June has been a month of allegations, revelations, overtures, and assumptions. Coincidentally, these followed India's conditional halt in strikes on terror hideouts and launchpads in Pakistan. Four days of intense strikes continued till May 10 before New Delhi agreed to cease Operation Sindoor on Islamabad's appeal.
Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister, Ishaq Dar, later confirmed that his country requested a ceasefire following attacks on Nur Khan and other key air bases during the operations.
The strike on Nur Khan airbase in Chaklala, near the garrison town of Rawalpindi - the city housing Pakistan's military headquarters - was a blow too big for Pakistan to cope with. About a month after India's conditional ceasefire, a senior journalist in Pakistan revealed how Americans run the Nur Khan air base.
'Not Authorised To Know'
In a podcast, author Imtiaz Gul had claimed that even the Pakistan army was not allowed to interfere in operations at the base. He revealed how once, when a Pakistan Air Force officer repeatedly sought to know what cargo American aircraft carried at the base, he was told at gunpoint that he was not authorised to know these details. It obviously created a flutter since the disclosure embarrassed both Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
Even as the controversy was on, an old interview of a senior army officer on a private channel further reddened the faces of Pakistan's powers that be. The interview was hosted by Hamid Mir, a veteran journalist credited to have also conducted the last official interview of Osama bin Laden.
Incidentally, Mir has had a difficult relationship with the political and military leaders in Pakistan due to his outspoken and often critical views towards the administration.
In the old clip that went viral towards the end of June, Lt Gen (Retd) Shahid Azeez is heard saying that Pakistani troops were not even allowed to enter the Jacobabad and Pasni bases. He alleged these were under US control during its post-9/11 war on terror. He further claimed that the then-President, Pervez Musharraf, had told army commanders that he had already promised the US access to Pakistani bases. The decision was taken despite the protests of top army officers.
Pak Is A Resourceful Ally
Pakistan is no stranger to such clandestine operations. The army has always been in control of such covert exercises, with or without the nod of political administrators - except when an army chief, like Musharraf, assumed power. In cases like these, the army chief is all-powerful, and Islamabad and Rawalpindi would come together despite the 15-km distance the two power bases share.
The US has considered Pakistan an ally - a friend who will be of use, sometimes with a carrot, or else, with a slap on the wrist. Geographically, Pakistan shares its boundary in the west with Iran and in the north with Afghanistan. Politically, governments have mostly been financially and morally bankrupt. Thus, the country has been ductile and malleable for most deals.
In fact, the revelation that the US controls Pakistani bases, like the one in Chaklala, as well as Karachi port, came in the nineties. The bases were extensively used during the Cold War, with the exercise gaining pace and intensity during the occupation of Afghanistan by the erstwhile Soviet Union.
'Doing America's Dirty Work...'
Perhaps it is this history that made Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif recently admit to funding and backing terror for over three decades. In a video clip that went viral, he says, "We have been doing this dirty work for the United States for about three decades...”
This history is also chronicled well in a firsthand account by a general. Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, who headed the Afghan bureau of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) between 1983 and 1987, wrote about the operative tactics and coordination in his book The Bear Trap. The tell-all book on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and ISI's collaboration, co-authored by Major Mark Adkin of Britain, was published in 1992. “It was always during darkness that the aircraft arrived. Usually at around 9.00 p.m. or just before dawn, General Akhtar and I, along with the local CIA staff, would be waiting at Chaklala Air Base for the huge black C-141 Starlifter to taxi up to a secluded part of the terminal,” the authors write in a chapter.
Dinners To Distract
Then comes the description of how secretive each of these runs was: “No US Embassy personnel were ever present, either at the planes' arrival or departure. In order to distract attention, it was normal practice on these occasions for the ambassador to arrange a diplomatic dinner at the embassy. Although the control tower guided the aircraft in, no Air Force personnel were involved with its reception on the ground. None of the passengers would be subjected to any form of immigration or customs formalities; even the baggage would be handled entirely by the Americans.”
According to another reference, the CIA would provide specific weapons and ammunition as listed by the ISI. The former would “purchase all the items and get them by ship to Karachi or, for a small proportion, by air to Islamabad”, the book says. Thus, a “small proportion of arms arrived by air at Rawalpindi (Chaklala Air Base)”.
That Infamous Lunch
Therefore, covert operations have been conducted in Pakistan for decades now. No wonder then that the current US President, Donald Trump, recently invited Pakistan's army chief and Field Marshal Asim Munir for lunch at the White House - the first such meeting between a US President and a Pakistani army boss not heading a government.
It's not improbable that the menu included more than Balochistan's rich mineral deposits. The lunch had come, after all, just days before the US bombed Iran's nuclear projects with bunker buster bombs. Earlier, an Iranian official had even declared that Pakistan would launch a nuclear attack on Israel if the latter resorted to the use of such weapons. Islamabad quickly denied the Iranian claim. In fact, early last year, Pakistan and Iran exchanged strikes against each other.
Both countries are involved in skirmishes, with Baloch rebels demanding an independent country. The two are involved in sporadic violence along their respective borders, with a restive Afghanistan ruled by the Taliban. Balochistan is again along the Pakistan border here.
It has been seen earlier how the US is suspicious of governments in both Iran and Afghanistan. In both cases, there have been direct confrontations. Thus, Pakistan provides the ideal listening post, as well as a quick launch pad. Even though the Soviet Bear exists no more, the “great game” continues.
(The author is a senior journalist)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
