| The old balance of terror which involved weekly attacks against high profile targets is being discarded in favour of almost daily attacks on security-related institutions and individuals in Islamabad, Peshawar and Lahore. | |
| By Ilhan Niaz |
THE attack on Army General Headquarters in Rawalpindi has demon strated that the terrorists have the audacity and the ability to strike anywhere and that not even the most heavily guarded installations are completely safe. It doesn’t matter that the attackers were quickly contained and eventually overwhelmed with most of the hostages they took freed. In psychological terms the advantage went squarely to the terrorists.
The attack on the Islamic University in Islamabad demonstrates that the terrorists have the will to attack any target. No place is sacrosanct. This is no longer a campaign waged by a hardcore group of militants against the state apparatus, the political leadership and western interests.
The old balance of terror which involved weekly attacks against high profile targets is being discarded in favour of a broader and more intense campaign involving almost daily attacks in major metropolitan centres on security-related institutions and individuals. The federal capital, which already looks like a city under siege, along with Peshawar and Lahore appear to be at this stage the principal zones of operation for the terrorists.
There are divergent explanations of the underlying causes for the escalation in terrorist activities. The government is of the view that the spike in terrorist violence is a reaction to the success of the Swat campaign and the growing antipathy of the public towards the violent extremists. The South Waziristan offensive and the drone attacks have turned the terrorist leadership desperate. In their desperation, the terrorists are throwing in their reserves hoping that an upsurge in violence may compel the government to negotiate a modus vivendi. Pakistan’s fever, the government assures us, will rise before it is broken and recovery can begin.
While there is merit in the official line it has all been heard before. It seems that the default setting of Pakistan’s sorry excuse for a political class is to argue that things will get worse before they get better. Regrettably, things keep getting worse after they get worse and after five years of bloodshed that shows few signs of abating and many signs of escalating, the old mantra is not particularly convincing.
The other view is that the militants are too deeply embedded in the fabric of Pakistani society to be uproo ted by any number of military operations. Pakistan’s state apparatus has been so gravely weakened that it is not capable, whatever the government policy, of implementing the requisite changes on the ground. The police and intelligence services on the civilian side, moreover, are managed with such hideous arbitrariness and disregard for merit, integrity and efficiency that no amount of additional material inputs will enable them to prevail against the terrorists.
One claim that the government has made, perhaps to justify its inability to stop terrorist attacks, is that the planning for 80 per cent of such attacks takes place in South Waziristan. A victorious military operation in South Waziristan might well substantially reduce the number of attacks. By the same logic, stalemate (or retreat) is likely to produce a substantial increase in the level of terrorist violence. That the military is saying that this operation will take at least two months and has been candid about the determination and strength of the adversary is sobering. At the very least this means that the next few months are going to be exceptionally hard on everyone.
At the same time, the military’s candour inspires a measure of confidence in its resolve and rationality. In the longer term the military may have to carefully consider raising an additional corps and stationing it permanently in the Waziristan region while unilaterally proceeding with the fencing and mining of the Durand Line leaving only designated check posts for cross border movements. Such measures will no doubt provoke angry denunciations from the mayoralty of Kabul but given Nato’s astonishing unwillingness to help the Pakistani military plug gaps on the Afghan side of the border even with a military operation in full swing in South Waziristan, there seems to be little choice in this matter.
Military might alone will not be able to compensate for the overall softening of the Pakistani state apparatus. This is a point that is almost completely lost on both the political class and Pakistan’s foreign benefactors. The former, after each terrorist strike, issue condemnations and go boldly forth into television studios to regurgitate tired clichés about unity, the people, democracy, policy planning and the ever popular ‘fool proof’ security measures. The media laps it up while its cameramen and reporters pro vide coverage live from the battlefield elbowing each other to give the public a better view of the dead and wounded. While this publicity admirably serves the policy of the terrorists it appears that the government’s only real policy is publicity.
Pakistan’s western allies, if Kerry-Lugar bill is any indication, remain resolute in their faith in democracy, civil society, education reform, vocational training, women’s empowerment, etc., as the key to defeating terrorism. They are simply incapable of making the connection between the arbitrary and irrational exercise of power by Pakistan’s rulers, which undermines the executive func tions of the state, and the inability of the state to implement policies.
It is not so much a question of insufficient resources but of inadequate administration. Pakistan urgently needs to restore the writ of the state not only in parts of the NWFP troubled by militancy but also in Karachi, Quetta and the rural and semi-rural hinterland. The intellectual and moral decline of civilian bureaucracy brought about by decades of political whimsicality and non-seriousness cannot be rolled back overnight. But, this decline must be reversed if the state is to be rehabilitated. Salvation by the sword alone is likely to prove illusory.
One illusion that is re markably persistent is that ‘foolproof’ security measures can and ought to be taken. The problem is that there is plenty of proof that the terrorists are no fools. Of course, security measures can and do contain and disrupt terrorist strikes on sensitive and well guarded sites. But if the terrorists are adopting an Iraq-style strategy that combines suicide attacks on heavily fortified high profile installations with random acts of violence, suicide bombings and targeted killings, then no defence protocols can succeed.
The casualties that terrorism inflicts are in the eyes of the perpetrators a collateral benefit for what really matters is instilling fear in the hearts and minds of the living. It is not possible to physically cover every public transport, place of worship, school, market, hospital, restaurant, etc. To do so would entail the permanent disruption of normal life which is precisely what the terrorists want to achieve. Pakistan’s major cities offer target-rich environment and reactive security measures are hampered by quantitative and qualitative personnel and material constraints.
A more aggressive approach aimed at pre-empting attacks may make more sense and better serve Pakistan’s interests. Just as the military has gone on the offensive against militant sanctuaries the police and civilian intelligence agencies can formulate and implement security plans for the federal capital and the provincial capitals. These plans would require a concentration of counter-terrorism resources in metropolitan centres and include a comprehensive crackdown on terrorist sympathisers and support networks. They would aim to force the terrorists to choose targets outside the federal and provincial seats of government.
The panicked reaction to the report of firing in F-8 Markaz in Islamabad on October 22 show how frayed nerves are in the capital city. That earlier the same day a brigadier was gunned down in sector G-11 underscores the credibility of the terrorist threat. It is a measure of the government’s lack of imagination that it does not seem to have contemplated the fallout of its counter-terrorism campaign and failed to predict threats against soft targets or anticipate a change in tactics by the terrorists. One hopes that the government’s assessment of the ongoing escalation in militancy and terrorism is correct and that the militants are in fact running out of options. Experience and the fear that now stalks the major cities of Pakistan suggests otherwise. ¦ The writer is a faculty member of the Quaid-i-Azam University, Department of History, Islamabad.
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