Try a smarter strategy

To destroy the jihadi outfits , it would require employing a well thought-out counterinsurgency strategy

Fearing a bloody blowback, the authorities seem to have given up the idea of launching a military campaign in the tribal region. Negotiating another peace deal also seems to be out of the question because experience has shown that these deals were only used as breathers by terrorists to resume their murderous mission with extra vigour and redoubled vengeance after having recouped their losses in men and material. So, what do we do now? Let militancy thrive and take over the state in due course of time? Or try a different strategy? I am more than convinced that if the security agencies took care of the jihadi outfits operating from inside Pakistan, those running the rogues from inside the tribal region would simply wither away in no time because it is the mainland thugs that provide the logistics support to their tribal counterparts in choosing targets and mounting attacks. A smarter strategy, therefore, would entail infiltrating these outfits to annihilate them from inside, and in tandem, tearing down the network that keeps them regularly supplied with generous loads of guns and gold.

There are about 10 to 15 major jihadi outfits in the country, mostly located in Punjab, with a couple of them having emerged in Sindh, in recent years. These outfits get a regular supply of jihadis from the 30,000 or so madrassas spread all over the country. Both these institutions — jihadi outfits and the madrassas — are the residual but have decidedly criminal legacies of the first Afghan war and the now-defunct Kashmir jihad. Perhaps, angry at the khakis for abandoning the Kashmir jihad, these institutions have now started biting the very hand that had been feeding them, funding them, arming them and training them on how to kill. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) seems to be a more dangerously callous off-shoot of these jihadi outfits. The TTP’s stated objective is to introduce sharia in Pakistan. But the methods it has so far employed in achieving this objective — large-scale massacres, blowing up of mosques and shrines, kidnappings for ransom, etc., all being criminal acts — appear to be in direct conflict with sharia as it is understood by the majority of Muslims the world over.

To destroy the jihadi outfits from inside, it would require employing a well thought-out counterinsurgency strategy based as well on experiences drawn from countries that had successfully overcome such insurgencies. So far, I have not seen a single move or sign indicating that our security agencies are even thinking along these lines. All that one could gather from media reports is that the security agencies and the civil administration have been discussing only two options for all these years: whether or not to send the army into North Waziristan/whether or not to negotiate another peace deal with the criminals. The third option, which is being misused to the point of being downright sickening is Mr Know-it-all’s mugshot-spouting, day in and day out from TV screens and newspaper pages, and all kinds of bizarre reasons for the latest criminal act and how he would not rest until the perpetrators are brought to book, only to repeat the same nauseating performance after the next terror attack. Mr Rehman Malik does not squander the slightest opportunity to hog the media glare, no matter what the subject. At times, he seems to be doubling for the entire cabinet including the prime minister. My late friend Khalid Hasan had nicknamed him after the bumbling movie character, Inspector Clouseau.

But coming back to the terror topic, most of the mainland jihadi organisations seem to have a good number of former services’ personnel in leadership positions. With their insider knowledge, which they have mounted in the name of the TTP’s partially successful attacks on the GHQ, Mehran naval base, Kamra Air Force base and other sensitive installations of the ISI and the police. But the khakis have continued to shy away from destroying the demon, hoping perhaps, to continue to use them for waging proxy wars, for promoting their foreign policy agenda and for keeping the civilians from posing a serious threat to their domestic political dominance. But if they wait any longer, these murderous hordes are likely to leave nothing for the khakis or the civilians to rule!

Published in The Express Tribune, October 31^st, 2012.