Pakistan On The Edge

by Farooq Ganderbali

Pakistan’s existence as a separate country is becoming bleak with the changing security scenario in this beleaguered country. The Islamic nation is grappling with the never ending cycle of violence.  The continuous high profile guerrilla attacks in Lahore, Islamabad, NWFP and areas in the space of a month have heightened fears of Islamist militancy engulfing Pakistan. The attacks are showing the depth of insecurity in Pakistan, while television channels carry the news of attacks to the entire world.

Think tanks, policy makers and media around the world are describing entire Pakistan as an unstable country. They had been warning earlier too in the run up of this situation that the Pakistani security agencies are patronising terror groups like Al Qaeda and Taliban in the tribal areas. This is true to a significant extent. But that’s not the whole picture. The truth is that the border regions of Pakistan have a plethora of factors that make the area the perfect operating base for Islamic militants. Some of these have to do with geography, others with corruption, and still yet with Pakistan’s long history of communal violence and hatred of Hindu India.

Pakistan’s leaders know al Qaeda is encouraging a Taliban insurgency in Pakistani tribal lands bordering Afghanistan, and seeking to destabilise the Muslim nation of 170 million people. Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, an al Qaeda ally based in the South Waziristan tribal region has claimed responsibility for the assault on the Lahore police school, which killed eight cadets.

The Tribal areas have effectively slipped out of the control of Pakistani authorities. The writ of Pakistan government no longer rules here. Number of factors are responsible for reaching this situation. Pakistan suffers from high levels of corruption within the ranks of its police and security services. On top of that, the police often do not carry out their assigned duties of investigating crime and protecting the populace. Instead, it works the other way around, where the police are often engaged in criminal activities themselves, particularly in remote areas of the country where official investigation of mistreatment is almost unheard of.

There is the decades-old problem of collusion with the Islamic militants. This largely has its roots in the long-standing conflict between India and Pakistan and the fraternization between Pakistan and the Mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan War. During that conflict, the Pakistani intelligence services demanded that any weapons destined for the guerrillas pass through them. All in all, Pakistan’s security forces have been sympathizing with and aiding Islamic fighters, whether in Kashmir or Afghanistan, for well over two decades and such sympathies are difficult to simply reverse on a moments notice, especially in a nation like Pakistan.

U.S. Military commanders have made public accusations that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has maintained ties with groups close to al Qaeda and the Taliban. Nuclear-armed and a hiding place for al Qaeda, Pakistan has become a foreign policy nightmare for the United States and other allies in the West. The government in Pakistan doesn’t want to launch a massive overwhelming assault on the terrorists hiding out in its border provinces. Pakistan knows the gravity of the internal threat but its army would be uncomfortable taking troops away from the eastern border with India, particularly on the Jammu and Kashmir where they have assumed the role of Terror facilitators.

Even if the terrorists are breathing down their throats Pakistan is not changing its military strategy. Many other countries facing terrorism have effectively dealt with the situation. Egypt, for example, has largely suppressed the threat of widespread terrorism in their country through a perpetual state of emergency. It’s true that the Egyptian security forces are corrupt in the extreme and frequently resort to torture to extract information, but they differ from the Pakistanis in that they are loyal to the secular government and they have no love for terrorists.

Thus, they have no problem implementing massive widespread crackdowns in force to suppress extremism. In the absence of such determination, Taliban and related groups have increased their control in the border provinces, subsidized by drug profits from neighboring Afghanistan. The Pakistani government frequently wavers between wanting to wipe out the al Qaeda elements in their country and making deals with them. The common perception about the government and the military is that they are facing a crisis of credibility. There is no strategic plan or vision over how to deal with extremism and terrorism. As a show off Pakistani security agencies have been carrying out some operations against terrorists, but it is on record to say that none of its operations has ever achieved the success due to some obvious reasons.  They have been giving huge concessions to the terrorists, which most of the time amount to the surrender. In 2006 the government gave up control of large portions of Waziristan to the Taliban and released hundreds of hard-core fighters from their prisons. South Waziristan was under open rule by the Taliban in 2006 after the Pakistanis essential threw up their hands in frustration.

Rooting out terrorists from the region is difficult enough, but the prospect of the Pakistani government simply quitting the battle has been a nightmare to US and NATO forces. Sooner or later, depending on how the situation plays out, cross-border strikes may be necessary to deal with the problem once and for all. In the meantime, unable or unwilling to get its act together, Pakistan continues to suffer from routine attacks and the subversion of central authority.

The government in Pakistan too has not been able to perform upto mark. It is ruled by a weak and manipulative leadership that is without much public support. Its leaders are trying to survive through political manipulations. This is aggravating the already serious security vacuum in the country and is providing fresh oxygen to the various terrorist groups operating from the Pakistani territory.