Pakistan’s security agencies have decided to shift their focus on breaking a “complicated and lethal” nexus between the al Qaeda and various outlawed groups operating in Punjab instead of opening new fronts in tribal regions.
Officials said that the new counter-terror plan envisages use of the carrot and stick policy to break this nexus.
The policy has been framed following intelligence reports that militants affiliated with al Qaeda and outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) are planning a fresh wave of attacks in the country’s most populous province.
And according to security officials, an early sign of success appeared when a militant group led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur — a pro-government commander based in the North Waziristan tribal region — last week forced the closure of a TTP office in Mirali Town.
Mirali is a strategic town in North Waziristan which is controlled by groups of Afghan commander Maulana Sirajuddin Haqqani and Hafiz Gul Bahadur.
Haqqani’s group is considered to be a network which has a long history of association with Pakistan’s secret services and according to intelligence assessment its focus is on fighting the US-led coalition forces stationed in Afghanistan.
Of late there were reports that Pakistani security forces were preparing for an offensive against the Haqqani network but now officials are saying that Islamabad wants the network to be part of a future dispensation in Kabul under the “Afghan reconciliation plan’ initiated by President Hamid Karzai.
It is still not clear whether or not the United States will support the arrangement but there has hitherto been no opposition from Washington.
Gul Bahadur has a fragile ceasefire agreement with the security agencies which is still holding despite the fact that both sides often blame each other of violation.
Officials said the closure of TTP’s largest office in North Waziristan was a result of “goodwill” between Hafiz Gul Bahadur and the security agencies.
The TTP was based in South Waziristan Agency before it was dislodged from its stronghold through a military offensive in last October.
Most of the group’s fighters and its top leaders were believed to have taken refuge either in North Waziristan or Orakzai — an area where the military is still facing stiff resistance from Taliban guerillas despite an announcement of victory a couple of weeks ago.
The TTP established its offices in a dozen of villages in and around Mirali town after both Haqqani and Bahadur networks allowed them to have their bases in their areas.
“But now,” an official and locals told The Express Tribune on Sunday, “it looks these groups are rethinking the policy…and the ouster of the TTP from the key town might be part of it.”
TTP fighters, they say, are now abandoning their positions in Mirali and other towns and shifting to Peer Ghar and Showai Ghar areas — a thick mountainous forest between two Waziristans where the military has little presence and control.
Experts believe it would be the “biggest success so far in Pakistan’s fight against terror groups if the nexus between various groups is broken.
The same strategy has been prepared to control groups that have been threatening peace in parts of Punjab.
Punjabi Taliban, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Sipah-i-Sahaba (SSP), splinters of Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) and other small groups operating in the province are being “threatened and persuaded” to part ways with al Qaeda.
Only last week, officials in various security agencies of the province swapped lists of suspected militants.
Officials said the government has no plans for a military or paramilitary operation against these militants, mostly based in the districts of Bahawalpur, Rajanpur and Dera Ghazi Khan. Rather, they added, the focus would be on neutralising them by curbing their ability to strike by breaking the nexus between them and al Qaeda and the TTP.
For this, one security official explained, the leadership of these groups could be persuaded to control their operatives.
SSP chief Maulana Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi is said to have agreed to offer his services for this “noble cause.”
LeJ leader Malik Ishaq is already in one of Punjab’s jails and JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar is under house arrest in his hometown of Bahawalpur for some years now.
With security agencies having “control” over top leaders of these networks, officials said there doesn’t seem to be any serious problem in executing the plan. And if small isolated cells continue to create problems, the plan-B would be to “get them out” by one way or the other.
An intelligence operation across Punjab has already identified potential “troublemakers” which could be hit if “all else doesn’t work at all,” the officials said.
The one big reason for this paradigm shift in the counter-terror policy appears to be lack of resources as the military is being over-stretched in tribal areas.
“We will risk losing areas which have already been retaken from militants if more fronts are opened, either in tribal regions or in Punjab,” an official explained to The Express Tribune.
Another reason seems to be of political nature. The collateral damage in Punjab is likely to be much higher than anywhere else, if troops are sent there. And at the moment neither the military nor the political leadership can afford a backlash, officials said.
Though some security experts term it the “only available option” in current circumstances, others say playing an old game of “good cop bad cop” might hurt gains Pakistan has made in the war on terror.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 21st, 2010.
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