4. Nevertheless, whenever there has been sufficient international – and particularly US – pressure on Pakistan to act against this lobby, Pakistan has reluctantly cooperated, with no significant demonstrations of ‘public anger’ from the extremist lobby. In the process, the Musharraf regime, after taking some initial and token action against various Islamist extremist groups in the country – including the Jaish-e-Mohammed, the Lashkar-e-Toiba, and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, all of which are on the US list of international terrorist organisations – now allows each of these to function with complete freedom, albeit under changed names, though under the same leadership.
4. The ‘Other Face’ of Pakistan’s ‘Moderate’ Dictatorship: Pakistan has made a big case out of the fact that some of the top line leadership of the Al Qaeda has been arrested in the country with the ‘cooperation’ of the Pakistani security forces and intelligence. The fact, however, is that each such arrest only took place after the FBI and US investigators had effectively gathered evidence to force Pakistani cooperation, and little of this evidence has come from the Pakistani agencies. Indeed, Pakistani agencies have consistently sought to deny the presence of Al Qaeda elements in their country, and to mislead US investigators to the extent possible. This deception has been at the very highest level, and Musharraf himself, for instance, initially insisted that he was ‘certain’ that bin Laden was dead. When the
