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February 26, 2008
Pakistan Surgeon General Assassinated
Rick Moran
Lieutenant General Muhammad Mushtaq Baig, the Surgeon General of Pakistan, and seven other people were killed in a suicide attack in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
A suicide bomber killed eight people, including the Pakistan Army’s surgeon general, on Monday — the highest-ranking military official killed since the country joined the US-led war on terror..
Lieutenant General Mushtaq Baig, the head of the army medical corps, died after a teenage attacker blew himself up next to a military convoy on a busy road in Rawalpindi, the army said.
“The surgeon general, his driver and guard were martyred,” chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told reporters. Five civilians were also killed, while 25 others were injured, an army statement added.
“This was the first suicide attack in Pakistan in which a high-ranking military official has been killed since 9/11 and also the first attack after the election,” AFP quoted Abbas as saying. Officials had earlier said the bomber was in a car but Abbas said he was on foot. Al-Qaeda continues to try and destablize the regime and carries out these attacks in order towarn the government to allow the extremists a free hand in Afghanistan: Apart from the Swat Valley, there has been an increase in violence, including bomb blasts, in the North Waziristan tribal area and Bajaur and Manshera agencies, after a brief lull in the runup to the elections.
More than a dozen incidents have been reported.
The trigger for this appears to have been planned joint Pakistan-NATO operations in the region against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The militants aim to open up several fronts in Pakistan to dissuade the military from cooperating with NATO.
This situation is an embarrassment to the security apparatus as it was believed that following recent countrywide operations that uncovered militant cells in Karachi, Rawalpindi, Mianwali, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan that the problem was being contained. There is a distinct possibility that there will be less cooperation with the Pakistani military and NATO. Indications are that the new government will probably want to negotiate with the Taliban rather than fight them. This could lead to a catastrophic situation on the Afghanistan border with Taliban infiltrations.
The Baig assassination is a bad omen for the Pakistani security services and an equally bad sign for NATO.
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