Pakistan completed major civil and military leadership transitions without any hiccups last year, which by itself is a major achievement for a nation that has grappled with political uncertainty for the better part of its existence. The country’s leadership has consistently rated terrorism as the top national concern along with the economy. But the way the elected leaders and the military brass handled the jihadist terrorism issue throughout 2013 leaves much to be desired. If the civilian leadership spent 2013 bungling the talks — its own proposed solution to the Taliban menace — the military ended the year with a tragically botched operation in Mirali, North Waziristan Agency (NWA). The events in Mirali indicate that the civilian leaders remain completely clueless while the military bosses are trigger-happy when it suits them and one hand does not know what the other is doing.
The much talked about national security policy, including the country’s counterterrorism doctrine, is nowhere to be seen despite Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government consistently promising it for over six months now. Going by what some Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders have said, that elusive policy may be sophomoric at best. It is hard to see how such policy can be a success without the leadership acknowledging the genesis of the jihadist menace and naming the enemy — something neither the government nor the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) is willing to do. The US drone attacks remain a convenient piñata for both the PML-N and the PTI. The political Tweedledum and Tweedledee continue to pin the blame for militancy on the weapon that netted nearly all top Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Haqqani terrorist network (HQN) leaders killed in 2013 as in years prior.
Many of these terrorist thugs were taken out in the NWA real close to the Pakistani military garrisons. The recent slipshod action in Mirali notwithstanding, the Pakistan army has tolerated, if not actively facilitated, a virtual mini state in the NWA run by the jihadist groups. The military has taken such sporadic action against a wayward group or two in the past also when they attacked it but till this day maintains agreements with many jihadist groups. The security establishment under the previous two army chiefs allowed the militants to take hold in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), especially the NWA as part of the Pakistani strategy to impose a government of its choice on Afghanistan. The assorted types of jihadists are still active in FATA, including Mullah Omar’s Afghan Taliban, the HQN, the transnational jihadists of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the TTP. The Pakistan army never did have any issue with the Afghan Taliban and the HQN operating in Afghanistan. It did not object even when the HQN-supported TTP attacked and blockaded the Upper Kurram Agency or unleashed havoc in the cities and villages of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
What exactly is the threshold that the terrorists must cross for the army to take them on remains a mystery in Pakistan’s case. The veteran Pashtun leader Senator Afrasiab Khattak lamented after the Mirali episode: “Had the terrorists, God forbid, taken over Gujranwala or Faisalabad even for twelve hours the state would have come up with a swift response but the insurgents holding FATA hostage for twelve years has not bothered the state one bit.” Elsewhere in the world it is unimaginable for an army to cede territory to non-state actors as a national security manoeuvre but in Pakistan that has been the de facto policy for decades now. When international pressure mounted on Pakistan in early 2010 to act against the terrorists in NWA, the army claimed that it was stretched too thin to spare any troops for such an operation. The NWA operation never did materialise. The former COAS General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani stonewalled a comprehensive action in NWA till the end. He seemed unwilling to let go of the Pakistani jihadist proxies there.
For any talks or operation to be meaningful, the Pakistani national security paradigm has to change radically. The militancy threat cannot be tackled piecemeal. The new army chief General Raheel Sharif and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif have to formally reverse the criminal policy of ‘leasing’ FATA to the terrorists. Cutting deals with the militants and appeasing some groups, alternating with indiscriminate force in some cases, must end. The FATA locals are sick and tired of the duplicitous games the establishment has been playing. Civilian leaders gung-ho about talks must consider that negotiations can and should be conducted from a position of strength. Why do they have to invite the TTP over for coffee to chat? Why not degrade it further when it is in disarray and talk to whatever or whoever remains standing?
Similarly, the HQN is neither untouchable nor has limitless human and logistical resources. Its six or eight-men top echelon has been reduced to two now. The HQN’s force-multiplier on the Pakistani side has been the TTP but the two groups seem to have serious misgivings about each other’s role after the assassinations of Hakeemullah Mehsud and Nasiruddin Haqqani. The relative lull in violence may not be just out of HQN/TTP prudence but due to the remaining leadership being on the run and lack of firepower and manpower. Unlike the TTP, the HQN is not reckless and knows when to retreat. The HQN patriarch Jalaluddin Haqqani’s statement on his son Nasiruddin’s assassination a few weeks ago was subdued, did not name the US or Pakistan, or issue the customary threats.
The time to act decisively against the domestic and foreign terrorists holed up in FATA and especially NWA is now. But the Mirali incident was a textbook case of how not to do counterinsurgency. The Pakistani security establishment has a long history with the jihadists. It knows who they are and where they are. Fiery statements coupled with roughshod tactical manoeuvres may grab a headline or two but is no replacement for a comprehensive review of how we got here and what role the army has played in bringing this morass upon Pakistan. The security establishment has to visibly cut its umbilical cord with the jihadists and the civilians have to show a bit more oomph than Mr Nawaz Sharif has displayed so far on national security to prevent 2014 from being another year of bungled talks and botched operations.
The writer can be reached at [email protected] and he tweets @mazdaki