Some people might begin to question why all of a sudden there is this shift in United States’ policy? What made them target Mehsud now when Pakistan has been pressing US to take him out for the last many years?
United States has been going after anything and everything that remotely looked like Al-Qaeda or Taliban. There were instances where their drones attacked weddings because the people there were firing in the air, celebrating as they do in that part but were attacked on suspicion of targeting their drone.
On at least one occasion a US drone had had Mehsud in its sights but had not fired despite requests from Pakistan. That and some other incidents made people in Pakistan believe that either United States is, as always, only here for their own interests or has a hidden agenda of it’s own and is actually supporting these factions.
Then why all of a sudden US started thinking of Mehsud as a threat? Why a $5 million bounty put on his head when he had not attacked any American forces in or out of Afghanistan? Was there any suspicion of him being used by Al-Qaeda in the future or simply his job was done and he was beginning to be more of a hurdle as there were more and more questions being raised in Pakistan and around the world on US’s reluctance to attack Mehsud and to counter that opposition it was deemed necessary to remove this obstacle.
Another point of view is that Indian agencies have really been active in parts of Afghanistan bordering Pakistan since the demise of Taliban with more than 20 consulates in a country where other nations think twice before sending their delegations even for shorter periods. It is a point to note that a country with a bad record in human rights issues against minorities of all religions and 2nd only to maybe Israel when it comes to animosity towards Muslims has 20 or so consulates in a country that has sent thousands of Mujahidins to fight in Kashmiri Freedom struggle but none of them ever been targeted raises a lot of questions about Pakistan’s foreign office woes and Indian influence in Afghanistan these days.
With Baitullah Mehsud out of picture now, for who will be India’s next man in charge we will have to wait and see because if our agencies can do it once they can always do it twice and with insurgents already on the back foot because of continuous pounding by Pakistani Armed Forces and the differences and struggle over the position vacated by Mehsud already visible between the contenders, the future seems bright for this struggling but fighting nation.
May Allah be with us all in these trying times and give us courage and strength to face all these threats.
