islamic fighter element into the area, and that whole process, and then the civil war after that. the taliban emerging in that area, al qaeda taking over and turning it from a domestic to a regional and international situation. it is relevant because that is what led up to 9/11 and the post 9/11 action, and it has gone through various phases and had different types of impact on the situation, leaving us where we are today. . . in iran. there is the nuclear fear, also,

there. but i mentioned the revolution in the context of its sort of -- the religious surge that it started, in the area, and which continued for a long time, and which at one period, in our history, was given a push through a process of islamization that pakistan was put through. i mention it only in that context. now, all of these events led to policies which, basically, either sought to secure pakistan, against a perceived threat, or led to policies which were really to take advantage of any opportunities that will be offered by the situation. and at that time, of course, there was an obsession with security. there was a securitycentric

situation in the pakistan policymaking circles so that is how we ended up with various kinds of policies, at various times in this whole evolving scenario. this whole process, of course, had a -- an effect on pakistan's domestic situation, it had an effect on the regional situation, on the extra-regional situation around us in the middle east. and, of course, it had enormous international implications, particularly after 9/11, when this u.s. came into afghanistan, and then into iraq. and i won't say any more about this, unless you want to discuss it later. but, this is the sort of development or evolutionary trend that has brought us to

where we are today. and, now, i'd like to just discuss that part, where we are today and what is happening. what started off as a counterterrorism venture against terrorism by pakistan after 9/11 is now basically an insurgency situation that pakistan is faced with, and it has to be seen from that point of view, that pakistan is actively responding to a full-blown insurgency, within its own borders, on the western border, with afghanistan. the thing that we have to, i think, remember, is that how this insurgency came about, we can discuss that, if you want to. but, the more important thing is that this process that i talk

to, has brought on the ground in pakistan militant organizations, some of them oriented towards the border with india, particularly kashmir, because that is where they have been operating in the past, until pakistan as a -- has a policy -- as a policy, brought that to an endnd and at various times ran into welfare activities, charity and worked on earthquake situations and so on but they are there. they are there. on the western side, again, it started with afghan, taliban seeking sanctuaries on the pakistan side, because, that is the only area, southern afghanistan situation could have expanded and there is no other place, ethnically, culturally,

historically, geographically, it is the eastward expansion which would take place after the u.s. started thrusting south and tanks -- attacking the taliban and that came about and from sanctuaries and when the u.s. started a policy of doing away with the sanctuaries and drone attacks and so on, retaliation came on pakistan and that led to pakistan's push into the tribal of fatah, where t areas where t sanctuaries were and led to the insurgent movement within pakistan which is loosely operating on what it calls the tariq taliban and there is a leader there and the 26-odd groupings of small and big organizations, which have informally or formally come under his influence and banner.

the danger here is in the present environment, that this insurgency along the western border has established linkages with the earlier organizations, deeper in the country, and we have seen that ever since we have been making a response to this insurgency, in the west, there have been suicide bombings, attacks, gun fights, taking place, in our urban areas. so, they have developed a retaliatory capability, linkage of sorts, which is dangerous for pakistan. and, i think, i might also mention, that from the taliban point of view, a great success would be if they could distract

the army to its rear, by internally destabilizing the situation or creating a situation or creating a situation on the india-pakistan border, or between india and pakistan. and, it is in that context that we should see the nonstate actors' role, especially in incidents like mumbai, which can take things back and create a situation which they can then exploit. so, this linkage then is a dangerous situation, for pakistan, and in recent months it has played out, with attacks in urban areas, on the sri lankan team, on the police academy, on an intelligence headquarters in lahore and so on and i will not go into the details, but we have seen the retaliation taking place, and it is an ongoing thing. now, as far as our response to

the insurgency is concerned, this came about after a lot of back-tracking and forward movement and so on. and, i think the swath of operations which went in, was the 15th military operation that pakistan undertook. and, the earlier 14 had all ended in some kind of peace agreement or agreement to end hostilities and every time there was a peace agreement, all 14 of them, on the government side it was pushed as a -- on the pakistan side it was pushed as a great event, an end to the problem, and, beginning of a new era, in the area in the south. unfortunately, on the other side, on the taliban side, the

insurgent side, it wasn't seen -- these agreements were not seen quite in that light. and, they used each opportunity to expand, spread terror, wyden their sphere of control, and, generally, consolidate themselves. and so when the peace agreement in swat was being negotiated, i think -- i don't speak for the government or the military, but, i think the idea was that for once we should see whether they stick to this agreement, do what they are saying and then we can take it from there. and, it didn't take long for them to throw off any cloak and come out with their intentions. which were very clear. refuse to lay down their arms which was part of the agreement. they declared that he rest of pakistan infidels. and denounced the constitution

of pakistan. they started committing unspeakable atrocities which -- the videos are difficult to stomach, and generally created a situation where there was no option but to go in. fortunately, this time, because of the exposure that they got and what they came out with themselves, there was a change in public opinion, there was a change in the media. the political resolution came out, very strongly. so, the military operations which went into swat, and which is ongoing in other areas, had full backing of the media, the political institution across the board, the public opinion firmly behind it, and, except for an -- one or two odd people on the fringe, everybody is pushing for an end to this situation. i think the political and military aim of the operation is

to side line the taliban as a force which can ever challenge the writ of the government. and swat was chosen, because that is where the agreement was violated. and, that is where the expansion had taken place, also because it had started to threaten some vital park is it any communications in nigeria and it is not -- not just in swat, in fact, swat was the last in the -- the division... the division, those were the areas which were tackled first to create a situation of strangulation, and, then, finally, swat had to be cleared, physically, resulting in a large number of displaced persons who we hope will go back eventually. after this sort of northern

extremity of the tribal areas has been tackled, the other area, which was creating a threat, and which, again, was not a central area from the insurgent point of view, again on the periphery, this was a southern extremity of the federally administered tribal areas, where the taliban had created a really important thing by bombings and attacks in the areas of towns like karat and... particularly because there were a number of attacks there and that is the second phrase which the army went through and this time, they got the support of one of the major tribes in the area and was successful in the -- establishing themselves in the southern ex-extremity of fatah. that left the central area and the main area, waziristan, south and north waziristan which over

the years has become a stronghold of major -- a major enter for training activities of all sorts of taliban, of rigging vehicles and suicide bombers and so on. and, weapons and vehicles, takes place there and has commercial importance for the taliban, as their headquarters of the ddt, the umbrella organization i mention and this is the area which is now being tackled, and, here, again, the military has the support of the wa zero -- wazir which is a major tribe in the area and the one tribe which is isolated is the massoud tribe and it is a difficult area, that historically, has never been under anybody's control, but, this is a situation which the military has to go through, because, there is no option. and, i think, doing it -- they are duke it well and so,

this is the sort of strategic plan, the military had, and has, and the way it is operating. there is infrastructure there in the form of components. some disused air fields and other facilities have been activated. it is not as if they are sitting on long-term options. they have got lines of communication. there had been reverses. this has been a learning process. there have been reverse this. there have been casualties. in one situation over situation -- over 600 were killed. they see in their homes on television daily coffins coming back in a fight. basically their own people.

since they have chosen the insurgent part is accepted that the sacrifice it will have to be made. there has been no result in either the media or public opinion or political support for the military operation. the other fallout has been internally displaced people. sometimes you get exaggerated figures. it is 2 million, definitely. almost 17 to 80% -- almost 70% to 80%. resources are diverted, 70 tons per day, to the displaced people in that area. but, still, it is a problem, and it is a problem which will have to be resolved by sending them back. and very briefly, on the post

situation, in the area, if we do achieve the political and military objective, that the army is being -- has been given or has set for itself, then, i don't foresee a complete transformation of the area, into a peaceful one and there will be sporadic attacks and event taking place, but, i think those can be taken in our stride. the more important thing is that the military may have to stay for a considerable period of, as a trans -- transitional sort of administrative force in that area and it will have to articulate itself accordingly, because the old methodology of clearing and -- an area and getting out a punitive strike and handing over to the frontier corps and coming back is not going to work any more, because the situation has gone far beyond the capabilities of the

frontier corps to handle and so the frontier corps will be part of the military eventual articulation, which comes about for a more -- an area to secure and hold that area, until rehabilitation has taken place, and the area has been fully secured. and, a civil administration has come in with capacity to take care of the situation. which means police forces, and judicial element, health care and all of that. which, actually, has been missing in the past, always very weak and actually led to the insurgent -- it was one of the factors for the insurgent situation. now, with this kind of point at which we are, the other areas where we might have -- or do have similar situations, one is baluchistan. and, there is a lot of talk of baluchistan being a sort of a

logistic area for afghan, taliban and so on. and, action has been taken in that area, to -- from our point of view, the more troublesome aspect of the situation, is the sort of nascent, calling themselves the liberation movement in the baluchistan area. which may be getting external support and existing on that, the leaders are definitely outside baluchistan, who are operating. but, so far, it is low-key, and i think in my opinion, it is a matter which needs to be handled politically, and we have a political government there, federal, provincial, and the provincial government is entirely baluchistany themselves and should bring it satisfaction particularly to an end and some of the grievances with those

people need to be addressed and have been festering for a long time and southern punjab which i mentioned in the context of kashmir and the past activities there, has come up, on the... that area, as a sort of a stronghold of these militant organizations, who were formally operating in kashmir, or supporting the freedom struggle in various ways in kashmir. for the time being, it is quiet. and, again, with the political government, and with enough capacity, it can be tackled, and, there are -- it's not necessarily a military operation, that would clear that. but, there are other ways of doing it, which we could discuss, but i think, it is the -- a political solution, that they have to find to that

problem. karachi has had ups and downs and the history is sectarian, ethnic. there is a large pashtun population there, who really control the lever on the dock, they control the transport, the mass transit, in karachi, and, then there is this other ethnic group which is this government, the mqm. i think, again, there is political capacity to handle that situation, and the mqm has demonstrated a number of times, they are capable of handling it and, to be fair to them, i think a lot of work has been done in karachi, by the mqm and are responsible for karachi, has put in a lot of effort there to improve the situation:

he is elected. the government is elected. put together a good coalition, the sandwiches functioning. it is straightforward, leading to the restoration, since that has happened, it is another positive development and is in the process of performing

itself. the leasing which perhaps needs attention now in terms of political stability is the discussion between the oppositionnd ruling party on division of power between the president and parliament, issues which are wonderful. they are going towards discussion and at some point really old political consensus and stability in the country. the economic situation has been critical, it has improved marginally, not just because of a worldwide economic decision, but because i don't think that has -- it had an impact. it is more to do with the power sector in pakistan, and business activity, inflation, that is something else the government is

trying to tackle, and to be fair to them, soon after elections, they did inherit a massive sector of problems to develop capacity. the drawback is, when all this is happening, fighting insurgencies and political stability, governance is suffering. it is badly needed. as we move to another relationship, we get more and more of the military institute's strength behind the democratically elected government, we should see the government to improve. comedienne and public opinion have talked about so far, they're very supportive, very positive, i hope it stays that way, but whichever way you look

at it, the insurgency is going to stretch out for some time. the military, remaining involved, india, pakistan relations, so far, not moving forward. we are in for the long haul as far as stability and the environment is concerned. but we are well on the way, there is enormous support from the united states, not only the united states, but i think, even though it is a crisis situation, you create an opportunity for pakistan because the whole world is ready to have pakistan if it can get its own act together and come up with proposals and structures of how it is going to use that. i will stop.

>> thank you. >> i can see if we can get some questions going in. >> thank you. >> i want to make a request, when you're recognize, if you wouldn't mind waiting for the microphone and identifying yourself before asking your question. let's start here. >> the familiarity with the role chaplains play in the united states army and military, how would you compare them with spiritual support that is given to those in the pakistan army and military? are there any restrictions or controls on how spiritual and religious matters are dealt with in pakistan's army and military? >> yes, i am familiar with the excellent work with chaplains in terms of guidance and support. the pakistan military, we have

italians, a religious leader who leads, advises them, they go to him with their problems. a lot of things they are going to tell that person, maybe they don't talk about that to their commanding officers, so it has been an extremely useful institution and is a very useful institution in the military. the only other thing i will say is we have a strong, regimented system. the religious leader for generation. his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, it is true of

many others. enormous respect, the troops have confidence and are grateful. helping people. it has been an established institution for years and years. >> general karamat, you have a wonderful delivery, thank you so much for your painstakingly crafted, general overview which is so reassuring. unfortunately, many of us don't feel so reassured. you remind me of general jones, our national security adviser, a very good delivery. if i might ask a question about something that i think troubles of lot of us, at least i should say myself. the degree to which the courts

are basically letting extremists go free. the most recent examples of this have to do with the mosque. after what appears from an awful lot of internationally available information, a rather clear connection between him personally and the organization and the events in mumbai last year. in terms of dealing with extremism, can you talk to us about how the courts, how the legal system, how the law themselves may need to be adjusted and what would be the way forward with that, and if that is not possible, why?

i should have introduced myself. >> i know. >> you know me. >> i am very flattered that we are sitting through the second talk. you are right. there has been a problem. first, there is a problem with the whole prosecution system in pakistan and the way the prosecution can put a case before the judge to get a conviction. there is a weakness that has been taken care of, but it involves a lot of other capacities to be built the -- to be built up. a lot of "law-and-order -- "