Adnan Qaiser |
National interests of states are often blind-and brutal, yet they call for some rationality considering our interlinked global destinies in the 21st century. Pakistan is often blamed for talking one policy on jihadists while walking another. However, inheriting a weak military at the time of subcontinent’s partition in 1947 and having remained a ‘national security state’ – facing existential threats from its archrival India – Pakistan had been obliged to patronize ultra-religious and right-wing conservative forces as an extension of its defence and foreign policies, a fact acknowledged by Pakistan’s former president, General Pervez Musharraf.
This is another thing that in the run Pakistan disregarded the very principle of spy-craft – that of devising elimination plan of an ‘asset’ concurrent to its creation; consequently allowing these jihadist groups to turn into Frankenstein’s monster, targeting their own creator and becoming an international embarrassment as well as a millstone around the nation’s neck.
Pakistan’s Good and Bad Taliban’s Dilemma
Despite proxy wars remaining in vogue (in the Middle East, Ukraine, and Georgia, for instance), the present international climate is forced to broadly approve non-state-actors. However, Pakistan finds itself in a quandary: having an array of jihadist networks on its soil, on one hand Pakistan feels bound to provide state-protection to the so-called ‘good-Taliban’ owing to regional and geopolitical compulsions; while on the other side the religious militancy’s immense destabilizing power has rendered the state powerless (A recent demonstration of government’s helplessness comes from a 10-day long sit-in by a religious group, when despite a high court’s order, it failed to get the capital Islamabad cleared by the threatening protesters).
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Pakistan’s Religious Militancy’s Landscape
In his book, A to Z of Jehadi Organizations in Pakistan, Muhammad Amir Rana documents that by 2011 Pakistan had no less than 24 religious political parties, 82 sectarian organizations, 104 jihadist outfits and 26 tableeghi (Islamic missionary) groups making a total of some 237 religious militant organizations. This is over and above some 63 jihadist factions in Azad Kashmir struggling for (disputed) Kashmir’s liberation from India. Finally, at least six major welfare institutions operate in the country, not only promoting Islamic cause but also providing financial assistance to the mujahideen in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Arkan, Burma, and Philippines.
Pakistan’s terror landscape can be divided into four broad categories:
1) Transnational terrorist organizations (like Al-Qaeda and Daesh)
2) Regional and domestic terror-groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan borderlands (such as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Ansar-ul-Sharia, Jamaat-ul-Ahraar, and Lashkar-e-Khorasan)
3) Afghan (Pashtun) Taliban and Kashmiri mujahedeen (which Pakistan considers as legitimate freedom fighters); not only that Pakistan carries a sizeable Pashtun population, it provides home to one-third of Kashmiri people on its soil too. Kashmiri jihadists – also known as Punjabi Taliban – include groups like Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Tayaba and Jaish-e-Muhammad and are favorably viewed; and
4) Sectarian militant bands (such as Sipah-e-Sahaba, Sipah-e-Muhammad, Lashkar-e-Jhangavi-al-Almi, Jundullah, and Jaish-ul-Adl)
Historical Missteps: Force Multiplier or a National Millstone
Historically, the jihadists – or mujahideen – have operated as a second line of defence and force multiplier during:
1) the Kashmir War of 1948;
2) the India-Pakistan Wars of 1965 and 1971;
3) the Afghan jihad of the 1980s against former Soviet Union;
4) the Kashmir Intifada during the 1990s, and;
5) in Kargil conflict in 1999 between India and Pakistan.
According to some accounts, the brutal killings of Bengali nationalists and intelligentsia by Jamaat-e-Islami’s ‘Al-Badr’ and ‘Al-Shams’ militant wings during riots and civil war in East Pakistan – before the break-up of the country and emergence of Bangladesh in December 1971 – was sanctioned by the army.
Pakistan’s former president, General Zia-ul-Haq, who believed himself as a champion of the Islamic cause, further created violent sectarian armed groups at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries to counter the Shiite rising after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, sanctioning sectarian-killings in Pakistan. In his book Punjabi Taliban: Driving Extremism in Pakistan, Mujahid Hussain narrates about the “decade of the 80s,” when “the religious outfits of the country wielded immense power and an elevated status in the society due to army’s inclination toward the process of religious purification.”
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A Half-hearted About Face
However, an about-turn on jihadists, under international pressure, between January 2002 and November 2005 and Pakistan’s internal vulnerabilities on war-on-terror in tribal areas led to the creation of Pakistan’s bête noire (in December 2007): the TTP. Joined by the (abandoned) Kashmiri militants (Punjabi Taliban), the vicious TTP and its affiliate terror-groups have since spread carnage and mayhem on the streets of Pakistan through bombings and suicide attacks. In the 15-year period between 2002 and 2017, some 62,096 innocent Pakistanis have been killed due to terrorism. An additional 5,303 people lost their lives on account of sectarian killings from 1989 to 2017.
State’s Two Minds on Religious Militancy
Pakistan, however, stays of two minds about getting rid of jihadists.
First, despite having suffered a heavy toll, the army granted amnesty to the Punjabi Taliban through a peace-deal in January 2015. Meanwhile, the TTP consolidated its ranks by joining the leftover elements of al-Qaeda and Daesh in the region. In my 2015 analysis, Snake Charming the Taliban, I had concluded that Pakistani society is divided when it comes to extremism. Since the state itself treats the “good and bad Taliban” differently, a substantial majority – suffering from Stockholm Syndrome – calls them ‘estranged sons’ due to Pakistan’s participation in an ‘American war-on-terror.’
Secondly, the military and the civilian government don’t see eye-to-eye on the issue of extremism and terrorism. Despite the Pakistani army launching a number of military operations in the tribal areas, not a single word of encouragement comes from the civilian leadership about troops getting martyred at the frontlines. Reason: The politicians do not want to antagonize the right-wing ultra-religious elements out of fear as well as disturbing their vote-bank. Seeing threat to their political capital – and financial corruption – the politicians have further put restrictions on the Rangers Operations in the provinces of Sindh and Punjab, which drag-on aimlessly bringing a bad name to the army.
A major confrontation between the army and the civilians erupted when an inside account of a top-secret meeting at the prime minister’s office was leaked to a national newspaper. The leak showed the political leadership ‘castigating’ the head of Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – and in turn the military – for supporting and protecting the jihadists from being taken to task – a longstanding international demand. The ensuing media furore – with the army calling it a “breach of national security” – led to a (cosmetic) inquiry ordered by the interior minister, whose findings were publically snubbed by the military, as “rejected.” As the fracas came to head, threatening Pakistan’s fragile democracy, the army chief decided to retreat, bringing a lot of embarrassment to the military institution. The cracks, nonetheless, keep dogging the civil-military relations.
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Third, the economic hardships, income disparities and social injustice have produced highly literate but unemployed youth, carrying no faith in an elitist and corrupt democracy or the outdated Colonial judicial system, as came out in a 2013 British Council survey. Society’s marginalization and radicalization have not only increased the crime-rate – some 3.17 million criminal cases reported between 2008 and 2013 – but also made the youth find salvation in either martial law or Sharia-based governance. A PEW survey in 2013 had further found 84 percent of Pakistani population favoring Sharia in the country.
Since Daesh’s franchises have developed stronger roots and greater appeal among Pakistan’s disenchanted youth, extremism has risen to an alarming level; so much so, that the army chief had to recently huddle all the vice-chancellors of universities to lecture them on the gravity of the situation. As I had found in another 2015 paper: Jihadistan: Pakistan’s Path towards Extremism and Extermination, hyper-extremism took over as society’s new-normal and accepted behavior.
Fourth, Pakistan’s ‘power of pulpit’ remains a major hindrance towards harnessing jihadist culture. Pakistan’s first president, Ayub Khan, had notably observed: “Pakistan was not achieved to create a priest-ridden culture but it was created to evolve an enlightened society.” However, the religious militancy’s synthesis with religious economy granted the Mullah-mafia a predominant role in the society. Small wonder uncountable and unregistered Madrassas (religious seminaries) keep mushrooming – churning out highly radicalized youth indoctrinated in the fervor of jihad.
The state had been criminally negligent towards religious militancy’s strong entrenchment in Pakistani society when the former president, General Pervez Musharraf allegedly rigged the elections of 2002 and brought into power a consortium of religious political parties and sectarian groups called Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) in the provinces of NWFP (now KPK) and Baluchistan. MMA – often referred to as Mullah-Military Alliance – adopted several controversial Islamist policies, including a Taliban inspired ‘Hasba bill,’ that not only distorted the complexion and ethos of the society but also confused an ordinary Pakistani through religious blackmail.
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Finally, the state is reluctant to take any action against the Afghan Taliban having sanctuaries in Pakistan – a fact admitted by Pakistan’s former foreign adviser, Sartaj Aziz – considering them an ‘asset’ in any future political dispensation in Kabul. The same approach applies to the Kashmiri mujahedeen, who remain useful until the final resolution of the Kashmir conflict with India.
Thus, by simply placing Hafiz Saeed – a UN proscribed head of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (Jamaat ud Daawa) – under house-arrest and protesting against the blacklisting of Hizbul Mujahedeen as a terrorist group (by the US) explains Pakistan’s logic. Pakistan is, however, justified that neither India nor the US could yet provide any incriminating evidence – provable in the court of law – against Hafiz Saeed for his alleged role in the Mumbai attacks of November 2008. Notably, the US$10 million bounty placed on Mr. Saeed by the US on 3 April 2012 calls for “providing information that could lead to his conviction” – and is not based on any solid evidence.
As for the sectarian groups, Pakistan is too fearful of their retribution – considering to mainstreaming the outfits into politics – kicking up a controversial public debate already. Thus despite proscribing some 212 militant organizations, the grant of amnesty to the Punjabi Taliban and allowing the Kashmiri and sectarian groups to operate freely in the country – under changed names – comes from state weakness and mislaid policies.
A Napping National Action Plan (NAP)
The government’s priority – or lack thereof – towards countering extremism gets amply displayed in its inaction on 2014’s devised National Action Plan (NAP). While the government had instantly demonstrated its debility when it had dropped three critical elements of the 20-point NAP right at the outset, including action against banned organizations, reform of madrassas and the repatriation of Afghan refugees; progress on other 17 pledges – such as launching a counter-narrative against extremism, action against armed militias and sectarian violence, control of hate speech and literature, anti-cyber-terrorism, prohibition of foreign terrorist funding, revamping of criminal justice system, tribal areas reforms, controlling minorities persecution, and deployment of a dedicated counterterrorism force – remain a far cry.
International Concerns
Since 2016, at least a dozen articles have been published on Pakistani jihadists and their alleged links with the ISI, demonstrating global unease about non-state actors. Demanding Pakistan to change its “paradoxical” policy of supporting the militants, President Trump has further warned Pakistan: “We can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe havens for terrorist organizations, the Taliban, and other groups that pose a threat to the region and beyond.”
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National Interest: Pakistan’s Justification
Pakistan, however, finds its jihadist policy justified under India’s continued belligerence. India’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval keeps advocating a “defensive-offense” strategy toward Pakistan and former Indian defence minister, Manohar Parrikar, has vowed to use proxies against the country.
Furthermore, the authors in their book Not War, Not Peace: Motivating Pakistan to Prevent Cross-Border Terrorism, posit five choices to India to counter Pakistani jihadists:
1) Conduct army-centric incursions such as Cold Start or proactive operations;
2) Carry-out limited airstrikes against designated targets;
3) Foment insurgency and disorder in Pakistan;
4) Innovate nuclear doctrine to complement precision-strike capability; and
5) Adopt a non-violent compellence strategy.
The question is: can coercion bring a change in Pakistan’s behavior? Not until Pakistan’s external threats are adequately addressed and its territorial disputes are amicably resolved. While international community must sympathetically help Pakistan to deal with the monsters of its short-sighted policies; Pakistan must tackle its internal inconsistencies first and strive for stemming its extremism and religious radicalization on urgent basis.
Caught between the devil and deep blue sea, the worst choice Pakistan can make is not to make any choice.
Adnan Qaiser is a Research Associate at Conference of Defence Associations Institute, Canada, with a distinguished career in the armed forces and international diplomacy. He can be reached at: a.qaiser1@yahoo.com. A similar version of this paper has been published by the CDA Institute. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Global Village Space’s editorial policy.