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Musharraf ousts pro-Taleban officers

In a series of swift moves beginning Saturday October 6, Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf moved to consolidate his hold on the administration and the army, even as he removed or re-allocated key army personnel known to be sympathetic to the Taleban and to Osama bin Laden.

The first such move saw Musharraf, as president, extend his own term as chief of staff of the Pakistan army, easily the most powerful post in Pakistan polity. The three-year term had come to an end, and the official order indicated that Musharraf was being given the extension in order to guide Pakistan back to democracy.

This was followed by a series of orders on Sunday, aimed at removing key military and intelligence heads out of positions where they could damage Pakistan's support to the US-led assault on Afghanistan.

General Mahmoud Ahmad, the Inter Services Intelligence chief who led the last-ditch Pakistan delegation to Afghanistan to persuade the Taleban to hand over Osama bin Laden earlier last week, was asked to take "premature retirement".

Ahmad has been replaced as head of the intelligence services by Lt. Gen. Ehsanul Haq, reportedly a moderate.

Though Ahmad had led the Pakistan delegation to Kabul, he is seen as a staunch Taleban-supporter and is understood to have voiced his disagreement with Pakistan offering assistance to the US in its attacks on Afghanistan. Further, the ISI chief is believed to have refused to share with US intelligence agencies all information available at his disposal regarding the Taleban, and bin Laden.

Lt Gen Muzzaffer Usami, deputy chief of army staff and another pro-Taleban senior military leader, has also been asked to take premature retirement.

Lt. Gen. Mohammad Aziz Khan, the army's vice chief of staff and as such, Musharraf's understudy, has meanwhile been kicked upstairs to the figurehead position of chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Whereas the designation Khan held till Sunday made him a key decision-maker, the JCS role is merely ornamental. Khan again has been a very strong supporter of both the Taleban, and various Pakistan-based terrorist outfits.

Ironically, Ahmed, Usami and Khan were the three officials most crucial to Musharraf's own military coup of 1999, when he deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and took over the reins of power.

Sources indicate that as part of his attempts to purge the top echelons of all possible areas of dissent, Musharraf has further shuffled his various provincial commanders around, the aim supposedly being to ensure that in the provinces bordering Afghanistan and in other volatile regions, the local commander is someone without overt right wing sympathies.

Judged by the timing of the various moves, it is apparent that Musharraf knew about the timing of the impending US strikes at least by Saturday morning, which in turn argues that he could have been fully briefed by British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the latter's Islamabad visit late Friday evening.

Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports out of Pakistan say that Maulana Fazal-ur-Rahman, leader of the aggressively pro-Taleban party Jamiat-e-Ulema-i-Islami, has been released by the Pakistan administration.

The Maulana, who had addressed an incendiary meeting in Peshawar on Friday attacking both the US and President Musharraf, had been placed under house arrest on Saturday. Unconfirmed reports say that he was released due to public pressure.

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