At a time when one thought things had started stabilising in Pakistan and the government’s counter-terrorism policies were paying peace dividends, terrorists struck back on May 13, 2015 by targeting Pakistan’s most peaceful religious community in Karachi. The attack on the Ismaili Shia community serves as a stark reminder that the threat of religiously-motivated violence is not confined to FATA. It is also a reminder that without disrupting terrorist networks in mainland Pakistan the fight against terrorism cannot be taken to its logical end. The attack has once again exposed the soft underbelly of Pakistan’s counter-terrorism policy, i.e. urban counter-terrorism capabilities of Pakistan’s civilian law enforcement agencies.
If we reflect back there is a visible method to this madness. Since the Peshawar Army Public School (APS) attack in December last year, terrorists have been deliberately hitting Pakistan’s sectarian fault lines in mainland Pakistan. After a deadly wave of attacks on the Shia imambargahs across Pakistan in the first four months of this year, now the militants have hit the Ismaili Shia community. Militants are trying to gain asymmetrical advantage by hitting the state where it hurts the most, i.e. religious minorities. Such attacks not only create social anxiety but also shake the public’s trust in the military-led efforts to overcome the terrorists.
Against this backdrop, it is instructive to scrutinise the scope and efficacy of the ongoing counter-terrorism operations to identify the grey areas. Under the National Action Plan (NAP), there has been an operational level response that has given Pakistan a tactical advantage over the militants. This is evident from a visible decline in the frequency of countrywide terrorist attacks, disintegration and relocation of different factions of the Pakistani Taliban to Afghanistan, and a semblance of stability returning to Pakistan. Notwithstanding these gains, the attack on the Ismaili Shia community serves as a stark reminder that such gains remain fragile and reversible. So, the broader question is how to transform these tactical level gains into a decisive strategic victory?
First, the threat landscape in Pakistan is diversified and complicated. With the relocation of the Pakistani Taliban to Afghanistan, emergence of Islamic State (IS) affiliates in the region and alleged traces of RAW’s support for rogue elements in Pakistan, the current security landscape criss-crosses with geo-sectarian fault lines of the Middle Eastern conflict and regional geo-politics in the immediate neighbourhood. In such a situation, inward-looking state-centric counter-terrorism policies will have minimum impact as long as the external dimensions linked to Pakistan’s internal peace are not addressed. Keeping this in view, Pakistan’s future security policy will be closely interlinked with its foreign policy. Success against homegrown terrorism will depend on how Pakistan reorients its policies towards its neighbours, especially India and Afghanistan.
Second, the focus of the current operation is narrowly focused on administrative level factors like the hanging of militants through military courts, blocking illegal mobile SIMS and banning the use of loudspeakers. These factors are enablers but not producers of terrorist violence. This is like treating the symptoms and ignoring the causes. Overcoming these elements can be partially effective but not durable as long as the primary causes are not targeted.
Third, the current counter-terrorism response is highly militarised. The heavy reliance on kinetic means without corresponding soft counter-terrorism measures, is capital intensive, long-drawn-out and counter-productive. Also, the use of power is a necessary but not sufficient factor of success in counter-terrorism. For a sustainable counter-terrorism policy, Pakistan should balance hard and soft approaches to introduce smart approaches. The government cannot rely on the military for counter-terrorism in Pakistan’s main cities. Pakistan needs to adopt a more proactive policing approach, which pre-empts and prevents terrorist incidents.
Finally, Pakistan surely needs a paradigm and not a doctrinal shift in its counter-terrorism policy. As long as structured responses with clearly defined institutional mandates are not evolved, security lapses like the attack on the Ismaili community will continue to occur. It goes back to questions of introducing much-needed reforms, institutional restructuring and professional specialisation in the civilian security apparatus. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s premier counter-terrorism body, the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA), remains defunct due to executive lethargy. The Joint Intelligence Directorate (JID), a NACTA subsidiary, which had to oversee operational aspects of intelligence sharing and inter-agency cooperation among the country’s 26 intelligence agencies, has not been formed thus far.
Contemporary terrorism evolves at an astounding pace. The terrorist groups in Pakistan keep changing their recruitment, attack and propaganda strategies with time and space. They are innovative and adaptive to changing circumstances with tremendous regenerative capacity. Those involved in counter-terrorism have to be equally innovative with their preventive and pre-emptive policies. Pakistan’s military and political leadership will have to make concerted joint efforts to convert tactical victories into a strategic win.
The author is an associate research fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Singapore. He tweets at @basitresearcher