The way forward, post-Shuja Khanzada

Deep introspection of systemic failure and structural malaise are required instead of a myopic temporal-spatial focus

On the fateful morning of August 16, a suicide bomber, in his late teens, sneaks into the hujra of Punjab Home Minister Shuja Khanzada and detonates himself from a close range. More than a dozen innocent people, including the minister, instantly lost their lives, thereby adding widows and orphans to the small village of Shadi Khan. The minister, who remained the centre-forward in the war against terrorism, lost his life but won the hearts of millions due to his unflinching efforts against terrorism and undaunted leadership. However, this attack was not the first of its kind in Punjab and will not be the last one in the province. To checkmate the extremists’ onslaught, a holistic approach needs to be adopted with some of the following suggestions.

Firstly, the quality of intelligence input needs further refinement and enrichment. The threat alerts are usually generated on a vague, generalised pattern: “Do khudkush bumbaar Peshawar se rawana ho gai hain”, “barood se bhari ghari Miranshah se chal pari hai”, “Tirah may Taliban ki meeting may baray hamley ka plan” or “char hamla-awar shehr may dakhil ho gai”. The intelligence agencies should not only identify and classify the personalities, infrastructure and events under threat, but also identify the areas which are infested with terrorists or their sympathisers, financiers and supporters. Moreover, it is imperative to triangulate the information gathered from signals intelligence, imagery intelligence, human intelligence, electronic intelligence, geospatial intelligence, measurement and signature and open-source intelligence, to get a clear picture of the jigsaw puzzle of terrorism and trends.

Secondly, it would be instructive to look at some of the findings of the 9/11 Commission in the US, which identified one very important issue that delayed, decayed or choked information and is termed ‘stove-piping’. Important threat alerts and security advisories disappear in the paper kingdoms of DPOs and DCOs due to the volume of paper work. To counter delays and have smooth coordination, a state-of-the art Joint Analytical Centre can be established in Punjab, housing representatives of all the intelligence agencies (ISI, IB, MI), special branch, CTD, CIA and furnish real-time information directly to the operational staff in the field regarding threats to politicians, religious personalities and civil servants. They can directly call the person under threat, send a text message or e-mail. This centre can also apprise the political leadership about new trends in terrorism, measures to be taken to thwart the militants’ ingress and inform the public to be proactive and protective.

Joint investigation teams (JITs) are reactive in nature and are generally formed after the occurrence of an incident. A proactive strategy can be adopted by forming permanent JITs at the level of the divisional headquarters, so that they are already in place before the occurrence of an incident. This will reduce ad hocism, the hassle of forming JITs after a terrorist attack and better coordination among agencies.

The police at the district level are neither equipped nor trained to protect important personalities. Special protection units, which are being raised, are required to protect vulnerable persons, infrastructure and events. Placement of such specialised personnel is all the more important for the launching of the upcoming Gwadar-Kashghar corridor. Moreover, post-blast training and expertise in dealing with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) for all law-enforcement agencies need to be developed. A counter-IED cell at the divisional level can be raised.

The bomb disposal staff works under civil defence, which is a separate department from the police. While the post-blast investigation is now carried out by the CTD, bomb disposal, bomb defusing and bomb detection is the job of another department. This requires reconsidering of attaching bomb disposal squads to the CTD.

Playing the blame game after an incident is a norm. We generally hear terms like ‘security lapse’, ‘failure after security alert’, ‘demands for resignation’, ‘involvement of insiders’, ‘involvement of foreign hands’ and so on. Deep introspection of the systemic failure and structural malaise are required instead of a myopic temporal-spatial focus. In addition, political activities need to be carefully calibrated against security requirements. More targeting is expected in the upcoming local bodies’ elections due to movement of political figures among crowds, reduction in the security permitted and greater predictability of targets. A minimum political consensus can be generated among various political parties to avoid further political losses.

Militants, by design, avoid targeting corrupt and inefficient officers or politicians. They target the most active, efficient, intelligent and courageous of the lot. They target the Bashir Bilours and Shuja Khanzadas, the Safwat Ghayors and Chaudhary Aslams. It is part of the militants’ framework to create chaos and anarchy by decapitating the proactive leadership. Ayman Al-Zawahiri openly professes that the milieu for jihad is more conducive in areas where there is chaos and anarchy. Therefore, the centre-forwards in the teams should not be over-stretched to protect the goal posts as well!

The epicentre of terrorism is Fata, where the writ of the state is weakest. Interestingly, the area of Fata is almost equal to the area of district Bahawalpur, but since inception, Pakistan has adopted a very ambivalent and ambiguous strategy to manage the tribal areas. Instead of calling our tribal areas ilaqa ghair, there is an urgent need to integrate these areas into mainstream Pakistan. Interestingly, the Survey of Pakistan does not issue maps of tribal areas, while the terrorists plan their attacks by using Google Maps! A clear road map is required in the post-Operation Zarb-e-Azb period to administer the tribal areas. If an effective, humane and modern administrative set-up is not put in place after Operation Zarb-e-Azb, the tribal areas will remain troubled areas and will bleed the nation by consuming its men, money and material. While we have won the battles of Swat, Waziristan and Khyber, only history will tell whether we have won the war against extremism.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 4^th,  2015.

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