The BBC reports that Pakistan is trying a new strategy to catch militants associated with Al-Qaeda. They’re using a classic technique from spy movies, so hoary it’s almost a staple Bollywood plot: 
The game plan involves letting loose dozens of suspects known to have been affiliated with or at least sympathetic to al-Qaeda, in the hope that they would eventually lead the authorities to some top wanted figures in the terrorist organisation.Top security experts admit that it is a dangerous game but argue that a similar approach in the past has reaped rich dividends. Security experts say former Guantanamo detainees – released by the Pakistan authorities on being returned – unwittingly led security agencies to many previously unknown hideouts used by local and foreign militants… Pakistani authorities have now clearly decided to extend this strategy on a scale that some feel could lead to unexpected results. [BBC]
The Pakistani government claims that this strategy has led to important arrests in Waziristan, Balochistan and Karachi.
I have no idea whether to believe the Pakistani government, because they have plenty of other incentives to want this strategy. From a political standpoint, this is convenient. The Pakistanis obtain the domestic benefits of getting their citizens out of gitmo without the headaches of locking them up in Pakistan:
In immediate terms, the strategy means easing some of the restrictions imposed earlier on top Pakistani militants. The visible part of the plan unfolding in recent weeks came in the shape of the release of about 150 Pakistanis who had returned from Guantanamo Bay. After extensive debriefing lasting between nine to 10 months, most of these men were allowed to go free. [BBC]
More importantly, it also gives the Pakistani government an excuse for not cracking down harder on certain extremist groups at home. They can say that it is all part of their grand strategy.
Some security analysts in Pakistan have been critical of the government’s seemingly soft stance in relation to Harkat and Jaish – wondering why they have not been dealt with as severely as some of the other groups. [BBC]
We’re leaving these groups intact, not for any political benefit, but so we can catch Osama. Really. That upsurge of violence in Afghanistan? The attempt on the life of the US Ambassador there? It’s all part of our grand plan …
With apologies to Adam West:
Robin: Batman, I don’t understand why you just released that evil henchman. He was trying to blow up all of Gotham City! How could you just let him go?
Batman: I put a bat-tracer on him, Robin. The bat-computer in the bat-cave will track him to the Joker’s lair, and the batmobile will take us there.
Robin: Holy Hayseed, Batman! Are criminals really so stupid? Will they really fall for it?
Batman: Every time. If they weren’t dumb, they’d make their money as law abiding citizens.
Robin: Ah. I see. So that’s why we keep releasing the bad guys we catch, so that we can gather intel and destroy all the crime in Gotham, root and branch.
Batman: Ummm … no. If we caught all the bad guys, there would be nothing left for us to do. I’d have to go back to being “billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne” and the US government wouldn’t buy me these neat toys any more.
Robin: Holy Bollywood Batman! You really are nuts!
Batman: Crazy as a fox, Robin. Crazy as a fox.
And, according to the commercials, how a lot of insecticides work.
if everyone knows this, then it will stop working.
You’re right Vivek. We should cut off their Netflix subscription and make sure that they can’t read any comic books either.
Whether it’s effective or not, it’s convenient for the Pakistani government (GoP) to claim this is their strategy, no?
Ah, truly Rumsfeldian in logic. If the terrorists are in jail, then the terrorists have already won.
What’s that? People released from Gitmo making contact with terrorists?
I thought they were just simple yeoman farmers stolen from their beds in the middle of night by jackbooted American special forces so that could torture them with Playboy centerfolds and skanky pop rock?
Maison,
Perhaps the chicken l’orange was poisoned with Terrorist-B-Gone?
Irene:
Again, you have to take the Pakistani government’s word for it. They tell us that some of the detainees led them to bigger fish and hideouts. They don’t tell us how many did, and how many did not.
I do have a bad feeling that we’re being taken for a ride by Pakistan — we just need X more fighter jets and Y more night-vision goggles and we’ll catch Bin Laden for you. We almost got him, but we didn’t have enough of this or that crap. Just give us some more hardware..
Agreeed, this is stupid. Sure it may work for pests and bugs but these people are a bit smarter. Maybe the Pakistanes should quit taking tips from ‘Bug-B-gone.’ It’s not like these terriost don’t know how to talk on cell-phones or send emails, those would work just as effectivily for organizing and setting things up, even bombs, set a bomb make a call boom it blows up, and who would be the wiser, surely not the pakistanies, especailly if they think that this redunant policy will work. Much like the salem’s lot logic during the witch trails “If they admit to being witches then they live, if they say they aren’t witches then they die” Huh?
Maybe by this logic they will conclude that by giving all of the terriost they are letting go weapons and supplies, maybe, the terriost will lead them back t their caves and that they wont use the weapons . Maybe if the govermnet trians the convicted terriost the terriost will forget thier training and lead them to thier caves. Oh wait… Thats just what we did with the Taliban… Damn there goes that idea…
What can be concluded from such stupid ideas? Nothing more than this is little more than a plan to appease the terriost, maybe not get blwon up so much, or maybe the paki’s are terriost, i dont know but it’s retarded non the less.