"PAKISTAN HAS BECOME AMERICASTAN"---ZAWAHIRI
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--PAPER NO.338
B.RAMAN
In December, 2007, As-Sahab, the propaganda-cum-PSYWAR wing of Al Qaeda, had disseminated a four-part interview with Ayman al-Zawahiri, No.2 to Osama bin Laden in Al Qaeda, on the state of the global jihad towards the end of 2007. In the interview, he made a severe attack on Pakistan, Iran and the Hizbollah. In the fourth and last part of the interview, disseminated on December 17,2007. this is what he had to say on Pakistan:
"Musharraf and his regime are reeling in their final days (Allah permitting), and their failure is a part of one of the prerequisites of American failure in the region. What actually defeated Musharraf is the Jihadi Intifada and awakening which covered the tribal regions and spread to the middle of Pakistan, through the blessings of the Afghan Jihad against the Crusaders in Afghanistan.
"Everything that is going on in Pakistan, from the arrangement for the return of Benazir to the declaration of the state of emergency to the consecutive detentions and repressive measures, is a desperate American attempt to remedy the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And the head of the American central command was present in Islamabad at the time of the declaration of the state of emergency.
"Thus, I call on everyone in whose heart is ardour for Islam in Pakistan to join the mujahideen and back and support them, because they are the key to deliverance from the rotten, corrupt government in Islamabad, that government which has humiliated the Pakistani army and turned it into a pack of hunting dogs for America, and at whose hands the army has suffered the worst of defeats at the hands of the mujahideen in Waziristan and Swat and its morale has fallen to rock bottom and so hundreds of its troops surrendered at the first threat from the mujahideen.
"This army, in view of its feebleness, its digression from fighting the real enemy, its deviation from its theoretical duty and its collapsed morale, cannot possibly defend Pakistan, and in fact, doesn't deserve that honor. This army must move against Musharraf if it wants to rescue Pakistan from the dark future towards which Musharraf is driving it.
"The Pakistani army must place its allegiance first and before anything else in Islam, Allah and the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), instead of its allegiance being to salary, position and the crumbs of this world, which won't be of any use to it at the first encounter with the mujahideen and will be a plague for it in the hereafter. The Pakistani army must take action, and the Muslims in Pakistan must back the Jihad, because Pakistan has turned into Americastan, and they must save it before it turns into Indiastan or Israelistan. " (31-12-07)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
