By: Claude Salhani – Middle East Times

It has been a grim year for Pakistan. Since the start of 2007 the country has experienced 54 suicide terrorist attacks, including two Thursday, one of which killed Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister and leader of the Pakistan People’s Party. Bhutto was a leading contender in January elections.

There have been five attacks this month alone, lifting the annual average to a fraction over one bombing a week.

Of the 54 attacks this year, 34 were against military related targets, including two against the Inter-Services Intelligence agency; two targeted the general headquarters of the Pakistani army in Rawalpindi; one was aimed at the air force in Sargodha and one at the U.S.-trained Special Services Group in Tarbela. Only the navy and its personnel have been spared from attacks until now. There were 10 attacks against the police.

Four of the 10 attacks on civilian targets were against political leaders, perceived as either supporters of Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf or as being pro-U.S. These were Bhutto, who escaped an assassination attempt in Karachi Oct. 18, after returning to Pakistan from a long political exile. Two attacks on Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, a pro-Musharraf Pashtun leader of the Northwest Frontier Province who had escaped two earlier attempts to kill him. And Amir Muqam, another pro-Musharraf Pashtun leader, who also escaped an attempt on his life by a suicide bomber. The remaining six attacks were against miscellaneous civilian targets.

Until Thursday, the latest suicide attacks — one on the Muslim holy day of Eid, and the other two days after — have been reported from Charsaddha, the hometown of Sherpao, in the Swat valley of the NWFP, over which the government forces exercise only minimal control. The Swat valley has been the scene of bitter fighting between the Pakistani army and jihadis belonging to the pro-al-Qaida Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi group led by Maulana Fazlullah, popularly known as Maulana FM Radio, for his use of the airwaves.

Sherpao used to be a Pashtun loyalist of Bhutto and was an important office-bearer of her Pakistan People’s Party. Before the 2002 elections to the National Assembly, Musharraf and the ISI managed to persuade him to desert her and form his own faction of the PPP opposed to her. This desertion led to the marginalization of the PPP in the Pashtun areas. Musharraf rewarded him by making him minister of the interior. In that capacity, he served in the former cabinet of Shaukat Aziz, which has since been replaced by a caretaker government to organize the general elections scheduled for Jan. 8.

The basic result of this was that Musharraf took away from his charge all matters relating to the fight against terrorism in the Pashtun belt. The army directly handled this through the governor of the NWFP, a retired Pashtun army officer belonging to the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas, Lt.Gen. Muhammad Ali Jan Aurakzai.

The first attempt to kill Sherpao happened April 28, as he left a public meeting he had just addressed in his hometown. A suicide bomber blew himself up. Sherpao escaped, but 30 people — his security personnel and by-standers — were killed.

The second attempt to kill him was made by another suicide bomber at a local mosque in Charsaddha during Dec. 21 Eid prayers. Sherpao, who was among those praying, escaped, but 55 members of the congregation — including many of his security staff — were killed.

So far the police have not arrested anyone. Investigation into that attempt has just started. Al-Qaida, the Taliban, and their associates were observing a 10-day truce in connection with the Eid, which expired the following day.

The attack on Sherpao had taken place while the truce was being observed. It is, therefore, unlikely that any of these organizations might have been involved, according to one intelligence expert. According to Indian and U.S. intelligence sources Sherpao himself suspects that both attempts on his life were due to partisan Pashtun politics rather than to his role as interior minister.

On Dec. 23, five soldiers and six civilians were killed in the Mingora area of the Swat valley, when a suicide bomber, driving a vehicle, blew himself up alongside an army convoy. Sirajuddin, a spokesman for Fazlullah’s TNSM, has claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of the newly formed Tehrik-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan.

Incidentally, a 10-day ultimatum issued by the Tehrik to the army expired Dec. 23. In it they demanded that the Pakistani government stops its military operations in the tribal areas and releases Maulana Abdel Aziz Ghazi, who was captured by security forces during a commando action at the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad. They threatened to launch a joint fight against the government if their demands were not met.

The Dec. 23 attack disproves the army’s claim of having re-established its writ in the Swat valley.

Meanwhile, there has been a report of an attack on paramilitary personnel in the Kurram Agency, where there have been frequent Shiite-Sunni clashes this year. The Frontier Corps, who reportedly did not incur any casualties, retaliated killing five civilians. The identity of the assailants is unknown.

All this leads intelligence specialists to conclude that it is unrealistic to use Pakistan as a base of operations for any potential action against Iran.

Intelligence officers who asked to remain anonymous said they expect al-Qaida to make gains. U.S. intelligence analysts have speculated that al-Qaida is making accusations against Musharraf to destabilize the government.