getting stronger and will think if Pakistan can't control it
then they will take control of it. Pakistan will
conclude that US involvement over the past
years has led to acts like the Marriott bombing
Last month al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri accused Pakistan's new leaders of acting on behalf of the United States and called on his followers to rise up against them.
"Let there be no doubt in your minds that the dominant political forces at work in Pakistan today are competing to appease and please the modern day crusaders in the White House and are working to destabilize this nuclear-capable nation under the aegis of America,"
The suicide bombing on Saturday of Islamabad's Marriott hotel, the city's most prominent American business, may increase tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan over how aggressively to combat Islamic resistance.
The attack, which killed at least 47 and injured 250 near the capital's main government buildings, came hours after President Asif Ali Zardari pledged to resist recent incursions into Pakistani territory by U.S. forces in Afghanistan who are battling Pakistan-based Taliban and al-Qaeda guerrillas.
Zardari made the promise during his first speech to parliament since succeeding Pervez Musharraf on Sept. 9. Zardari's government says it will oppose Islamic insurgents with a combination of negotiation and the selective use of force.
Since 2004, the U.S. has pressed Musharraf, and now his successors, to step up military action against the Taliban and allied groups, which control large swaths of the border zone near Afghanistan. Terrorist assaults killed 2,000 people in Pakistan last year.
"This attack will create more of a disconnect in terms of how the U.S. looks at terrorism in Pakistan and how Pakistan looks at it,'' Hassan Abbas, a former security official and now a researcher on Pakistani politics at Harvard University, said by telephone.
"The U.S. will see Islamic resistance in Pakistan getting stronger and will think if Pakistan can't control it then they will take control of it. Pakistan will be thinking that U.S. involvement over the past years has led to this reaction," Abbas said.
Pakistan has accused U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan of carrying out attacks on its territory in the past few months and has demanded an end to such raids, saying they promote militancy as well as violating its sovereignty.
The U.S. views the operations as vital to its efforts to subdue the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, saying the Taliban find havens in Pakistan's mountainous tribal regions.
"The challenge for Zardari will lie in balancing his need for domestic political support, which is tenuous, against the demands of those in Washington who want him to move more quickly, within Pakistan, against both the Taliban and al-Qaeda," Matt Nelson at London's School of Oriental and African Studies said in an e-mailed note yesterday.
"The new government is trying very hard to carve out an approach to terrorism that can be seen as `Pakistani.'"
The brazen truck-bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad on Saturday is a warning from Islamic militants to Pakistan's new civilian leadership that it should end already-strained cooperation with the United States to pursue al-Qaida and the Taliban, analysts said.
The massive bomb targeting an American hotel chain killed at least 40 people and wounded hundreds, setting a fire that blazed for hours and gutted most of the five-story luxury hotel.
"The attack on the hotel is a message to the Pakistani leadership: End all cooperation with the Americans or pay the price," said Brian Glyn Williams, associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Massachusetts.
"Both sides see Pakistan as a vital battlefield in their global struggle and clearly Pakistani civilians are paying the price for being in the middle of this struggle," he told The Associated Press.
Within hours of the explosion, Pakistan's Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar was quoted on local television channels blaming "foreigners" for the bombing.
He pointed the finger at al Qaida and its Chechen and Uzbek members, whose hideouts in the tribal regions have been targeted by the Pakistan military.
Terrorism researcher Evan Kohlmann told The AP it is almost certainly either Al-Qaida or Pakistani Taliban.
"We are looking at either Al Qaida or Tehrik-e-Taliban (Pakistan)," Kohlmann said. "It seems that someone has a firm belief that hotels like the Marriott are serving as 'barracks' for western diplomats and intel personnel, and they are gunning pretty hard for them."
According to the U.S.-based IntelCenter, an Al Qaida video released to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States threatened attacks against Western interests in Pakistan.
The threat was made by senior al-Qaida leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, who claimed responsibility for the summer bombing of the Danish Embassy in Islamabad.
"And we tell the ... people and Mujahedeen of Pakistan that in order for the Jihad in Afghanistan to continue and be victorious you must stand with your brothers the Mujahideen in Afghanistan to fight the puppet regime of Pakistan and its aggressive and tyrannical army and strike the interests of the Crusader allies in Pakistan," IntelCenter quoted Al-Yazid as saying.
Meanwhile, Pakistan's newly elected President Asif Zardari addressed the nation soon after the bombing, vowing not to be cowed and to step up Pakistan's assault on terrorists.
The U.S. has angered Pakistanis with increasing cross-border raids by its forces from Afghanistan to root out Islamic militants entrenched in the lawless and rugged tribal regions along the border.
Local newspapers are filled with outrage from columnists who accuse the United States of treating Pakistan as a surrogate, flaunting its sovereignty and killing innocents. Civilian casualties from the U.S. assaults have prompted tribesmen in the volatile frontier to threaten revolt.
Williams said the country's new leaders are caught between pressure from the U.S. to crack down on the militants and al-Qaida demands that they cut all ties with America.
Officials have harshly criticized U.S. incursions into Pakistani airspace and last week, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Pakistan to try to calm the anger.
At the same time, the government is also talking tough to the other side.
Just hours before the suicide bombing, Zardari vowed to wage war against extremists who have been battling government troops in the violent northwest.
Osama bin Laden and his top deputies are believed to be hiding in the border region and the U.S. claims al-Qaida and the Taliban have found a safe haven to regroup there.
Zardari has received several threats from al Qaida and the Taliban, who are suspected of assassinating his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, in December.
Last month al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri accused Pakistan's new leaders of acting on behalf of the United States and called on his followers to rise up against them.
"Let there be no doubt in your minds that the dominant political forces at work in Pakistan today are competing to appease and please the modern day crusaders in the White House and are working to destabilize this nuclear-capable nation under the aegis of America," said an audio message purported to be from al-Zawahri.
The resistance groups that operate in Pakistan's northwest are a ferocious and disparate group.
The Pakistani Taliban operate under the umbrella group, Tehrik-e-Taliban, which was established last December. It used a tried and tested strategy to gain control of the area — promising to restore law and order.