Daily Times

It is often said that generals always prepare to fight the last war, not the one that they will actually face. A collective shrugging of shoulders was seen among the trusted advisors about the appointment of the recently retired army general, Nasser Khan Janjua, as the country’s new national security adviser. The public mood is clearly that the assigning of both special advisers on foreign affairs and National Security Advisor (NSA) to Sartaj Aziz was a failure, and that the current foreign diplomacy and national security campaigns by the Nawaz government are going nowhere. That jaundiced view boiled over once again by Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif meeting with US President Barack Obama last week. It hardly seems likely to be reversed even by the foreign policy issues with India. So, it is not surprising to assume that the risk of foreign interventions across the border, increased crime and threat of terrorist attack remain some of the most significant concerns facing governments and private sector organisations in Pakistan. To address the risk, the government has increased funding in counter-terrorism and is investing heavily in intelligence, technology and human resources in order to protect people and assets.

To date, Pakistan has achieved many successes countering threats to its national security and vital interests posed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other radical Islamic terrorist networks. Without question, the use of military force has been fundamental to Pakistan’s accomplishments and, without question, it will continue to play a central role for the foreseeable future. Even so, the weight of evidence suggests that the current strategy’s predominant tactical reliance on military actions and similar complimentary quantitative measures has come at the behest of military diplomatic qualitative tactics in order to achieve a sustainable long-term victory in the war against crime and terrorism.

The world as portrayed by Islamic State (IS) and the Taliban is already a different place. Criminals and terrorists, as well as most illegal and corrupt businesses, depend more than ever on political and rogue economy, which no amount of cooperation from the intelligence agencies can easily decode. Intelligence experts believe surveillance is only one arm of the government’s policy and defeating ideology in the long run will matter more. To underestimate the security threat that Pakistan faces as a result would be unquestionably serious.

Chief Minister (CM) Punjab Shahbaz Sharif has reformed counter terrorism agencies in an attempt to negotiate the on-going crime and terrorism risks. The Counter-Terrorism Force (CTF), a specialised unit of the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), the Punjab police Homicide Unit (HU) and the Punjab Forensic Science Agency (PFSA) are the brainchildren CM Shahbaz Sharif. Pakistan’s first specialised homicide investigation unit comprised of a 478-strong unit launched by the Punjab police in September 2015. The Punjab police HU has completed 100 cases from more than 400 homicide cases registered in September to mid-October 2015 and, so far, 24 people have appeared in court based on its findings. This unit has hired retired police officers with university graduates who have had an extra year of training in forensics, report writing and interrogation.

Though these elite forces will gain the uncontested investigative power to monitor terrorism, extremism and sectarianism, this is a bitterly contested area for a number of reasons, not least of which is that many people are sceptical about how useful it will be to gather more personnel in gathering intelligence, conducting investigations and special operations when a majority of its personnel have been used for VIP security/escort duties and that most crimes succeed despite the security agencies being aware of concerns about the potential for homicidal crimes and terrorism. Other reasons behind why these police investigative agencies appear and then run into the ground owe something to basic problems like political interference, lack of expertise training and lack of funding, problems that are largely unaddressed. As libertarians like to say, it is not helpful to put more hay on the haystack when you are searching for a needle-sized object.

Reassuring the disintegrating criminal justice system and the poorly funded police force with robust and unambiguous strategies, and expertise is vital for stability in the country. During 2014, courts in Punjab issued judgements on 3,543 murder cases. Of this number, 23 percent were guilty verdicts, 30 percent were acquittals and 46 percent ended in a deal. This emphasises the importance of being able to collect and monitor criminal activity. The demand for inter-agency collaboration to extend the gathering and retention of meta-data has grown significantly.

Simply measuring CTD success in capturing or preventing members of criminal networks and their material and financial assets cannot determine decisive victory in the war on crime and terrorism. Rather, the Punjab government must also concurrently commit its vast resources of men and material towards achieving the dissolution of pervasive ideological support that these terrorists and criminals currently receive from banned militant organisations operating in the province helping them to rebound rapidly and consistently from the military defeats the Pakistan army delivers ad infinitum.

This argument resonates throughout the criticisms and strategic prescriptions of many renowned counter-terrorism and national security experts. Shahbaz Sharif should consider amending current tactics to include political warfare aimed at reducing the political back support handed over to these criminals and encouraging alternative views. To succeed in this war, however, the Punjab administration must revive its use of political warfare to include propaganda and psychological operations (PSYOP), which would service national and military objectives respectively, discrediting the criminal support system, creating intelligence among the ranks, unconditional justice and exemplary punishment, and forcing a course of action favourable to the country’s interest.

The writer is a professor of Psychiatry and consultant Forensic Psychiatrist in the UK. He can be contacted at fawad_shifa@yahoo.com