In the tribal agencies of Pakistan, they regrouped, embraced the foreign Mujahidin already settled there, resorted to local recruitments, revived their links with the Islamists from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang, Chechnya and Dagestan to organize a resistance force. The Musharraf regime in his partnership with NATO was bound to help the USA capture Al-Qaeda activists. As put it by General Musharraf himself in his autobiography, hundreds of Al-Qaeda activists were pursued, apprehended from towns and cities deep in the country and handed over to the USA. Later, the erstwhile Director CIA, George Tenet in his autobiography ‘At the Center of Storm’ confirmed that senior Al-Qaeda leaders who included Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, Abu Faraj Al-Libi, and Hamza Rabi, Abu Zubaydah, and Al-Shibh were picked up from different cities in Pakistan. Only Hamza Rabi was killed during the encounter. The remaining Al Qaeda leaders were captured alive. The Al-Qaeda came to look upon General Musharraf as the ally of the biggest enemy of the Muslims, the USA and liable to physical elimination. General Zia’s earlier policy of enforcing the Islamic code of conduct in the institutions of the country had already transformed some cadres of the armed forces into Islamists having empathy for the cause of Al-Qaeda. Some of the Islamists political parties were clearly sympathetic to the Al-Qaeda cause. We may recall the Al-Qaeda leader, Shaikh Khalid Mohammad was picked up from the house of a known Jamaat member. The former Amir of Jamaat Islami had declared the death of Hakimullah Mahsud, the successor of Baitullah Mahsud, in a drone attack as shahadat (martyrdom) in 2013. The successive attacks on the life of General Musharraf and of his Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, and the subsequent invasion of the GHQ in which certain former ranks of the Air Force were involved demonstrated the penetration of Al-Qaeda in our institutions. Under pressure from the USA, the Army conducted its first operation, Rah-e-Nijat, against the Taliban and their affiliates in North Waziristan in 2004 by deploying 70,000 troops. There was no breakthrough. The security forces were compelled to sign a pact with them. The pact did not work. In the meantime, inspired by the Afghan Taliban and the foreign militants, a new force of Tehrik-e-Taliban of Pakistan was formed with Mahsuds from North Waziristan in command and the followers of Sufi Mohammad and battle hardened Chechens, Uzbeks and Uigurs as its hardcore fighters. This force spread its tentacles to the Malakand and Swat divisions where Mullah Fazalullah aka Mullah Radio was openly running camps for recruitment and training of Mujahidin for Jihad in Kashmir. Our security forces resorted to the policy of divide-and-rule by supporting and launching favorite militant groups against unruly groups. We saw the birth of Mangal Bagh group, Khalid Khurasani group, Punjabi Taliban group and Ahrar-ul-Islam group. Finally, all these groups turned against the state of Pakistan killing and maiming innocent civilians and members of our security forces. The USA attack on Iraq gave fillip to the crusading spirit of the militants against the so-called perpetrators of crime against the Muslim lands and their allies from the Muslim world The USA attack on Iraq gave fillip to the crusading spirit of the militants against the so-called perpetrators of crime against the Muslim lands and their allies from the Muslim world. In their view Musharraf was now the biggest protector of the USA interests in this region. Therefore, the terrorist attacks on civilian and security targets reached a crescendo from 2003 to 2013. Over 50,000 civilians and over 2000 security personnel perished in these attacks. The strength of the militants against the state was further galvanized by the Jihadi groups fighting for the liberation of Jammu and Kashmir. There was a good number of these groups based in the occupied Kashmir as well as in Pakistan such as Hizb ul Mujahidin, an affiliate of the Jamaat Islami, Jammu and Kashmir, Harkat ul Jihad Al Islami, Harkat ul Mujahidin, Harkat ul Ansar under Masood Azhar and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba commanded by Hafiz Saeed Ahmed. According to Riaz Muhammad Khan, the former Foreign Secretary and author of ‘Afghanistan and Pakistan barring the Harkat ul Jihad Al Islami, all the other groups were created in 1990-1991. They were all based in Pakistan. These groups were created to help the indigenous uprising in the Jammu and Kashmir, triggered by the rigged elections in 1989 and the subsequent murder of the prominent Kashmiri leader, Moulvi Mohammad Farooq Waiz. India had deployed over half a million troops to subdue the uprising. By encouraging and supporting the above Mujahidin groups, the security forces had the twin purpose of getting the Indian forces bogged down in the valley and raising the intensity of the uprising to attract the world attention to the plight of the Kashmiris. We could not achieve the desired results. The launch of the Mujahidin from our soil divested our position on the Kashmir dispute of the high moral ground which had hitherto been the bedrock of our policy. In the absence of regimental discipline and strong command, some of the Mujahidin groups indulged in blatant terrorist acts. For instance, Al Faran kidnapped a group of foreign tourists from the valley and later beheaded one of them to the horror of the world community. After the hijacking of the Indian passenger plane in 1999 and the militant attacks on the Indian Parliament in December 2001, the tension between the two nuclear states rose to alarming proportions. The two armies were virtually facing each other eyeball to eyeball with the spectre of immediate war looming large which prompted the world leaders to intercede to defuse the tension. General Musharraf came under intense international pressure to act against the militants groups involved in the attack on the Indian Parliament. In January 2002, General Musharraf went ahead to ban most of these groups including the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. While the Mujahidin attached to these groups went underground, Moulvi Masood Azhar and Hafiz Saeed revived their organizations as Jaish-e-Muhammad and Jamaat u Dawa. (To be concluded) The author was a member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan and he has authored two books