Anti-terror record patchy at best: analysts

With Osama bin Laden still at large and the Taliban roaming across Pakistan and Afghanistan, analysts say President Pervez Musharraf's anti-terror record as he quits the army is patchy at best.
Musharraf says that in the six years since Pakistan joined the US-led "war on terror" following the September 11, 2001 attacks, his country has killed or captured 700 key al Qaeda militants while losing 1,000 troops.
He often insisted his military role was vital to tackle the global threat posed by Islamic militants based in tribal areas. He also cited rising militancy as a key reason for imposing emergency rule. Terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna, the author of "Inside al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror", agreed with Musharraf's claims that Pakistan had led from the front.
"For what Musharraf has done, every Western nation must be grateful," Gunaratna, head of the Singapore-based International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, told AFP. "Were it not for the cooperation extended by Pakistan, the United States and the Western world would have suffered more from terrorism," he said.
The fact that the ringleaders of several terror attacks, including the July 7, 2005 attacks on London's transport system, trained at camps in Pakistan only goes to show the challenges he faces, Gunaratna said. But other analysts say that while Musharraf may well have cracked down on al Qaeda - blamed for one of two attempts to assassinate him in 2003 - he has been less tough with Afghan and Pakistani Taliban fighters.
This has particularly rankled with the United States and Nato countries, which together have more than 50,000 troops in Afghanistan fighting a growing Taliban insurgency. "Musharraf's record on the war on terror has been a mixed record," said Farsana Shaikh, a Pakistan expert at London-based think-tank Chatham House.
"He has certainly co-operated well in handing over key al Qaeda suspects, but his record in rounding up Taliban leaders has been less than satisfactory," she said. Clive Williams, an Australian-based terror expert, said even Musharraf's campaign against al Qaeda and its Saudi leader left much to be desired.
"I don't think Musharraf saw it in his interests to take out Bin Laden," Williams told AFP. "I suppose he has tried to maintain the balance between keeping the US happy and not antagonising the locals."
Williams, a professor at the Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism at Macquarie University in Sydney, said Musharraf's efforts had been compromised by Islamabad's strategic goals. "I think Pakistan clearly has a foreign policy agenda, which is that it will support the Taliban to the extent of creating a buffer zone in Afghanistan," he said.
The growing "Talibanisation" of north-west Pakistan - including the scenic Swat valley, where troops are currently battling militants - was a consequence of this, analysts said. Analyst Hasan Askari said there were "so many ambiguities" in Musharraf's stance. "If we look back, militancy and religious extremism have increased in Pakistan despite Musharraf being at the helm of affairs," said Askari, a former political scientist at Lahore's Punjab University.
Most analysts agreed that Musharraf's status as a military ruler had however enabled him to be more effective. "He is a dictator, it is very clear. But a democratic leader would have found it much harder to control the forces arrayed against him," Gunaratna said.