WASHINGTON, April 28: Few countries suffered as much from terrorism in 2004 as Pakistan, and few did as much to combat it, says the latest US report on terrorism. “Operations (in the tribal areas) significantly degraded Al Qaeda’s command and control capabilities in the region, but at a cost of approximately 200 Pakistani servicemen killed in action,” says the US State Department, which compiled the report.
The report observes: “Al Qaeda declared the government of Pakistan to be one of its main enemies, and called for its overthrow.”
The report acknowledges that despite these threats, Pakistan continues to be one of the United States’ most important partners in the war on terrorism.
The State Department recalls that after the two near-miss assassination attempts against President Musharraf in December 2003, groups linked to Al Qaeda tried to assassinate a corps commander in Karachi in June, and the finance minister (now prime minister) in July.
Nearly 200 people were killed in major Sunni-Shia sectarian attacks, the report adds.
The annual State Department report, however, criticizes Pakistan for its failure to pass an anti-money laundering or counterterrorist financing law that meets international standards. The absence of such a law, the report says, has “inhibited Pakistan’s ability to cooperate internationally on counterterrorism finance issues.”
Reviewing Pakistan’s efforts to fight terrorism, the State Department points out:
The government of Pakistan continues to pursue Al Qaeda and its allies aggressively through counterterrorist police measures throughout the country and large-scale military operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the rugged Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
The Pakistan Army and Frontier Corps units destroyed key Al Qaeda safe havens in South Waziristan Agency, killing over 100 foreign terrorists and dispersing several hundred more.
Parallel to this military effort, the government pursued a strategy to win the support of the tribes in Fata with a combination of negotiations and economic development investments.
In addition to counterterrorism operations in the tribal areas, Pakistani security services are cooperating closely with the United States and other nations in a successful campaign to eliminate terrorism both within Pakistan and abroad.
Over 600 suspected operatives of Al Qaeda and other groups have been killed or captured by Pakistani authorities since September 2001.
Individuals detained in 2004 have provided leads that aided investigations by security agencies around the world. Particularly notable in 2004 were the capture of Al Qaeda communications expert and Heathrow bomb plot suspect Naeem Noor Khan in July, the arrest of 1998 US Embassy bombing suspect Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani the same month, and the killing of Daniel Pearl murder-suspect Amjad Farooqi in September.
