Daily Times

Zarb-e-Azb is looking at a military operation in the context of counterterrorism. A military operation links terrorist actions to accountability without the need for charge, prosecution or conviction. A counterterrorism framework incorporates and combines elements of criminal justice and national security, giving rise to a number of tensions. One key tension is between the ideal of impartial criminal justice and the politically charged concept of national security. Military operation counterterrorism measures can be traced through a number of interlinking historical trajectories including the wars on crime and drugs, criminalisation and, more fundamentally, in colonial strategies of domination, control and repression. It concludes by showing that a government, in such a situation, is justified in dealing with a number of challenges and opportunities for dismantling terrorism in its shift from post-terrorism criminal justice to prime national security.
Pakistan has condemned recent drone strikes that took place near Miranshah in North Waziristan. Targeted killing through drone attacks eliminates leadership and can disrupt terrorist organisations, throwing them into chaos and preventing them from planning future attacks. However, it spreads irrefutable collateral damage of some serious physical and psychological significance and even when members or leaders survive or evade attacks, it still serves a catalyst role. So, while certain countries may be turning to drone killing as a part of their overall counterterrorism strategy, analysts have raised serious questions about whether or not this is a viable tactic. Cases where a group has halted a campaign following the killing of the leader are difficult to find, and those examined do not support the conclusion that assassination ends terrorism.
Given the recent use of US drone strikes that took place in North Waziristan and the secretive nature of the programme, it is harder to find reliable or scholarly studies as to the effectiveness of drone strikes targeted at al Qaeda in Afghanistan and the Taliban in FATA. While there are many accounts to confirm that a significant number of militants have been killed, the strikes have two complementary goals: tactical and strategic. While the immediate goal is to bring about the deaths of terrorist leaders, the campaign serves a larger strategic disadvantage in pushing the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP’s) senior leaders deeper into hiding in Afghanistan and invoking anger against the government through civilian casualties.
Drone killing requires the gathering of intelligence through treacherous means and is executed through treacherous acts, which undermine the confidence and stability of society. It should be noted that much of the overwhelming arguments against drone killing come from those who find the policy distasteful, immoral and illegal. It is hard to ignore that a policy of named assassination brings about unsustainable consequences, such as undermining the social and economic infrastructures of the FATA community.
Today, while an anxious Pakistani population may want the government to show strength and crush the Taliban, it has to be known that state-directed assassinations result mainly in tactical gains because the resulting tit-for-tat equivalence between state and militants over time hurts the strategic position of the government as the rightful actor. Targeted killing can be understood broadly as the planned direct killing of an individual because of their perceived membership (and often perceived leadership) of a terrorist movement. Additionally, it will frequently make references to other understandings of targeted killing in literature that are narrower or wider to make various points or to describe certain arguments such as drone strikes.
The bottom line for targeted killing supporters is that targeted killing works as part of a larger counterterrorism strategy. In the first instance, targeted killing does what it is supposed to and removes the leader of a group. Perhaps the most important of these benefits is the idea that it disrupts terrorist organisations, throwing them into chaos and preventing them from planning future attacks. The advantage of this is straightforward: the Taliban will be deprived of their political or spiritual leader who directs operations and perhaps serves as a rallying/recruiting cause. However, operations that are broader in scope also seek to eliminate terrorists with highly valuable skills that are not easily replaced. Targeted killing is also touted as a preferred option when it is clear that bringing suspects to trial is simply not possible and is more proportional tactically than other forms of counterterrorism. Along these lines, it is possible to argue that a single strike is a far more proportional tactic than invasion and occupation.
On the other hand, targeted killing creates a perverse yet pervasive belief for the Taliban to target the leadership or institutions of civil and military significance. Revenge and defeat would drive the Taliban to retaliate and increase the risk that our own leaders may be assassinated. In a war of assassination, there is the issue of blowback: a policy of targetted killing may backfire with very negative consequences for Pakistan. Enraged at the killing of their leaders, militant groups may choose to strike at national and military leaders.
Secondly, although targeted killing may actually remove Taliban leaders, their replacements may in fact be worse. Again, we cannot assume that new leaders will act differently from their predecessors. Those who advocate targeted assassination policies must think not only tactically but strategically, analysing the second and third order effects of the removal of terrorist Taliban leaders. Removing the leader may reduce a group’s operational efficiency in the short term or it may raise the stakes for members of a group to ‘prove’ their mettle by carrying out dramatic attacks. It is possible that counterterrorism measures can promote a siege mentality among the Pashtun population of northwest Pakistan, which would have the same hallmarks as failed campaigns in Algeria in the 1950s and Somalia in 2005-06. However, heavy reliance on military operations should not mistake the use of a tactic for a strategy.
There is no question that a military operation is an issue fraught with political, moral and legal issues. Nawaz Sharif’s administration has laid out its justification for a military operation and asserts that the country remains in a state of armed conflict with the Taliban and associated forces. Pakistan’s government has chosen to utilise such a tactic and, therefore, it is unsurprising that individuals, organisations and governments are curious as to whether this operation would actually be effective. First, this problem speaks to the larger issue of how the government plans to think about evaluating this counterterrorism policy. These policies are often extensive, expensive and some have challenged prior notions of the appropriate balance between fallout and security as well as core ideas of international law. Although counterterrorism policies are kept in the dark by governments who want to maintain or achieve an advantage over terrorist groups, it is fair to ask whether this is likely to remain the case for the Taliban in the near future.
It has been argued that the military-centred approach against terrorism has had several problematic effects. The most prominent among them is the legitimacy crisis. Most importantly, military counterterrorism serves short-term goals but does little to guarantee long-term success in the struggle against terrorism. The argument that military interventions increase the motivational basis as a precondition to engage in terrorism against the perceived authoritative power has been theoretically and empirically substantiated. However, where interventions provoke retaliation, they also force governments to draw a bloodline between national security and sovereignty of the state, which Zarb-e-Azb has clearly decided to carve in stone.

The writer is a member of the Diplomate American Board of Medical Psychotherapists Dip.Soc Studies, member Int’l Association of Forensic Criminologists, associate professor Psychiatry and consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at the Huntercombe Group United Kingdom. He can be reached at fawad_shifa@yahoo.com