Altaf Hussain after Imran Farooq murder (Credit: theguardian.com)
London, June 3: On Tuesday, police in London arrested a man on suspicion of money laundering. Thousands of miles away in Karachi, Pakistan’s turbulent coastal metropolis, traffic snarled, shops shuttered, trains stopped, embassies closed and millions braced for further havoc. (As of Tuesday evening, there were reports of gunfire and 12 vehicles set aflame, but no casualties.)
The man taken in by Scotland Yard is Altaf Hussain, leader of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the dominant political party in Karachi. Despite living in self-imposed exile in Britain for more than two decades out of fear for his life, Hussain has remained a kingpin in this megacity of nearly 20 million, depending on how you count it. He casts a long, dark shadow over the city, notorious for its gangland violence and volatile political divisions.
The MQM draws support from Karachi’s large population of mohajirs, the descendants of those who migrated to Pakistan from what is now India in 1947, when colonial India was cleaved in two by the departing British. The party commands a crucial bloc of seats in Parliament, almost all of which are concentrated around Karachi in southern Sindh province.
The city’s ethnic polarization — it’s also home to huge ethnic Pashtun and Sindhi populations — has led to years of sectarian tensions, punctuated by attacks and street battles. The MQM’s vast political machinery is complemented by brass knuckles. A leaked 2008 U.S. diplomatic cable, citing local police, claimed that the party maintained its own parallel militia of as many as 10,000 active fighters, with 25,000 in reserve.
British authorities have been investigating Hussain, 60, since the 2010 assassination in London of a MQM official, Imran Farooq, who had grown estranged from the party. Last week, they froze Hussain’s bank accounts. MQM officials said today that he was brought in only for questioning, but it seems clear that he is under arrest.
Hussain is considered a charismatic, larger-than-life figure. Ensconced in his compound in northwest London, he would coordinate the operations of his party via teleconference and get beamed over satellite to address mass gatherings and rallies.
While the MQM has staunch middle-class backing and is credited with running Karachi efficiently, it is thought to benefit from a whole slew of underworld activities, including extortion and targeted attacks on opponents. MQM officials routinely deny any connection to such wrongdoing.
Hussain himself has earned notoriety for his incendiary rhetoric — once telling an aggressive journalist that he had “his body bag ready” and, in another instance, warning critics to end their “false allegations” against him. “Don’t blame me, Altaf Hussain, or the MQM,” he said, “if you get killed by any of my millions of supporters.”
Scotland Yard may struggle to charge him with incitement to violence or prove a direct link to Farooq’s death. So it appears its most solid case surrounds Hussain’s funds and their use in Britain. Earlier raids on Hussain’s house led to the impounding of about $600,000 in cash.
Meanwhile, in Karachi, MQM officials have called for calm, sending out mass text messages throughout the city advising residents to ignore rumors that could cause further disruption or violence. Like many political parties in South Asia, the MQM’s cohesion depends greatly upon the presence of its towering founding figure. The doubts and fears in Karachi are as much about what happens at home as they are about what happens in a British courtroom far away
WASHINGTON, May 27- U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday outlined a plan to withdraw all but 9,800 American troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year and pull out the rest by the end of 2016, ending more than a decade of military engagement triggered by the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
The decision means that Obama will leave office in early 2017 having extricated the country from the longest war in U.S. history. He ended Washington’s combat presence in Iraq in 2011.
Obama’s White House Rose Garden announcement prompted criticism from Republicans that the hard-fought gains made against the Taliban could be lost in much the same way that sectarian violence returned to Iraq after the U.S. withdrawal.
Obama, who made a whirlwind visit to U.S. troops in Afghanistan over the weekend before American combat operations conclude at the end of 2014, appeared to anticipate concerns that he is abandoning Afghanistan. He said it is time for Afghans to secure their country.
“We have to recognize that Afghanistan will not be a perfect place, and it is not America’s responsibility to make it one,” Obama said.
Under his plan, 9,800 U.S. troops would remain behind into next year. By the end of 2015, that number would be reduced by roughly half.
By the end of 2016, the U.S. presence would be cut to a normal embassy presence with a security assistance office in Kabul, as was done in Iraq.
The 9,800 troops would take an advisory role backing up Afghan forces. They would train Afghan troops and help guide missions to rout out remaining al Qaeda targets.
Any U.S. military presence beyond 2014 is contingent on Afghanistan’s government signing a bilateral security agreement with the United States.
Outgoing Afghan President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign it. But U.S. officials were encouraged that the two leading candidates in Afghanistan’s presidential race, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, have both pledged to sign quickly should they be elected in the second round of voting set for June 14.
Obama said the lengthy U.S. presence in Afghanistan is proof that “it’s harder to end wars than it is to begin them.”
“But this is how wars end in the 21st century: not through signing ceremonies but through decisive blows against our adversaries, transitions to elected governments, security forces who are trained to take the lead and ultimately full responsibility,” he said.
While Americans have long since grown weary of a conflict in which nearly 2,200 U.S. troops have been killed, some Republicans greeted the news with skepticism.
They continued a drumbeat of criticism of the president’s handling of foreign policy and national security ahead of a speech on the subject Obama is to give on Wednesday at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York.
“The president’s decision to set an arbitrary date for the full withdrawal of U.S. troops in Afghanistan is a monumental mistake and a triumph of politics over strategy,” Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham said in a statement.
A senior Obama administration official bristled at the notion that the United States would be leaving Afghan forces to do battle against the Taliban alone.
“We never signed up to be the permanent security force in Afghanistan to fight against the Taliban,” the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters.
The United States now has about 32,000 troops in Afghanistan. U.S. military leaders had pushed for a force of at least around 10,000, saying it was the minimum required.
Remaining U.S. and NATO forces will advise Afghan forces, focusing on functions such as budgeting, logistics, and support for security institutions.
NATO countries have helped build Afghanistan’s military and other forces from scratch since 2001. While Afghan forces have grown more independent, they lack key skills such as intelligence collection and air power.
As part of the post-2014 force, a small number of U.S. soldiers is expected to conduct counterterrorism operations against al Qaeda and other hardline militants, located mainly in remote areas along Afghanistan’s eastern border with Pakistan.
Bergdhal (inset) with parents & Obama (Credit: nydailynews.com)
Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has issued a rare public statement hailing the exchange of five Guantanamo Bay detainees for a Taliban-held US soldier as a “big victory”.
Sgt Bowe Bergdahl, 28, was handed to US forces in Afghanistan on Saturday.
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel has defended the exchange amid criticism Congress was not given 30 days’ notice before the detainees were released.
He said the US had to act quickly to save the soldier’s life.
Mullah Omar, who has made no public appearances or speeches since fleeing Afghanistan in 2001 when US-led forces toppled the Taliban after the 9/11 attacks in the US, said: “I extend my heartfelt congratulations to the entire Afghan Muslim nation.”
The Afghan government, which was not informed of the deal until after the exchange had taken place, has condemned it as a breach of international law.
Sgt Bergdahl, who is said to be in good condition and has been flown to Germany for more treatment, was the only US soldier being held by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The five senior Afghan detainees are thought to be the most senior Afghans held at the US detention facility in Cuba, having been captured during America’s military campaign in 2001.
Republican opponents have criticised the Pentagon for not giving Congress the required 30-day notification before releasing the five.
But Mr Hagel, who reportedly met some of the special forces team involved in the operation on a visit to Afghanistan on Sunday, said the military believed the soldier was in danger, and had to act quickly “essentially to save his life”.
US National Security Adviser Susan Rice told US television there had been extensive consultations with Congress in the past about getting Sgt Bergdahl back, and lawmakers knew about the idea of trading detainees.
Mohammad Fazl served as the Taliban’s deputy defence minister during America’s military campaign in 2001. Accused of possible war crimes, including the murder of thousands of Shia Muslims.
Khirullah Khairkhwa was a senior Taliban official serving as interior minister and governor of Herat, Afghanistan’s third largest city. Alleged to have had direct links to Osama Bin Laden.
Abdul Haq Wasiq was the Taliban’s deputy minister of intelligence. Said to have been central in forming alliances with other Islamist groups to fight against US and coalition forces.
Mullah Norullah Noori was a senior Taliban military commander and a governor. Also accused of being involved in the mass killings of Shia Muslims.
Mohammad Nabi Omari held multiple Taliban leadership roles, including chief of security. Alleged to have been involved in attacks against US and coalition forces.
While hopeful the prisoner exchange could lead to a breakthrough in negotiations with the Taliban, Mr Hagel said getting Sgt Bergdahl back had been the priority.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai was informed of the prisoner-swap “after the fact”, he added.
In a statement, the Afghan ministry of foreign affairs insisted that “handing over prisoners to a third country is a breach of international law”.
It added: “We are strongly opposed to it. We want Qatar and the US government to let the men go free.”
Parents Robert and Jani Bergdahl said they were “joyful and relieved” to hear of their son’s release, adding that he was having trouble speaking English due to his long captivity.
The US president, who was joined at the White House by Sgt Bergdahl’s parents, Robert and Jani, said ”he was never forgotten”
President Obama said on Saturday that he had received security guarantees from Qatar – which mediated the deal and where the five Afghan men have been flown – “that it will put in place measures to protect our national security”.
Under the deal, they will be banned from leaving Qatar for at least a year.
A video grab image from 2010 showed Sgt Bergdahl in captivity
The soldier, of Hailey, Idaho, was serving with an infantry regiment in Paktika province near the Pakistani border and went missing on 30 June 2009, months after being deployed to Afghanistan.
The circumstances of his capture remain unclear, with speculation he may have walked away from his base out of disillusionment with the US campaign.
US officials say any decision over possible desertion charges will be made by the army, but there is a feeling the soldier has suffered enough.
Throughout his captivity, the soldier’s hometown had continued to remember him with special events and yellow ribbons tied to trees
LAHORE, May 28—A major faction of the Pakistani Taliban broke away and condemned violence on Wednesday, weakening the militant group allied with al Qaeda that seeks to overthrow the Pakistani state.
The split in the Pakistani Taliban, known formally as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, comes after months of attempted peace negotiations between the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the militant organization. It also followed weeks of bloody infighting within the TTP.
The move could push Pakistan closer to an army operation against the remainder of the TTP, an offensive that Washington has long wanted.
Although the stated aim of the talks was to forge a peace deal with the whole TTP, Pakistani officials had privately said the realistic goal was to see which factions were amenable to peace and which were irreconcilable. An operation planned by the army was put on hold when Mr. Sharif launched peace talks in late January.
The breakaway faction is led by a warlord named Sajna who is also known as Khan Said or Khalid Mehsud, announced a “complete separation from the current organization that has lost its way.”
Sajna represents most of the militants from the fierce Mehsud tribe, who made up much of the TTP. His faction, now calling itself Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Mehsud group, accused the rest of the TTP of criminality.
The breakaway group, if it goes on to agree to a peace deal with the government, could now join the ranks of the so-called good Taliban—jihadist groups that don’t fight within Pakistan such as an outfit led by Gul Bahadur, which is active in Afghanistan.
“We consider kidnapping for ransom, extortion, damage to public facilities and bombings to be un-Islamic,” said a statement from the breakaway faction.
“Tehreek-e-Taliban Mehsud group believes in stopping the oppressor from cruelty, and supporting the oppressed.”
The breakaway group was originally led by a commander named Waliur Rehman, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike last year.
It was always considered relatively moderate, It was involved in many of the activities it now condemns and is likely responsible for the deaths of thousands of Pakistanis, analysts said.
The TTP, which works independently of the Afghan Taliban, was formed in 2007 in the lawless tribal areas under the influence of al Qaeda to target Pakistan.
The breakaway group pledged allegiance to the Afghan Taliban.
“We have the deepest respect for jihadist organizations of the right beliefs fighting against evil powers,” the group said.
The rest of the TTP is still led by Mullah Fazlullah, a militant from the Swat district outside the tribal areas who isn’t a Mehsud.
The leadership of the TTP passed outside the Mehsuds for the first time when Mr. Fazlullah was made chief in November after the previous leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed in a U.S. drone stroke.
Many from the Mehsud clan never accepted the new leader.
Rahimullah Yusufzai, a veteran journalist who was formerly part of the government’s negotiating committee for the peace talks, said he expected some other factions of the TTP from the tribal areas to join the breakaway faction.
Parts of the so-called Punjabi Taliban—militants from the country’s most populous Punjab province—could also possibly join.
“Now you will have one less enemy,” Mr. Yusufzai said.
“The Mehsuds have always been the backbone of the TTP. I expect Fazlullah will become weaker, day by day.”
Pakistan’s national-security adviser, Sartaj Aziz, and the Interior Ministry, which is handling the peace talks, both declined to comment on the latest development.
Mr. Fazlullah is believed to be based in eastern Afghanistan, putting him beyond the reach of Pakistan’s armed forces.
A relatively small group of the Mehsud clan militants, led by a commander named Shehryar, remains loyal to Mr. Fazlullah. . Fighting between the Sajna and Shehryar factions has left dozens of militants dead in recent weeks.
Parts of the TTP allegedly have support from Afghan intelligence, a connection made public last year when a TTP commander was snatched from Afghan custody by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
The breakaway faction said that “using the TTP platform, people in the current organization are tools of secret agencies.”
The Afghan government denies it supports the TTP, and didn’t immediately comment on Sajna’s defection.
Pakistan’s military is thought to be getting impatient for military action against the TTP, one of the sources of its tension with the civilian government.
Following a visit to troops in the tribal areas Tuesday, the army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, said: “Together the whole nation has rejected the misplaced ideology of the terrorists, who have clearly lost their cause already and are being marginalized.”
Rifaat Hussain, a security analyst based in Islamabad, said airstrikes by the Pakistani military in recent weeks, along with limited ground action, pointed toward a coming offensive that would target the Fazlullah-led group.
“The army has declared its intention very clearly to launch an operation,” said Mr. Hussain. “The military sees this as an opportunity to finally break the stranglehold of the TTP on the tribal areas.”
The TTP has tentacles across the country and has a major presence in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, where they dominate areas around the periphery of the city and, according to police, use it to raise funds through extortion and other criminality.
Saifullah Mahsud, director of the FATA Research Center, an independent think tank in Islamabad, said that Sajna group had emerged as the dominant TTP faction in Karachi, so his departure from the TTP and his pledge against violence could help the law and order situation in Karachi.
“This is a change in strategy for the Sajna people and it helps Pakistan keep its options open,” he said.
— Safdar Dawar and Qasim Nauman contributed to this article.
MIRAMSHAH, April 15: Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has called for seeking guidance from Holy Quran to resolve differences between two rival factions of the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan amid reports of rifts widening between the groups.
A pamphlet in Pashto carrying the name of Mullah Omar issued in Miramshah (North Waziristan) on Monday said there were serious differences among Mujahideen of Mehsud tribe in South Waziristan and asked them to recite verses from Quran to end hostilities.
“There are none worthy of worship besides You (God). Glorified are You. Surely I am from among the wrongdoers,” say the verses quoted in the pamphlet.
Mullah Omar said it was binding upon every Muslim to recite these verses 100 times a day.
Clashes between the Khan Said and Sheheryar groups leave a large number of militants dead and injured.
They are fighting to capture TTP leadership in South Waziristan.
Sheheryar has refused to accept Khan Said alias Sajna as chief of TTP’s Mehsud militants and declared himself as their leader.
Commander Daud of the Sheheryar group accused Khan Said of trying to occupy the top TTP post in South Waziristan. To end the crisis, he said, both the factions should end the fighting and allow a neutral group chosen by the Taliban leadership to lead Mehsud militants.
Daud said fighting would not end the crisis, adding that his group would accept any decision taken by TTP chief Maulvi Fazlullah.
ISLAMABAD, April 17: The Pakistani establishment has made it clear to the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network that the time has come for them to choose between the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the state of Pakistan, if they want to stay friends with Islamabad.
The unprecedented warning from the Pakistani establishment has come at a crucial time when the Pakistani Taliban are holding peace talks with the government in Islamabad, amidst demands to release over 800 Taliban prisoners and to set up a free peace zone in Waziristan.
According to well-informed sources, the warning from the establishment was prompted by the growing cooperation among the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani Network and the Pakistani Taliban, which has reinforced the martial power of TTP in its current conflict with the security forces of Pakistan.
The TTP spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, already admitted on October 6, 2013 in an interview that the Afghan Taliban were financially supporting the Pakistani Taliban besides providing them sanctuary in Afghanistan.
The fugitive TTP Ameer, Mullah Fazlullah, who had claimed responsibility last year for killing GOC Swat Major General Sanaullah Niazi is also being sheltered by the Afghan Taliban in the Kunar Province.
However, what seemed to have angered the Pakistani establishment the most were the allegations coming from the Afghan and the Pakistani Taliban, blaming the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for the November 11, 2013 mystery murder [in Islamabad] of Dr Nasiruddin Haqqani, the top fundraiser and organiser of Haqqani Network as well as its liaison man with the Pakistani security establishment.
Dr Nasiruddin, the real brother of Sirajuddin Haqqani, was killed by unknown gunmen in the federal capital 10 days after the November 1, 2013 killing of the TTPAmeer in a US drone attack in North Waziristan. Both were laid to rest in the Dandey Darapa Khel area of North Waziristan which also headquarters the Haqqani Network as well as the TTP.
The decades-old cozy ties between the Pakistani establishment and the Haqqanis were shattered with the mystery murder of Dr Nasiruddin when a spokesman of Haqqani network (Najeebullah) immediately blamed the Pakistani intelligence agencies.
He said: “Dr Nasiruddin had been mediating between a powerful intelligence agency and the Pakistani Taliban for peace talks. But he had refused to mediate further following Hakimullah’s death and the subsequent announcement of TTP not to hold peace talks with the government.
Nasiruddin’s reluctance to mediate anymore after Hakimullah’s killing must have annoyed the agency which decided to eliminate him physically,” the Haqqanis’ spokesman was quoted by the media as saying.
On his part, the TTP spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, also blamed a Pakistani intelligence agency for the murder, vowing to take revenge. “Nasiruddin Haqqani has been martyred by none other than the ISI.
He was killed because he had bravely backed our Ameer Hakimullah Mehsud,” Shahidullah told AFP when asked about possible killers.
However, on their part, the ISI circles had refuted the allegations of involvement in the murder, saying Dr Nasiruddin Haqqani was either killed by the TTP or by the Afghan National Directorate of Security.
The allegations leveled by the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network were followed by Pakistani intelligence reports that both the groups were supporting and financing the TTP in its terror spree against the khakis and the civilians alike.
Indeed, the Pakistani and the Afghan Taliban are closely allied and both aim to impose a strict version of Islamic laws or Shariah on their societies. However, their leadership and targets differ with each other.
While the Pakistani Taliban mostly focus their terrorist attacks in Pakistan against the security forces which they think are an American ally, the Afghan Taliban target the Afghan and the Allied forces.
Defence Minister Khawaja Asif recently told Reuters in an interview that the Pakistan government was worried about the possibility of increasing convergence between the Pakistani and the Afghan Taliban. “Then the Pakistani Taliban will have a powerhouse behind them,” Khawaja Asif had said.
Analysts believe that these concerns might have prompted the Pakistani security establishment to warn the Haqqanis and the Afghan Taliban against backing the TTP.
However, the close nature of ties between the Afghan and the Pakistani Taliban can be gauged from the fact that the central Shura of TTP has already referred their internal differences to the Afghan Taliban while asking Mullah Omar to intervene and send a delegation to resolve the tiff between two major factions of Mehsud militants from South Waziristan.
A senior TTP commander has been quoted in the media as saying that the Shura thought that the intra-TTP tussle was too serious and critical for them and, therefore, they decided to approach the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, a term usually referred to the Afghan Taliban.
There are already reports that the Ameer of the Afghan Taliban is persuading the Pakistani Taliban to end their infighting in South Waziristan as he wants to secure their support against the foreign troops in Afghanistan to launch the annual spring offensive.
Analysts believe the Pakistani security establishment’s warning was meant to dissuade the Haqqanis and the Afghan Taliban from siding with the Pakistani Taliban in their conflict with the state of Pakistan at a time when the Allied forces are set to withdraw from Afghanistan and both the Afghan militia groups would require the crucial support of Islamabad to stage a comeback in Kabul.
In fact, the ultimate agenda of the Pakistani Taliban is the establishment of their own state — the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan [on the pattern of Mullah Omar’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan] in Fata where they can impose the Islamic Shariah. On the other hand, the ultimate agenda of the Afghan Taliban is the revival of the lost Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
Therefore, following the Pakistani establishment’s warning, Mullah Omar will have to decide whether to befriend the Pakistani Taliban or the state of Pakistan.
Commander Sirajuddin Haqqani of the Haqqani Network is bound to follow suit being a disciple of Mullah Omar just like the Pakistani and the Afghan Taliban. Well informed sources in the establishment say logically speaking Mullah Omar would like to remain a friend of Pakistan instead of inviting its wrath by befriending the TTP.
However, there are those in the Taliban circles who believe that if the Afghan Taliban succeed in regaining power in Kabul after the withdrawal of the Allied troops, there would be greater chances of their joining hands with the Pakistani Taliban whose aims and objectives and those of the Ameerul Momineen are the same.
However, the establishment circles say, in such an eventuality, the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network must know that “strategic depth” would no longer be a consideration of the establishment if the Pakistan government finally orders a military action in North Waziristan after the failure of the talks with the TTP.
KABUL/KANDAHAR, April 5 (Reuters) – Afghanistan’s presidential election closed on Saturday amid relief that attacks by Taliban fighters were fewer than feared for a vote that will bring the first-ever democratic transfer of power in a country plagued by conflict for decades.
It will take six weeks for results to come in from across Afghanistan’s rugged terrain and a final result to be declared in the race to succeed President Hamid Karzai.
This could be the beginning of a potentially dangerous period for Afghanistan at a time when the war-ravaged country desperately needs a leader to stem rising violence as foreign troops prepare to leave.
“Today we proved to the world that this is a people driven country,” Karzai, wearing his trademark green robe and a lambskin hat, told his nation in televised remarks.
“On behalf of the people, I thank the security forces, election commission and people who exercised democracy and … turned another page in the glorious history of Afghanistan.”
One of the eight candidates will have to score over 50 percent of the vote to avoid a run-off with his nearest rival.
The Taliban threat to wreck the vote through bombings and assassination failed to materialize, and violent incidents were on a far smaller scale than feared.
Turnout was seven million out of 12 million eligible voters, or about 58 percent, according to preliminary estimates, election commission chief Ahmad Yousuf Nuristani told reporters.
That was well above the 4.5 million who voted at the last election in 2009 which was marred by widespread fraud.
“I am here to vote and I am not afraid of any attacks,” said Haji Ramazan as he stood in line at a polling station in rain-drenched Kabul. “This is my right, and no one can stop me.”
In Washington, President Barack Obama congratulated the Afghan people on the elections.
“We commend the Afghan people, security forces, and elections officials on the turnout for today’s vote – which is in keeping with the spirited and positive debate among candidates and their supporters in the run-up to the election,” Obama said in a statement.
“These elections are critical to securing Afghanistan’s democratic future, as well as continued international support, and we look to the Afghan electoral bodies to carry out their duties in the coming weeks to adjudicate the results – knowing that the most critical voices on the outcome are those of Afghans themselves,” Obama said.
The United States could point to the advance of democracy in one of the world’s most violent countries as a success as it prepares to withdraw the bulk of its troops this year.
It has spent $90 billion on aid and security training since helping Afghan forces to topple a strict Islamist Taliban regime in 2001, but U.S. support for Afghanistan’s fight against the Taliban has faded.
As U.S. troops get ready to go home, the Taliban threat and uncertainty over neighbor Pakistan’s intentions leave the worry that Afghanistan could enter a fresh cycle of violence, and once again become a haven for groups like al Qaeda.
The United States has been at odds with Karzai who has refused U.S. entreaties to sign a bilateral security agreement that would permit about 8,000 U.S. troops to remain in the country after the formal U.S. withdrawal at the end of the year.
U.S. officials are keeping open the option of leaving behind a troop contingent for training Afghan forces and for a counter-terrorism mission if an agreement can be signed later this year by Karzai’s successor.
“The United States remains ready to work with the next president of Afghanistan. We will continue to stand with the people of Afghanistan as they work to build a democratic future,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement.
During Saturday’s election, there were dozens of reports of minor roadside bombs, attacks on polling stations, police and voters. In the eastern province of Kunar alone, two voters died and 14 were wounded, while 14 Taliban militants were killed.
Interior Minister Umer Daudzai said nine policemen, seven soldiers, 89 Taliban fighters were killed in the past 24 hours across the country, adding that four civilians were also killed.
Dozens died in a spate of attacks in the preceding weeks. A veteran Associated Press photographer was killed and a senior correspondent of the same news agency was wounded on Friday when a policeman opened fire on the two women in the east as they reported on preparations for the poll.
KABUL SEALED OFF
Most people had expected the election to be better run than the chaotic 2009 vote that handed Karzai a second term.
The constitution barred Karzai from seeking another term. But, after 12 years in power, he is widely expected to retain influence through politicians loyal to him.
Former foreign ministers Abdullah Abdullah and Zalmay Rassoul, and former finance minister Ashraf Ghani were regarded as the favorites to succeed Karzai.
More than 350,000 Afghan troops were deployed, guarding against attacks on polling stations and voters. The capital, Kabul, was sealed off by rings of roadblocks and checkpoints.
In the city of Kandahar, cradle of the Taliban insurgency, the mood was tense. Vehicles were not allowed to move on the roads and checkpoints were set up at every intersection.
Hamida, a 20-year-old teacher working at a Kandahar polling station, said more than a dozen women turned up in the first two hours of voting and added that she expected more to come despite the threat of an attack by the Taliban.
“We are trying not to think about it,” she said, only her honey-brown eyes visible through her black niqab.
Raising questions about the legitimacy of the vote even before it began, the election commission announced that at least 10 percent of polling stations were expected to be shut due to security threats, and most foreign observers left Afghanistan in the wake of a deadly attack on a hotel in Kabul last month.
In some areas of the country voters complained that polling stations had run out of ballot papers. The interior ministry said six officials – including an intelligence agent – were detained for trying to rig the vote, and elsewhere several people were arrested for trying to use fake voter cards.
RISK OF DELAY
If there is no outright winner, the two frontrunners would go into a run-off on May 28, spinning out the process into the holy month of Ramadan when life slows to a crawl.
A long delay would leave little time to complete a pact between Kabul and Washington to keep up to 10,000 U.S. troops in the country beyond 2014.
Karzai has rejected the pact, but the three frontrunners have pledged to sign it. Without the pact, far weaker Afghan forces would be left on their own to fight the Taliban.
The election is a landmark after 13 years of struggle that has killed at least 16,000 Afghan civilians and thousands more soldiers. Nearly 3,500 members of the U.S.-led coalition force have died since deployment in the country over a decade ago.
Karzai’s relations with the United States became increasingly strained as Afghan casualties mounted. He also voiced frustration with Washington over a lack of pressure on Pakistan to do more to stop the Taliban based in the borderlands.
Although his departure marks a turning point, none of his would-be successors would bring radical change, diplomats say.
“Whether the election will be the great transformative event that everybody expects is, I think, delusional.” Sarah Chayes, a South Asia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told a media briefing on the eve of the vote.
KABUL, April 4— For the two seasoned war correspondents, it was not an unusually risky trip. Getting out to see Afghanistan up close was what Anja Niedringhaus, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer for The Associated Press, and Kathy Gannon, a veteran reporter for the news agency, did best.
The eastern province of Khost, where Ms. Niedringhaus and Ms. Gannon traveled to cover Afghanistan’s presidential election on Saturday, is considered dangerous, still plagued by regular Taliban attacks. But they had carefully plotted their trip, arranging to move beyond the relatively safe confines of the provincial capital under the protection of Afghan Army troops and the police.
Yet it was those precautions that proved fatal for Ms. Niedringhaus on Friday morning. As she and Ms. Gannon waited outside a government compound, a police commander walked up to their idling car, looked in at the two women in the back seat, and then shouted “Allahu akbar!” — God is great — and opened fire with an AK-47, witnesses and The Associated Press said.
Ms. Niedringhaus was killed instantly, and Ms. Gannon, shot three times in the wrist and shoulder, was severely wounded. In the span of a few muzzle flashes, the two women, who had covered the war since it began in 2001, became victims of another attack that blurred friend and foe.
For both Afghans and Westerners, the list of adversaries has expanded beyond the resilient Taliban, who have staged a series of attacks in an attempt to disrupt the election. Afghan soldiers and the police have repeatedly turned on one another and their foreign allies. The squabbling between President Hamid Karzai and American officials has grown into a deep-seated animosity.
At the same time, Afghans have seen scores of their fellow citizens killed by errant American airstrikes. And even as the United States pushes for a long-term security deal that would allow it to keep troops here beyond the end of this year, it does so with the understanding that its forces will be largely hidden away behind the high walls of fortified bases.
Ms. Niedringhaus, 48, and Ms. Gannon, 60, had no desire to hunker down. The focus of their work over the past dozen years has been putting a human face on the suffering inflicted by the war. As a pair, they often traveled to remote corners of Afghanistan to report articles, and Ms. Niedringhaus also spent significant time embedded with coalition forces.
Many of their colleagues noted sadly that they were attacked by a police officer who appeared to have seen in the back seat of the journalists’ Toyota Corolla a pair of anonymous Westerners on whom to vent his rage. If Afghans have a dominant complaint about the West, it is that they are often treated as faceless, dismissed as nonentities by the people who say they are here to help.
That was not the case with Ms. Niedringhaus and Ms. Gannon.
In this March 30, 2003 photo by Anja Niedringhaus, Iraqi women lined up for a security check by British soldiers on the outskirts of Basra. Credit Anja Niedringhaus/Associated Press
“They just seemed so bravely willing to go into these kinds of situations and get to the places that you needed to get to tell stories that weren’t being told,” said Heidi Vogt, a reporter who worked for The A.P. in Afghanistan until last year.
“They’re the last two people you’d expect this to happen to,” she added. “It felt like they had a little protective force field around them.”
Ms. Niedringhaus, a German citizen who was based in Geneva, first came to Afghanistan after joining The A.P. in 2002, and she quickly formed a partnership with Ms. Gannon. They were among a band of female photographers and correspondents who persevered through many years of conflict in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan.
In the process, they helped redefine traditional notions of war reporting. Even as they covered the battlefield, they also focused attention on the human impact of conflicts known for their random, unpredictable violence against civilians.
Ms. Niedringhaus’s fascination with Afghanistan continued to grow even as she was pulled away to other trouble spots, including Iraq, where she was part of a team of A.P. photographers who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005.
“If I’d told her, ‘You don’t need to do this anymore, you’ve earned your spurs, leave it to another generation,’ ” said Tony Hicks, a photo editor at The A.P., “the response would have been a series of expletives, then laughing and another pint.”
But, Mr. Hicks pointed out, Ms. Niedringhaus was equally at home at major sports events and other less high-stakes diversions, such as the Geneva auto show.
Hundreds of U.S. Marines gathered at Camp Commando in Kuwait in 2002. Credit Anja Niedringhaus/Associated Press
She was on the finish lines when Usain Bolt, the Jamaican sprinter, broke the world record for the 100-meter dash. And “she loved Wimbledon,” he said. “It was almost her second home.”
Ms. Gannon, a Canadian who is a senior writer for The A.P., arrived in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1986 when the Afghan mujahedeen were battling the forces of the Soviet Union. She went on to serve as The A.P.’s bureau chief in Islamabad, and she was one of the few Western reporters whom the Taliban permitted to work in Kabul when they ruled Afghanistan.
Ms. Gannon was in Kabul during the American invasion in 2001, and she wrote of covering the Taliban’s last days in the city with her Afghan colleague, Amir Shah. The two cowered in the basement of a house during air raids, often working by candlelight or lantern. They tried to avoid members of Al Qaeda, who were much more hostile than the Taliban. When a bomb struck nearby, she was thrown across the room — and then went straight back to work.
“She knows Afghanistan very well,” said Mr. Shah, an A.P. reporter in Kabul, according to an article by the news agency. “She knows the culture of the people.”
But the divide between Afghans and Westerners has been deepening for years, and so-called insider attacks in which Afghan security forces turn on their coalition counterparts or one another have been the most visible symptom. Afghan and Western officials say they believe that most of the attacks are driven by personal animosity or anger about the war in Afghanistan, where many have come to view foreign forces as occupiers.
Though Western civilians working with the coalition have at times been killed in such attacks, the shooting on Friday was believed to be the first time an Afghan police officer had intentionally killed a foreign journalist.
Afghan security officials said they believed that the shooting was an opportunistic attack, not the work of the Taliban, who offered no comment.
A Marine on his way to pick up food supplies in June, 2001. Credit Anja Niedringhaus/Associated Press
The police commander, whom officials identified as Naqibullah, 50, was known for his anti-Western views, one official said. The officials did not believe he had advance notice that Ms. Niedringhaus or Ms. Gannon was headed his way.
The two spent Thursday night at the compound of the provincial governor in Khost, and they left on Friday morning with a convoy of election workers delivering ballots to an outlying area in the Tanai district, The A.P. and Afghan officials said.
The convoy was protected by the Afghan police, soldiers and operatives from the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency, said Mubarez Zadran, a spokesman for the provincial government. Ms. Niedringhaus and Ms. Gannon were in their own car, traveling with a driver and an Afghan freelance journalist who was working with the news agency.
Mr. Naqibullah, the police commander, surrendered to other officers immediately after shooting the journalists and was arrested.
Ms. Gannon was taken to a hospital in Khost. She underwent surgery before being evacuated to one of the main NATO bases in the country, where there is a hospital equipped to handle severe battlefield trauma. She was said to be in stable condition.
Yet even as Friday’s shooting provided a stark reminder of how broader tensions can set off violence at the most personal level, its aftermath also highlighted the bonds between old friends and strangers alike, be they Afghans or foreigners.
Aides to Mr. Karzai, who has known Ms. Gannon for years, said he tried to get her on the phone to see she how she was doing after he heard about the attack. He later spoke with her husband, and his office then put out a statement condemning the attack.
The doctor who first treated Ms. Gannon, Muhammad Shah, was distressed by the shooting.
“Not only me, but all Afghans are disappointed and sorry for this loss of life,” he said by phone Friday night from Khost Provincial Hospital, between operations. “She was a guest here in Afghanistan, a foreigner.”
Matthew Rosenberg reported from Kabul, and Farooq Jan Mangal from Khost Province, Afghanistan.
The book, by poet Boris Pasternak, had been banned from publication in the Soviet Union. The British were suggesting that the CIA get copies of the novel behind the Iron Curtain. The idea immediately gained traction in Washington.
“This book has great propaganda value,” a CIA memo to all branch chiefs of the agency’s Soviet Russia Division stated, “not only for its intrinsic message and thought-provoking nature, but also for the circumstances of its publication: we have the opportunity to make Soviet citizens wonder what is wrong with their government, when a fine literary work by the man acknowledged to be the greatest living Russian writer is not even available in his own country in his own language for his own people to read.”
The memo is one of more than 130 newly declassified CIA documents that detail the agency’s secret involvement in the printing of “Doctor Zhivago” — an audacious plan that helped deliver the book into the hands of Soviet citizens who later passed it friend to friend, allowing it to circulate in Moscow and other cities in the Eastern Bloc. The book’s publication and, later, the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Pasternak triggered one of the great cultural storms of the Cold War.
Because of the enduring appeal of the novel and a 1965 film based on it, “Doctor Zhivago” remains a landmark work of fiction. Yet few readers know the trials of its birth and how the novel galvanized a world largely divided between the competing ideologies of two superpowers. The CIA’s role — with its publication of a hardcover Russian-language edition printed in the Netherlands and a miniature, paperback edition printed at CIA headquarters — has long been hidden.
The newly disclosed documents, however, indicate that the operation to publish the book was run by the CIA’s Soviet Russia Division, monitored by CIA Director Allen Dulles and sanctioned by President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Operations Coordinating Board, which reported to the National Security Council at the White House. The OCB, which oversaw covert activities, gave the CIA exclusive control over the novel’s “exploitation.”
The documents were provided at the request of the authors for a book, “The Zhivago Affair,” to be published June 17. Although they were redacted to remove the names of officers as well as CIA partner agencies and sources, it was possible to determine what lay behind some of the redactions from other historical records and interviews with current and former U.S. officials. Those officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss material that remained classified.
Tim Gressie
The title page from a 1958 Russian-language edition of “Doctor Zhivago” that the CIA arranged to have secretly printed in the Netherlands and distributed to Soviet tourists at the 1958 world’s fair in Brussels.
A voice from the past
During the Cold War, the CIA loved literature — novels, short stories, poems. Joyce, Hemingway, Eliot. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Nabokov.
Books were weapons, and if a work of literature was unavailable or banned in the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe, it could be used as propaganda to challenge the Soviet version of reality. Over the course of the Cold War, as many as 10 million copies of books and magazines were secretly distributed by the agency behind the Iron Curtain as part of a political warfare campaign.
In this light, “Doctor Zhivago” was a golden opportunity for the CIA.
Both epic and autobiographical, Pasternak’s novel revolves around the doctor-poet Yuri Zhivago — his art, loves and losses in the decades surrounding the 1917 Russian Revolution. At times, Zhivago is Pasternak’s alter ego. Both the character and the writer, who was born in 1890, were from a lost past, the cultured milieu of the Moscow intelligentsia. In Soviet letters, this was a world to be disdained, if summoned at all.
Pasternak knew that the Soviet publishing world would recoil from the alien tone of “Doctor Zhivago,” its overt religiosity, its sprawling indifference to the demands of socialist realism and the obligation to genuflect before the October Revolution.
But Pasternak had long displayed an unusual fearlessness: visiting and giving money to the relatives of people who had been sent to the gulag when the fear of taint scared so many others away, intervening with authorities to ask for mercy for those accused of political crimes, and refusing to sign trumped-up petitions demanding execution for those designated enemies of the state.
“Don’t yell at me,” he said to his peers at one public meeting where he was heckled for asserting that writers should not be given orders. “But if you must yell, at least don’t do it in unison.”
Pasternak felt no need to tailor his art to the political demands of the state. To sacrifice his novel, he believed, would be a sin against his own genius. As a result, the Soviet literary establishment refused to touch “Doctor Zhivago.”
Fortunately for Pasternak, a Milan publisher had received a copy of the manuscript from an Italian literary scout working in Moscow. In June 1956, Pasternak signed a contract with the publisher, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who would resist all efforts by the Kremlin and the Italian Communist Party to suppress the book.
In November 1957, an Italian-language edition of “Doctor Zhivago” was released.
In a memo in July 1958, John Maury, the Soviet Russia Division chief, wrote that the book was a clear threat to the worldview the Kremlin was determined to present.
“Pasternak’s humanistic message — that every person is entitled to a private life and deserves respect as a human being, irrespective of the extent of his political loyalty or contribution to the state — poses a fundamental challenge to the Soviet ethic of sacrifice of the individual to the Communist system,” he wrote.
In an internal memo shortly after the appearance of the novel in Italy, CIA staff members recommended that “Doctor Zhivago” “be published in a maximum number of foreign editions, for maximum free world distribution and acclaim and consideration for such honor as the Nobel prize.”
While the CIA hoped Pasternak’s novel would draw global attention, including from the Swedish Academy, there was no indication that the agency’s motive for printing a Russian-language edition was to help Pasternak win the prize, something that has been a matter of speculation for some decades.
Associated Press
Giant stars hanging over broad promenades added a bright touch to the Brussels Universal and International Exposition in 1958.
Associated Press
Prince Rainier III of Monaco, holding his glasses and looking skyward, and Princess Grace, with a bouquet, at the Vatican pavilion at the Brussels exposition.
As its main target for distribution, the agency selected the first postwar world’s fair, the 1958 Brussels Universal and International Exposition. Forty-three nations were participating at the 500-acre site just northwest of central Brussels.
Both the United States and the Soviet Union had built huge pavilions to showcase their competing ways of life. What was especially interesting to the CIA: The fair offered one of those rare occasions when large numbers of Soviet citizens traveled to an event in the West. Belgium had issued 16,000 visas to Soviet visitors.
After first attempting to arrange a secret printing of the novel through a small New York publisher, the CIA contacted the Dutch intelligence service, the BVD. Agency officials had been following reports of the possible publication of “Doctor Zhivago” in Russian by an academic publishing house in The Hague and asked whether it would be possible to obtain an early run of copies.
The two intelligence agencies were close. CIA subsidies in 1958 paid for about 50 of the BVD’s 691 staff members, and new Dutch employees were trained in Washington. Joop van der Wilden, a BVD officer, was dispatched to the U.S. Embassy at The Hague to discuss the issue with Walter Cini, a CIA officer stationed there, according to interviews with former Dutch intelligence officials.
Cini told him it would be a rush job, but the CIA was willing to provide the manuscript and pay well for a small print run of “Doctor Zhivago.” He emphasized that there should be no trace of involvement by the U.S. or any other intelligence agency.
Tim Gressie
The blue linen cover of the 1958 Russian-language edition of “Doctor Zhivago.”
In early September 1958, the first Russian-language edition of “Doctor Zhivago” rolled off the printing press, bound in the signature blue linen cover of Mouton Publishers of The Hague.
The books, wrapped in brown paper and dated Sept. 6, were packed into the back of a large American station wagon and taken to Cini’s home. Two hundred copies were sent to headquarters in Washington. Most of the remaining books were sent to CIA stations or assets in Western Europe — 200 to Frankfurt, 100 to Berlin, 100 to Munich, 25 to London and 10 to Paris. The largest package, 365 books, was sent to Brussels.
“Doctor Zhivago” could not be handed out at the U.S. pavilion at the world’s fair, but the CIA had an ally nearby: the Vatican.
The Vatican pavilion was called Civitas Dei, the City of God, and Russian emigre Catholics had set up a small library “somewhat hidden” behind a curtain just off the pavilion’s Chapel of Silence, a place to reflect on the suppression of Christian communities around the world.
There, the CIA-sponsored edition of “Doctor Zhivago” was pressed into the hands of Soviet citizens. Soon the book’s blue linen covers were littering the fairgrounds. Some who got the novel were ripping off the cover, dividing the pages, and stuffing them in their pockets to make the book easier to hide.
The CIA was quite pleased with itself. “This phase can be considered completed successfully,” read a Sept. 10, 1958, memo.
In the Soviet Union, meanwhile, word of the novel’s appearance quickly reached Pasternak. That month, he wrote to a friend in Paris, “Is it true that Doctor Zhivago appeared in the original? It seems that visitors to the exhibition in Brussels have seen it.”
Associated Press
Children view a statue of Pope Pius XII at the Vatican pavilion at the world’s fair in Brussels.
Contractual problems
There was only one problem: The CIA had anticipated that the Dutch publisher would sign a contract with Feltrinelli, Pasternak’s Milan publisher, and that the books handed out in Brussels would be seen as part of that print run.
The contract was never signed, and the Russian-language edition printed in The Hague was illegal. The Italian publisher, who held the rights to “Doctor Zhivago,” was furious when he learned about the distribution of the novel in Brussels. The furor sparked press interest and rumors, never confirmed, of involvement by the CIA.
The spies in Washington watched the coverage with some dismay, and on Nov. 15, 1958, the CIA was first linked to the printing by the National Review Bulletin, a newsletter supplement for subscribers to the National Review, the conservative magazine founded by William F. Buckley Jr.
A writer using the pseudonym Quincy observed with approval that copies of “Doctor Zhivago” had been quietly shipped to the Vatican pavilion in Brussels: “That quaint workshop of amateur subversion, the Central Intelligence Agency, may be exorbitantly expensive but from time to time it produces some noteworthy goodies. This summer, for instance, [the] CIA forgot its feud with some of our allies and turned on our enemies — and mirabile dictu, succeeded most nobly. . . . In Moscow these books were passed from hand to hand as avidly as a copy of Fanny Hill in a college dormitory.”
The CIA concluded that the printing was, in the end, “fully worth trouble in view obvious effect on Soviets,” according to a Nov. 5, 1958, cable sent by Dulles, the director. The agency’s efforts, after all, had been re-energized by the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Pasternak the previous month.
The Kremlin treated the award as an anti-Soviet provocation, vilified the author, and forced Pasternak to turn it down.
The CIA provided elaborate guidelines for its officers on how to encourage Western tourists to talk about literature and “Doctor Zhivago” with Soviet citizens they might meet.
“We feel that Dr. Zhivago is an excellent springboard for conversations with Soviets on the general theme of ‘Communism versus Freedom of Expression,’ ” Maury wrote in a memo in April 1959. “Travelers should be prepared to discuss with their Soviet contacts not only the basic theme of the book itself — a cry for the freedom and dignity of the individual — but also the plight of the individual in the communist society.”
Courtesy of the CIA
The miniature paperback edition of “Doctor Zhivago” that the CIA printed at its headquarters in 1959.
Clandestine edition
Prompted by the attacks on Pasternak in Moscow and the international publicity surrounding the campaign to demonize him, the CIA’s Soviet Russia Division began to firm up plans for a miniature paperback edition. In a memo to the acting deputy director for plans, the chief of the division, Maury, said he believed there was “tremendous demand on the part of students and intellectuals to obtain copies of this book.”
Officials at the agency reviewed all the difficulties with the Mouton edition published in the Netherlands and argued against any outside involvement in a new printing. “In view of the security, legal and technical problems involved, it is recommended that a black miniature edition of Dr. Zhivago be published at headquarters using the first Feltrinelli text and attributing it to a fictitious publisher.”
The agency already had its own press in Washington to print miniature books, and over the course of the Cold War it had printed a small library of literature — each book designed to fit “inside a man’s suit or trouser pocket.”
By July 1959, at least 9,000 copies of a miniature edition of “Doctor Zhivago” had been printed “in a one and two volume series,” the latter presumably to make it not so thick and easier to split up and hide. The CIA attempted to create the illusion that this edition of the novel was published in Paris by a fictitious entity, the Société d’Edition et d’Impression Mondiale. A Russian emigre group also claimed it was behind the publication.
CIA records state that the miniature books were passed out by “agents who [had] contact with Soviet tourists and officials in the West.” Two thousand copies of this edition were also set aside for dissemination to Soviet and Eastern European students at the 1959 World Festival of Youth and Students for Peace and Friendship, which was to be held in Vienna.
There was a significant effort to distribute books in Vienna — about 30,000 in 14 languages, including “1984,” “Animal Farm,” “The God That Failed” and “Doctor Zhivago.” Apart from a Russian edition, plans also called for “Doctor Zhivago” to be distributed in Polish, German, Czech, Hungarian and Chinese at the festival.
The New York Times reported that some members of the Soviet delegation to the Vienna festival “evinced a great curiosity about Mr. Pasternak’s novel, which is available here.” Occasionally it was not only available, but unavoidable. When a Soviet convoy of buses arrived in sweltering Vienna, crowds of Russian emigres swarmed them and tossed copies of the CIA’s miniature edition through the open windows.
On another occasion, a Soviet visitor to the youth festival recalled returning to his bus and finding the cabin covered with pocket editions of “Doctor Zhivago.”
“None of us, of course, had read the book but we feared it,” he wrote in an article many years later.
Soviet students were watched by the KGB, who fooled no one when these intelligence operatives described themselves as “researchers” at the festival. The Soviet “researchers” proved more tolerant than might have been expected.
“Take it, read it,” they said, “but by no means bring it home.”
As the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit gets underway in The Hague, Netherlands, world leaders and nuclear security experts will ponder the future of nuclear security in the Indian subcontinent. Nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan both score poorly on several important indicators for the security of nuclear materials and their ability (or inability) to regulate their supply of both fissile material and weaponized nuclear systems is a continued cause of concern for nuclear security advocates.
The Nuclear Threat Initiative‘s 2014 Security Index, “a unique public assessment of nuclear materials security conditions in 176 countries, developed with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU),” scored both India and Pakistan rather poorly for nuclear material security. The NTI’s ranking examines nuclear material security indicators among the 25 countries known to possess weapons-usable nuclear material and this year’s ranking put India in 23rd place and Pakistan in the 22nd place. Only Iran and North Korea — two nations largely ostracized by the international community for their nuclear programs — scored lower. Despite its higher internal instability, Pakistan came out ahead of India on the NTI 2014 Security Index.
India’s low score on the NTI Security Index is mostly due to a series of bureaucratic failures and delays. India remains a relative newcomer to the community of normal nuclear weapon states. Despite the fact that India never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, its landmark 2006 civil nuclear cooperation deal with the United States and its eventual receipt of a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2008 made it the first nuclear weapon state outside of the NPT framework to engage in civil nuclear commerce.
India’s nuclear security problems are myriad. Despite having excellent multilateral compliance, including fully implementing UN Security Council resolution 1540, poor regulations and laws that merely suggest but do not require oversight keep India’s nuclear security provisions below optimal levels. Two years ago, at the last Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, India pledged to establish an independent regulatory agency for nuclear material security but has failed to do so. Other major shortcomings for India include a failure to hedge against insider threats to nuclear materials and protect materials during transport. While India’s threat environment is far less dangerous than Pakistan’s, terrorist groups have plotted to acquire nuclear materials in India.
According to India’sEconomic Times, the Indian delegation to the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague will focus on “gaps” in the international nuclear security legal framework — an area in which India is rather exemplary — to avoid drawing attention to India’s enduring shortcomings in nuclear materials security. Given India’s looming elections and the probability of the incumbent coalition falling from power, it is unlikely that the institutional and legislative changes needed will occur anytime soon (P.R. Chari has a piece over at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that examines the reasons for this in greater detail).
Pakistan, despite being ranked a notch above India on the 2014 NTI Security Index and winning the honor of “most improved nuclear-armed state,” comes short on nuclear security in several areas. Pakistan has the world’s fastest growing nuclear arsenal, a maturing tactical nuclear weapon program, a history of supporting insurgents against India, and a highly unstable internal threat environment. Pakistan scored the lowest for “Political Stability” on the 2014 NTI Index while taking first place for “Domestic Nuclear Materials Security Legislation” and “Independent Regulatory Agency” — scoring high on some of the areas where India has shortcomings.
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and nuclear security is fiercely independent of its national politics and alliance with the United States — for better and worse. Additionally, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence’s association with anti-India militant groups raises concerns of state-sponsored nuclear terrorism, even though state agents have very good reasons not to hand off a nuclear device to a terrorist group. Furthermore, we’ve seen the Pakistani Taliban and other insurgent groups within the country target military facilities in recent years — the potential of an attack succeeding against a Pakistani facility containing nuclear weapons or nuclear materials is remote but worth considering. The United States has contingency plans for precisely such an event occurring within Pakistan.
South Asia remains the world’s likeliest nuclear flash point given the high level of mutual mistrust and enmity between India and Pakistan. While the risk of an imminent strategic nuclear weapon exchange remains low given each nation’s deterrents, Pakistan’s development of tactical nuclear weapons could reduce barriers for a nuclear event in the subcontinent. Beyond nuclear weapons, the security of nuclear materials in both these countries remains inadequate. Given the multitude of variables involved in establishing a robust nuclear security architecture for these countries, domestic developments alone can do little to reduce the chance of a nuclear event. A general reduction in tensions between India and Pakistan — eventually leading to the normalization of bilateral relations — is just as important.
