The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)
has decided to ratchet up the pressure on the federal government as
well as the military establishment post Osama debacle.
Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, who had evaded capture for a decade,
was killed on May 2 in a top-secret US unilateral military operation
involving a small team of American Special Forces in Pakistan's
Abbottabad city.In meetings held by the PML-N leadership after the May 2 incident, it was decided that the party would not let the Abbottabad issue die down, instead it would use it to target both the civilian and military establishments, the Dawn reports.
According to PML-N insiders, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and a number of other leaders were of the opinion that only the government, and not the military leadership, should be blamed for the US raid that led to bin Laden's death.
Shahbaz said that President Asif Ali Zardari should be the party's prime target, as the increased presence of Americans in the country was due to the Zardari, on whose direct intervention the Pakistan embassy in Washington issued visas to a large number of Americans without mandatory verification by intelligence agencies.
However, his views were not accepted, and the PML-N decided to take on both the civilian government and the army's top brass. Even the Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who has been quite close to Shahbaz, strongly opposed the idea of maintaining a rapport with military leaders.
It is noteworthy that PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif has been consistently criticising both the civilian and military leadership. At a press conference on May 11, he held the president, the prime minister and the army high command responsible for their 'timid response' to recent American actions and statements.
Lieutenant General Talat Masood, a retired military officer who writes on geo-political issues, said: "I think he [Nawaz Sharif] believes the only way forward is to put the army under the control of democratic dispensation."
Speaking in Karachi on Tuesday, Sharif demanded that the government present both the defence and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)-related expenditures in parliament for open discussion and approval. (ANI)
