On a bright sunny afternoon on
August 31, 2011, a few dozen tribesmen in Waziristan gathered at a small local mosque to offer Friday prayers. Like anywhere else in the Muslim world, Friday prayers are usually held following a speech by the local prayer leader (imam). However, on that day, the imam cut his speech short and dedicated a major part of his sermon to an unfamiliar guest speaker. Uneasy with the presence of a stranger, the locals had no option other than to listen to him. Though the stranger did not bother to introduce himself to the audience, he was later identified as Abu Zar, a jihadi ideologue belonging to Myanmar who had relocated to Waziristan following the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Usually, such foreign jihadis present in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) seldom make public appearances but circumstances had forced them to nominate Abu Zar to address the locals who were becoming extremely apprehensive and hostile towards these unwanted guests due to the increasing number of drone strikes by the US and military pressure from the Pakistan Army.
A tall, skinny and dark Myanmari clearly stood out among the local tribesmen with their fair complexions and different facial features. His tone was emotional and content while resonating with al Qaeda’s agenda of pan-Islamism and global jihad. He was perhaps tasked with winning back popular support in Waziristan by skilfully manipulating Islamic history and its teachings. For Abu Zar, the best way to accomplish this goal was to exploit the religious sentiments of his audience. He reminded them: “We are no strangers to each other. What brings us together and make us the same is the kalima, the book, the Prophet, the religion. Your objective is sharia and we are also striving for the enforcement of sharia. So when our Quran is the same, our God is the same, our Prophet is the same, our objective is the same and our destiny is the same, how can the enemy set us apart? Allah has enriched your hearts with love for the mujahideen of Africa, the US, Russia, Turkistan, Arabia and many other parts of the world.”
In an effort to dissuade the locals from supporting the Pakistani government, Abu Zar attempted to portray the government and the armed forces as a bigger evil than the US, which has wreaked more damage on the mujahideen than any other country in the world. “Today, after the US, if there is some force that has harmed and damaged the mujahideen on a huge scale it is the government of Pakistan, its armed forces and the ISI. Tragedies such as the operation on the Red Mosque were caused by the Pakistani government and its armed forces. Even the US and Afghanistan’s puppet governments have refrained from attacking mosques in such a manner. But these apostate soldiers killed our sisters, our elders and teachers. They humiliated our students and mujahideen. They sell our mujahideen brothers to the US.”
Near the end, Abu Zar made a desperate effort to seek reassurance from the tribesmen in front of him for a prolonged stay of the refugee mujahideen in Waziristan. “The way you have cooperated with ansaar (helpers) in the past, will you continue this? Those who agree please raise your hands. In response to the plea, very few hands were raised. This disappointing response significantly changed Abu Zar’s tone: “Everyone must raise hands.”
This speech, delivered in August, was released in October 2011 by ‘Ummat Studio’ of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, another indicator of the close connections between international jihadis hiding in FATA. The timing of the release of this speech was also crucial. Under intense pressure, thanks to US drones and Pakistan’s precise military strikes, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has offered peace to the government of Pakistan. Responding positively to the request, the Pakistan government has appointed some local tribal elders and government officials to hold talks with the TTP. Recently, a TTP spokesman admitted to be in dialogue with the government. As of today, the talks, termed as exploratory by the TTP, have not yielded any breakthrough and both sides are exploring ways to end years of fighting.
The peace process with the TTP and its allies is not without precedents. In the past, the two sides have struck a number of deals hoping for an end to the armed rebellion in FATA. These past agreements included the Shakai Peace Agreement with the Wazir tribe (South Waziristan) in 2004, the Sararogha Agreement with the Mehsud tribe (South Waziristan) in 2005, the Peace Accord with the Utmanzai Wazir tribe (North Waziristan) in 2006 and the Wana Agreement in 2007. Nevertheless, despite these concessions to the militant forces in FATA, the conflict accelerated and the country witnessed a much more organised and lethal wave of militancy. One major factor defining the failure of peace talks with the TTP was the presence of foreign fighters who played an important role in persuading the TTP to breach the agreements and use peacetime to reorganise its structure.
These stateless jihadis largely from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Libya, Egypt and a few from Britain, the US, Indonesia, Philippines, Myanmar and Australia have no stake in a peaceful FATA. Rather, a militancy-free tribal area can put their very survival at risk. In order to survive and flourish, these non-state actors will go to any extent to keep the pot boiling. For this very reason, Pakistan ought to realise that any such effort to talk peace with the TTP and other factions of the Pakistani Taliban is going to be counter-productive unless state institutions take effective steps to significantly reduce the influence of foreign jihadis in FATA.
The writer is the co-author of Pakistan: Terrorism Ground Zero and a PhD Researcher at the Centre for Transnational Crimes Prevention (CTCP), University of Wollongong, Australia. He can be reached at [email protected]