Pakistan's risky Al Qaeda dragnet

The United States, Pakistan, and their coalition allies have two daunting tasks before them: setting up a high-tech dragnet along 1,500 miles of treacherous mountain passes and smuggling roads that make up the Afghan-Pakistan frontier, and tracking down any member of Al Qaeda - especially Osama bin Laden - who may have already slipped across that border.

Whether Pakistan's 600,000-man Army is equipped and prepared to handle this task has become a key question in America's ongoing war on terrorism. And this leaves President Pervez Musharraf with the challenge of demonstrating that he is making his best effort to track down Afghan and Arab militants on one hand, while not suppressing like-minded Pakistani groups so severely that he sets off a civil war.

Special US envoy to Afghanistan James Dobbins said in Islamabad, Pakistan, yesterday that while the US understood that some Al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives may slip through into Pakistan, he had full confidence they could be found and brought to justice.

"I don't think it's possible to prevent individuals from crossing the border," Ambassador Dobbins told reporters. "I think it's possible to apprehend those individuals over time."

Recent news reports and local Afghans suggest that Mr. bin Laden and much of the Taliban establishment have already crossed into Pakistan and are hiding out in autonomous tribal areas, where they share ethnic ties and an Islamist ideology with the populace.

Many Pakistani experts say that the addition of a few charismatic religious extremists to such an environment could have huge implications for Pakistan, a country just beginning to confront the significant influence of its own powerful - and sometimes violent - fundamentalist minority.

"There are two particular and fairly extensive Islamic fundamentalist groups - Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Jaish e-Mohammed - that have a fairly large following and are dedicated to gaining power, much like the Taliban," says Stanley Bedlington, a retired CIA counterterrorism expert. "Musharraf has to keep his eyes open, make sure he takes great care in dealing with them."

One way the US can help him do that - especially with US use of Pakistan's airbases, aid, and intelligence services, Mr. Bedlington says - is to make sure that Pakistanis receive tangible rewards for their help, and that it gets into the right peoples' hands. "We've got to do things such as the reduction of Pakistan's external debts, which is something like $38 billion. And we can increase the amount of aid in order to show the Pakistani people that they do get something out of this," Bedlington says. "And this should be monitored closely so that this goes to the people who need it and it doesn't get tucked into the pockets of the most corrupt government known - the Pakistani government."

But in Pakistan, the US must walk a fine line between buttressing the strong ally it has cultivated in General Musharraf, or undermining him.

If the US is really serious about pursuing Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders here, many experts say that will entail putting intense pressure on Pakistan's military-intelligence organization, the ISI, and its deep ties to both Pakistani and Afghan extremist forces. The US might even require the ISI's dismantlement. But such pressure could threaten Musharraf, a scenario the US would want to avoid at all costs.

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