JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: This refers to a report issued by academics and legal experts at Stanford and the New York universities’ law schools on the viability of drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Before commenting on the report, we need to understand a few things: it was commissioned and funded by the UK-based charity, Reprieve, which is on the forefront of the campaign against drone attacks. Also, the researchers were unable to physically visit the tribal areas, probably for security reasons, and were limited to Islamabad and other urban centres, interviewing the possibly pre-screened victims’ relatives and other people.
There is no doubt that drone attacks are causing collateral damage as they kill innocent people too, but at the same time, what other options are available to eliminate al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists who now seem to rule the tribal areas of Pakistan? Law school academics can tell us what other means could have been adopted to target the terrorists. Let me cite few names just to refresh memories — Abu Laith Al Libi, Abu Sulayman Al Jazairi, Ibn Amin, Tahir Yuldashev, Baitullah Mehsud, Qari Mohammed Zafar, Badr Mansoor, Naik Mohammed and scores of others.
Our army is neither trained nor equipped to fight such a guerilla war in the rugged, mountainous region (it is trained for ground war with India); it has tried its capabilities in South Waziristan but even there it seems it is not getting anywhere. It clears one area, only to find that militants have moved to another location, and this cat and mouse game continues.
Pakistan does not want to host any foreign troops on its soil. The only option was for tribes to take on the militants in their areas. But such anti-Taliban lashkars have failed to make any dent in the armoury of the militants. Tell us what options are there on the table — military campaign on the ground is not going anywhere, tribal lashkars are being defeated by the Taliban, drone attacks are counter-productive as they cause resentment among the local population, invariably resulting in increased militancy.
I wish the academics and researchers from Stanford and New York universities could have suggested how to get Pakistan, Afghanistan, the US and other countries in the region out of this dead end.
Masood Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, September 29th, 2012.
