Daily Times

On February 12, Director General (DG) of Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Lt-General Asim Bajwa confirmed the frightening suspicions expressed in this space many times that the plethora of militant organisations present in the country are bolstered by relying on a shared nexus of operatives. This startling revelation was the sobering takeaway from a press conference otherwise meant to be triumphant. The press conference’s purpose was to give details regarding the progress in the various Army-led operations against terrorism like the Rangers’ operation in Karachi, Operation Zarb-e-Azb and assorted “intelligence-based operations”. The highlights of the DG ISPR’s briefing included the news that the military had foiled a militants’ plan to storm Hyderabad Central Jail in order to free over a 100 terrorists, including Sheikh Omer, the convicted murderer of Daniel Pearl. In addition, the military had arrested 97 hardcore terrorists belonging to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), al Qaeda (subcontinent chapter) and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) over the past few months, many of whom had bounties on their heads, including three “high value targets”. The identities of the three are as follows: Naeem Bukhari, the head of LeJ in Karachi; Sabir Khan alias Munna, the deputy chief of LeJ Karachi; and Farooq Bhatti alias Musanna, the deputy chief of al Qaeda (subcontinent). The arrested militant leaders have been behind many major terrorist attacks across the country, chief among them the attack on Kamra airbase, the Mehran airbase attack in Karachi, the suicide assault on senior police officer Chaudhry Aslam, the attacks on naval bases in Karachi, the attack on a regional office of an intelligence agency and multiple attacks on security forces. Moreover, they were planning the aforementioned jailbreak attack, which according to the DG ISPR had been “90 percent” completed. The details of the foiled attack give us great insight into the coordinated workings of these terrorist groups. The plan had been brewing for months, and involved setting up of a business selling plastic containers, occupying a house, and organising six enlisted suicide bombers and around 20 facilitators (among them an insider at the jail). Over the months, weapons and explosives were brought into the house in Hyderabad via washing machines and stored in the plastic containers. As per Asim Bajwa, the army managed to thwart the planned jail attack in the nick of time and arrested all those involved. The DG ISPR described these achievements as evidence that the military had “broken the overall network and nexus of terrorists belonging” to LeJ, TTP and al Qaeda. However, he had the nous to inject a modicum of caution into the proceedings by admitting that there was still “much more to do”.

The first question that jumps to mind after viewing the facts regarding the foiled jailbreak plan is: why is Sheikh Omer, on death row since 2002, still around to be possibly broken free from a jail in the first place? The murder of the journalist Daniel Pearl was a major international incident, and given the renewed vigour of the army and government to go after terrorists plaguing the country, it does not make sense to leave Pearl’s killer awaiting being broken out from jail. Other than that, while foiling the attack and arresting the masterminds is a noteworthy achievement, the claim that the “network of terrorists” has been broken sounds premature and can encourage complacency. It will make more sense to view the revelation that major terrorist groups are working in tandem in Karachi as the tip of the iceberg. Such nexuses probably exist elsewhere too and must be rooted out. Curiously missing from the DG ISPR’s press conference was any mention of Islamic State (IS), an organisation that has mastered the tactic of tapping into existing terrorist networks and expanding their capacity for operations for its own ends. IS regrettably remains the looming elephant in the room and more needs to be done to stop its emergence from taking place in Pakistan as an even deadlier force. Perhaps the most rueful observation one can make in light of these revelations is the fact that while the terrorists have learned to conduct joint operations and share resources, thereby becoming an exponentially more dangerous enemy of the state and the people, the government itself continues to fail on this front in its counter-offensive. The National Action Plan (NAP) that was meant to streamline the anti-terrorist fight by having a cohesive plan to have shared intelligence and root out both militants and the militant mindset is still a pipedream. The concerned authorities must get their act together if the fight against militancy has to be conclusively won. *