A shift from hard to soft targets

Militants have shifted from carrying out attacks on military or police targets to educational institutes

On January 20, four attackers sneaked into the Palosa Campus of Bacha Khan University, Charsadda, from its rear wall. After neutralising the little resistance from the local guards, the attackers started their carnage at the boys’ hostel by killing the resident students and faculty. Two of the attackers then advanced to the girls’ hostel to carry on the same brutal killings there, but were stopped by the prompt interception of local police. Ultimately, all the attackers were eliminated, but before that they had killed 21 students, faculty members and staff of Bacha Khan University. While terrorist attacks are not new in Pakistan, some important lessons can be deducted from this incident.

Firstly, there has been a shift from hard targets to soft targets. The handlers of this mission initially planned an attack on Punjab Regimental Center in Mardan, which is a military target, and a local police station in the city. However, due to target-hardening of these two places, they shifted to a softer target i.e., an educational institute where ample unarmed students were available in a relatively small perimeter. Militants are now focusing on non-combatants and soft targets.

Secondly, militants were previously targeting the supply side of education i.e., destroying the buildings of schools in tribal areas and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Now, as Dr Asim Khwaja of Harvard Kennedy School has pertinently observed, they have switched over their attacks to the demand side of education i.e., the students. Earlier examples of this shift include attack on the APS and before that the preempted attack on the school in Hangu where the brave Aitzaz Hasan stopped the suicide bomber from entering the school.

Thirdly, on the day of the attack, only seven guards out of 56 were available on duty. Since most of them are political appointees, they remained busy in other mundane activities instead of engaging in the duty for which they were hired. If professionalism is compromised at the altar of political expediency, the area of graveyards will no doubt increase exponentially as witnessed at BKU.

Fourthly, at the end of the 60-minutes-long operation, the attackers still had 16 loaded AK-47 magazines. Also, they were not carrying any suicide jackets for the mission. That means that the response of the local police was prompt and the attackers were amateur to use their ammunition. This may be one of the effects of Operation Zarb-e-Azb as militants have been temporarily dispersed and enjoy fewer opportunities for elaborate training and capacity building in their new safe havens. Until they re-group, such attacks will be carried out by amateur, less-trained attackers to pressurise the government on the one hand and provide signals to the general public that the militant networks are ‘alive and pulsating’.

It is pertinent to note that there were only 36 constables available in Sardheri police station at the time of the attack, but there are 146 education institutions in the jurisdiction of the same police station. Police cannot do the job alone when the borders are open and porous; refugees are roaming like grasshoppers and facilitating the attackers; the national census has not been conducted for the last 17 years; the polity is still polarised despite severe social, human, economic and political haemorrhages and militants are still glamourised at various fora. It will require a ‘Sri Lankan’ response with all the stakeholders on board to deal with this menace.

All the attackers were residents of Fata and Pata. They purchased their weapons from Darra Adamkhel, the illegal weapon manufacturing hub of Pakistan. The Fata-fication of settled districts has been temporarily halted by Operation Zarb-e-Azab, but delays in mainstreaming these ‘ungoverned’ or ‘under-governed’ areas will reverse its benefits. Indecisiveness will bleed us further economically, evaporate our social capital and will lead to attrition of our armed forces.

The attackers entered unchecked through Torkham. Unless we improve our border management, the illegal movement of the ‘three Ms’ (men, money and material) will remain unchecked, much to the detriment of Pakistan. According to one estimate, the daily traffic of people crossing the border at Torkham is 20,000-30,000. Presence of NADRA to verify the movement of people can reduce this threat.

The incumbent head of the TTP, Mullah Fazlullah, has denied any role of the militant group in the BKU attack but its franchise of Darra Adamkhel did claim responsibility for this attack. Khalifa Umar, aka ‘the Slim’ not only claimed responsibility but also threatened further attacks on soft targets. This shows that the TTP is not a monolith with a stratified ‘command and control’, but an umbrella organisation where multiple groups are operationally independent and pursuing divergent goals and objectives.

Transnational militant networks will remain more virulent and recalcitrant after re-grouping. Militants who escaped to Paktika, Paktia, Nangarhar, Kunar and Nuristan areas of Afghanistan will be difficult to neutralise unless regional cooperation is in place.

There is no doubt that the battle of North Waziristan has almost dismantled the extensive training facilities, logistics bases, and command and control centres of the militants, but the ‘long war’ is not yet over. This war is not a Twenty20 match but a marathon and we must brace ourselves for this reality.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 22^nd,  2016.

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