COMMENT: Getting real on terrorism –Shahzad Chaudhry

Source: daily times

Comparing the sophistication of the 9/11 operation with the crudity of the Faisal Shahzad episode leaves one to conclude that the TTP, yet green at this level, may just have gone a step too far both in its reach and competence

All sane minds seem to have reached a singular conclusion: there is no end to the persisting insurgency in the border regions of Pakistan and in Afghanistan through military means alone. It will need a parallel negotiating strategy with groups that have, to date, been labelled barbaric and medieval. The military will buy time and space, but is never good at reintegration and reconciliation — the mantra now for sometime in Afghanistan. No matter how we define them, the Pashtuns form the bulk of this warring lot: around 15 million in Afghanistan, while around four million constitute the seven agencies of FATA. Not all may have taken up arms, yet each may empathise and share the general sense of alienation that this nine-year-long war has inflicted on these mostly hapless people — only a few of their kin wayward. Common suffering gives birth to shared emotion. It seems improbable that around 20 million people can be exterminated by military action; hence, the need to change tack and seek a negotiated end by overextended armies and tiring economies. This is true at least as far as Afghanistan is concerned. For Pakistan though what is being prescribed is significantly different.

North Waziristan Agency (NWA) is quite an amalgam. Initially home to the Haqqani group after 9/11, it has always retained a mix of militant identity. Al Qaeda may have traversed the area sometime in their longstanding hide and seek but for now have either vacated the region or are in extremely diminishing numbers. The NWA has been home to two other local groups: that of Mullah Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir, both opposed, for the moment, to confrontation with the Pakistani military — perhaps as an arrangement of mutual convenience with the Haqqani group. These three distinct groups have coexisted with the Pakistani state while, over time, acquiring uncontested space as a base of operation. The only redeeming aspect of this arrangement seems to be their sustaining policy of non-confrontation with the Pakistani state, especially when the state is hard pressed already to secure itself against inimical elements in all other FATA agencies, hence the relative ‘goodness’ of these Taliban. How ‘bad’ they get at other times in terms of occasional support to the ‘real bad’ Taliban and what exact shape such support takes, is a moot point, but a factor for serious consideration — perhaps one that might in the end decide how the Pakistani state tackles these particular groups.

Of late, groups like the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) from South Waziristan have escaped the Pakistan Army’s operation in their area and have imposed themselves as the guests of these host groups. The terms of this arrangement can be anybody’s guess. But two recent pointers are useful.

One, the spate of suicide bombings that mainland Pakistan had to bear has abated some. Is this out of deference or a quid pro quo for a safe haven to the host groups, especially Haqqani’s, sensitivity that the Pakistani military’s unnecessary attention countervails their need to preserve their base of operation — more likely so. At the same time, the TTP and its affiliates retain the operational freedom to continue their war outside the NWA against the Pakistani forces and US/NATO’s logistic operations. This way, too, they supplement the Haqqani group’s core fight against US/NATO forces inside Afghanistan, substantiating their relevance to Haqqani’s larger cause in Afghanistan.

Two, the CIA bombing at Khost and the recent misadventure at Times Square both carry TTP sponsorship. Are these TTP efforts to launch themselves at the international level filling in for the space created by the dislocated and perhaps significantly weakened al Qaeda? Or, are they making themselves relevant to Haqqani’s attention and favour while they fend off a hard pursuing Pakistani military? It seems that the Jordanian bomber of Khost and Faisal Shahzad both came as incidental picking to the TTP, which is desperate to re-establish its credentials as a force in being. Where one was smart, at Khost, the returns were significant, while the other, a novice, amounted to a damp squib. Comparing the sophistication of the 9/11 operation with the crudity of the Faisal Shahzad episode leaves one to conclude that the TTP, yet green at this level, may just have gone a step too far both in its reach and competence. Implicitly, such a botched affair adds credence to the assumption that it indeed was the handiwork of someone not at all as sophisticated and intellectually equipped as al Qaeda.

The other entrants to the FATA region are the groups from Punjab, more pointedly the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM). Essentially a spin-off of a sectarian militant group, another salient of Pakistan’s militant landscape, the Jaish has signified itself with some audacious terrorist undertakings against power centres in Pakistan. They have honed the tactical acumen of 10-12 men operations and choose statement objectives in the most challenging operating conditions. They seem to have compensated for their small size by aligning with the larger TTP for greater effect and also to secure themselves against the state’s counter-terrorism effort.

This essentially is the backdrop of the militant mix that defines North Waziristan. The state of Pakistan could either take on this entire mix and end up opening a much wider front, or deal with it along the same principle of reconciliation and reintegration as is the prevalent resolution philosophy in Afghanistan. Compare this to the recent pronouncements from Afghanistan on the US’s own war against terror. Marjah remains stagnated and, in effect, sliding back into Taliban control. McChrystal states that the pending operation in Kandahar, US/NATO’s second signature outing, shall be an entirely different operation, not even similar to the poorly provisioned Helmand, but significantly different where the capacity and presence of the civilian government will be strengthened — to ensure no armed fighting unless absolutely necessary. The US and NATO have already collapsed their presence as a deliberate strategy from the extended reaches of the larger Afghan regions to major towns only where their garrisoned location is better protected. The surge is nowhere close to completion and will anyway miss the minimal fighting that McChrystal’s changed strategy entails. Against their own unwillingness to initiate any serious armed action, pushing Pakistan to do their dirty work by overextending Pakistan’s limited capacity is outright disingenuous and harmful to Pakistan’s own interests, of which ‘strategic depth’ — the usual bashing bogey — is not one.

Somewhere along the line, Pakistan missed the trick and has retained only a single plank of operative strategy. When the US and Afghanistan reconcile with the larger Afghan Pashtun diaspora, Pakistan will still have to contend with the remnant hostile sentiment among its own tribal Pashtuns. State power is good to help create negotiating space but never the only means to an end. Sadly, as the curtain draws to a close, our collective intellect to comprehend the nature of our difficulties and seek genuine solutions is desperately lacking. We have not made things easier for ourselves by playing politics with the issue of General Kayani’s extension or replacement. When you sustain hiatus that is what you must contend with. Anyone notice the quiet on the South Waziristan front?

Shahzad Chaudhry is a retired air vice marshal and a former ambassador