Fraters Libertas

Pakistan Kicks In

Fox News analyst Monsoor Ijaz appears in today’s National Review Online, with an interesting article detailing the operation conducted by Pakistani intelligence (ISI) to capture Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

According to Ijaz, the key components to the success of this operation were threefold: 1) the willingness of the ISI to employ its cultural expertise and knowledge of Pakistan’s criminal underground against individuals with whom they had a previous collegial relationship; 2) US intelligence electronic monitoring capabilities; and 3) motivated by the promise of reward money, an elderly couple living in the city of Quetta reported suspicious activities by a large number of young Arab men in the house next door (which turned out to be an Al Qaeda safe house).

The continued utilization of resources such as these should make it very difficult to be in the terrorism business in Pakistan. And for this we can primarily thank the cooperation of the Pakistani government. They’ve committed themselves to ending the presence of Islamic terrorists in their nation. Slowly but surely they’re accomplishing their goals. And without them, Mr. Mohammed would still be at large, because electronic surveillance alone would not have succeeded in capturing him.

This emphasizes the importance of state sponsorship for the continuance of terrorism. Without the overt support of a government, or at least a government’s willful apathy in allowing them to exist within their borders, organizations like Al Quaeda cannot exist. Which is why a critical component in the US efforts to protect itself in the war on terror is the removal of regimes that continue to provide such support. The short list of these regimes consists of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia . As was the case with Pakistan, the leaders of some of these countries may mend their ways and begin providing the necessary cooperation. But regimes like Saddam’s, which remain defiant and increasingly dangerous, will have to be dealt with through more aggressive means - and quickly. Because if we don’t deal with them now, we will be dealing with the effects of their terrorist patronage later.