The recent string of high-profile arrests in Pakistan of al-Qaida operatives accused of plotting against financial institutions in the United States resulted not from a meticulously planned counterterrorism operation but from a fateful lucky break, according to Pakistani police. It was the kind of break investigators dream about: A cell phone that was to trigger an explosion on a busy road in Karachi failed to detonate.
| Just like in Spain, they used their own phones and the cops traced them. |
The phone, connected to 18 pounds of explosives, led Pakistani police in the crowded port city to the bomb maker's house. There, police expected to find a local "jihadi group" plotting violence against Pakistan, one police officer said. Instead, police found Musaad Aruchi, believed to be the nephew of a top al-Qaida operative, who helped unravel the most comprehensive discovery of a terrorist plot against the United States since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Bush administration officials have touted the snowballing of arrests as proof of the president's success in the war against terror. But Pakistani police give the credit to the botched bombing, the cell phone discovery and, more broadly, to Pakistan's own, internal war against extremists.
| Since this is the Seattle Post Intelligencer, there's no use pointing out that the two aren't exclusive... |
Just as Saudi Arabia's war on terror began in earnest when the violence began to threaten the Saudi royal family, Pakistan's intense investigations -- which have borne so much for the United States -- also have at their root the Pakistani government's own instinct for self-preservation, regional specialists and U.S. officials say. "Frankly, I think it is a mistake to think that Pakistanis are doing this for us, at our bidding," a State Department official said. "They recognize that these groups are a threat to them."
| Nor should we bother discussing coincident national interests... |
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