WHEN terrible events or a devastating episode occurs, there is a tendency here to regard them as utterly unexpected. But, more often than not, the warning signs have been there all along — ignored at our own peril. The New York Times has reported that the US government believes that several Al Qaeda veterans have left the Pak-Afghan border area to go and join the rebels fighting the Assad regime in Syria. In and of itself, the claim is not new or surprising, though many of the details are. One of those details in particular ought to alarm policymakers here, not least because the NYT has referred to it in a matter-of-fact manner. The phrase in question: “Al Qaeda’s senior leadership in Pakistan, including Ayman al-Zawahiri”. Once upon a time, Pakistan used to scoff at and dismiss US claims that Osama bin Laden was hiding inside Pakistan. Then, to Pakistan’s lasting humiliation, bin Laden was indeed found to have been living comfortably inside this country for many years.

The problem is, no lessons appear to have been learned from that debacle. If al-Zawahiri is in Pakistan, what are the authorities here doing to help track him down before the Americans do? For who can, in the wake of the OBL raid, believe that the Americans would hesitate to launch another unilateral raid to take out al-Zawahiri if they track down his exact location and are unsure of whether he is being given protection by elements within the state or not? And what of the aftermath of such an incident? The benefit of doubt seemingly given to Pakistan in 2011 may not be so easily extended in 2014 with the drawdown of foreign forces in Afghanistan a certainty. Inside Pakistan too the rising tide of anti-Americanism may be harder to contain, given the space ceded to militancy of all stripes over the last year in particular. Al Qaeda never has been an ally or friend or even a tolerated non-state actor of Pakistan. It is in Pakistan’s own interest to eliminate the group, especially its leadership, from Pakistani soil. Incompetence or complicity, as was suspected after the OBL episode, is simply not an option anymore — at least if Pakistan wants to be considered a responsible state internationally.