CHOOSING BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

 19 March 2014 | Ashok K Mehta |

Talking to the Taliban won’t bring peace to Pakistan unless the militants are militarily weakened. Unfortunately, the Pakistani Army, trained for conventional warfare against India, is ill-prepared for counter-insurgency battles

Pakistan is at a crossroads, faced with an existential dilemma: Choosing between a liberal, progressive, inclusive Islamic democracy, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, or an extremist radical Emirate governed by the sharia’h. Pakistan was one of three countries that recently supported an ideologically similar Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The ill-thought and half-fought war against terrorism in Federally Administered Tribal Areas gave birth to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan which was baptised with the debris of the Lal Masjid and embedded in radical Islam.

The 40 or so motley groups that make up the TTP now enjoy strategic depth from Kunar Province in Afghanistan to Karachi, easily out-performing for honours in extremism the Punjabi Taliban, consisting notably of the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, the Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the original crown jewels and strategic assets of the ISI. The Punjabi Taliban do not threaten the Government in Islamabad as they are nurtured by it and could, in an extreme contingency, act as a foil to the TTP. The one point agenda of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is to keep Punjab off-limits for the TTP.

The national question is how best to deal with the TTP: Through military offensive or dialogue and deal, though neither works singly but only in tandem. An environment of confusion and uncertainty prevails in Islamabad. The ceasefire is broken and re-broken as the fear of a blowback and reluctance by the Army to join in close-quarter battle have given way to surgical strikes which too are now on hold.

The Pakistani Army has rich experience in deal-making with militant groups but no agreement has held for long. There is no reason to believe that this time around any dialogue will produce anything more than a breather for the TTP and delay the offensive. For the last four years, ever since the US surge in Afghanistan (2009) Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the former Army chief, was being encouraged by the Americans to launch an offensive in North Waziristan, coordinated with operations on the Afghan side — a hammer and anvil strategy. Neither money nor love could buy an offensive till General Raheel Sharif replaced Gen Kayani. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Imran Khan has credited the Army with a 40 per cent success rating.

The Pakistani Army’s record in counter-insurgency is pretty unimpressive as it has trained to fight conventionally with India. It switched around 1,50,000 frontline troops facing India in 2001 to fight the Al Qaeda conglomerate and has since then, failed to contain the TTP. The Army first entered FATA in 2001 to ward off American threats of extinction but it was the US surge which pushed Mullah Omar’s Afghan Taliban from the south and east of Afghanistan into Balochistan, FATA and other parts of Pakistan including Karachi. The Army does not touch the Afghan Taliban, and the TTP considers Mullah Omar as its supreme leader.

The TTP’s battle for control of Pakistan is dressed as retaliation for the Pakistani Army fighting the US proxy war, for the military operations in FATA and revenge for Lal Masjid. The Army launched operations in South Waziristan a couple of times between 2004-2009, resulting in collateral damage and the exodus of refugees. A more robust attempt was made in 2008 in Bajaur where the TTP had promulgated Islamic sharia’h rule in 2008. The military offensive next year rolled back the TTP while its leader, Mullah Fazlullah — now the non-Mehsud head of the TTP — slipped across the Durand Line into Kunar.

Unlike the Indian Army which has judiciously calibrated use of minimum force applied in good faith in its time-tested counter-insurgency doctrine since the mid-1950s, the Pakistan Army has neither the experience nor the nationalist mindset (it is Punjabi by nature) to subdue militant groups in order to bring them to the negotiating table after being militarily weakened. The Pakistani Army does not normally fight classic counter-insurgency battles, of clear, hold and develop, as this requires deliberate, methodical and time-consuming infantry operations and long-term deployment of troops. Instead combat aircraft, helicopter gunships and artillery are employed, resulting in heavy collateral damage. Standoff counter-insurgency strategy casualties are high — nearly 3,200 killed and 10,000 wounded. The proportion of officer-to-soldier losses indicate that troops are being led from the front. Also notable is the crafting of at least a dozen peace deals with different groups over a decade.

The TTP has carved out a sanctuary in Kunar, Afghanistan, in areas vacated by US forces, possibly to accommodate the anti-Pakistan group as a reprisal for the Pakistani Army not acting against the Haqqani headquarters at Miranshah in North Waziristan. As current efforts to negotiate with the TTP cannot succeed within Pakistan’s 1973 Constitution, the long-awaited military offensive should be expected soon. Many TTP cadre have already fled, along with sizeable numbers of refugees as punitive air raids have begun.

Pakistan’s verbose Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has unveiled a set of confusing acronyms to indicate his Government’s decision to talk and fight. Every act of terror will be punished with surgical strikes on known terrorist hideouts, he has warned. And this is happening. Further, the National Internal Security Policy has a Rapid Response Force and a Joint Intelligence Wing to coordinate the work of 26 security agencies. A revamped National Counter Terrorism Authority and a de-radicalisation programme are being presented as new and effective instruments of statecraft. What is missing though is an all-weather counter-insurgency doctrine to end the cycle of on and off Army operations.

Mr Khan also says that if the Afghan Taliban carve out sanctuaries and become strong in the south and east of Afghanistan after the drawdown of US forces, that will not be good for Pakistan as the group will then support the TTP. While a lightening strike in North Waziristan by the Army will disperse the TTP and cause it some damage, going by past record, only a sustained and protracted ground offensive coordinated with Nato and the Afghan National Security Forces is likely to bring about any reckonable success. Such determination will indicate that both the Sharifs —Nawaz and Raheel — are serious about fighting the TTP and are on the same page.

With Afganistan in election mode, and the border reasonably plugged, this may be an opportune moment to hit the TTP and also banish the illusion that terrorism will fade with the drawdown of foreign forces from Afghanistan. Islamabad has finally endorsed New Delhi’s stand that talks and terror cannot go together.

 

http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnists/edit/choosing-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place.html