Bawhalpur? Bombs away!

TOI Correspondent from Washington: It is not just drones and missiles that are bearing down on Pakistan aka Terroristan. Words too. Amid the fog of war, the world has begun to call out Islamabad -- sometimes bluntly and sometimes subtly -- for promoting terrorism as a policy instrument.

The Trump administration's statements following calls to Islamabad and New Delhi on Thursday were instructive in this regard. This first para of state department read-outs were identical: Secretary Marco Rubio spoke today with Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif/ Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. "The Secretary emphasized the need for immediate de-escalation. He expressed U.S. support for direct dialogue between India and Pakistan and encouraged continued efforts to improve communications."

Then it diverged. To Jaishankar: The Secretary reiterated his condolences for the horrific terrorist attack in Pahalgam and reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to work with India in the fight against terrorism. To Sharif: The Secretary expressed sorrow for the reported loss of civilian lives in the current conflict. He reiterated his calls for Pakistan to take concrete steps to end any support for terrorist groups.

Big difference.

Not that terroristan aka denialistan is likely to listen, even though it is now being called out by a range of US leaders. From Nikki Haley: Terrorists launched an attack that killed dozens of Indian citizens. India had every right to retaliate and defend itself. Pakistan does not get to play the victim. No country gets a pass for supporting terrorist activity.

A more graphic reminder of Pakistan's tolerance, if not nurturing of terrorism, came from Asra Nomani, the former Wall Street Journal associate of the correspondent Daniel Pearl, who recalled in graphic detail his death in 2002 at the hands of Pakistani terrorists who had a free run during General Musharraf's rule.

One of the principals of that murder was killed in India's bombing of Bawahalpur on Wednesday, Nomani noted with satisfaction.

This is the recollection she posted on social media:

"I still have chills in my heart from when I first heard that town’s name in late January 2002. For the 23 years since, I have reported on how Pakistani intelligence and military leaders have used that city — Bahawalpur — in the southern province of Punjab as a base for its homegrown domestic terrorists.

When I heard India bombed training camps in Pakistan this week in Operation Sindoor, in response to a Pakistani terrorist rampage in India’s Kashmir state, I had one city’s name on my lips: Bahawalpur.

Did India bomb Bahawalpur?

It did. I knew then India was striking actual hubs for Pakistan’s homegrown domestic terrorism.

Why do I know?

My friend, WSJ reporter Danny Pearl, went to Bahawalpur in December 2001 with a notebook and a pen. Gen. Pervez Musharraf had just promised he was shutting down Pakistan’s militant groups after a strike by Pakistan’s terrorists against the Parliament in India, and Danny reported on the militant offices in Bahawalpur.

He literally knocked on their doors. Dear Dr @yudapearl, this story is a window into Danny’s reporting enterprise. And because people will wonder: Danny was no cowboy. This was a calculated low-risk reporting trip because no journalist had been targeted for kidnapping in Pakistan. Around that time, Danny sent me an email: “I’m anxious to go to Afghanistan, but I’m not anxious to die.”

What did Danny learn?

The militant training camps were open for business in Bahawalpur.

On Jan. 23, 2002, Danny left a home I had rented in Karachi, Pakistan, for an interview.

I learned Danny’s fixer, Asif Farooqi, had arranged an interview for Danny through a man named “Arif.” Danny didn’t know it but Arif was the PR man for a militant group, Harkutul Mujahadeen. What was Arif’s hometown? Bahawalpur.

The police launched a manhunt to find Arif in Bahawalpur. We learned Arif’s family faked a funeral for Arif. Police found him trying to board a bus in Muzaffarabad, across the country by Pakistan’s border with Kashmir.

It is another town India said it bombed terrorist training facilities.

Arif had handed Danny off to Omar Sheikh,a British-Pakistani dropout from the London School of Economics, radicalized in the 1990s in London mosques. He went to Pakistan to train in these militant training camps. Then he kidnapped tourists in India. He was caught and jailed but on Dec. 31, 1999, he was traded for hostages in the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814.

Omar Sheikh was freed with Pakistani terrorist leader Masood Azhar, whose family was allegedly killed this week by India’s air strike in Bahawalpur.

Did Pakistan jail Omar Sheikh and Masood Azhar when they returned to Pakistan with a third terrorist, freed from India’s jails?

No. Pakistan’s military and intelligence gave them safe passage. They used them as weapons against India. But in fact these domestic terrorists have waged war against innocents in Pakistan, like civil society activists, Benazir Bhutto, Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, schoolchildren and countless others.

Their extremism has ruined Pakistan, and Pakistanis can’t blame America for creating the mujahideen to fight the Soviets in the 1980s.

Pakistan has had a duty to dismantle those terrorist bases — for even the safety of its own people. What India is doing is a strategic attack on terrorist bases Pakistani military and intelligence should have eliminated but never did in their obsession to take over Kashmir."