The problem isn't that they will just leave, but that they might abandon the region altogether. That will leave us alone with these thousands of militants to deal with without any international support"
This bold statement about Pakistan's militancy problem was given to me by a recently retired military officer in the Pakistan Army, who served at a key appointment during Operation Zalzala in 2008 in South Waziristan against domestic militants. According to another General of the Pakistan Army who was active in the Wana Operation against militants in 2004, Pakistan's basic counterterrorism policy has been fairly simple: "either kill the terrorists wherever they are found, or coerce them to support your cause against the other anti-state militants." It is under this lens that Hafiz Saeed, founder of the banned Lashkar-e-Tayyaba needs to be understood.
Pakistan's refusal to arrest Hafiz Saeed might seem confusing. A man carrying a 10 million dollar bounty on his head, and who has been charged by the United States and India for links to terrorism and hijacking, walks around freely in major city centers of Pakistan, is invited for television interviews, and now runs one of the country's fastest growing charity organizations, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD). What is more confusing still is the fact that while the United States has placed a handsome bounty on his head, it has been fairly silent over the issue ever since, and hasn't been pushing the authorities in Pakistan to take any action against Saeed.
