: • The key question is "are we ready to become a Taliban state? And the answer is: 'No, we're not,'" he said.
"That means we are fighting our own battle, we are fighting our own war.
" Well the Pakistani people spoke this week, amid the threats of violence, and Bhutto's party, Pakistan People's Party (PPP), won and formed an alliance with the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N).
In fact some of the religious parties were voted out of office.
This should come as no surprise given the lack of popularity (as reported previously here) among the Pakistani people when it comes to the Taliban and the AQ view of the world.
The immediate answer from the Taliban and AQ was silence.
It seems that their plans for Pakistan may have actually backfired on them.
• Zardari said his party must persuade Pakistanis that the fight against Islamic militancy is "our own war," not just America's, if it wins Monday's elections.
Time will tell how things will actually play out in Pakistan and whether the politicians live up to their words.
What we need to realize is that AQ and their ilk are not "all-powerful" and that this failure was one among many of their strategic and operational failures.
What is even more important, is how this will affect our ability to fight the War on Terrorism.
We should be looking at what actions Al-Qa'ida (AQ) and their ally the Taliban have taken to influence the elections.
Were these groups successful or did they fail miserably? We should first ask what is one of the main goals of Terrorism? This question can be complicated since there are 109 different definions of terrorism but we will use this definition to explain our analysis of the AQ plan: • Terrorism is intended to strike psychological fear into the hearts of their intended victims, whether that is a specific group of people or a larger audience, and to affect a change of the targeted group.
Al-Qa'ida has been targeting Pakistan and Musharraf for the past couple of months with pleas to the people to overthrow the government.
However, if we probe a little deeper, Usama Bin Laden has been advocating the overthrow of Pakistan for nearly five years without any results.
UBL also asked the Ummah to overthrow the governments of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia over five years ago to no avail.
When it looked like AQ would get no support from the Pakistani candidates running for office they decided to eliminate Benazir Bhutto.
The following was reported by Syed Saleem Shahzad: • "We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat mujahideen.
" These were the words of al-Qaeda's top commander for Afghanistan operations and spokesperson Mustafa Abu al-YazidAQ hoped the death of Bhutto would hinder the elections and put the people of Pakistan on alert as to what would happen to them if they did not support AQ.
The exact opposite happened, the people reacted with horror to the assassination of their beloved Bhutto and it galvanized her base to continue with their political plans.
Over 100,000 supporters of Bhutto gathered for a political rally in spite of the threat of being targeted by terrorists.
• Mustafa Abu al-Yazid said the death squad consisted of Punjabi associates of the underground anti-Shi'ite militant group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, operating under al-Qaeda orders.
• "We will avenge the blood of Benazir.
We don't have bombs.
We are not terrorists, but we have political power and we will capitalize on this political power to avenge the death of Benazir," said Haji Jaffar, 75, a retired teacher.
"The passion and love for (her party) has increased after Benazir's assassination.
" Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of Bhutto, took up his wife's political cause and continued her message of fighting the Islamists [http://www.
freep.
com/apps/pbcs.
dll/article?AID=/20080217/NEWS07/80217011/1049/SPORTS01]: • The key question is "are we ready to become a Taliban state? And the answer is: 'No, we're not,'" he said.
"That means we are fighting our own battle, we are fighting our own war.
" Well the Pakistani people spoke this week, amid the threats of violence, and Bhutto's party, Pakistan People's Party (PPP), won and formed an alliance with the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N).
In fact some of the religious parties were voted out of office.
This should come as no surprise given the lack of popularity (as reported previously here) among the Pakistani people when it comes to the Taliban and the AQ view of the world.
The immediate answer from the Taliban and AQ was silence.
It seems that their plans for Pakistan may have actually backfired on them.
• Zardari said his party must persuade Pakistanis that the fight against Islamic militancy is "our own war," not just America's, if it wins Monday's elections.
Time will tell how things will actually play out in Pakistan and whether the politicians live up to their words.
What we need to realize is that AQ and their ilk are not "all-powerful" and that this failure was one among many of their strategic and operational failures.
