The real operation

Draconian antiterror law will impinge on civil liberties; some innocents will suffer, but the alternative is worse.

What would a Waziristan operation have achieved? For one thing, it may have deprived the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) of its last main bastion. It would also possibly have brought us into conflict with the Haqqani network which, while it may have different targets, certainly shares physical and ideological space with the TTP. One thing it wouldn’t have done is bring us Maulana Fazlullah’s head on a plate for us to collectively spit on. That’s because he’s not in either of the Waziristans but in Kunar where, for some reason, the drones rarely fly. To get him would require American and Afghan help and in return they would want the Haqqanis taken out. Simply put, it’s a Gordian knot that must be untangled by a dozen different hands, in the dark, while wearing blindfolds. Even more simply put: it won’t happen; certainly not in an election year. And certainly not if the propaganda brigades we saw deployed for the Kerry-Lugar brouhaha and the Salala attack are not used to drum up media hysteria.

But a military operation would have been a stopgap at best. The real war won’t be fought by the army conducting operations in some distant no-man’s land. It will be fought in our streets and towns and it will be fought by the civilian law-enforcement agencies.

There’s a reason why Sifwat Ghayur was killed by a suicide bomber. There’s a reason why SP Khurshid Khan was beheaded and SP Chaudhry Aslam was attacked. That’s because the TTP and its allies know that there can be no military operation against scattered urban cells. Because they know that, more than the drones and artillery, the greatest danger they face is from dedicated and motivated police officers doing traditional investigation work backed by sound intelligence. Somehow, no one else, certainly not our supine and self-serving leadership, seems to understand this.

Here’s a fun fact: most police stations in Karachi have three police mobiles available to them. One stays with the SHO, one is usually with some VIP (when it isn’t in need of repair) and one patrols a vast area. Another fun fact: some police stations in the city don’t even have buildings. One even operates out of a shipping container. For frontline fighters, this can’t be good for either morale or capability. Moreover, the police themselves are targets, open to retaliation by the terrorists they capture and kill.

Take the case of Lashkar-e-Jhanvgi Sindh’s chief, Hafiz Qasim Rasheed, who was arrested recently. In the list of the hundreds of people he killed were police officials and informers. Jail officials were killed because “they created problems for his family when they came to visit him in jail”. Should we then expect these people to put their lives on the line? Are we then surprised when militant leaders are found using cell phones from jail?

Here’s more about Rasheed. This is the third time he has been arrested. Each previous time, he was released due to — you guessed it — lack of evidence. This is nothing new: in Punjab alone, between 1990 and 2009, 74 per cent of all terrorism cases resulted in acquittals. Not that acquittal is needed. A recent report claims that nine alleged militants released on bail from various jails of Punjab in September are now planning terror attacks. Let’s also not forget about Malala’s alleged shooter. Most of these acquittals are due to lack of evidence. This isn’t the sign of a stringent judicial process, but rather a testimony to the ability of militants to intimidate witnesses, lawyers and judges alike. It is an indictment of a state unable to protect its citizens but also of a judiciary seemingly unwilling to plug the clear defects in the conviction process. It is an indictment of a parliament that engages in meaningless point-scoring instead of legislating desperately needed changes to these processes. Just yesterday, there was a news item stating that the underfunded FC may ‘give up the fight’. The consequences of that will be worse than a dozen aborted operations. Yes, beefing up the law-enforcement agencies will take money, but a government that can spend millions on monitoring online blasphemy can spare the funds. After all, blasphemy isn’t an existential threat while the TTP are.

Yes, draconian antiterror legislation will impinge on civil liberties. Yes, some innocents will suffer. But the alternative is worse. The alternatives are the use of death squads or a complete surrender to militants. Some will say that ‘any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both’. But this isn’t the America of the 1770s. This is the Pakistan of 2012. And we are at war.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 20^th, 2012.