Taliban’s crumbling Redoubt. The Last Push

                                                                                                 

Pakistan’s military commander thinks that some redouts in North Waziristan are the last resistance. The militants are at their weakest in numbers, coordination and local support. They urge an immediate operation like Swat and SWS so that enough time is left for mopping up before the winters set in.  This strategy is divorced from the political initiative of negotiations between no ones with no ones

The tribal areas and frontier regions were created by the British Empire to divide Pashtun Tribes and keep a buffer with the Russians.  Post 1947 they continue to be governed by a colonial legacy of Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR), which allows considerable power to local chieftains willing to meet the needs of the government. Today, even this black law is non-existent. Maliks are either eliminated or in awe of strong militant groups.  Political agents (sometimes corrupt) are ineffective. Administration is non-existent. Pakistan failed to evolve a system through a reformed social contract with the people of the area. Armed forces of Pakistan remain the only arm to curb lawlessness and restore limited normalcy. This limited success is subject to civilian capacity building around empowerment of the people in effective and enduring terms. Neglect in capacity building remains the missing link.

FATA comprises Agencies and Frontier Regions (FRs). The FRs act as a buffer with settled areas. Agencies are controlled through political agents appointed by the federal government. Deputy Commissioners of the adjoining districts represent the governor in administering FRs. Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA) are subdivisions designated in the Article 246(b) of the Constitution of Pakistan. The fact that these areas have remained restive indicates poor governance and lack of reforms.

Traditionally, the most restive area is NWA. Mirza Ali Khan known as the Faqir of Ipi, from NWA conducted his guerrilla warfare against the British throughout the 1930s and 1940s. The creation of Pakistan in 1947 significantly diluted the movement till the surrender of his Commander Mehar Dil in 1954. NWS became a major base of operations during the Soviet occupation.

The influx of CIA-ISI sponsored mujahedeen and foreigners against USSR changed the fragile balance. The control of the area passed from maliks to local and foreign militant commanders. The region transformed from an imperial buffer to a launching area for operations against USSR. After the withdrawal of Soviet Union, the condition lured most foreign militants into Afghanistan who made their sanctuaries around Kandahar, Kunar, Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Paktika in Afghanistan. These sanctuaries were also used by Pakistani militant groups and sectarian outfits. In an ironic twist, these bases are now used against Pakistan.

In the interim, OBL used his financial clout to gel all such groups around his organisation. NWA continued to be the base strengthened through local customs called Rawaj. Foreign militants comprising Arabs, Uzbeks, Chechens and Uighur Turkmen created a strong connection in NWS through money, marriages and elimination of local Maliks. They gradually seized control of the area after the US-ISAF occupation of Afghanistan.

Pakistan got sucked into this quagmire for multiple reasons.

Pakistan never made efforts toward socio-economic development of the area. Better education, health facilities, agriculture, communication infrastructure, mining, industrialisation and tourism would have had the indirect effect of empowerment. The only doors left open for modernisation were exclusive to rich; through smuggling, drug trafficking, gun running and migration to urban centres. A criminal culture that justified wrong also justified the mind-set. The issue was exasperated by the politics that ignored the people. People who had shown love for the country in repeated surveys were left at the mercy of the notorious.

This imbalance contributed to Pakistan’s inability to block the entry of foreign militants once US-ISAF forces pushed them South. Also, during this crucial period, Pakistan’s reaction to Indian bluff through redeployments on the eastern borders may have made it easier for many fugitives to slip in. Pakistan’s Brigade at Tall managed to arrest most fugitives from Tora Bora, but much more was left undone.

All efforts by the government and army to get foreigners registered with local authorities met stiff resistance. Cognisant of its international obligations, the government of Pakistan held parleys and signed over 18 agreements with Tribal Maliks, ulema and local militant groups to evict or register foreign militants. Each agreement was flouted the moment it was signed. Truces were of mutual convenience. Desperate, the government decided to enforce its writ through flag marches by the Army and Frontier Corps. The first flag march in 2004 was greeted with heavy fire from local and foreign militants. Limited military actions and negotiations continued in tandem till 2008. The present situation is that foreign militants and their proxies control the area, live in highly fortified rented compounds and hold the local economy hostage. Warlords are paid for their services in dollars.

But there is progress. Slowly but surely, the military has been at work despite massive international and domestic propaganda. Except NWA, all agencies and FRs are under control. Militants from SWA, Orakzai, Kurram and Tirah are almost flushed out. This manoeuvre effectively seals and isolates NWA. IDPs cannot be resettled in SWA till NWA is not sanitised. The army could have cleared NWA immediately after Swat and SWS Operations. There could be analysis and debate on why it was not done.  Locals led by new and young Utmanzai Maliks are standing up against militants and prepared to play a leading role as stakeholders in the system.

The flow of accurate information has increased facilitating targeting. Strikes on three Uzbek Hotels in Mir Ali and five fortified compounds in Machi could never have been possible without local assistance. An attempt to gel militants under the leadership of Swati Talibans hiding in Kunar has backfired. Cracks are widening each day. The only hurdles left are foreigners, sectarian outfits and their hosts.

These militants have spread into many urban areas of Pakistan and it is here that their bloodiest backlash could come. A measure of it was seen on 4 June when two officers were killed in Rawalpindi in a suicide attack. Time is against delay and complacency. A comprehensive counter terrorism policy has to be approved quickly. The LEAs have to soften and eliminate isolated and cornered militants with precision and least collateral damage. As militancy gets weaker, more people will rally behind the LEAs to telling effect.

It will take time and missionary zeal to rebuild infrastructure, modernise agriculture and livestock, explore rare minerals and set up value addition industry. Indeed FATA has the potential to become the richest region of Pakistan, only if all of us decide to become ONLY PAKISTANIS. This is where the federal government will be required to lead the passion. Military’s capacity in national development will also be tested.

The man who has perceived and is overseeing this for ten years, smiled and remarked, ‘who says we are fighting America’s War?’ I retorted, ‘your major test will be capacity building of the civilian institutions. Then you win the war’.

Brigadier (Retired) Samson Simon Sharaf is a political economist and a television anchorperson. Email and twitter: samson.sharaf@gmail.com

http://www.nation.com.pk/columns/07-Jun-2014/calling-it-the-people-s-war

COGNITION: THE ENEMY WITHIN

In a presentation to General Pervez Musharraf in 1998, I had recited a few versus written by me. The theme was that, ‘like my country, I am at war within myself. I am my biggest enemy’. Those were that days when the COAS was a chum of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and ready lock, stock and barrel to back the government in fast track socio-economic development.

Pakistan had recently become a declared nuclear power. Delivery systems were being tested with remarkable frequency. Pakistan’s hopes of political autonomy were laid to rest by freezing of foreign currency accounts. Pakistan’s economy was plummeting and the country was under international nuclear sanctions.

Within the region, Pakistan’s backing of Afghan Taliban and inducted fighters in Kashmir continued relentlessly. During in house discussions I singled out Pakistan’s interference in Afghanistan and use of non-state actors in Indian held Kashmir as acts that would return like daemons to haunt. Nuclear Pakistan was behaving irresponsibly filliping the choice of operations other than war against an ambitious but a politically and economically unstable self. International research organisations were churning out papers on crises management if a nuclear armed state went unstable. To compound matters, nuclear Pakistan with a declared ‘First Use’ deterrence initiated the Kargil Conflict; a limited war under a nuclear shadow. Pakistan proved to the world that a limited conventional conflict between nuclear rivals was possible that later opened gates for armed intervention like cross border incursions and drones. Pakistan found Kargil too hot to handle and abandoned ambitions of exploiting a vacuum in Indian held Kashmir. The misdeed was reciprocated by a cantankerous dismissal of a COAS and the resultant coup by a coterie of generals whose memories were still fresh with the Kargil guilt. Pakistan’s isolation engineered by its very own was complete but for Twin Tower attacks.

Many saw 9/11 as a blessing in disguise for Pakistan with an opportunity to break away from past policies and concentrate on nation building. The Kargil planners were still around and would ensure that a paradigm shift if any would be a camouflage for a new word inserted into strategic glossary, ‘Assets’. The state with a multi bipolar disorder continued to follow a policy of shielding and preserving its assets. The strategist’s key word was no more Kashmir but Afghanistan.

In this prolonged conflict the so called assets have run lose and jeer at the faces of their past mentors. Pakistan’s interests have narrowed down to supporting one group within one ethnicity in Afghanistan. All others are either enemy or potential ones. This in turn has created crises of ethnic and sectarian vulnerability within. Growing radicalism has helped gel extremist elements in a society where no one is safe. Militants have permeated every sinew of society with threats hanging like Damocles Swords over the heads of national leaders. Anyone anywhere can be assassinated. The conclusions are grim.

Within Pakistan’s politic body, cognition of impending threats is opinionated and diverse. The perception does not flow from the dangers to the nation but personal or political vulnerability. Methodologies to deal with this menace are divided, leaving a gaping hole in the national reconciliation. The lack of consensus and abundance thereof of political jargon has resulted in creating a National Crisis of Cognition, leaving the field wide open for militants to exploit. This phenomenon inhibits recognition of impending dangers and consensus in dealing with the menace of terrorism. While some political parties safe in their hideouts continue to demand swift military action against terrorism, others hold out an olive branch drenched in blood each time the terrorists strike. Lost within their fantasies of a fantastic self, the typology and dissection of the real issue is a subject all parties deliberately avoid.  

Notwithstanding General (Retired) Kayani’s belated admission that it is ‘Our War’ the military or a part of it still sees the Afghan conflict as a brinkmanship that will succeed. With dates of US withdrawal approaching and US rapprochement with Iran, somebody will have to get down to the serious business of counting how many eggs are left in the basket. If Pakistan succeeds in its walking on the edge policy in a post US withdrawal Afghanistan, it would have once again performed an impossible Houdini Act. But the multitude of internal kinetics suggest otherwise.

Afghanistan poses another dilemma. The prolonged conflict in FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with diverse strains of home grown and foreign militants has paradoxically helped identify foreign support bases comprising both state and non-state actors outside the traditional rant of US global ambitions. Would it be astute on part of Pakistan to get involved in a proxy sectarian conflict that majority of Pakistanis do not support but which the governments in the past are guilty of. So if the matrix of trade-offs and choices are exercised, chances are that it will be another shot in the foot with the hunter becoming the hunted.

Realistically, it is not FATA but Karachi that gives a measure of what Pakistan could become. The diversity of crime and lawlessness in this city is beyond description. Most political parties in the province either have armed militant wings or get support from militant group. To perpetuate their activities, TTP is a convenient punching bag. Sectarian and sub sectarian groups operate with remarkable abandon. Mafias, extortionists and criminals criss-cross within these organisations with convenience. The police and local administration is highly politicised. This lethal brew has not reached a boiling point because the interested parties have more stakes in the limbo than outright anarchy. Yet it could, if any one of the interested party pulls the trigger. With a compliant local administration, the same scenario can be replicated in major urban centres of the country.

As predicted, the APC on terrorism is proving to be another stratagem and farce to fool the people of Pakistan. Despite intelligence agencies, a credible messenger has yet to get any message across. On the other hand the starting point of negotiations if any are related to stopping of drone strikes by USA and release of prisoners who have their hands soiled in the blood of thousands of Pakistanis. Knowing that both are equally improbable, the stalemate continues to add to uncertainties within us.

Civilian institutions in the Swat Case Study have yet to develop the capability to supplement military operations with effective passive peace keeping. The same would be true of other urban centres where the violence could hypothetically conflagrate. Military and LEAs in their present capacities and capabilities would provide limited defensive shields. The absence of an urban counter terrorism apparatus and quick reaction forces would denude the reaction capabilities of the existing law enforcement structure. Even if such a structure existed, the biggest compromise would be the integral and affiliated militant wings of political parties; Hence the reluctance to formulate a comprehensive counter-terrorism policy.

Military action against the militant hideouts in FATA would be complete in three to four months but result in only a battle won. Who will win the war? Victory will only come if the state, its machinery, judiciary and political parties move in tandem; something that does not appear probable in the existing state of affairs.

Brigadier (Retired) Samson Simon Sharaf is a political economist and a television anchorperson.

Email and twitter: samson.sharaf@gmail.com

 

Bait Ullah Mehsud is Dead

He died of kidney failure today. His death will be a setback to US led WOT albeit war on Pakistan’s Reverse Front.