Daily Times

Over two weeks have elapsed since the Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan vowed to have a national security policy in place. He had indicated to expect an announcement by June 20 or 21. Nothing remotely similar to a counter-terrorism and national security policy was announced. Instead, his press conference was replete with generic statements to investigate terror attacks, improve coordination between law enforcement agencies, pledges to bring to justice the perpetrators and so on. Given the (lack of) practical steps he announced, the whole exercise came across as dissembling. The ambiguity government functionaries like the IG Police Balochistan Mushtaq Sukhera had started to weave around the terrorist attack in Quetta killing 14 innocent girl students and several other civilians culminated with Mr Khan’s nothingness.

As the twin terror attacks in Quetta targeting the Sardar Bahadur Khan Women’s University bus and the Bolan Medical Centre (BMC) ended, Mr Sukhera was asked on one television channel about his initial take on who the perpetrators might have been. If what he gave was his honest opinion then the good Lord have mercy on those depending on him for security and if he was intentionally creating a diversion it is even more worrying. Mr Sukhera insisted that the attack did not appear to be the work of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) to him because the ones killed were not Shia. It did not seem to pass his mind that the Pashtun and Baloch girl students killed in cold blood were perhaps at the wrong place at the wrong time. He took pains to deflect the blame from the LeJ. Finally, Senator Hasil Bizenjo, of the Balochistan’s ruling National Party had to rebuff Mr Sukhera’s convoluted theory in the same show. Senator Bizenjo stated the targeted bus used to be on the Hazara Town route and its itinerary was changed days ago.

While Mr Sukhera was still on television, many international news outlets carried the claim by the LeJ spokesman owning the wicked attack. It is fairly clear now that the LeJ had intended to strike the Shia Hazara girl students supposed to be in the bus. Not unlike Chechnya’s Black Widow bombers, the LeJ deployed a female suicide bomber to hit the bus and a separate team to target the family members as they came into the BMC hospital looking for their dear ones. The plan went awry with the bus route change but there really is no way to abort a terror attack once the suicide bomber has struck. The eyewitness accounts carried by international media indicate that the terrorists inside the BMC called for the non-Shia to leave. The LeJ may not have otherwise accepted the responsibility were it not for the spin from the right-wing media and politicians and some government officials to pin the terror attack on the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), which had attacked the Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah Residency in Ziarat the same day. Seeing the ‘credit’ potentially slipping from its hands the LeJ ended up owning the evil deed and the blood of the innocent Baloch and Pashtun women, men and children that it spilled.

It is not that the LeJ or its cohort a la Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), Haqqani terrorist network (HQN) or the Quetta Shura Taliban has any qualms about spilling non-Shia blood. Hundreds of attacks on the Sunni Barelvi and Sufi targets and general population such as the one on a funeral in Mardan killing 40 people including the MPA Imran Momand show that anyone disagreeing with their rigid and exclusivist Takfiri (apostatising) creed is fair game and liable to death for the jihadists. However, they use different ‘brands’ focused on certain areas and demographics both to project power and as a force-multiplier as well as for operational needs. Takfirism and the violent jihadism flowing from it remains the ideological common denominator between what effectively is a coalition or confederation of the assorted jihadist groups. While retaining their individual identity, organisational structures and the scope of operations, these groups leverage each other for resources and expertise. An operational hybridisation and streamlining was but an inevitable consequence of the ideological cross-pollination among the jihadists across the world training together in Pakistan and then fighting in Pakistan, Afghanistan and beyond.

It was disingenuous of the officials to add to the confusion by trying to throw both the Ziarat and Quetta attacks in the BLA’s lap. The Baloch radicals’ grievances are political and require a negotiated settlement. Baying for more Baloch blood is not the answer. The Takfiri jihadism, on the other hand, has proven recalcitrant to talks over the years. The deep operational ties between the TTP and LeJ, their collaboration in several terror attacks and the complementary nature of their ‘brands’ could not have been lost on Mr Sukhera who came to his current position from Punjab, the home turf of the LeJ. Mr Khan and his boss Mr Nawaz Sharif also know very well the nature and extent of collaboration between the LeJ and the HQN. On October 11, 1999, a day before he was toppled in a coup d’état, Mr Sharif had made a dash to the UAE asking Sheikh Zayed bin-Sultan al-Nahyan to lean on Jalaluddin Haqqani to close down camps where the LeJ was training. The HQN operated three out of four of the LeJ training camps. Before that, Mr Sharif’s government had written, in Pashto, to the Taliban emirate in Kandahar asking for extradition of nine LeJ terrorists including Riaz Basra (later killed) and Akram Lahori (Brown and Rassler: Fountainhead of Jihad, The Haqqani Nexus).

The sooner Prime Minister Sharif discovers that nothing much has changed in the LeJ-HQN nexus since he last held office, the better. He can certainly factor in the TTP as a new brand coming off the same assembly line. By most accounts the camps and the logistical sanctuary remain functional now on the Pakistani soil in the North Waziristan Agency. The LeJ-TTP twin terror has gained momentum as the attacks in Mardan and then on the Shia mosque-madrassah in Peshawar show. The Taliban-HQN enterprise scoring a propaganda coup with their Doha office gig will only embolden Pakistan-based jihadists. Mr Khan’s ideas for controlling traffic in Islamabad and Mr Sukhera’s diversions will not exactly take the wind out of the jihadists’ sails. Mr Sharif holds the defence and foreign affairs portfolios himself. He will also have to act as both.

(Concluded)

The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com and he tweets @mazdaki)