Deflection Won’t Work

ByLt Gen Prakash Katoch

25 May , 2015

When the Pakistani Corps Commanders conveyed through an ISPR statement that R&AW was whipping up terrorism in Pakistan, the Pakistani media made an interesting observation; that it was unusual for fingers being pointed directly at R&AW in a Corps Commanders Conference. Pakistani media says it is the second time in three weeks that the military leadership has raised the issue of activities of foreign governments and intelligence agencies in Pakistan.

…there is institutionalized effort to radicalize the populace to prevent them reflecting on the diabolical game being played by the military to remain in power…

Earlier on April 15, Raheel Sharif, army chief reportedly warned “foreign governments and intelligence agencies” agai­nst their involvement in the insurgency in Balochis­tan, but on that occasion he did not explicitly name R&AW. We will come to the Balochistan part later but an article titled ‘More Lethal Than RAW’ by Pervez Hoodbhoy in the Dawn dated 16 May 2015 took the wind out of the ISPR statement wherein he said, “RAW’s alleged antics are pinpricks compared to the massive and irreversible brain damage that Pakistan’s schools, colleges, and universities inflict upon their students”.

He goes on to say, “Limited to religious learning, such learning attitudes are perfectly fine. But their absorption into secular parts of the education system is disastrous. The hafiz-i-science or hafiz-i-math, which are copiously produced, carry exactly zero worth…… The ordinary Pakistani person’s ability to reason out problems of daily life has also diminished. There is an increased national susceptibility to conspiracy theories, decreased ability to tell friend from foe, and more frequent resort to violence rather than argumentation. As long as teachers and students remain shackled to the madressah mindset, they will remain mentally stunted”.

From this narration it is clear that there is institutionalized effort to radicalize the populace to prevent them reflecting on the diabolical game being played by the military to remain in power and keep democracy dawdling irrespective of the fact that the country is getting sucked into the vortex of terror. While all this is Pakistan’s own doing, Pervez Hoodbhoy jokingly spoofs, Imagine that some devilish enemy (read RAW) has perfected a super weapon that destroys reasoning power and makes a population stupid”.

Countless innocent civilians, women and children would have died as part of collateral damage because of aerial and artillery bombings over the years in Balochistan, FATA and North Waziristan.

Coming to the insinuations against R&AW, if after decades of aerial and artillery bombings, assassinations and institutionalized massacres of Pakistani populace by the military-ISI nexus, Pakistani Generals blame R&AW for all the instability, given such capacity the ISI would have been the first one to call truce and shake hands with R&AW like it has been kowtowing to the CIA and China’s MSS.

The population of Balochistan may be small but R&AW has to do little after the horrors unleashed on the inhabitants by the Pakistani military, discovery of some mass graves only being a small part. That the Balochis have been extracting revenge in Karachi is an established fact. Countless innocent civilians, women and children would have died as part of collateral damage because of aerial and artillery bombings over the years in Balochistan, FATA and North Waziristan.

As per statistics, in 2014, 25 x US drone strikes in Pakistan reportedly killed between 114 to 183 individuals while 44 to 67 were reported injured. Interestingly in the decade 2004-2014, Wikipedia describes 357 x Obama strikes and 408 x total US strikes since 2004 killing between 2,410 to 3,902 individuals (including 416 to 959 civilians and between 168 to 204 children) while injuring between 1,133 to 1,706 individuals. But then drones undertake precision strikes compared to aerial and artillery bombings, so literally hundreds of Pakistanis would have lost their lives to aerial and artillery attacks.

When Taliban claimed responsibility for the horrific 16 December 2014 massacre of 145 people including 132 school children of Army Public School, Peshawar, they announced it was revenge for their women and children killed by Pakistani security forces. The Pakistani public needs to query their military, which countries in the world are undertaking aerial and artillery bombardments against their own population and if they cite terrorism, how come the state policy of terrorism has been thrust upon them.

The Pakistani establishment is crying blue murder to Defence Minister Mohan Parrikar’s remark that terrorists should be used against terrorists. But isn’t this what Pakistan has been doing past decades…

The Pakistani establishment is crying blue murder to Defence Minister Mohan Parrikar’s remark that terrorists should be used against terrorists. But isn’t this what Pakistan has been doing past decades, including in conjunction the West. And, why should Indian security forces continue to fight the rabble and muck being thrown across the borders by Pakistan. High time India looks at establishing credible deterrence to Pakistan’s proxy war, even though a gestation period will be involved. Ask the ISI, with its links with no less than 14 major terrorist organizations (local and international), has the game of playing terrorist organizations against the other not been played by them? And in this murky game, have the Pakistani security forces not been integrated with the radicals?

Was this not the case during the Kargil intrusions of what Mian Musharraf calls his second line of defence – the NLI battalions. Isn’t this business of second line of defence not being played out even now; 20 x Mujahid Battalions trained over 2013-14 to operate as and in conjunction Taliban, some of which have already been inducted into Afghanistan as part of the Spring Offensive (labeled foreign fighters) while some of these battalions have recently been flown to lead the Saudi ground offensive into Yemen, cover announcements of not helping Saudi Arabia notwithstanding.

Wasn’t the Pakistan Taliban established in Syria by the ISI to assist Al Qaeda backed Syrian rebels topple the Syrian government in conjunction the West? What about the deception of protecting Osama, bartering him off at opportune time, the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban ploy, the fable of both Taliban being daggers drawn, showcasing opposition to Al Qaeda while doing business with its offshoot Haqqanis to hit at Indian interests in Afghanistan, the snare to President Ashraf Ghani of fighting terror while creating mayhem in Afghanistan, particularly Badakshan Province, to name a few?

…the most prominent example of using terrorists to fight terrorists is the resurrection of the ISIS against the Al Qaeda.

But the most prominent example of using terrorists to fight terrorists is the resurrection of the ISIS against the Al Qaeda. It is a different issue that with Baghdadi reportedly seriously injured and his number two having similar fate, there is speculation that these two radical organizations may well join hands against the Shiites. Concurrent to the success of capture of Mosul last year, reports had emerged that the ISIS were trained by former British military officers (acknowledged by CIA) in Turkey and US instructors in Jordan (vernacular Jordanian media).

But now a 2012 US Defence Intelligence Agency de-classified report has revealed that while the rise of ISIS was predicted, instead of clearly delineating the group as an enemy, the report envisioned the terror group as US strategic asset. So it is no surprise that western governments fundamentally continue view ISIS as their own tool for regime change in Syria.

The DIA report specifically highlights: Al-Qaeda drives the opposition in Syria; West identifies with the opposition; establishment of a nascent Islamic State became a reality only with the rise of the Syrian insurgency – no mention that US troop withdrawal from Iraq was catalyst for rise of ISIS; establishment of a “Salafist Principality” in Eastern Syria is “exactly” what the external powers supporting the opposition want; “Safe havens” are suggested in areas conquered by ISIS akin to Libyan model – so-called no-fly zones as a first act of ‘humanitarian war’; Iraq is identified with “Shia expansion”, and; a Sunni “Islamic State” could be devastating to “unifying Iraq” and could lead to “the renewing facilitation of terrorist elements from all over the Arab world entering into the Iraqi Arena.

Now Pakistan could hardly be oblivious to these developments with the close CIA-ISI links and Pakistani assistance to the Syrian opposition through the Taliban.

The ISIS have been indulging in periodic capture of Afghan Shias and foreign fighters that have sallied forth from Pakistan are apparently part of the Khorasan plan.

So it is little wonder that the ISIS could capture Mosul and advance openly along the highway ceremonially with flags flying while the CIA turned down frantic Iraqi calls for air strikes saying targets could not be easily identified. Then came the US led 40 nation coalition against the ISIS, not that with all its ground, aerospace, sea superiority it did anything to prevent the ISIS smuggling and selling out oil daily to the tune of US $3 million. But then look at the ISIS successes in the last 10 days; ISIS captured Ramadi in Anbar Province and the pageant post the capture (see photo below) makes one wonder whether there would have been a better opportunity for the fighter bombers of the 40 nation coalition. After Ramadi, the ISIS has also captured the Syrian town of Palmyra-Tadmur, which is on the critical road link between Damascus and Homs.

With these two significant victories, the ISIS definitely is on a winning streak. And after what is happening in Syria, will the ISIS target Jordan and while direction the Great Game in Middle East will take, and what the reason could be for the US refuse Jordan sale of armed UAVs and China immediately willing to do so?

Smug in running with the hares and hunting with the hounds, successfully playing the double game with both US and China, Pakistan may do well to heed the warning of Hekamutallah Azamy and James Weir in their recent article ‘Islamic State and Jihadi Realignments in Khorasan’ that “the relationship between the Taliban and the IS is emerging as the most influential factor of violent jihadi movements in the Afghanistan and Pakistan region”.

Though the contours of this relationship remain ambiguous, as all such relationships are, the fact remains that a number of radical groups in Afghanistan and the reorganized TTP is aligned with the ISIS. The killing of Abdul Rauf Khadim, deputy of Khorasan head Hafiz Sayed Khna (former TTP) through a NATO strike has had little effect. The ISIS have been indulging in periodic capture of Afghan Shias and foreign fighters that have sallied forth from Pakistan are apparently part of the Khorasan plan.

The significant part is that the ISIS and allies nexus is headquartered along the Afghan-Pakistan border, on the Pakistani side.

As per Mohammed Omar Safi, Governer of Kunduz Province of Afghanistan, foreign fighters allied with ISIS, to build their capacity for a bigger fight. Suicide attacks in Afghanistan are on the rise and ISIS presence is on the rise in Jalalabad and along the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border. Afghanistan National Security Advisor Mohammad Hanif Atmar acknowledged n the Senate meeting on May 5 that ISIS poses a serious threat to Afghanistan’s national interests.

The significant part is that the ISIS and allies nexus is headquartered along the Afghan-Pakistan border, on the Pakistani side. That the ISI would have underhand links with them is unquestionable, though the usual cover of ‘some rogue elements’ in the military will be propounded.

After all Pervez Hoodbhoy did state in August 2011, “An extremist takeover of Pakistan is probably no further than five to 10 years away”. Though only four years have passed since, it may be sooner. That perhaps why the ISIS is announcing they will get nuclear weapons from Pakistan in about a year’s time. Launching his book ‘Confronting the Bomb’ in London in February 2013, Hoodbhoy had significantly warned, “Safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is of a major concern. The growing radicalization within the military, given attacks on its own internal bases, could lead to these nuclear weapons being hijacked by radical Islamists,”

…has Pakistan done a strategic blunder by opening her backyard to China and inadvertently permitted herself to be sucked into the centre of the Great Game?

But that is not all that Pakistan has to worry about. It will no doubt be difficult for Pakistan to assess whether the ISIS continues to be a strategic asset for the West. Can the Al Qaeda model be taken as the basis – but won’t that be equally ambiguous? The world may curse the US administration for bumbling its way through in the sub-conventional domain but there is no denying they are past masters in geopolitics even if the US economy may have slowed down?

For the time being, let us theoretically take that the ISIS continues to be a strategic asset for the West. Be that the case, has Pakistan done a strategic blunder by opening her backyard to China and inadvertently permitted herself to be sucked into the centre of the Great Game? Isn’t that the reason NATO has decided to remain in Afghanistan beyond 2016? Perhaps Mian Raheel Shariff has got a whiff of it when he talked of “foreign governments and intelligence agencies”, not R&AW alone. So his Corps Commanders don’t fool anyone by deflecting the blame on R&AW. It appears they are chewing on more than what they can digest.