SPY EYES

After former TTP commander Fazal Saeed Haqqani said he disagreed with attacks on Pakistani security forces and civilians, and parted ways with the terrorist organization, the Pakistan Armed Forces said on Monday that a coordinated air and ground offensive in the Kurram region – on the Afghan border with Nangarhar, Khost and Paktiya – has been launched. While the TTP itself suffers defections every now and then, this is apparently the first time that the Pakistan Army has capitalized on such an act – when Qari Zainuddin Mehsud rebelled against then-leader Baitullah Mehsud, he was killed by a suicide bomb within three months of openly declaring his opposition to Baitullah and the TTP. The Kurram operation would constitute Pakistan’s first major military maneuver since the May 2 killing of Osama bin Laden – by what many see as a violation of international law, and a deliberate attempt to malign Pakistan in the process. Despite psychological setbacks and what pundits call “threats” and “disdain” from the ISI to journalists like Najam Sethi, Hamid Mir and Ejaz Haider – a charge “eloquently” laid out by TIME Magazine’s Omar Waraich – as a prelude to another Saleem-Shahzad-like incident, Pakistan’s security forces have decided to not seriously attend to the propaganda war being conducted against the nation-state and its armed forces – instead, they will redouble their efforts and focus on enhancing existing security parameters in the FATA tribal areas and its adjoining settled districts.

Major General Athar Abbas, Director-General of the ISPR, gave a few details of the operation in Kurram that commenced on July 3rd – a tribal region that, according to foreign media sources, had become “increasingly used” as a refuge for al Qaeda-linked militants. It is reported that the Afghan Taliban faction, and more importantly the Haqqani network, had been involved in securing a peace deal for Kurram last year between militants and local Shi’ite tribesmen; that deal fell apart as locals complained of growing attacks and isolation from the rest of the country, as Shi’ite Hazaras continued to be targeted along with security personnel. With army convoys traveling between Parachinar and the provincial capital, Peshawar, even coming under attack, local people had been forced to travel in and out via Afghanistan.

The Pakistan Army has been battling militants in the Mohmand agency for the past three months as well; 58 soldiers were martyred and 300 were wounded, while Corps Commander of Peshawar, Lt Gen Asif Yasin Malik, stated that 200 militants were killed during this period as the military took them on in their strongholds in the Safi and Baizai tehsils close to the Afghan border. With the incursion in Kurram, the Pakistani military appears to have lived up to its claim of having cleared seven tehsils, or sub-divisions, of the militants. Ground reports suggest that while the Army and FC have obtained full control, fighting was continuing for the possession of the Safi tehsil. The tribesmen of Mohmand agency have been complaining that the civil and military authorities have been forcing them to raise lashkars, or voluntary armed groups, to fight the militants and defend their own villages. There is no real peace and stability, and the Army seems to have decided not to use privatized security forces, even lashkars (tribal militias), to institute peace and enforce writ of the state. However, it would be feasible to study whether these lashkar members can be recruited into paramilitary forces and levies forces that should be raised anew, in order to complement the existing deployment in the area. These troops can be dedicated to one agency, and be permanently stationed there. Their operating procedures and rules of engagement can be prescribed by the cultures and traditions of the tribes, however formalized. The Mohmand militants, led by Abdul Wali, commonly known as Omar Khalid, still occupy certain places close to the Pakistani-Afghan border and are able to easily cross into Afghanistan whenever under pressure from the Pakistani security forces. They are also capable of striking back as they did by carrying out deadly suicide bombings twice in Mohmand Agency at Ekkaghund and Ghallanai and once at the Frontier Constabulary Training Centre at Shabqadar in neighbouring Charsadda district. More than 200 FC soldiers, government officials and anti-militants tribesmen were killed in these attacks and several hundred were injured. In fact, the Mohmand Agency militants have been able to track down pro-government tribesmen in Peshawar, Rawalpindi and even Karachi to attack and kill them. Hence, it is not only important to uproot the Abdul Wali network – it is also necessary to continuously keep it outside Pakistan, and keep both tribesmen and settlers safe.

In his April 2011 bi-annual report on Afghanistan, President Barack Obama highlighted the ineffectiveness of Pakistan’s military in FATA. The report stated that the 147,000 Pakistani troops involved have been unsuccessful fighting the tribal belt militants and that the Pakistani government needs to commit more resources to FATA. However, still reeling from devastating floods last year – which only added to the numbers of IDPs caused by military operations – Pakistan’s Army is over-stretched and under-resourced. A significant number of families from the conflict area are still displaced, living in makeshift camps in Mohmand Agency and in Peshawar, Rawalpindi and elsewhere, longing to return to their homes. And, in addition to all of this, Pakistan is being blamed by many (including Brad L. Brasseur of the Foreign Policy Journal) for not focusing on terrorism as the principal and existential threat. Around 4,000 families have already been uprooted in Kurram Agency, adding to the number of internally displaced persons from South Waziristan, Mohmand, Bajaur and other places waiting to be compensated and rehabilitated. Over the past few years, the military cleared some tribal agencies of militants in FATA only to lose the territory shortly after, due to the lack of troop strength. A fraction of the militants were killed, wounded or captured; the rest retreated, or melted away into the countryside and/or populace. An even smaller fraction surrendered themselves and absolved themselves of the twisted ideology as well as illegal actions the TTP militias engage in. Still, many blame continuing militancy on Pakistan’s troop deployment at the eastern border with India, but the fact of the matter is that an increasingly polarized society has exacerbated the troubles that have been nurtured over decades; these ‘troubles’ include poverty, illiteracy, extremism, militancy, deprivation, intolerance, bigotry, marginalization, and many others. Pakistan has been shaken to its core by terrorists, who plot and plan dastardly attacks that cause panic and massive embarassment, along with militants, whose actions amount to eliminating the writ of the state and establishing parallel state structures that are arcane, unjust, immoral, and ironically, un-Islamic as well.

The enormousness of the task of tackling the militancy can be judged from the three major cross-border attacks launched since April 2011 by the Pakistani Taliban, based in Afghanistan, in the Lower Dir and Upper Dir districts and Bajaur Agency with support from some Afghan militants. The lack of government control – or tacit/clandestine support – in the border areas across the Durand Line in Afghanistan enables the militants to set up bases and operate with impunity in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistani security forces had to retaliate against the retreating militants as they (militants) inflicted significant human losses in the attacks on border posts in Dir manned in most cases by ill-equipped and poorly-trained Levies and police personnel and some of the artillery shells and rockets fired by them landed in border villages in Afghanistan’s Kunar and Nangarhar provinces, killing and injuring civilians and causing material damage. In a spectacular attack on villages and checkposts in Pakistan, hundreds of militants wore Afghan security uniforms as they attacked civilians and security forces – they were halted and repulsed by army troops backed by FC forces.

In June 2011, the Pakistani military claimed that Orakzai Agency was clear of extremist militants after hundreds were killed. However, it appears that the recent assaults on Mohmand and Kurram will not be the only ones – further operations will also be launched, as the Pakistan Armed Forces has decided to take the fight back to the militants, and to show the world that Pakistan is willing to fight them as much as they can with the resources at their disposal. Terrorists continue to target and attack Pakistani cities, and personnel of both armed forces and police, along with the civilians who have become critically insecure since 2007. Analyst Imtiaz Gul shares the perception that the Armed Forces have decided “it’s about time to do something”.

As far as Kurram is concerned, it is strategically important for Pakistan, the militants and also the United States. It borders three important Afghan provinces, and is also next to the volatile North Waziristan agency, where the US has been pressuring Pakistan to launch a military operation and eliminate Taliban sanctuaries. Parachinar, the main city in Kurram, is just over the mountains from Tora Bora, Afghanistan, which U.S. and Afghan forces assaulted after the September 11, 2001, attacks in pursuit of bin Laden. The isolation of Parachinar had been attracting increasing media attention in recent weeks and local tribesmen had staged several demonstrations last month in front of parliament in Islamabad.

Washington had in particular pressed Pakistan to target the Haqqani network, which has deployed a formidable fighting force in eastern Afghanistan – with an assault in Kurram under way, this demand must be kept in mind. However, Pakistan has made a firm commitment to pursue national interest first and foremost; the Pakistan Army had said it would give priority to targeting militants killing its own people, because that is the primary responsibility of Pakistan in the War on Terror. Pakistan continues to man checkposts along the Afghan border, but free inflow of militants from Afghanistan is witnessed (and now checked at the territorial limits of the Durand Line). This is in addition to recent upsurge in the military exchange between Pakistan and Afghanistan: cross-border raids in Pakistani territory and retaliatory strikes by Pakistan’s security forces have caused tension on the border and inflamed passions, particularly in Afghanistan, where members of parliament, government officials and sections of the media have tried to exploit the situation to whip up anti-Pakistan sentiment. A protest rally staged in Kabul against Pakistan was peaceful, but it reminded one of the violent attacks on the Pakistani embassy in the past. An Afghan general, Aminullah Amarkhel, commanding the border troops in eastern Afghanistan, resigned while protesting the inaction of the Afghan government and the NATO forces in the face of cross-border shelling and rocketing by the Pakistani military. And in a tit-for-tat response, mortar shells fired by Afghan forces are now landing in Pakistani territory and causing harm to civilians. Despite working together, Afghanistan and Pakistan are now actively working against each other, and thereby benefitting the militants.

For this reason, Pakistan has strategically focused on an orientation whereby internal security is given more precedence than immediate regional security – the US and Afghan governments are keen to engage the “Taliban” in talks, and are also keen on keeping Pakistan out of a settlement (abandoning it like the yesteryears, and using the Abbottabad raid as justification). Therefore, it is in Pakistan’s best interest to deploy all possible resources – both in land forces and air forces – to push militants out of its sovereign territory. While the West blames Pakistan for differentiating between “good” and “bad” Taliban, it has become obvious that the US and the Karzai government are talking to a select and amenable coterie of Taliban commanders, who may not have been sanctioned by their Amir, Mullah Omar (hence the quotation marks). This essentially drives a wedge between Taliban elements, and may be more significant than the apparent characterizations drawn by Pakistani defense analysts between the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban (both on the basis of where they operate, and not on the basis of where they ‘belong’ or where they came from). However, if terror attacks in Pakistan increase, and the US and the Karzai government keep on talking to the “Taliban”, then the narrative of the TTP being an element propped up and supported by the US, or Afghanistan (or even India or Blackwater/Xe) will gather steam in Pakistan. Such a situation may bring public opinion to the level as being seen in Kabul – and may pit both countries against each other in a military context. By focusing on the Pakistani Taliban – i.e. any and every militant who operates in Pakistan to destroy peace and the writ of the state – the Pakistani security forces aim to create more space for negotiating a peaceful settlement to the Afghan conflict – because these militants conduct attacks in Afghanistan as well, despite the fact that many of these militants would be solely deployed against the Pakistani state and security forces.

Pakistan must reorient itself for a peace settlement among the Afghan people, and the political mainstream as the United States and Hamid Karzai want to shape it. If all Afghans – including the 3 million refugees whose numbers have only increased since 2001 – are taken on board in a broad political consensus, a non-violent and democratic outcome may be witnessed in 2014 and confirmed in 2015 if it can effectively make Afghan secure and at peace with all its neighbors. Such a peace settlement would not only look at Pakistan’s interests, but would also be more attuned to regional security by effectively taking the Pakhtun population of Afghanistan on board. This must also create conditions which will restrict militant movements in FATA – though this remains the prerogative and sole jurisdiction of the Pakistan Armed Forces, whether such operations can be launched in settled areas is a moot question. It is still important to prioritize internal security as a strategic interest, when compared with security in neighboring countries, as well as propaganda tactics and fourth-generation warfare (or claims thereof). It is also expected that if the militants are flushed out of FATA, they may also seek “refuge” in Balochistan – where a simmering insurgency may cause untold havoc if presented with a military operation that targets one phenomenon but is faced by many more. The lessons of 1971 become more and more evident with the daily downslide in the Balochistan situation. This is how increasingly worrying the military tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan are, and this offers a grim picture of how they may play out in terms of the Afghan “endgame”. Pakistan must take cognizance of these developments at the highest levels of national security discourse and policymaking.

A stable security environment in the western part of Pakistan will allow it to rebuild its economy and devastated infrastructure, while focusing economic and political benefits into Balochistan to lessen their deprivation and marginalization. This will promote peace not only in Pakistan, but also in Iran and Afghanistan as well. The long conflict facing Pakistan has created problems that will take years to resolve. But this is perhaps the process of making a new Pakistan, where security is guaranteed not only by the elimination of militancy, but also by greater trust between diverse and multi-characteristic people, by emphasizing the importance of peace and tolerance, and by enhancing both the effectiveness and the capacity of state institutions. Afghanistan must also make strategic decisions, and do so wisely, because its current trajectory seems to put it on a collision with Pakistan, and if this acquires the proportions of a wide conflict, not only will the Taliban acquire more room to breathe and operate, but regional powers like the US, China and India will also be brought in, along with Iran. This is because Afghanistan will not be able to bring peace if it talks to some Afghan Taliban and not all Afghan Taliban – despite the American “promise” to keep some troops and bases beyond 2014, peace with the Taliban is not possible without Mullah Omar, who has said that no talks will take place while foreign troops are in Afghanistan. While Pakistan cannot decide for the sovereign nation of Afghanistan – and also cannot abandon the region like the US and their NATO allies will do in 2014 – Pakistan can do as much as it should to insulate itself from the worst possible scenario(s).