Pakistan’s Last Gambit? continues....

His successor, General Ashfaq Kayani, stayed as the Chief of Army Staff for six years (2007-2013), and played an even more deceitful game. With Musharraf escaping Pakistan in humility, Kayani projected himself as the new saviour both to the domestic audience as well as to the army’s patrons in Washington. He supported the Taliban’s bid to dominate southern and eastern Afghanistan, cultivated the Haqqani Network and other terrorist groups entrenched in the tribal areas as “strategic assets” and convinced the US about India’s negative role in Afghanistan.

The US remained supportive of Kayani despite evidence that he could have been directly involved in ordering a terrorist attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in July 2008. The Haqqani Network had planned the attack which was executed by a new recruit from LeT. In fact, the November 2008 attack on Mumbai, carried out by LeT cadres, had a clear imprint of the Pakistan Army’s role.

Although there is no direct evidence of such complicity, the army’s refusal to dismantle terrorist infrastructure in PoK, Punjab and other areas after the attack underlined the depth of patronage.

Kayani not only stopped the civilian government from sending the ISI chief to India to assist in the investigations of the terrorist attack but also allowed anti-India groups like LeT and JeM to consolidate in Punjab. In fact, Kayani utilised these instruments of state to set up training camps for the Taliban in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other areas. Kayani also used LeT in particular to take on the TTP in Mohmand. Although Kayani is credited with making a statement that “the fight against extremism and terrorismis our own war,” he did not make any visible moves to either dismantle the terrorist structures or take on the terrorist groups.