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#Pakistan - PTI foreign funding case - The verdict and after

By Zahid Hussain

THE long-awaited verdict in the PTI foreign funding case is a damning indictment of a party that claims to base its politics on the rule of law.

There is no ambiguity about the ECP ruling that the PTI received “unauthorised funding” from foreign nationals in gross violation of the law. The party has also been charged with misdeclaration of its sources of funding, that included business groups from the United States, Britain and some other countries. With most of the facts already available to the public, there was nothing unexpected in the ECP verdict. But more important is what happens next. The party has been issued a show-cause notice that may mark the beginning of a long legal battle. Donations for a foreign political party also violate the laws of the countries from where the funding comes. That may have serious legal consequences for the donor companies.

There may not be any danger of the party being proscribed, but the offence could land its leadership into serious trouble. Some legal experts point out that the verdict, which reveals that not only did the party receive unauthorised foreign funding but also concealed the information, may be used to invoke Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution against the party chief.

Some years earlier, the Supreme Court, ruling on Hanif Abbasi’s petition calling for the disqualification of Imran Khan, had absolved the PTI chief and had ordered the petitioner to approach the Election Commission. But it is not clear yet whether the government will now file a reference against the PTI in the Supreme Court on the basis of the ECP ruling. A legal battle could be a long-drawn one.

The PTI might not be proscribed but its leadership could be in serious trouble.

It is for the first time in the country’s history that the Election Commission has indicted any political party for unauthorised funding.

Editorial: Prohibited funding verdict is damning indictment of extent to which PTI went to obfuscate truth

Other parties have also been accused of getting financial help from foreign sources but the charges have never been substantiated. It is important to note that the PTI has also not been charged for receiving funds from foreign powers that could have led to its proscription.

It has taken years for the commission to conclude its findings in the case that has been troubling the former ruling party. The prohibited funding case was filed by PTI founding member Akbar S. Babar and has been pending since November 2014. Once a close associate of Imran Khan, who had also been looking after the party’s financial matters, he had, in his petition, alleged serious irregularities in party funding from Pakistan and abroad.

He reportedly produced documentary evidence substantiating his allegations. The investigation stretched on for years.

Every effort was made by the PTI leadership to obstruct the proceedings. Frequent changes of lawyers and other delaying tactics prolonged the case. A campaign against the chief election commissioner was also meant to raise questions about the impartiality of the constitutional body and stop the investigation.

 Being in power for nearly four years also helped the PTI force the delay. In an unprecedented move, the two PTI-led provincial assemblies in Punjab and KP have lately passed resolutions demanding the removal of the chief election commissioner — just before the commission announced its ruling. The attack on the commission is likely to escalate after the indictment.

A scrutiny committee constituted to examine the PTI’s financing had submitted a detailed report earlier this year highlighting the gross violation of funding laws committed by the party leadership.

The party was alleged to have collected millions of dollars from foreigners, including Indian and other companies. The report was based on the record of fund transactions requisitioned through the State Bank. The report confirmed that the PTI received under-reported funds and concealed several of its bank accounts.

Some of the charges were reinforced by an investigative report published last week in the Financial Times. The report claimed that the Abraaj group headed by Arif Naqvi collected millions of dollars in the name of charity and the amount was later transferred to PTI accounts. The donors included foreigners as well.

It was already known that Abraaj has been a major donor of the PTI. But it was not clear whether its chief had also collected funds from foreigners. Imran Khan has never denied his close association with Arif Naqvi who is now under house arrest in the UK on charges of misappropriation of funds and irregularities in his Dubai-based multibillion-dollar private equity firm. The US has sought his extradition. The FT report dealt a serious blow to the PTI’s defence in the probe.

The FT provides an extensive account of how the funds were collected from individuals and foreign companies. Most interesting is the description of a T20 cricket tournament at Naqvi’s private cricket ground in Oxfordshire in 2012 where participants were asked to contribute £2,500 for an unidentified charity. Most of the donors might not have been aware that the money was going to a political party.

The FT report may prompt fresh investigations against Naqvi for violating the law of the host country. The ECP verdict may open a number of Pando­ra’s boxes, with repercussions far beyond Pakistan.

While the PTI leaders have put on a brave face, dismissing any serious legal and political consequences of the verdict, the rival parties see it as an opportunity to step up their attack on Imran Khan and question the moral superiority he claims. The ruling on foreign funding may also blunt the PTI’s narrative of ‘imported government’ and the ‘foreign conspiracy’ aimed at ousting him.

Yet there is no sign that the verdict will affect Imran Khan’s political support base. But the whole episode raises questions about his integrity and adherence to the law and democratic values, which he never stops talking about.

Breaking the law and violating the Constitution is certainly not a big deal for him when it comes to his own interests. The ECP verdict has further vitiated the country’s political atmosphere and increased polarisation. What is most dangerous is the attempt to undermine the authority of state institutions and weaken the political process.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1703006/the-verdict-and-after

Pakistan’s Narrative Problem

By Husain Haqqani

Years of propaganda have given Pakistanis an unrealistic understanding of what ails their country.

Pakistan is going through a particularly challenging time, even by the standards of its reputation as a crisis-prone country. Since former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan lost a parliamentary vote of no confidence and was ousted from office in April, the cricketer-turned-politician has been threatening continued street protests by his supporters to demand early elections.The nation is polarized—between Khan’s supporters and followers of Pakistan’s traditional political parties, between Islamists and supporters of Western democracy, and between proponents of the military and its detractors. Khan’s opponents identify him as a dangerous populist refusing to follow democratic norms. His supporters see him as an anti-corruption messiah who has been removed from office through a U.S.-backed conspiracy.

Khan has encouraged his followers to fight his opponents like early Muslims fought unbelievers. Members of Khan’s Pakistan Movement for Justice (known in Urdu as Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf or PTI) have abused politicians opposed to him in restaurants and public places, leading to brawls. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who was elected by parliament in April after Khan’s removal from office, was heckled by PTI supporters while on a religious pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest places in Saudi Arabia.

Parliamentary elections are not due until next year, and Sharif can stay in office until October 2023 as long as he retains support of the majority in parliament. But the specter of political conflict, coupled with an economic meltdown, continues to haunt the government. Khan is also not on completely secure ground. He and his party face the prospect of disqualification from politics as the Election Commission of Pakistan completes an eight-year investigation against them for allegedly unlawfully receiving funding from foreign individuals and corporations.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s economy is in free fall. The Pakistan rupee, which traded at 121 to the U.S. dollar before Khan became prime minister, had already fallen to above 186 to the dollar by the time he left office in April this year. It has since fallen further and is now trading at 240. Pakistan badly needs a stalled International Monetary Fund (IMF) program to get back on course. Unlike in the past, none of Pakistan’s foreign friends seem eager to bail it out without the discipline of IMF conditionalities.

Despite the hardship caused by Khan’s policies while in government and his intransigence since losing power, conventional wisdom is that Khan’s political base remains intact. If anything, he has gained some support for being a leader willing to stand up for Pakistan and resisting dictation by Western powers. Khan’s PTI party won a string of by-elections in Pakistan’s most populated province, Punjab, and retained control of its regional government. To Khan’s followers, it does not matter that the United States and the West are disinterested in Pakistan since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. They seem ready to believe their leader when he tells them, falsely, that Pakistan would benefit from a close relationship with Russia and that Pakistan’s sovereignty is threatened by an alliance among India, Israel, and the United States. The cause for the relative success of Khan’s rhetoric can be identified in the national narrative that Pakistanis have been fed for decades under successive civilian and military governments. Pakistanis have generally been kept blissfully unaware of Pakistan’s international reputation as a terrorist safe haven or the country’s relative global isolation. Pakistan’s boisterous media identifies political corruption as the country’s bigger problem—not its low literacy rate, inadequate tax collection, poor standards of higher education, low agricultural and industrial productivity, and extreme dependence on external assistance and borrowing. The Pakistani national narrative, reinforced through school curricula and the media, is believed by most salaried Pakistanis, who form Khan’s core support base. This includes military men, civil servants, and professionals (such as doctors and engineers often employed by the government), who mostly live in government housing and send their children to government-subsidized schools.

Pakistan is portrayed in its internal discourse as a citadel of Islam, a special country that God created and endowed with natural wealth and productive people. Its poor economic performance is attributed to plundering by corrupt politicians, whose wealth is allegedly stashed in overseas bank accounts. Although many influential Pakistanis, including politicians from all parties, have offshore companies and foreign bank accounts, sometimes hiding income from corruption, the country’s economic failure has multiple causes. At around 4 percent of GDP, Pakistan has one of the world’s highest defense spending rates and lags behind in tax collection. But complex economic problems are simplistically attributed to politicians’ corruption.

Khan still promises Pakistanis that he will bring back “billions” of dollars of “stolen” wealth in overseas accounts, even though he failed to secure any large-scale repatriation of such wealth during his three and a half years in government. The other element of the belief system that fuels Khan’s rhetoric relates to foreign relations. Pakistan’s leaders have long described Pakistan as the victim of international conspiracies. “India is Pakistan’s permanent enemy,” the story goes. “Israel and the United States do not like Pakistan because it is the world’s only nuclear-armed Muslim country; Pakistan must protect itself against external conspiracies through unconventional warfare (i.e., jihadi militancy).” The depth of the Pakistani narrative can be illustrated by Pakistan’s decision not to make public the major step it took in June by detaining Sajid Mir, one of the masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. For years, Pakistani officials had denied that Mir even existed and suggested that if he existed, he was already dead. His arrest amounted to fulfilling a long-standing international demand to hold Pakistanis who were responsible for terrorism abroad accountable.

The immediate reason for Pakistan’s action was to fulfil the demands of the United Nations Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on terror financing and money laundering. Pakistan has been on the group’s watch list since 2018, and action against Mir was one of the FATF’s requirements for taking Pakistan off the list. Pakistan has been on the watchlist twice before: in 2008 and 2012. It got off in 2010 and 2015 after fulfilling FATF demands, only to be sanctioned again.

Being on the FATF’s gray list, as the watchlist is called, created difficulties for Pakistan in international financial transactions. But while Pakistan has fulfilled a key condition to get off the FATF gray list, its leaders chose not to announce Mir’s arrest to their own people for fear of backlash from supporters of jihadi terrorism within the country. It was only after an intrepid journalist of Pakistani origin broke the news in Nikkei Asia that Mir’s arrest was publicly revealed.For years, Pakistanis have expressed mixed feelings about terrorists. Pakistan’s internal discourse has portrayed jihadi terrorists against India as “freedom fighters” seeking “liberation” from India for the restive majority-Muslim region of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan’s former military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, publicly acknowledged that Pakistan trained Kashmir militants and that those deemed terrorists by the rest of the world were heroes to Pakistanis.Musharraf was considered a U.S. ally in the war against terrorism for his cooperation in arresting and handing over several hundred al Qaeda terrorists to the United States after 9/11. Yet for all his cooperation against al Qaeda, Musharraf’s administration pursued a dual policy by continuing to support the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Islamist militants attacking inside India.More recently, Khan shocked the world by describing former al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as a “martyr” and the recent Taliban victory in Afghanistan as breaking the “shackles of slavery.” After being ousted from office, Khan called for a new freedom struggle and jihad to rid Pakistan of Western influence.Announcing the arrest of a key figure in a group that justified the Mumbai terrorist attacks as part of Kashmir’s liberation struggle could have been described by Khan as yielding to Western pressure. Khan has repeatedly argued that Pakistani authorities act against jihadi militants only to please the West and has been largely reluctant to criticize attacks on civilians by groups fighting to expel foreign occupiers. Khan’s argument, supported by many retired military officers (including several who have previously served in Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence), is that Pakistan is unfairly targeted over actions similar to those that many countries take in the interest of national security.

Khan’s political opponents may yet be able to stop him from winning the next general elections and returning to power. But they cannot undo years of propaganda that have made Pakistanis vulnerable to conspiracy theories and given them an unrealistic understanding of what ails their country.

Pakistan’s domestic narrative is the reason why it has always moved one step forward, one step back in acting against terrorist groups even though it has promised to do so since 9/11. Support for Islamist extremism has been a major factor in depriving Pakistan of large amounts of U.S. aid and one of the reasons the country’s economy cannot easily be brought back on track. Large-scale investment is unlikely to come to a country seen as constantly tarred with allegations of being soft on terrorists.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/08/02/imran-khan-protests-pakistan-politics-economy/

Why Relying on Beijing Is a Bad Bet - The Folly of Pakistan’s China Gamble

By Husain Haqqani and Javid Ahmad

In July, a popular uprising in Sri Lanka toppled the government and sent its president scurrying into exile. The revolt had been brewing for months in the wake of the country’s economic implosion, but it still caught observers off-guard. In surreal scenes, protesters took over the presidential palace, swam in the pool, dined in the kitchen, traipsed around the bedrooms, and held stylized meetings in the conference rooms.

Such images from Sri Lanka stunned cash-strapped economies across South Asia, a turbulent region plagued by unstable governments, toxic nationalism, violent extremism, and the unsettling consequences of China’s expanding influence. From Dhaka to Islamabad, governments in the region have looked at the chaos in Colombo and wondered if they might be next.

Sri Lanka’s dire situation stemmed from the collapse of its economy in the midst of spiking commodity prices and a staggering debt crisis. It offers a bitter lesson to other floundering economies in similar situations, especially those that, like Sri Lanka, rely excessively on China. Including Sri Lanka, 42 middle- and low-income countries, such as Djibouti, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, and Zambia, have reportedly taken on significant debt obligations to China worth over ten percent of GDP. The debacle in Sri Lanka is particularly chastening for Pakistan, a country that is heavily dependent on Chinese loans. Pakistan has hitched much of its hope for development to courting Chinese investment. But despite rising borrowing costs, Pakistani leaders still believe the country’s wager with China is worth it. If they are wrong, the relationship with China threatens to leave Pakistan vulnerable to rising political turmoil in the midst of an already dangerous economic downturn.

A POWDER KEG

Thanks to the country’s size, the stakes are even bigger in Pakistan than they were in Sri Lanka. Pakistan is home to the world’s fifth-largest population and a $340 billion economy. In the last six years, economic productivity has fallen to record lows, domestic revenues and foreign reserves have shrunk, the currency has depreciated, unemployment is soaring, and political corruption has increased. The country’s total foreign debt has nearly doubled since 2016, reaching a monumental $131 billion. Alarm bells are ringing even as Pakistan’s bickering leaders refuse to listen.

Scrambling to avoid a default, Pakistan has now been on a borrowing spree to fund its expenditures and meet its debt repayments. In June, Pakistan’s shaky new government borrowed another $2.3 billion from China to shore up its foreign reserves. It also negotiated the continuance of a $6 billion bailout package with the International Monetary Fund, which involved raising fuel prices and electricity tariffs, deeply unpopular measures that prompted a public backlash. The government has tried to get Pakistanis to accept the reality of straitened times, urging them to cut back on drinking tea to help reduce the country’s outstanding $600 million bill for tea imports.

Although these short-term measures could buy Pakistan time, they will not ensure its economic self-reliance. Pakistan risks an outcome far more dangerous than Sri Lanka; its politics have become increasingly turbulent in recent years thanks to the actions of its leaders, an overreaching military, and a deeply polarized population. A growing cadre of Pakistani leaders, subscribing to a brand of Islamic nationalism, has made Islamist militant groups increasingly mainstream; others are fanning dangerous anti-American sentiments to win public support. A powder keg of grievance may explode as ordinary Pakistanis become poorer and angrier.

CHINA’S ISRAEL

Any consideration of Pakistan’s parlous financial situation must involve China; Islamabad owes nearly a quarter of its foreign debt to Beijing. But no Pakistani leader has dared to question the country’s unequal relationship with its neighbor to the north, silencing any criticism of China. Pakistan is quick to upbraid its neighbor India for attacks against and the marginalization of India’s minority Muslim population, but it has refused to condemn China’s gross mistreatment of the Muslim Uyghur population.

According to reports, a Chinese official once described Pakistan to a U.S. counterpart as “China’s Israel,” a measure of the strength of the alliance. The main pillar of the economic relationship between the two countries is a $62 billion Chinese investment pledge—nearly one-fifth of Pakistan’s GDP—in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a project that is the largest single-country program in Beijing’s sprawling infrastructure investment program known as the Belt and Road Initiative.

Launched in 2015, the economic corridor involves developing a large-scale infrastructure network in Pakistan, including a major seaport, a $7.2 billion railway project, a $2 billion metro system in Lahore, hydroelectric power plants, hundreds of miles of fiber-optic connectivity between the two countries (built and managed by Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei) and multiple special economic zones. China’s commitment exceeds the cumulative total of foreign direct investment and foreign assistance to Pakistan from other sources, including from the United States.

Pakistanis are waking up to the trouble of getting entangled in Beijing’s overseas investments.

The scale of Chinese involvement is immense, but its consequences have been rather mixed. The nature of these investments has markedly bolstered the influence of Chinese companies and nationals in Pakistani politics. In the process, the Pakistani government has accepted to foot an overcharged bill of $3 billion for two power plants and has granted blanket tax exemptions to Chinese projects, causing a loss in national revenues. Because most of these projects require machinery from China, Pakistan’s imports bill has only grown larger. Meanwhile, Chinese projects have done little to boost indigenous employment inside Pakistan because many Chinese companies prefer bringing in their own labor and housing these workers in newly built residential colonies where they seldom interact with the local population. In some cases, Chinese investment projects have resulted in land grabs, threatened the livelihood of Pakistani fishermen, and displaced scores of local people, creating wider instability. Slowly, Pakistanis are waking up to the trouble of getting so entangled with Beijing’s overseas investment machine. The initial euphoria that greeted Chinese investment is dissipating. Pakistani leaders are beginning to look warily at the scale of the country’s debt obligations, especially as China has become more reluctant over the last two years to invest more in Pakistan because of security concerns and worries about returns on investment. Despite a free trade agreement with China, Pakistani exports are largely stagnant. During the 2020–2021 fiscal year, bilateral trade totaled over $17 billion, but exports from Pakistan made up a mere $2.3 billion. In the energy sector, the Pakistani government has struggled to pay Chinese power producers an overdue bill of more than $1.5 billion. Pakistan has instead sought more Chinese loans to meet these costs. Media reports indicate that over two dozen Chinese companies operating energy projects in Pakistan have threatened to cease operations if the overdue payments are not made. Meanwhile, a great portion of the funds earmarked for Chinese power projects have financed the building of coal-fired power plants reliant on imported coal, adding to Pakistan’s import bill.

A PORT TO NOWHERE?

The travails of Gwadar port are emblematic of the troubles looming for Pakistan. The Chinese have placed special focus on building Gwadar, a seaport on the Arabian Sea coast in Balochistan province, promising to expand access to the Middle East. Leased for 40 years to the Chinese government in 2017, Gwadar is operated by China Overseas Ports Holding Company–Pakistan, a Chinese state-owned firm that receives 91 percent of the profits generated from activities at the port.

Yet, since the Chinese company took control, the port has made negligible progress in developing its commercial business. Chinese ships evidently frequent the port but carry much less than the originally promised 13 million tons of cargo annually. Basic issues like water supply and power shortages remain unaddressed. Instead, the Chinese firm has concentrated on supplying water and energy to only a few other Chinese companies operating in and around the port. The existing lack of water and electricity has ironically delayed, for years, a planned 300-megawatt Gwadar power plant. Furthermore, the company has refused to fund a desalination plant for the residents of Gwadar as it had originally promised, demanding that the Pakistani government do so instead. For now, the residents continue to depend on the arrival of expensive water tankers for their water supply.

Just as the Chinese-backed Sri Lankan port of Hambantota struggled to pay for itself, the Gwadar port has failed to attract much maritime traffic. China’s sizable investment may have appeared a symbolic victory for Pakistan, but lack of economic growth in the country and instability in neighboring Afghanistan—through which goods were expected to journey overland from Gwadar to Central Asia—has limited business. Pakistan’s overreliance on China perpetuates a vicious cycle typical of other countries drawn to China’s development model. The enormous debt owed to China, combined with negligible economic diversification in these countries, makes it increasingly likely they can turn only to China for any future bailout.

BROTHERS IN ARMS

Beyond these economic questions, concerns abound in India and the West about Chinese intentions to establish a naval base in Gwadar, which may become a dual-use port operated by China as both a commercial and military facility. Such a port would bolster Chinese maritime strength in the Indian Ocean, complementing its strong naval presence in Djibouti. Pakistan maintains a naval presence in Gwadar, but it has also stationed over 15,000 military personnel in the area to provide security to Chinese nationals.

Threats to Chinese nationals and projects have grown in spite of Pakistani security assurances. Baloch nationalists and other militant groups have targeted Chinese nationals. In April, a female suicide bomber attacked the Chinese Confucius Institute in Karachi, killing three Chinese nationals. Another explosion at a hotel in the southwestern city of Quetta targeted the Chinese ambassador. In July 2021, a bus blast killed nine Chinese engineers. These threats and the growing militarization in Balochistan has further weakened China’s appetite for investment in what is Pakistan’s poorest province.In spite of these difficulties, China and Pakistan remain close partners. Although both Chinese and Pakistani authorities have denied plans to militarize the port in Gwadar, China has continued to be Pakistan’s largest arms supplier. Between 2010 and 2019, China supplied 70 percent of Pakistan’s arms imports, worth over $5 billion. Between 2017 and 2021, a staggering 47 percent of China’s total global arms exports went to Pakistan.

Islamabad owes nearly a quarter of its foreign debt to Beijing.

This cooperation has become more pronounced since China brought the Belt and Road Initiative to Pakistan. The Chinese appear to be helping Pakistan prepare for a possible conventional war with India, delivering, in violation of arms control agreements such as the Missile Technology Control Regime, a wide range of combat aircraft, armed drones, ballistic missile systems, air defense systems, submarines, warships, transport and reconnaissance helicopters, tanks, and guided munitions. The two armies have also conducted joint military exercises in recent years. For its part, India has protested the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor because it passes through the disputed Kashmir region. For Pakistan, this growing cooperation is not without its technical challenges. For example, according to media outlets, some of Pakistan’s Chinese-supplied equipment is faulty. This includes the first version of Chinese Wing Loong drones, one of which crashed early in its deployment to Pakistan. The LY-80 Air Defense System, a missile-interception program, has also reported problems caused by poor-quality materials, oil leakages, and data disruption due to GPS malfunctions. Notably, Pakistan depends on Chinese manufacturers for proprietary software, spare parts, and maintenance.

LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES

Despite misgivings, bilateral cooperation continues to increase. In April, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, Pakistan’s army chief, publicly declared that his country’s engagement with China is “growing” and rebuked the West for refusing to invest in Pakistan’s military and infrastructure plans. The military has increased its spending this year by over 11 percent despite the country’s financial woes. In the meantime, with rising attacks on Chinese nationals, China has begun deploying private security companies to safeguard its interests.

Pakistan is gambling on the fact that it is far more important to China, and the rest of the world, than Sri Lanka. The global repercussions of political chaos in Pakistan, following a similar economic collapse, would be greater than that of Sri Lanka, increasing Pakistani hopes that major powers would step in to keep the country afloat. That does not preclude the possibility that fuel and electricity shortages could stir massive urban unrest and street violence could break out between major political parties, blaming one another for the people’s misery. The military, which has often been the final arbiter in Pakistan’s politics, might not like having to shoot at fellow Pakistanis to quell violent protests. Pakistan’s leaders are acting in a shortsighted manner similar to that displayed by Sri Lanka’s politicians. Their incessant squabbling for power, coupled with an overbearing military that refuses to change the country’s decades-old foreign policy paradigms, has left Pakistan dependent on China. Pakistan’s support for some jihadist groups and the Afghan Taliban has alienated Western governments, leading them to engage far less with a country that was once a close U.S. ally. Instead of offering benign neglect, the United States and its partners would do well to prepare for contingencies that might arise from Pakistan’s potential political and economic disarray. This preparation would include taking at least minimal steps to protect Pakistan from the fallout of economic collapse, which would include increased migration and the radicalization of Pakistan’s populace.

To avoid this fate, Pakistan’s leaders must reach consensus on long-delayed reforms such as reducing government expenditure and ending Pakistan’s association with jihadi terrorism, which is necessary to attract foreign investment. Opening trade with India—a controversial but potentially transformative move—would also relieve pressure on Pakistan’s external payment obligations. Above all, Pakistan must learn to live within its means rather than pursuing regional preeminence through dependence on China. The United States has so far resisted the temptation to out-invest China in Pakistan. That restraint, combined with a thorough reappraisal of U.S. policy towards Pakistan, may be a better strategy for the United States and Pakistan in the long run, forcing Pakistan’s leaders into much-needed reappraisal of their own mistakes.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/folly-pakistans-china-gamble

US Strike Shows #Afghanistan Still Terror Base

By Aamer Madhani, Zeke Miller, Nomaan Merchant, and Lolita C. Baldor

That al-Qaida chief al-Zawahiri was living in Kabul and not in rural Afghanistan shows the extent of protection he enjoyed from the Taliban regime.

The Biden administration is holding out the CIA operation that killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri as a monumental strike against the global terror network responsible for the September 11 attacks of 2001. But there’s a downside, too. The drone strike also is putting into stark relief the mounting evidence that after 20 years of America’s military presence — and then sudden departure — Afghanistan has once again become an active staging ground for Islamic terror groups looking to attack the West. The operation carried out over the weekend after at least six months spent monitoring movements by al-Zawahiri and his family, came just weeks before the one-year anniversary of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the country.

The Biden administration is making the case that the operation shows Americans at home and allies abroad that the United States hasn’t lost focus — or the ability to strike terrorists in the region — and validates its decision to end two decades of fighting in Afghanistan with its withdrawal.

Announcing the strike from the White House, President Joe Biden said Monday night that “justice” had been exacted on a leader who in recent weeks had recorded videos calling for his followers to attack the United States and allies. And the White House on Tuesday framed the operation as an enormous counterterrorism win.“The president has made good on his word when we left,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on NBC’s “Today” show. “After 20 years of war to keep this country safe, he said we would be able to continue to target and take out terrorists in Afghanistan without troops on the ground.”But as details of the operation continue to emerge, the administration has also revealed troubling evidence of al-Qaida’s presence and of the Taliban once again offering refuge to the group that was behind the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

White House officials believe that senior members of the Haqqani Network, an Islamist terror group with strong ties to the Taliban, were aware that al-Zawahiri was in Kabul. Sullivan said that while al-Zawahiri wasn’t involved in day-to-day planning at the time of his killing, he continued to play an active role in directing al-Qaida and posed “a severe threat” against the U.S. and American citizens. On Tuesday, the State Department updated its Worldwide Caution, warning U.S. citizens traveling abroad that “there is a higher potential for anti-American violence given the death of Ayman al-Zawahri.”

Concerns about al-Qaida’s efforts to regroup inside Taliban-controlled Afghanistan are hardly new.

Before the strike, U.S. military officials, including General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had said al-Qaida was trying to reconstitute in Afghanistan, where it faces limited threats from the now-ruling Taliban. Military leaders have warned that the group still aspired to attack the United States.

Al-Qaida leadership has reportedly played an advisory role since the Taliban returned to power in the lead-up to the U.S. withdrawal, according to a U.N. Security Council report last month.

The U.N. report also noted that Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) — the group that carried out a massive attack that killed 13 U.S. troops and dozens of Afghans near the Kabul International Airport just days before the U.S. completed its withdrawal last year — has become increasingly active in northern and eastern Afghanistan. That’s a worry for the West though ISKP and the Taliban espouse different ideologies and interests, with the Islamic State affiliate carrying out a bloody insurgency against the Taliban and religious minorities across Afghanistan.

“Zawahiri’s presence in post-withdrawal Afghanistan suggests that, as feared, the Taliban is once more granting safe haven to the leaders of al-Qaida – a group with which it has never broken,” said Nathan Sales, ambassador-at-large and coordinator for counterterrorism during the Trump administration who is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Frank McKenzie, the retired Marine general who until earlier this year was the top American military officer in the Middle East, said the U.S. has noted an effort by al-Qaida to restore training camps in Afghanistan. “I see nothing happening in Afghanistan now that tells me that the Taliban are determined to prevent that from happening,” he said in an interview.

Since the American troop withdrawal, U.S. military leaders have said America’s ability to monitor and strike a target in the country would be difficult but not impossible.

The strike on Zawahiri proved both, said McKenzie, who is now executive director of the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida.But he cautioned not to draw broad conclusions from this one drone strike.

“This was a unique circumstance,” he said. “You had a target that didn’t move, and they had the opportunity to get a good look at pattern of life. That’s not always going to be the case. In fact, typically, that is not the case.” That al-Zawahiri was living in a Kabul neighborhood and not in rural Afghanistan as previously believed, “tells you that he got really comfortable” under the protection of the Taliban, said Colin Clarke, director of research at The Soufan Group, a global intelligence and security firm. “These entities work hand in glove,” Clarke said of the Taliban and al-Qaida. The Taliban had promised in the 2020 Doha Agreement on the terms of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that they would not harbor al-Qaida members or those seeking to attack the U.S. The Taliban were quick to condemn the U.S. strike as “a clear violation of international principles and the Doha Agreement,” though they did not acknowledge that al-Zawahiri was killed. The U.S. gave no forewarning to the Taliban government, which the United States does not recognize, that it was carrying out the operation.

“Such actions are a repetition of the failed experiences of the past 20 years and are against the interests of the United States of America, Afghanistan, and the region,” the Taliban statement said.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby declined to comment on how, or if, the U.S. would hold the Taliban responsible for sheltering al-Zawahiri.“The Taliban have a choice now,” Kirby said. “And that is they can comply with their agreement under the Doha agreement … or they can choose to be going down a different path. And if they go down a different path, it’s going to lead to consequences not just from the United States but from the international community.”Kirby said the U.S. had already engaged with the Taliban about al-Zawahiri’s presence following Sunday’s strike.

The Taliban remain sanctioned by the U.S. government for their role in harboring al-Qaida before the 9/11 attacks. After the collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Kabul last summer, the Biden administration froze billions of dollars in assets belonging to Afghanistan’s central bank to prevent the assets from falling under Taliban control. Some of that money has since been freed for humanitarian aid to address the country’s dire hunger crisis.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell was quick to congratulate Biden on the operation, but also made the case that it “further indicates that Afghanistan is again becoming a major thicket of terrorist activity following the president’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces.”

“Killing al-Zawahiri is a success, but the underlying resurgence of al-Qaida terrorists into Afghanistan is a growing threat that was foreseeable and avoidable,” McConnell said. “The administration needs a comprehensive plan to rebuild our capacity to combat it.”

https://thediplomat.com/2022/08/us-strike-shows-afghanistan-still-terror-base/