Daily Times

Nobody expected Operation Zarb-e-Azb to be a short term proposition. The most striking aspect of the operation was the categorical note adopted by the Pakistan army, denouncing terrorism in all forms and manifestations. It needs to be recalled that the army had resisted the need to win back North Waziristan, which has been associated with the Haqqani group and other outfits, allegedly valued by military establishment as strategic assets.

The emergence of dharna politics immediately after the launching of operation Zarb-e-Azb dampened the focus on the menace of religious extremism. However, the Peshawar Army Public School incident in mid-December brought back the desired impetus in military action against terrorist outfits.

An important related development was the passage of the 21^st constitutional amendment, ushering in military courts and an elaborate national action plan. The second phase of Operation Zarb-e-Azb in 2015 also coincided with steps against violence in Karachi.

The impact of military courts on the course of the national campaign against terrorism is yet to be seen. However, the military action has definitely disrupted the terror network, besides killing or capturing important terrorist characters. As of now, it appears to be a long term initiative, which will test the nerves, resolve and resources of the nation.

Reportedly, large number terrorists are captured in area outside Fata and cities however, no concrete evidence has been put on record and well known terrorist assets are still at large and many groups continue to allegedly enjoy a soft corner in the echelons of power and policy.

Outlawed groups and a myriad terrorist outfits have been on the national scene for too long not to be in liaison with mainstream political parties, and it is very likely that such links are still at play. Only consistent state policy can disrupt and eliminate covert threats of violence and terror.

The National Action Plan completely failed to implement its point number four regarding the strengthening and activation of National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA).

NACTA which had to play an important in carrying out operations against the militants effectively had failed to move beyond papers.

It seems that NACTA has become a football being tossed between the prime minister, military establishment and the interior minister. NACTA has been hibernating since its formation and it remains a victim of turf wars between intelligence agencies.

The legal status of NACTA had been the topic of the debate since its inception because according to federal government’s rules of business, it is the responsibility of the Ministry of Interior which keeps a check on the paramilitary forces. NACTA was supposed to coordinate between various ministries and intelligence agencies.

We are clueless that whether it is an executive body which falls under the prime minister or it is an autonomous authority with extraordinary summoning powers.

To make sense of the situation, the Daily Times talked exclusively to Khawaja Khalid Farooq who has been a career police officer for more than three decades. He joined the police service of Pakistan in 1974 (2^nd Common) and retired as inspector general of police in 2010 after which he joined National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) in July 2011 and served till April, 2013. He has seen the ups and down of the country from very closely. There were days when police would work only for order in the country. Then struck the terrorism. He has seen the war on terror closely. He is an expert on Counter Terrorism, Militancy and Law and order. In this interview, Daily Times spoke to Mr Farooq on a range of issues.

Q. Army chief General Raheel Sharif has declared lack of progress on implementation of National Action Plan (NAP) damaging to the progress of ongoing military operation Zarb-e-Azb. Do you think he is right? Do you consider this scathing criticism coming from the army quarters directed towards the civilian law enforcement agencies? What are the reasons for this lack of progress?

The army is visibly upset over the lack of progress on NAP, and much can be laid at the feet of the civilian authorities. The Army Chief had earlier also asked the civilian authorities to step up in November last year during the corps commanders’ conference. Criticism is a strong word, but it certainly is policy steer from the Army, which is doing most of the operational actions regarding NAP, seemingly not matched by similar resolve on the civilian side.

The federal government has not done enough for the Temporarily Displaced Persons (TDPs) who were forced to migrate during the launch of Operation Zarb-e-Azb. Development projects for rehabilitation and restoration of infrastructure are still seemingly low priority, for the commonly cited reasons of bureaucratic neglect and issues of transparency in such projects. We needed to heal FATA, but instead we seem to be disillusioning them more and more. Issues like China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) are important, but there needs to be simultaneous visible activity on the security front from the civilian side, which seems to be lacking.

There is some investment in logistics and human resource over the years for policing and civilian law enforcement, but it fails to keep pace with the challenges faced by these entities. Besieged by resource constraints, subject to political patronage and manipulation, and resultantly poor capacity of its staff, police in Pakistan particularly need large scale re-vamping of its structure.

Q. For the purposes of intelligence sharing and logistics for Zarb-e-Azb, what kind of support are civilian law enforcement agencies receiving from the military? How can this information flow be improved?

Army is already playing a role in building the capacity of police and other law enforcement agencies across the country. In this regard, The Army is all set to have a dominant role in the recruitment of 20,000 police personnel who will help make Karachi more secure. The army will assist in ensuring merit-based recruitment and training, besides playing a role in equipping them with light arms. The National Counter-Terrorism Authority (NACTA), as the mandated civilian –military interface, had earlier announced a meeting of stakeholders to prepare robust solutions for civil-military interfaces regarding security and policing. Another proposal being considered is a digitized federal crime record that would greatly help security and intelligence agencies in effectively managing operations against terrorists. NACTA can play a great role in bringing all these elements together, but it has to be made effective. Its governing Board , chaired by the Prime Minister and staffed by top civilian and military authorities, was supposed to meet regularly, but hasn’t. This needs to be improved.

Q. Why do security forces only target political parties as a means to implement the National Action Plan instead of going after banned militant outfits such as LeJ, TTP and others? How strong are these banned outfits in Punjab?

I think this is a wrong perception perpetuated by ignorance; even a cursory look at the record of arrests of CTD Punjab reveals that it arrests a lot of members of these banned organizations. The problem is many of these organizations and their members have morphed into fluid entities which relocate and change priorities all the time, so it is not an easy task for any law enforcement to keep track of such. Please remember under-cover and underground terrorist entities are notorious for longevity globally, but at the same time there has never been a terrorist entity which has survived the resolve of the state in modern history.

Q. Do you think that some banned outfits in Punjab are receiving aid or support from political organizations or important personalities?

If any political organisation supports militancy due to any hidden agenda or any misplaced notion of support for any ideology, that organisation should be proceeded against strongly. However, many political entities resort to deferring to such entities during election times to get support from their constituency. These entities may not carry electoral weight but this tendency belies that they have some buy-in form certain sections of the society. Then of course there is the factor of laissez faire regarding these entities, because ostensibly to do so otherwise carries a great quantum of threat.

Q. The confrontation with the Chotu Gang in South Punjab has indicated that there are vast swaths of land that are left unvisited by law enforcement agencies or agents and that such lands prove to be safe havens for looters and terrorists. What other areas and geographical zones, in Punjab, can prove problematic for police oversight?

Gangs and zones of insecurity sometimes prevail in many developing countries. Of course there is sometimes negligence on part of authorities in tackling these issues in Pakistan, which have allowed these problems to grow in the first place; this cannot be denied. However, the point to be determined is that when these issues are highlighted, can the state take back that territory and re-establish its writ? From Swat to Chotu gang, the state has done that. The lacunae that need to be tackled are the conditions that allow these gangs to grow.

Q. Army chief stated that “While there has been considerable improvement in security environment and dividends have started to reach masses, any distracting and inciting comments and theories by some quarters are unhelpful and undermining the overall national effort.”. Do you agree? Why?

The nation is fiscally challenged, politically polarised, and frustrated by 11 years of insecurity, a daunting set of conditions in which to establish a national security agenda. Successfully navigating the shifting domestic and international landscape at this crossroads will be critical to securing our interests. Reviving a consensus on how to do so is almost as important, and distractions along the way hinder such progress. There have many times been a disconnect between intent and action when Pakistani policy makers develop strategies in security-related matters. For instance, there has been plenty of talk about madrasah-reforms during President Musharraf’s reign. Furthermore, NACTA has been in consistent birth throes ever since 2008 with continuous claims of being ‘reborn’ every year. Therefore, concerted focus from most of the administrative machinery of the Pakistani state apparatus is needed to implement the ‘wish lists’ envisaged in the NISP- this is a herculean task in itself, and distractions along the way cannot be helpful.

Q. Since the introduction of the Joint Intelligence Directorate (JID) idea in National Internal Security Policy (NISP) the hitherto defunct unit of NACTA is considered as the missing backbone for the entire operation. Why, in your opinion, has the government and military establishment failed to establish it even now?

The JID was an organisational restructuring move  under the NISP of a wing within NACTA wherein 33 civilian and military intelligence and operational agencies would be represented to integrate tactical, operational and strategic ‘levels’ of civil and military ‘verticals’. This assumed inter organizational and national consensus which is still a dream. Even though the NISP document is a huge improvement from previous ones, it is certainly over-ambitious to think that NACTA will by default acquire the capability to drive a national consensus on counter-extremism and counter terrorism. Pakistan remains deeply divided by emotive discourses at variance with each other and many of these narratives are able to command large followings. Madrasahs are one such issue; organized along sects, they are resistant to adapt to modernity.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle in implementing an ambitious document like NISP is that Pakistan is a developing country. It has a limited amount of resources as opposed to more developed states; similarly it is a state which still needs to work out issues concerning the balances of power between the center and the provinces, in regards to jurisdiction in terrorism-related cases, police order and other issues.

Pakistan suffers from a lack of regulatory quality whereby plans, laws, structures and documents are drawn up, but the practical implementation of these is far from ideal. These state deficiencies also plague the effective implementation of the National Internal Security Policy of Pakistan.

However, this should not be allowed to cloak the sluggishness of civilian administration. At NAP implementation, 16 subcommittees were notified by PMO, most of them have met only once, some not even once. There has apparently a Task Force which is now mandated, without probably not even remembering about the subcommittees whose function was to monitor and ensure nap implementation. This back and forth posturing is not helpful to our security efforts.

The new NACTA Act envisages NACTA as being presided over by a high level Board of Governors(BOG) headed by the prime minister; its members will be chief ministers of all provinces and Gilgit-Baltistan, the prime minister of AJK, minister for law and justice, one senator to be recommended by the Senate chairman, one parliamentarian (MNA) to be recommended by the National Assembly (NA) Speaker, Ministry of Interior secretary, Inter-Services Intelligence DG, Intelligence Bureau DG, Military Intelligence DG, national coordinator, Federal Investigation Agency DG and the inspectors general of police of all provinces, AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan. The board will be endowed with the power to exercise all functions of the authority, and will also be responsible to approve policies and annual budgets prepared by the authority. The bill requires all federal ministries and provincial departments including corporations, bodies, set ups, controlled or administered by or under the authority of Federal or Provincial Governments to cooperate with NACTA. The irony is, the Board which was mandated to meet regularly, has hardly ever met in its full quorum, as far as I am aware. This belies the seriousness of the government in putting this body on its feet.

Q. Has the National Action Plan completely failed in implementing its point number four regarding the strengthening and activation of National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA)?

Ostensibly, NACTA was envisaged because there was a lack of coordination among the security and intelligence agencies, and they needed to be brought under one umbrella, a fact that has been recognized for the first time through the statutory regulations establishing NACTA. This has been said to be a major accomplishment; even though about two dozen security agencies have been working in Pakistan related in one way or the other to the security situation, there has been till date little coordination between them. The NISP proposes that this duplication of roles leading to wastage of resources would be resolved through the policies and business processes put in place through NACTA. This is indeed an objective to aspire for, but it remains to be seen how this will be translated into practice.

Certainly, we need to allow NACTA some more time to establish itself; as such entities have to resolve complicated issues of turf wars between existing organizations in the state security apparatus to ensure seamless coordination. Hopefully, NACTA overcomes this soon, but it needs to now step up fairly quickly to the reputation that it needs to earn.