Daily Times

Pakistan is back on the global radar. For a new report has named the country the world’s greatest terror threat. Three times more dangerous, in fact, than Syria in terms of the number of active militant groups, safe-havens and state support.

These are extremely damning allegations. So, what exactly is to be made of the Humanity at Risk — Global Terror Threat Indicant (GTTI); a project by the Indian-based think-tank Strategic Foresight Group (SFG) in conjunction with Oxford University’s Centre for Resolution of Intractable Conflict (CRIC).

The answer is, not very much. The authors are keen to point out that the purpose of the GTT Scale is not to single out particular countries but, rather, to call for the “international community to act in concert to demolish the infrastructure of terror anywhere and everywhere in the world”. Similarly, much is made of the need to contextualise global terror threats in terms of geo-political developments, security management, socio-economic considerations and political processes.

That being said, the aforementioned appears glaringly absent from the report’s narrative. The GTTI accords Pakistan a negative top score of 70.5. Afghanistan comes next with 44; Syria is third with 22. Libya and Iraq are even further down the list. And although this particular research was conducted from Jan 2015-April 2018, it beggars belief that this country, which has no role to play in the Middle East’s black market chemical weapons network, is considered more dangerous than, say, post-Gaddafi Libya or indeed post-Saddam Iraq. Of course, with regards to the Af-Pak region, there is no mention of the prolonged US oscillation between troop surges and drawdowns. Or, indeed, how American and NATO soldiers ended combat operations before getting fully serious about training local forces. The Afghan Taliban are now active in up to 60 percent of the country. It is not Pakistan where non-state actors launch chemical weapons attacks.

This is not to abdicate the state of responsibility. It goes without saying that the latter must at all times exert control over national borders. Just as it holds true that governments must abide by international obligations under the UN Security Council’s counter-terrorism programme that focuses on ‘targeted sanctions’. And which renders it mandatory for member states to freeze assets and impose travel bans where necessary. Yet what we categorically reject are the report’s assertions that Pakistan has “infested” the entire region with violent extremism. While India receives an entirely clean chit. Not because we are interested in point-scoring with our eastern neighbour. But because research, when made public, has a duty to present facts and analysis in as impartial a manner as possible. What it must not do is enter into the business of propaganda. For that becomes incitement.  *

Published in Daily Times, October 28^th 2018.