Why has Pakistan suddenly reopened NATO supply routes which were closed for several months following the Salala attacks of November 2011? A US military investigation last year had already exonerated American troops operating in Afghanistan from inappropriate use of force against the Pakistani forces – even as the US military acknowledged some of the blame in the incident. Pakistan  (Army) and the United States (NATO) seemed to be at in impasse.

Pakistan parliament proceeded to put forward an impossible set of demands including apologies,  thousands of dollars for every container passing through and of course the completely impossible demand to stop drone attacks.  It was a failure of the Pakistan Army’s foreign policy from the very start. The anti-terrorism alliance between the United States and Pakistan, always complicated and often shaky, became a blackmailing game. The Army paraded out its proxies in the shape of Defense of Pakistan council (DPC). It was the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), an off-shoot of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, that was virtually all over the place, not even mainstream right wing political parties. The United States proceeded to teach their less capable “allies” in war against terrorism a lesson in blackmailing.

In June of 2012, as if by some magic Saudis decided hand over Abu Jindal the planner of Mumbai attacks to India with clear links to LET. It is rurmored that Abu Jindal was a LET operative and worked closely with Hafiz Saeed (the head of LET). According to press reports from India, Jindal was arrested on June 21 after being deported from Saudi Arabia to India. The arrest operation was a joint counter-terrorism effort by India, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. Saudi Arabia, a safe harbor for Islamist terrorist, thieves and mass murderers of all kinds, suddenly went against tradition and coughed up Abu Jindal/Abu Hamza. Here’s a brief list of some of the other infamous criminals in addition to Amin and Tunisia’s Ben Ali that found a haven in Saudi Arabia:

Rashid Aali al-Gaylani was the pro-Nazi leader of Iraq in the early 1940s. When he lost power he fled to Berlin. In Berlin he met with Hitler. After the defeat of the Nazis Gaylani found asylum in Saudi Arabia for a time. Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif were given refuge in Saudi Arabia when they were exiled. Fatah terrorist Abu Nidal lived for a time in Saudi Arabia.

The handing over of Abu Jindal was the counter punch that the Pakistan Army was not prepared for.  This could lead to establishment of direct linkages between LET and Pakistan Army and eventually the declaration of Pakistan as a terrorist State and the inevitable international sanctions with the possibility of military action. United States has successfully and very cleverly made it clear to Pakistan Army that there the more they argue the less they will end up with.

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