Bhutto's House Arrest lasts for one day as Pakistan moves closer to civil war

General Pervez Musharraf may well be reaching the end of the tether. He placed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under house arrest early Friday to prevent her participation in a protest opposing the emergency measures (read: martial law) imposed when he virtually sacked the Pakistani Supreme Court and made any form of dissent unlawful.

That house arrest ended in less than 24 hours, but it creates a new problem. Bhutto and Musharraf were expected, particularly by the Bush administration, to enter into a power sharing arrangement until a president could be elected democratically. What the Bush crowd does not seem to fathom is that Bhutto and Musharraf despise each other.

No matter, you can imagine the screaming that was done into the ear of Musharraf over the phone by the US State department. They consider Bhutto, for reasons they will not explain, to be the best hope for leading Pakistan out of a dictatorship and into democratically elected leadership.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf placed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under house arrest for a single day Friday — surrounding her villa with barbed wire — and rounded up thousands of her supporters to block a mass rally against his emergency rule.

The crackdown dimmed hopes the two pro-U.S. leaders could ever form an alliance. A top American official voiced fears it would obstruct the fight against Islamic extremism — a threat underlined by a suicide bombing in northwest Pakistan that targeted a Cabinet minister, who escaped unharmed.

The U.S. called for the restrictions to be lifted. Hours later, the acting deputy commissioner for Islamabad, Aamir Ali Ahmed, said that they had ended, but her villa remained surrounded by police.

Party members said she would try to leave Saturday morning.

"We'll see tomorrow," said Makhdoom Shah Qureshi, a senior official from Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party as he left a midnight meeting at her home. "You can see for yourself the barriers are still up, the police are still here."

Bhutto twice tried to escape in her car during the day, telling police who surrounded her villa: "Do not raise hands on women. You are Muslims. This is un-Islamic." They responded by blocking her way with an armored vehicle. In nearby Rawalpindi, the city where she had hoped to stage the rally, police tear gassed hundreds of supporters who staged wildcat protests and hurled stones. More than 100 were arrested.

Lovely.

The Bush administration's affinity for Bhutto is a little baffling. She is viewed as some form of silver bullet to cure Pakistan's problems. Granted she is pro-US, but she exudes an aroma not unlike that of Ahmed Chalabi did when he was making all kinds of promises about delivering Iraq to Cheney. Even though she now condemns the group, the Taliban in Afghanistan was strongly supported by Bhutto when she was prime minister including the provision of financial and military support.

In the meantime, Pakistan continues to boil over. The situation isn't just unpleasant either. It's extremely dangerous. This is a country where a combination of three factors should have everyone in pucker factor maximum: The spread of al Qaeda, an internal insurgency and the presence of nuclear weapons.

While some give credit to Musharraf for holding Pakistan together, the truth is he has never gained control of the country. Tribal Waziristan remains in the hands of the Taliban and al Qaeda and from there they have moved into the Swat Valley.

Pakistan has suffered from army involvement in political decisions from its inception and the ISI, the largest of Pakistan's intelligence services operates as a state-within-a-state, out of Musharraf's control.

Added to the Waziristan problem is a home-grown insurgency taking place in Balochistan. Ethnically different than other regions of Pakistan, Balochistan borders Iran, Afghanistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas to the north which harbour training areas for the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Elsewhere in Pakistan there now exists a blurred line between political and criminal violence. The same groups which carry arms for political parties (firearms are readily available) are also engaged in criminal activity. When a suicide bomber attacked the Bhutto arrival caravan in Karachi there was a flurry of discussion about the linkage of the city government to organized crime. To further illuminate the direction Pakistan has taken, Nawaz Sharif, the man ousted by Musharraf, pointed out on national television that there was no such thing as a suicide bomber in Pakistan prior to the 1999 dictatorship of Pervez Musharraf.

Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is another problem, and it is more complex than many realize. Relying on highly enriched uranium (HEU), Pakistan has created enough fissile material for upwards of 100 nuclear warheads. There has also been some plutonium enrichment which would provide for up to five warheads. Despite the claim that none of the weapons are assembled and components are stored in separate locations, that has never been verified.

Musharraf claimed that the nuclear arsenal had been relocated after 11 September 2001, but there was an unstable faction within the Musharraf regime which caused considerable concern. Musharraf fired his director-general of intelligence, Mahmoud Ahmad, shortly after 9/11 when Ahmad opposed the US invasion of Afghanistan. It was later revealed that Ahmad had provided $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker before the 9/11 attacks.

Pakistan was involved in dangerous nuclear proliferation when Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan was discovered to have provided assistance in the development of North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Musharraf claimed that neither the government nor the army were involved and had no knowledge of Khan's activities. That underscores a problem. Either Musharraf was lying and Pakistan is proliferating nuclear weapons or Musharraf was telling the truth and demonstrated that he cannot keep Pakistan's nuclear program secure. Further investigation revealed that Khan had been running a nuclear marketplace supposedly under the nose of an otherwise unaware Musharraf.

Now, just imagine this basket-case of a country embroiled in a full-blown civil war.