The terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament by the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) group took India and Pakistan to the brink of full-scale war.

Despite India providing substantial evidence, General Pervez Musharraf steadfastly maintained that no Pakistani group was involved. Things, however, started changing when the Bush Administration turned the screws on the Musharraf Government and forced him to ban JEM and other Pakistani groups promoting terrorism in India.

But, while Musharraf took some cosmetic measures to claim he had acted against the terrorist outfits, he allowed them to change their names and function freely. JeM assumed the name of Khudamul Islam and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) functioned as Jamaat-ud-Dawa.

Musharraf’s half measures did not work. This was because the terrorist groups used by ISI in Kashmir had developed close links with the Al Qaeda and Taliban and, in fact, joined Osama bin Laden’s “International Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders” in Kandahar in February 1998.

When Musharraf was forced to join American efforts to oust the Taliban and Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, and helped the US to apprehend secondranking Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, JeM turned against him and attempted to assassinate him.

Despite these developments, the propensity of the Pakistani army establishment and of Musharraf himself to support extremist groups like the Taliban to attain the Pakistan Army’s goals of “strategic depth” in Afghanistan and like LeT to “bleed India with a thousand cuts,” did not change.

The Taliban leadership including Mullah Omar was comfortably ensconced in ISI safe houses in Baluchistan and the tribal areas (North and South Waziristan) of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) after fleeing from Afghanistan and LeT was permitted to continue its jehad in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere in India.

Enraged by the facilities being provided to Taliban and Al Qaeda supporters in Waziristan, the Americans warned Musharraf that if he did not act effectively against them, they would not hesitate in launching cross-border attacks into Pakistan on Taliban safe havens there.

The net result has been that since the last two years Musharraf finds himself in the unenviable position of using his army to crack down in Waziristan on Pashtun pro-Taliban jehadis from both Pakistan and Afghanistan and Al Qaedalinked groups from Uzbekistan, Xingjian and Chechnya.

The tribals in Waziristan have natural empathy with their kinsmen from Afghanistan and in the bloody battles fought in the tribal areas, both sides have suffered heavy casualties. Over 1,000 Pakistani soldiers have lost their lives in recent operations and over 400 are reported to be facing court martial for refusing to fight “fellow Muslims”.

Over 300 soldiers have surrendered without a fight and attacks by Pakistan Air Force and helicopter gunships have caused horrendous civilian casualties. The insurgency has spread to the picturesque valley of Swat, where humiliating scenes have been witnessed of Pakistani soldiers captured without a fight being returned to the authorities, while vowing they will join the Taliban.

Tribal anger in Waziristan has been further fuelled by reports that nearly 300 Pashtun women were killed when Musharraf’s Special Services Group (SSG) commandos attacked the Lal Masjid in Islamabad. In retaliation, pro-Taliban elements have launched suicide attacks on army establishments including the officers’ mess of SSG, a bus carrying ISI personnel and military establishments in Rawalpindi and on the strategic air force base in Sargodha.

Within the Pakistan Army and indeed within Pakistan itself, there are grave misgivings about these military operations. It is recognised that no fight against an insurgency can be won without political support. Rather than permitting mobilisation by mainstream political parties against extremism, Musharraf has chosen to confront it by declaring Martial Law. The Pakistan Army under Musharraf is thus today at war with its own people and stands politically isolated.

How long the army’s leadership and its American patrons will allow this state of affairs to continue remains to be seen.

The author is a former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan.