SPY EYES

Pakistan has been simultaneously grappling with a complex political transition and a domestic Taliban insurgency for many years. Now, Islamabad is under pressure to weaken its Taliban insurgency before NATO withdraws from Afghanistan since U.S.-Afghan Taliban talks are not going well and the Afghan Taliban could emerge in a position of power in 2014. A dominant Taliban in Afghanistan would represent a nightmare scenario for Islamabad because it could embolden the Pakistani Taliban and thwart Pakistan’s desires to take control of its northern territories.

Analysis

In the latest violence in Pakistan’s tribal belt along the Afghan border, up to 25 Pakistani soldiers and some 125 militants have been killed in a new counterjihadist offensive. Pakistani ground and air forces for the past week have sought to dislodge Taliban fighters from key heights in the Tirah Valley in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, one of the seven districts that make up the country’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. This represents the biggest offensive in the region over the past two years against fighters from Pakistan’s main Taliban rebel grouping, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, and their allies from Laskhar-e-Islam, a local Taliban grouping.

Islamabad launched a major counterjihadist offensive nearly four years ago to try to regain control of its northwest, a region that since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan increasingly has fallen under the control of Pakistani Taliban rebels aligned with al Qaeda. The Pakistani armed forces have struggled to hold these areas long enough to build up civilian governance and pursue development projects to integrate its northwestern Pashtun periphery into the core. Civilian governance, however, has a long way to go before it can establish itself in the core of the country, and thus it is unlikely that peripheral areas affected by the Taliban insurgency will fall under Islamabad’s writ anytime soon.

Pakistani Interests in Afghanistan

Pakistan has hoped a negotiated settlement between the United States and the Afghan Taliban ending the insurgency in Afghanistan would eventually help Islamabad deal with militants on Pakistani side of the border. But with just a little more than a year until the NATO drawdown concludes, talks between Washington and the Afghan jihadist movement have produced little in the way of results.

Exacerbating the uncertainty in Afghanistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzai — who has been at the center of the post-Taliban Afghan state since its inception 11 years ago — will be leaving office due to term limits. From Islamabad’s perspective, a post-NATO Afghanistan that fails to include the Taliban in a political understanding would be disastrous.

An Afghan Taliban insurgency unencumbered by Western forces poses a direct national security threat to Pakistan because it offers the Pakistani Taliban havens in Afghanistan and could even reverse the dwindling fortunes of al Qaeda prime, which is headquartered in Pakistan. Already, Pakistani Taliban rebels displaced from the greater Swat region have found sanctuary in northeastern Afghan provinces such as Kunar, from where they periodically mount attacks in Pakistan. For this reason, the outgoing Pakistani government has spent the last few years trying to improve its relations with the Karzai administration. It also has reached out to anti-Taliban factions among Afghan ethnic minorities not represented in the central government. Both steps are meant to build additional checks on the Taliban.

The latest example of this outreach was the April 10 inauguration of the $18 million Liaquat Ali Khan Engineering University, built by Pakistan in Afghanistan’s Balkh province. The province is a major stronghold of Afghanistan’s second-largest ethnic community, the Tajiks, who have long been at odds with Islamabad given the latter’s historical support for their enemies, the Taliban.

Though Pakistan has an incentive to continue building such ties, there has been a reversal in the move toward improved Kabul-Islamabad relations in recent weeks as both sides have accused the other of undermining the peace efforts. To a great extent, this souring of ties is due to the uncertainty in Kabul regarding who will assume power after Karzai in next year’s presidential election. Progress in NATO-Afghan Taliban talks remains elusive, and the Afghan state could destabilize even before NATO forces depart.

Pakistan’s Transition

Meanwhile, Pakistan is going through a historic transition of its own. Its first democratically elected government recently completed its five-year term and the country’s first democratic transfer of power is expected to take place after May 11 elections. While Pakistan is slowly moving toward consolidating its democracy, the coming elections are expected to produce an even more fragmented parliament than before. Right-wing nationalist political forces, including former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League and Imran Khan’s Pakistani Tehrik-i-Insaf, could make major gains at the expense of the center-left Pakistan People’s Party, which led the coalition government until last month.

An even more divided parliament will complicate matters regarding the cross-border Taliban insurgencies on Pakistan’s western flank. A fragmented legislature will complicate policymaking, and a right-wing government would create room for the Pakistani Taliban to exploit. These right-wing parties rely heavily on Islamists and the broader group of conservative voters — many of whom do not favor what is perceived as a U.S. war that has undermined Pakistani security. The Pakistani political right has argued that if a superpower like the United States is being forced to talk to the Afghan Taliban, then Pakistan should be able to negotiate with its own citizens who have shifted toward supporting the Taliban in order to bring them back into the mainstream.

While this might seem logical, the bulk of the Pakistani Taliban subscribe to al Qaeda’s transnational jihadism — unlike the Afghan Taliban, who are nationalist jihadists and thus have self-imposed limits on their political goals for the state. Accordingly, the Pakistani Taliban wish to see Pakistan serve as a launchpad for the creation of an international caliphate. However, it could still be possible to negotiate with some elements within the Pakistani Taliban landscape and bring them into the political mainstream.

Many among Pakistan’s strategic planners had hoped a settlement in Afghanistan would help Islamabad tackle its own Taliban problem. The thinking is that a withdrawal of U.S. forces and a power-sharing deal that empowers the Afghan Taliban would eliminate much of the basis for the militancy in Pakistan. The entry of the Afghan Taliban into the political mainstream would then create fissures within the Pakistani Taliban landscape, making the group much more militarily and politically manageable.

But there are two major factors that will likely prevent this outcome. First, the talks with the Afghan Taliban have stalled. Second, many among the Pakistani Taliban are fighting not because of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, but to topple the Pakistani state because they deem it “un-Islamic.” This makes them unlikely to end their insurgency in the event of a breakthrough in Afghanistan.

An intensified civil war in post-NATO Afghanistan would only make matters worse for Pakistan because it would provide strategic depth for the Pakistani Taliban to operate more freely. A politically dominant Taliban  in post-NATO Afghanistan would also embolden the Pakistani Taliban to act against Islamabad.

If the Afghan Taliban are not part of a broad-based coalition government in Kabul, Pakistan will face serious difficulties in getting a handle on its own Taliban rebels. This explains why Pakistan has been pushing for a balance of power between the Taliban and anti-Taliban forces. Islamabad cannot hope to integrate its own Taliban and tribal areas into the federation if the main Taliban movement in Afghanistan is not brought into a post-NATO coalition government. Pakistan’s own political transition is thus in many ways linked to political stability in Afghanistan. Ultimately, Pakistan will need to exert its energies to encourage the Afghan Taliban to reach a settlement with their opponents in the Afghan state and society. It must also continue to reach out to reconcilable elements among its own Taliban rebels through the help of neutral warlords. The key question is to what degree Afghan and Pakistani Taliban forces will be willing to accept the current constitutional setups in both countries.

SPEARHEAD RESEARCH

We are still waiting to learn who perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombings, but it would not be surprising to find out that the attack was the work of a lone-wolf terrorist. Lone-wolf attacks have become more common as individuals have gained the ability to strike without the training and funding traditionally provided by terrorist groups. All they need is access to the Internet. Although statistics on the number of lone-wolf attacks vary due to discrepancies in definitions and data collection, government officials and law enforcement agencies in many countries agree that the threat is growing.

Recent lone-wolf attacks have spanned the political and religious spectrum. They include an anti-Islamic lone wolf, Anders Breivik, who set off a car bomb in Oslo and then traveled to an island to massacre scores of youths attending a summer camp, killing 77 people in all. In the United States, an Islamic extremist, Maj. Nidal Maljik Hasan, is accused of shooting fellow soldiers and others at Fort Hood, Texas. There have also been recent lone-wolf plots and attacks by neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and “single-issue” extremists.

What makes lone wolves so dangerous is their ability to think outside the box. Since they operate by themselves, there is no group pressure or decision-making process that might stifle creativity. Lone wolves are free to act upon any scenario they can dream up. This freedom has resulted in some of the most imaginative terrorist attacks in history. For example, lone wolves were responsible for the first vehicle bombing (1920), major midair plane bombing (1955), hijacking (1961), and product tampering (1982), as well as the anthrax letter attacks in the United States (2001).

Lone wolves also have little or no constraints on their level of violence. Because they are not part of a group, lone wolves are not concerned with alienating supporters (as many terrorist groups are), nor are they concerned with a potential government and law-enforcement crackdown following an attack. Lone wolves are also difficult to identify and capture. Because they work alone, there are usually no communications to intercept or co-conspirators to arrest and interrogate. That is the reason why Theodore Kaczynski, the infamous “Unabomber,” was able to send package bombs throughout the United States for nearly 17 years.

The current wave of lone-wolf attacks has been propelled by the revolutionary impact of the Internet, which provides lone wolves with limitless opportunities. Online, an aspiring terrorist can find everything from instructions on building homemade bombs to maps and diagrams of potential targets. Detailed accounts of terrorist incidents around the world are also readily available, providing guidance and perhaps inspiration. In addition, websites, blogs, Facebook pages, and chat rooms all provide easy venues for cultivating extremism in a way that was previously possible only through in-person gatherings.

Who, then, are these lone wolves? There are five basic types — secular, religious, single-issue, criminal, and idiosyncratic – although some lone wolves fall into more than one category.

Secular lone wolves, like secular terrorist groups, commit violent attacks for political, ethnic-nationalist, or separatist causes. Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, was motivated by revenge for the U.S. government raid on the Branch Davidian cult’s compound in Waco, Texas, which had killed 80 people two years earlier. (Terry Nichols helped build the bomb, but McVeigh acted largely alone.) Although Anders Breivik is certainly anti-Muslim, he also falls into the secular category because his main targets were not Muslims, but rather the teens attending a camp run by the ruling Labor Party, which he blamed for allowing the “Islamic colonisation and Islamisation of Western Europe.”

The second type of lone-wolf terrorist is the religious lone wolf, who perpetrates terrorism in the name of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, or some other belief system. Major Hasan falls into that category, having been influenced in part through numerous e-mails he exchanged with Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born Islamic extremist cleric who was living in Yemen before he was killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2011.

The third type of lone-wolf terrorist is the single-issue lone wolf, who perpetrates attacks in the name of some specific issue, such as abortion, animal rights, or the environment. Among the single-issue lone wolves is Eric Rudolph, the anti-abortion militant who set off a bomb at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta and then bombed abortion clinics. On two occasions Rudolph left two bombs at the scene of his attack, demonstrating that it is possible for a lone wolf to perpetrate multiple bombings at one site, as occurred at the Boston Marathon. Volkert van der Graaf, an animal-rights extremist who assassinated a Dutch politician in favor of legalizing mink farming, is another example.

While secular, religious, and single-issue lone wolves have, in many ways, the same objectives and motivations as terrorist organizations, the fourth type of lone wolf is more distinctive. The criminal lone wolf is motivated mainly by money and personal gain, as opposed to political, social, religious, or ethnic-nationalist goals. The lack of an ideological objective is why most analysts do not consider lone-wolf criminals to be “terrorists.” However, there are some cases where criminal activity has so great an effect on society and government that it should be considered terrorism. For example, the first major midair plane bombing in U.S. history occurred in 1955, when 23-year-old John Gilbert Graham put several sticks of dynamite and a timer in his mother’s luggage before she boarded a United Airlines flight out of Denver. Graham was hoping to collect a $37,500 insurance policy on her life. Forty-four people, including Graham’s mother, were killed. The bombing shocked the nation and led the FBI and the Civil Aviation Administration to study ways to detect explosives in luggage.

One alleged criminal lone-wolf terrorist was Bruce Ivins, an Army microbiologist who the Justice Department, FBI, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service concluded was responsible for the 2001 anthrax attacks. The Justice Department speculated that Ivins, who committed suicide in 2009, hoped to revitalize his research on anthrax vaccines. The attacks, which shut down government buildings and mail-processing centers, created a crisis atmosphere in the United States concerning the threat of bioterrorism.

The fifth type of lone-wolf terrorist is the idiosyncratic lone wolf, who is motivated largely by personal demons. This category of lone wolves is also unique, since, with the exception of cults that commit terrorist acts, there are really no idiosyncratic terrorist groups in operation. Although the idiosyncratic lone wolf may commit attacks in the name of some cause, those causes are often irrational, and the perpetrators are driven to violence chiefly by severe personality and psychological problems. Theodore Kaczynski called for a revolution against the industrial-technological society, but he was a paranoid schizophrenic. Muharem Kurbegovic, also known as the Alphabet Bomber, who set off a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport in 1974 and demanded that all immigration, naturalization, and sex laws be declared unconstitutional, was also a paranoid schizophrenic. The same is true of Jared Loughner, who killed several people in a failed attempt to assassinate Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in 2011.

The Internet has proven indispensible to every type of lone wolf. Volkert van der Graaf, the Dutch animal rights activist, searched the Internet for information on his target’s daily schedule and obtained a map of the Dutch town where he carried out the assassination in 2002. Colleen LaRose, also known as “Jihad Jane,” used MySpace, YouTube, and e-mail to contact other extremists and express her desire to become a martyr for the Islamic cause. In August 2009, she traveled to Europe to take part in an assassination plot against Lars Vilks, a Swedish illustrator who had angered Muslims throughout the world with his derogatory caricature of the Prophet Muhammad.

One particularly remarkable case is that of Roshonara Choudhry, who was an excellent student at the prestigious King’s College in London before unexpectedly dropping out just a few months before graduation in 2010. She then attempted to assassinate Stephen Timms, a British member of parliament who had supported the Iraq war. Choudhry showed no signs of radicalization prior to the attack and gave no indication to friends, family members, or acquaintances that she sympathized in any way with Islamic extremism. But for months she had been secretly downloading sermons by Anwar al-Awlaki — more than 100 in all. She never met, e-mailed, or talked to al-Awlaki, but was motivated solely by his online calls for violence against the West.

As valuable as the Internet is for lone wolves, it can also cause them problems. Lone wolves become most vulnerable to discovery by law enforcement whey they surface online. Whether it is by announcing to the world, as LaRose did, that she was ready, willing, and able to commit terrorist acts, or by posting manifestos as Breivik did, lone-wolf terrorists can leave many Internet clues. The chat rooms they frequent and the online searches they conduct can all be potential pitfalls.

In fact, had the Internet been accessible during Kaczynski’s reign of terror, he probably would have been caught a lot earlier. Kaczynski desperately sought an outlet for the dissemination of his anti-technology, anti-industrial-society views. That is why he demanded that newspapers publish his manifesto. He very likely would have posted his writings online early in his terrorist career (despite his distaste for technology). The scenario that played out years later — his brother turned him in after reading the manifesto in a newspaper — would have likely occurred once his brother read it online. Subsequent attacks may have therefore been prevented.

Another lesson learned from the study of lone-wolf terrorists is that lone wolves are not as crazy as many people assume. While some are mentally ill, such as Kaczynski and Kurbegovic, and others have psychological problems, such as Breivik, many are not “abnormal’ in the psychological sense, such as Rudolph and Choudhry. While some lone wolves combine personal grievances and problems with a political or religious cause to justify their violence, many others are as dedicated to the issues for which they are fighting as are “regular” terrorists.

It is also a myth that little can be done to prevent lone-wolf terrorism. In addition to monitoring the Internet, other measures can be taken to reduce the risk of lone-wolf attacks. These include the continual development of devices to identify package bombs or letters containing anthrax spores; the expansion of closed-circuit television cameras in public settings; and further advances in biometrics, including the use of gait analysis, which can determine if a person is carrying a bomb, and facial-expression analysis, which can predict hostile intent. In addition, there is the obvious, but usually ignored, public responsibility to report unattended packages at airports, bus terminals, shopping malls and other possible targets. We don’t yet know how long the bags containing the bombs were left unattended at the Boston Marathon’s finish line, but there might have been enough time for somebody to notify the police and begin moving people away from danger.

For too long, scholars, experts, government officials, and the public have focused on terrorist organizations, such as al Qaeda, to the exclusion of the individual. Lone wolves have proven repeatedly that they can be as dangerous and have as much impact on societies and governments as the larger, better-financed, and better-trained terrorist organizations. Lone wolves have become important players in the world of terrorism and will have to be reckoned with now and for the foreseeable future.

Foreign Policy

In a report presented to Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Tuesday, the ISI agency alleged President Hamid Karzai’s administration was in league with groups linked to the main Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan movement, known collectively as the TTS.

The report suggested the "recent nexus of TTS with Afghan government is likely to enhance the terrorist activities" in areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border such as Mohman, Bajaur, Dir, Swat and Chitral.

Anti-Pakistan elements, particularly from across the border in Afghanistan, had provided "strong support" in terms of money, logistics and training and this was “one of the main factors for increased militancy,” the report said.

However, it added that the Taliban’s ability to act "at will and to face security forces openly has been substantially curtailed." 

The report said that internal rifts within the main Pakistani Taliban group had led to the creation of splinter groups.

"TTS, after having been dislodged from area, has resorted to [suicide bomb and improvised explosive device] attacks" on law-enforcement agencies and other officials, the report said.

The court is considering a case involving seven people who are being kept in one of several internment centers in the border area, despite being acquitted by an anti-terrorism court because of lack of evidence against them.

The ISI report was submitted to justify the internment centers and military operations against militants more generally.

The ISI said it was not going to release people held at the internment centers, warning that the detainees included terrorists who could go to cities like Islamabad and Lahore and launch attacks.

It said that 3,871 Pakistani security personnel, more than 3,000 militants and more than 5,000 civilians had been killed in the border area in the last five years.

There had been 235 suicide attacks, 9,257 rocket attacks and 4,256 bombings during the same period, the report added.

Afghanistan and Pakistan have a difficult relationship.

Islamabad has accused Kabul of failing to stop anti-government militants from operating from mountain havens in Afghanistan, while Kabul has blamed Pakistan’s military for cross-border shelling.

In September, Afghanistan’s foreign minister told the United Nations Security Council that diplomatic ties with Pakistan were under threat.

The Afghan foreign ministry declined to comment on the ISI report.

Earlier this month, Karzai claimed that the Taliban was carrying out attacks in Afghanistan "in service of America."

After a private meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry in Kabul, Karzai insisted he had not meant to suggest that the United States was colluding with the Taliban, Reuters reported.

"I never used the word 'collusion' between the Taliban and the U.S. Those were not my words. Those were the [words] picked up by the media," he said.

Kerry said the two men had discussed the matter but he played it down, Reuters reported. "I am confident that the president absolutely does not believe that the United States has any interest except to see the Taliban come to the table to make peace."

By Fakhar Rehman, Producer, NBC News

NBC News' Akbar Shinwari and Reuters contributed to this report.

Courtesy: NBC News

Tirah is a belt of valleys providing a convenient passage into Afghanistan, with a population of 1.5 million. Fertile for what Afghanis do best: opium, poppy fields have flourished in the region and the government has been for years trying to curb the epidemic. But the Tirah Valley people are slippery under the quivering thumb of the establishment since colonial times. It was in 2003 that the Pakistan Army entered the valley, that too after 9/11 and escalating Talibanization of the northern region when it was believed that Osama bin Laden could be hiding in one of these self governing regions.

For a month now, since March 2013, Tirah Valley has been making headlines. As over 300 militants have been eliminated and more than 30 army personnel have achieved martyrdom in less than thirty days. Due to fierce resistance, the military operation has gained momentum. Like the Swat operation, where Taliban had allied themselves with the local government promising better law enforcement and good riddance from the sloppy civil courts, in Tirah the emergence of TTP has also been gradual. Owing to poor infrastructure and isolation of the region (a tribal area that avoids foreign interference), news of the hundreds killed while resisting TTPs advancement in to the region, never reached mainstream media sources.

Three militant outfits are operating in the region presently: Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Islam (LI), and Ansar ul Islam (AI) . The AI and LI have been battling with each other in the region for more than seven years over sectarian differences. When the LI joined hands with the TTP, AI reached out to the Pakistan army to protect its position against its adversary. It is noteworthy that the AI, a militant organization, has previously been banned for protecting the area from foreign influence (i.e. the government). How this support for the AI is any different from that of the Taliban back in the 1980s is not clear. For Pakistan, at the moment, fighting the Taliban is more crucial. What demons this war gives birth to can be dealt with later perhaps.

The TTP has not taken over the valley overnight, nor without assistance. Since last June, one step at a time the Tirah tribes have been coming under their fold. Even today, as the army marches against the Taliban with bursting force, launching aerial assaults to drive the Taliban out, few know the gravity of the situation. Few realize the dire consequences of this belt coming under full control of anti-state outfits. Thousands of the valley’s inhabitants have migrated out of their homes towards Peshawar. What will become of them and their families knowing the situation of IDPs amidst a fragile economy is another burden we are temporarily ignoring for a false peace of mind.

With three vital entry points: into Peshawar, Orakzai and the Khyber Pass (the main passageway for NATO supplies) the valley is an important stronghold for the TTP. With no road access, the army was initially only relying on aerial assaults. So far with scanty news, all we get a few days later is a death count of militants versus soldiers. Nothing about civilian casualties. Turns out we have an alternative for the drone strikes that have caused much discord between us and the United States. But the problems with an operation where only Pakistani blood is being spilt are manifold.

These quandaries can take the shape of a thought process. Firstly, Tirah was not above the regular drone drill. Rather the area has been a frequent target. Yet the LI joined hands with the Taliban, killed hundreds of civilians while fighting the local AI, took over the entire region over the course of a year. All of this while drone strikes were happening with unhampered discretion. Should this not make us question the effectiveness of drone strikes? The AI , temporary partner of the Government of Pakistan in this operation, is not our friend either. It is these temporary alliances with local militant outfits, and keeping our enemies ‘closer’ that has strengthened them to begin with. Before the Taliban took over completely, Ansar-ul-Islam were adamant that they could handle the situation. But with stiff resistance from TTP backed LI. Eventually the Pakistan army was forced to step in and save the region. The main question that arises from such situations is:  why should we trust the security of such volatile and strategically important regions with militias who are not completely supportive of the government?

Initially when the wave of conflict erupted last month, media and ISPR reported that two militant groups were at war with each other and the death toll from both sides was being reported as “militant death toll”. TTP extended full support to LI, and AI was almost driven out of the region and increased TTP influence in the region was becoming evident. It was at this point when civilian casualties escalated and mass migration from the Tirah Valley started that the army stepped in. With General Elections only days away, it would have been catastrophic if hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of the valley had become IDPs. Additionally with Peshawar well within the range of rocket launchers the threat of TTP advancement in to the developed regions of the country had become too real. The AI-Army alliance is strategic and passing. Whether the army death toll includes the AI, or they aren’t dying at all is not certain. It is possible that the militant death include the AI, TTP, and LI, which would quite literally be true.

The new tagline for justifying drone strikes is ‘Unwilling and Unable’. The US claims that Pakistan is both, unwilling and unable to get rid of terrorists, and hence drones, are a final resort to secure their own national interest is justified. How they come up with new justifications for overstepping the boundaries and disrespecting sovereignty is fascinating. But after delegating the responsibility of keeping the terrorists out to anti-state elements, who haven’t pledged any loyalties to the region, what can we say about Pakistan’s sovereignty? Some argue that more than delegating authority the military and political establishments’ apparent absence was more about respecting the existing status quo that has been for centuries.

The expanding terrorism in the Northern areas can be solved not by drone attacks or killing the terrorists alone, rather by better law enforcement and presence of state sponsored security. The operation that Pakistan army troops are sacrificing their lives for concerns the US’ national security as well. After the drone method has proven ineffective and immoral both countries should look into alternatives. The US needs to decide: in or out? If out then they should completely rely on what the Pakistan army executes. But if they believe we are unwilling and unable then they must join in any battle against the Taliban, even if some blood will be spilt. But this would mean allowing US troops into our territory, and that is another breach of our sovereignty. And hence the dearth of solutions. As the army continues to sacrifice lives, while we acknowledge the courage it takes to execute such an operation, we must realize these lives and those of the civilians can be saved if preventive measures are taken. The upcoming government must get all local and foreign stakeholders on board and strategize better governance in the northern areas of Pakistan. The gun is only a temporary solution.

By Zoon Ahmed Khan
SPEARHEAD RESEARCH

In Pakistan we believe, not in addressing causes, but getting overwhelmed by effects. Our law makers know they can’t execute well thought out policies effectively, so they just trim the weeds to make them look like grass. Not realizing unless the weed is uprooted it will grow back, and create room for more of its kind. We have seen it in the routine network jams that major cities experience every Eid, any holiday, even some Jummas. Another example is banning of ‘double sawari’, Basant, one wheeling. Most of us have come to terms with this bizarre system of ‘damage control’. 

I have frequently heard people gab on ‘so what if it saves lives?’ Ethically speaking I’d rather be deprived of the luxury to text for a day than have a few dozen dying in a bomb blast. But the issue is not the inconvenience, rather the lazy psyche behind it. It takes almost no effort, and leaves the big fish swimming free, finding loopholes in these second grade solutions our law makers come up with. Such solutions are like allopathic medication, antibiotics, and antidepressants. They should be the last resort because your body becomes immune to the dose, and heavier doses are required to have the same effect. Not to mention they have severe side effects. Essentially they are making your body more and more dependent and continue to take a toll on normal bodily functions.

What people need when depressed or ill is medication for temporary relief, but more importantly a change in lifestyle. Depressed people have started going for therapy, they sit with a psychologist and talk about what’s going wrong. Ill people find out the cause of their illness and adjust their diet, exercise schedules and lifestyles accordingly, rather than taking heavy doses to just dissipate the pain. If we understand the importance of focusing on the health of a system as a whole, instead of finding synthetic replacements, we will improve the quality of our lives. Rather than living vegetables, it is important for us to be able to walk, run, and enjoy our surroundings.

The human body is only a microcosm of human societies. We have a past that we inherit, young populations with energy and a need for positive outlets; we have jobs, families and households. We want to experience our surroundings in the best way possible, not just live on aimlessly. Quality of life matters. Banning ‘basant’, a festival that the rich and poor together celebrated, that brought money into the province from all over the world can only help our economy. It is part of our heritage. Kite flying and making is a skill that is hundreds of years old. The effect of banning basant has not only been economic but also social. Celebrations and festivities keep people happy and have a very positive effect on their attitude towards their surroundings. Why ban the festival altogether? Instead why not allocate open areas (which Lahore has in abundance), and make sure the strings and kites are made according to said safety standards? There are only less than 500 very small setups making these. Is it worth the monetary and social cost?

Similarly one wheeling is considered dangerous not only for people participating but for others on the road. But what causes one wheeling among youngsters? Excessive energy, the need for an adrenaline rush, something channelized sports can also attain. What is Gaddafi stadium doing empty and locked? Why not arrange sports events for these youngsters? It would generate funds and be a healthy outlet for a very natural and understandable need. Does banning diminish what is natural? If anything it only broadens the range of very normal things that have been deemed wrong. Shisha is another such example. Banning has only made it a shady affair, where cafes hush you into dark damp corners and make you pay twice as much for the ‘inconvenience’. The same places are selling cigarettes even if they aren’t daring enough to accommodate former customers. Wouldn’t it be better instead to ask for an ID? Most believe it would be more effective than this pseudo ban.

But the problems are not only social societal, but some more grave than that. Countless operations have been conducted in Karachi over the years. Countless terrorists have been caught, and killed, and yet the security situation is only getting worse. It isn’t normal for Karachites to be outside the house after 7pm. All Karachites I know have been robbed at gunpoint. Staying home with doors locked, and making it back from work and school as early as possible is their best bet to see the morning light the next day. For any outsider such circumstances would be suffocating beyond tolerance. But in Karachi operation after operation is conducted, only to witness escalation in violence and greater strife. This past week an operation was being conducted, the success of which is premised on the number of ‘suspected terrorists’ arrested: more than 50. These terrorists have advanced weapons that a paan shop owner for instance can possibly not afford. So while the rangers are locking up the executors of violence, should they not also be looking for the masterminds behind it?

Shouldn’t the courts demand such evidence on priority basis? Parveen Rehman, a social worker who was gunned down last month, had constantly addressed this and the absence of government in the city. The people actually conducting the violence are part of a bigger strategy. Her answer was land mafia. Some would say drugs mafia, and others ethnic politics. But it’s definitely not caused by no-name-bearded-men out on the kill for some sort of reward in the afterlife: terrorists. It is conducted by them, like tools. We need to burn the poppy leaves, rather than snatch opium from all over the globe. As long as it’s being produced people will still find some. We need to catch the big fish.

ZoneAsia-Pk

Nobody but Kim Jong-un knows what he hopes to achieve with his saber-rattling campaign, but the young North Korean leader probably didn’t set out to aid the United States, the sworn enemy of three generations of Kims, at the expense of his country’s main ally, China.

In a boon for U.S. policy that can only add to China’s frustration with Kim, North Korean bellicosity has helped reinforce an American strategy of rebalancing its security policies toward the Asia-Pacific region.

To a China that often sounds more wary of Washington than of Pyongyang, months of North Korean missile and nuclear tests followed by a daily stream of bloodthirsty war threats may be worrisome, but the U.S. reaction is even more troubling.

“We understand what kind of regime North Korea is, but we also understand that North Korea is playing games,” said Sun Zhe, director of the Center for U.S-China Relations at Beijing’s Tsinghua University.

“Most importantly, we are complaining that the United States is using military drills as an excuse to continue to do this (rebalancing), putting up B-2s and other advanced weapons systems,” he said.

B-2 and B-52 bombers, radar-evading F-22s and anti-missile system vessels like the USS John S. McCain represented the initial U.S. response to North Korea’s repeated, explicit threats to launch nuclear strikes against the United States.

The U.S. also said it would shift THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System) to defend Guam from missile attack. And Tokyo’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said Japan would permanently deploy Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) anti-missile systems in Okinawa to counter North Korean missiles.

CHINA LAMENTS CHAOS FOR ‘SELFISH GAIN’

The U.S. deployments, although focused on North Korea and mostly temporary, could be adapted or expanded to counter the extensive array of anti-access military capabilities Beijing has built up to delay or prevent the arrival of American forces to areas near China in the event of conflict.

Chinese President Xi Jinping may have underscored Chinese ambivalence when he did not specifically name North Korea when he said no country “should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain.”

Xi’s remarks at the Davos-like Bo’ao Forum on the Chinese island of Hainan might have been targeting Washington as well as Pyongyang, reflecting Chinese unease at the U.S. “rebalancing” or “pivot” policy of winding down wars in Southwest Asia and paying renewed attention to the Asia-Pacific region.

“In China, it’s widely believed that the pivot is a containment strategy of China. Almost everyone sees it as that,” Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt, a Beijing-based China analyst for the International Crisis Group.

In a talk in Washington explaining the rebalancing policy and the Pentagon’s response to North Korea, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter did not mince words in addressing Chinese complaints.

“North Korea’s behavior is causing not just the United States, but others in the region to take action,” he told the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“If the Chinese find them the kinds of things they don’t like to see, there’s an easy way to address that, which is to talk to the North Koreans about stopping these provocations,” said Carter.

DIPLOMATIC CHALLENGE FOR KERRY

Carter was forceful and unapologetic in presenting the rebalancing as a continuation of post-war U.S. policy that allowed allies Japan and South Korea, followed by Southeast Asia, China and India “to develop politically and economically in a climate that has been free from conflicts.”

“It’s good for us and it’s good for everyone in the region. And it includes everyone in the region. It’s not aimed at anyone, no individual country or group of countries,” he said.

Carter said the coming drawdown of forces from Afghanistan would allow the U.S. Navy to shift to the Pacific region surface combatant ships, carriers and other intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance vessels.

Analysts who accept the rebalancing as based on sound geo-strategic principles nevertheless say Pentagon statements and force deployments should not be the most visible face of the Obama administration’s core Asia policy.

“We’ve oversold the military and undersold the diplomatic and economic components of the integrated strategy of the rebalance,” said Douglas Paal, a former U.S. official who heads Asian Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“The reaction we’re getting from China is ‘they’re coming to get us, we’ve got to respond, we’ve got to step up our military development,’” he said.

When Secretary of State John Kerry visits China, Japan and South Korea later this week in his first trip to the region as the top U.S. diplomat, he will need to adjust his rebalancing sales pitch to China while he engages in Korea crisis diplomacy.

That will be a tall order in Beijing, where new President Xi is consolidating his rule with a political and military elite that is highly suspicious of U.S. motives.

“When the economic, political and cultural elements were tacked on to the pivot, the Chinese said ‘oh, so now we’re being encircled economically, politically and culturally, too,” said Kleine-Ahlbrandt.

“The problem with trying to disabuse someone of a conspiracy theory is that any argument you make becomes part of the conspiracy, so I don’t know if it’s possible to convince the Chinese that it’s not about encircling them,” she said.

Reuters

What is it about Pak-Afghan relations that just when you sense an improvement, they descend into another crisis? Recent events have renewed these fears. This would be deeply disappointing, particularly as it appeared that after the tumultuous developments of 2011 that dragged Pakistan-US relations to a new low — with its inevitable fallout on Pak-Afghan relations — both Islamabad and Kabul appeared to be taking important, measured steps to bring their ties back on track.

Since the last quarter of 2012, Western diplomats have acknowledged detecting a tangible desire by Pakistan to work closely with both Washington and Kabul to promote the peace process in Afghanistan. Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s trip to Kabul in November 2012 to sign an agreement to improve border security and, thereafter, his joining former foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar in the Brussels’ meeting in December to agree on joint counter-terrorism efforts in the region, were seen as a confirmation of this trend. This was followed by an understanding between Islamabad and Kabul on establishing a hotline between their respective military and intelligence wings for “structural interaction” and finally, facilitating talks with the Taliban via a Taliban office in Doha. These initiatives appeared to reinforce the impression that Islamabad and Washington were finally operating on the same wavelength and that Pakistan had succeeded in removing misgivings about its earlier attachment to the “strategic depth” concept as regards Afghanistan. Incidentally, this impression had been reinforced by Ambassador Richard Olson during his Senate confirmation hearing in August 2012, when he stated that “the Pakistani military and the Pakistani government have moved away” from the strategic depth doctrine.

Notwithstanding these seemingly reassuring developments, new wrinkles have emerged in Pak-Afghan relations, giving rise to renewed anxiety with regard to peace prospects in Afghanistan. Even though the mercurial Afghan president is known to engage in public tirades against both friends and enemies and his close associates, too, tend to go off on a handle, the recent eruption by Deputy Foreign Minister Jawed Ludin took observers by surprise. Accusing Pakistan of  “shifting” its position on the peace talks and of  “changing the goal posts”, he threatened to go it alone on the peace process without Pakistan’s assistance. Islamabad’s reaction to these accusations was calculatedly moderate and restrained. But a day later, another Afghan official charged that Pakistan was setting  “pre-conditions” for backing the reconciliation process. Kabul also alleged that Pakistan was unilaterally constructing a border post, charging that “these activities are against accepted international norms and unacceptable to the Afghan government”.

General Kayani did seek to calm the disturbed waters during separate meetings last week with Nato chief General Joseph Dunford and with Centcom chief General Lloyd Austin by reiterating that Pakistan remained committed to working for the success of an “Afghan-led and Afghan-owned” peace process. There can, however, be no denying that recent events have raised fresh questions as to the post-2014 troop withdrawal scenarios in Afghanistan, in the absence of genuine cooperation between the neighbours.

While no specific reason has yet emerged to explain this unexpected setback, analysts believe that given the tortured history of Pak-Afghan relations, such twists should not be a surprise. Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his close associates continue to harbour lingering doubts about Pakistan’s intentions, while also remaining sceptical about its protestations of having abandoned its strategic objectives in Afghanistan. No less important are Karzai’s growing fears about his own future and his desperate need not to become irrelevant when his term ends in 2014. Notwithstanding the above, it is essential that Pakistan not weaken in its resolve to promote a genuine peace process, not as a favour to Afghanistan, but in its own supreme interest.

The Express Tribune

The old saw that one shouldn’t speak ill of the recently dead cannot possibly apply to controversial figures in public life. It certainly didn’t apply to President Hugo Chavez who predeceased Margaret Thatcher amidst a blizzard of abuse.

The main reason it must not preclude entering the lists amidst a wave of hagiographic sycophantic tosh of the kind that has engulfed Britain these last hours is that otherwise the hagiographers will have the field to themselves.

Every controversial divisive deadly thing that Thatcher did will be placed in soft focus, bathed in a rose-coloured light, and provide a first draft of history that will be, simply, wrong.

As is now well-known, I refused to do that today on the demise of a wicked woman who tore apart what remained good about my country, and set an agenda which has been followed, more or less, by all of her successors. I certainly wasn’t prepared to leave the obituaries to those who profited from her rule or those who have aped her ever since.

So here is my own memory of Thatcher and what she did in her time on this earth.

On one of my first political demonstrations – against the Conservative government of Edward Heath (1970-74) the slogan of the day was “Margaret Thatcher- Milk snatcher”. It was the first but not the last time I spat out her name in distaste.

Before Thatcher, every primary school pupil received 1/3 of a pint of milk every morning. For some it was the difference between breakfast and no breakfast. I was sometimes one of those. I grew up in a brief period of social democracy in Britain, being dosed by the state with free cod-liver oil, orange juice and malt to build up my strength. Having been born in a slum tenement into a one-room attic in an Irish immigrant area, I needed all of that and more. And like millions I got it, until Thatcher took it away.

She became the Conservative leader after Heath’s two electoral defeats in 1974 and his subsequent resignation.

She was a new type of Tory leader, entirely lacking in anything resembling “noblesse oblige”. She was nasty, brutish and short of the class previously thought obligatory in Britain amongst leaders of the ruling elite. She was vulgar, money-worshipping, and blasphemous. She believed the important part of the Biblical story of the “Good Samaritan” was not that he refused to pass by the suffering on the other side of the road but that he had “loadsamoney”.

In the infamous sermon on the Mound in Edinburgh addressing the Church of Scotland she opined that there was “no such thing as society”…”only individuals”

As the Labour leader Neil Kinnock, in one of his better efforts, retorted: “No such thing as society? Only individuals? No such thing as honouring other people’s parents? No such thing as cherishing other people’s children? No such thing as us and always? Just ME and NOW? ME and NOW?”

She was the living embodiment of Marx’s prediction that under capitalism “all that is solid will melt into air… all that is sacred will be profaned”

Upon her election as prime minister (with just 40% of the vote, her position ensured by the treacherous defection from the Labour cause of the rats now squirming on the Liberal-Democrat ship) she set about “transforming” Britain allright. She privatised Britain’s key industries, enriching her friends, and robbing the public of their birthright. When she took over “Financial Services” represented 3% of the British economy; when she left office it was 40%.

She destroyed the coal industry, the steel, car, bus and motor-cycle manufacturing, truck and bus-making, ship-building and print-industry, the railway workshops… she destroyed more than a third of Britain’s manufacturing capacity, significantly more than Hitler’s Luftwaffe ever achieved.

She did this not just because she prefered the spivs and gamblers in the city -they were her kind of people. But because above all, she hated trades unionism, and was determined to destroy it.

I was a leading member of the Scottish Labour Party at the time she came into office, and a full-time Labour organiser. Scotland was to become an industrial wasteland in the first years of her rule.

I was also, from 1973, a member of the then Transport and General Workers Union, one of her  key targets – especially our Docks section.

Importantly, for me, I was an honorary member of the National Union of Mineworkers too.

In all of these capacities I was a front-line short-sword fighter in the rearguard action against Thatcherism.

I fought her at Bathgate, at Linwood, when she was sacking the automotive industry. I fought her at Wapping – every Saturday night when she destroyed the Print workers on behalf of her friend, the organised crime firm owner, Rupert Murdoch. I fought every day of the Miners strike when she destroyed the Miners Union and the communities they represented. I fought her at Timex in Dundee at Massey Ferguson in Kilmarnock, and at the aluminium smelter in Invergordon.

I fought against her poll tax – imposed first in Scotland – as a refusenik of the most iniquitous tax in Britain since mediaeval times, the tax which ended in flames – literally – whilst I was on the platform at Trafalgar Square. And which finally produced her political demise.

And I toured – as a political activist – the desolation in Britain’s post-industrial distressed areas which she left behind. The City of London – deregulated by her – boomed whilst the coalfields and steel areas sank into penury. I saw the rusted factories the flooded mines the idle shipyards and the devilish results of millions of newly and enforced idle hands.

I faced her in parliament from 1987 as well, on these and other issues.

You see it wasn’t just Britain that Thatcher made bleed.

Her withdrawal of political status from Irish republican prisoners and her brutal, securocratic, militarisation of the situation in the north led to much additional suffering in Ireland.

State collusion in the murder of Catholics became endemic during her rule. And ten young men were starved to death for the restoration of political status, before our eyes in her dungeons. She finally died on the anniversary of their leader, Bobby Sands, being elected to parliament as he lay on his death-bed.

During the Falklands War, she sent hundreds of young Argentinian conscripts to a watery grave when she shot the Argentine warship the Belgrano in the back – as it was speeding away from the conflict. She mercilessly exploited the sacrifice of them, and our own soldiers sailors and airmen, to save her own political skin. A lot of brave men had to leave their guts on Goose Green to keep Thatcher in power.

She pushed her alter ego – the semi-imbecilic US president Ronald Reagan – into Cold War fanaticism and burgeoning expenditure on more and more terrifying weapons – many of them stationed on our soil.

She pushed his successor George Bush Sen into the first Iraq War.

I was there, I saw her lips move, when she described Nelson Mandela as a “common terrorist”.

She continued to recognise the genocidal and deposed Pol Pot regime in Cambodia – insisting that Pol Pot was the real and recognised leader of the Cambodians, even as they counted his victims in millions.

And she was the author of the policy of military, political, diplomatic and media support of the Afghan obscurantists who became the Taliban and Al Qaeda. She even produced them on the platform of the Tory Party conference, hailing them as “freedom-fighters”.

I was one of the last men standing in parliament opposing this immoral policy of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”.

On the eve of the triumph of these “freedom Fighters” I told Thatcher to her face; “You have opened the gates for the barbarians….and a long dark night will now descend upon the people of Afghanistan”. I never said a truer word.

I hated Margaret Thatcher for what seems like all my life. I hated her more than I hated anyone – until the mass murderer Tony Blair came along.

It would have been utter hypocrisy for me to have remained silent about her crimes today whilst the political class – including New Labour – poured honeyed words, lies actually, over her blood-spattered record.

Stop the war Coalition