A Million Mutinies Now

Musharraf has opened far too many fronts, his security forces are overstretched, and there has been a comprehensive and augmenting failure to contain the widening insurgencies, sectarian strife and Islamist terrorist violence that now envelope large swathes of Pakistan

KANCHAN LAKSHMAN



Truth, more often than not, exists in the small print. The daily reports of incidents of insurgent and terrorist activities in Pakistan fail to communicate the enormity of the trajectory of violence and instability that is undermining the authority of the state in progressively widening areas of the country over the past years. But when the numbers are put together, the emerging picture of cumulative attrition would be more than disturbing for Islamabad.

Crucially, where 648 persons (including 430 civilians and 137 terrorists) were killed in insurgent and terrorist conflicts through year 2005, by March 19, year 2006 had already recorded 529 deaths (including 251 civilians and 225 terrorists). Given Islamabad’s efforts to stifle information flows from the areas of conflict, and the widespread application of excessive and indiscriminate use of force, including the repeated strafing of civilian concentrations, the total number of fatalities may, in fact, be considerably higher.

Large tracts of Pakistan are now clearly conflict-afflicted with a wide array of anti-state actors and terrorists engaging in varying degrees of violence and subversion. A cursory look at the map indicates that the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan are witnessing large-scale violence and subversion. Violence in parts of the Sindh, Punjab and North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has also brought these provinces under the security scanner. Islamabad’s writ is currently being challenged vigorously – violently or otherwise – in wide geographical areas, and on a multiplicity of issues.

The Balochistan province – accounting for approximately 44 per cent of Pakistan’s landmass – is now afflicted by an encompassing insurgency, as are most parts of North and South Waziristan in FATA – another three per cent of the country’s total landmass. Gilgit-Baltistan has long been simmering, and it is only the repeated cycles of repression and state-backed Sunni terrorism that have kept the restive population in rein in a region that accounts for another eight per cent of the country. 55 per cent of Pakistan-controlled territory, including Pakistan-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan, is, consequently, outside the realm of civil governance and is currently dominated essentially through military force. Further, sporadic acts of terrorist violence have been recurrent in parts of the NWFP, Punjab and Sindh, even as these emerge as safe-havens for a broad assortment of jihadi and other anti-state actors.

Notably, violence and the accompanying retreat of civil governance has occurred amidst the fact that Pakistan has committed approximately 80,000 troops in the FATA and 123,000 in Balochistan, with support from helicopter gun-ships, artillery and the Air Force. The writ of the state is increasingly fragile in these regions, with recurrent violence undermining official claims that the situation is ‘under control’.

Despite the ‘intense’ Army operations in FATA, sources indicate that frontline Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives still maintain a significant presence in the region adding to problems of the already-challenged US Coalition forces in neighbouring Afghanistan. Although the military regime has been claiming that most foreign terrorists have been evicted, there is mounting evidence that the jihadi presence in FATA is strengthening, that Islamist extremists are regularly confronting the Pakistani state, and that they, in fact, control a substantial area in North Waziristan, and widening areas in South Waziristan, to an extent as to make a permanent military presence impossible.

Islamabad has followed a strange mixture of carrot and stick in its strategy for FATA.

Large-scale military operations, including targeted killings and strafing of population centres, have been a recurrent feature in the region over the past three years. On the other hand, the military regime has also sought to procure the allegiance of local leaders by doling out large sums of monies. While the carrots have been greedily consumed, there is little evidence of any loyalty to Islamabad, with local leaders refusing to ‘stay bought’.

Rising civilian fatalities have, in fact, deepened public alienation, and increased the likelihood that the disorder and instability gradually consume areas that are currently peaceful. Islamabad’s attempts to restore order in Waziristan have, according to one estimate, led to 300 civilians and 250 troops being killed and about 1,400 persons wounded in 2005. According to Institute for Conflict Management data, in 238 incidents between January 2005 and March 19, 2006, a total of 667 persons, including 121 civilians, 71 soldiers and 475 terrorists have died. 340 terrorists and suspects were reported to have been arrested during this period. Once again, given the constraints on information flows from the region, these numbers may well be significant underestimates.

Sources indicate that the Taliban-led Islamist extremists are now in control of parts of the FATA bordering Afghanistan. The Dand-i-Darpa Khail region in North Waziristan, near the main town of Miranshah, is the focal point for Islamist extremists in Afghanistan, including former Taliban ‘commander’ Jalaluddin Haqqani, and his son Sirajuddin Haqqani. Maulana Abdul Khaliq, chief of the Gulshan-e-Ilm madrassa in Miranshah, was declared the ‘mastermind’ of the March 2, 2006- incident in which the local Taliban occupied Government buildings, including a telephone exchange, in Miranshah. Sikander Qayyum, the Peshawar-based security chief for the tribal zones, told AFP that the extremists had killed at least 120 pro-government tribal chiefs in recent months, even as the heads of sundry decapitated ‘enemies of Islam’ are flaunted on flagpoles in many areas. Federal Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Sherpao admitted on March 11 that ‘miscreants’ were trying to wrest control of Government buildings and challenging the writ of the state in the region. He also warned of a spillover from tribal areas to settled areas while referring to two explosions in Dera Ismail Khan and three in Tank districts.

In a parallel and troubling development, there have been indications over the past few weeks that the administration is under intense pressure from the Taliban to introduce Sharia (Islamic law) in Waziristan. In fact, clerics announced the enforcement of Sharia in South Waziristan on March 10, saying that disputes would now be resolved through Islamic laws instead of the tribal Jirga (council). An announcement to this effect was reportedly made during Friday prayer sermons in Wana and other towns of South Waziristan. The announcement came following letters from local Taliban commanders to all prayer leaders asking them to enforce the Sharia.

Another indication of the state’s retreat is the fact that tribal elders of South Waziristan have reportedly asked the local Taliban to open an office in the area to ‘improve security’, though Maulana Abbas, a prominent pro-Taliban cleric, clarified that the function of the Taliban office would be restricted to improving security, and it would not presently seek to implement Islamic Law. Interestingly, Abbas was on the Government's wanted list a year ago, but was removed after promising not to take part, or encourage others to take part, in attacks on security forces.
In January 2006, video footage released from North Waziristan showed the headless bodies of members of a ‘criminal gang’, whom the Taliban had ‘punished’. Abbas claimed that the Government did not object to the vigilante action against criminals, and the plans to ‘improve security’ through such measures.

A spread of violence in FATA is in line with the Taliban strategy to engage Pakistani troops along the border and safeguard their bases in order to launch a targeted spring offensive against US Coalition troops in Afghanistan.

The FATA, comprising 13 Areas/Agencies, has historically remained outside the purview of Islamabad’s authority. Power in the region alternates between the fiercely independent tribes, Islamist terrorists and the Political Agent appointed by Islamabad, the last of whom theoretically wields absolute de jure powers. The contours of violence and unrest envelop the familiar loop of underdevelopment, Federal Government discrimination, and long-neglected political grievances – real or perceived. There is intense resentment against the presence of the Army in FATA. Troops entered the region for the first time in late 2002 after intense negotiations with the tribes, who halfheartedly complied in the fervent expectation that there would be dramatic economic spin-offs. With little permanent benefits accruing, however, three years of military operations have led a number of tribes to view the Army as nothing more than a repressive and subjugating force. The underdevelopment matrix includes the absence of infrastructure and basic facilities like clean drinking water, health and educational facilities. The literacy rate in FATA is barely 17 per cent, (29 per cent male, 3 per cent female). 10 per cent of the population has access to sanitation, 43 per cent has access to potable water and there are 3,110 schools for a population of 3.69 million (Data for 2004).

The people of FATA are also denied fundamental and basic political-legal rights, which are available to citizens of Pakistan in other areas under the Constitution. The Islamabad Policy Research Institute, for instance, noted in a March 2005 study: "Article 25 of the 1973 Constitution declares that all citizens of Pakistan are equal before the law; but this article is not applicable to FATA, although under Article 1 of the Constitution FATA is a part of the territories of Pakistan… Political parties are banned in the region. The administrative, political and judicial structure of the areas is based on FCR [Frontier Crimes Regulation], which is a legacy of British colonial rule. This is an arbitrary law under which absolute power is vested in the Political Agent. Till 1997 there was no appeal against the punishment awarded under FCR. But the superior courts are still barred from exercising their jurisdiction in the Tribal Areas."

Comparable conditions of collapse prevail in Balochistan, where all 22 districts are reeling either under a sub-nationalist tribal insurgency or, separately, Islamist extremism. In January 2006, Senator Sanaullah Baloch disclosed that at least 180 people had died in bombings, 122 children had been killed by paramilitary troops and hundreds of people had been arrested since the resumption of military operations in November 2005. A small measure of the intensity of the Baloch insurgency is visible in the fact that approximately 1,500 rockets were fired in 40 attacks in January-February 2006 alone. During this brief period, insurgents also blew up railway tracks on at least eight occasions and attacked gas pipelines on 27 occasions – indeed, there were as many as 21 attacks on gas pipelines in just the 28 days of February. While there have been 23 bomb and 12 landmine explosions, power and telecom targets were attacked on six occasions in the first two months of 2006.
Crucially, Baloch insurgents also destroyed three naval boats in the strategically vital Gwadar Port. Attacks on critical installations led to power and gas shortages in the Punjab, the province whose domination over Baloch resources fuels the insurgency. The Pakistan Railways has stopped operating passenger trains at night all over Balochistan. Railways Minister of State Ishaq Khan Khakwani clarified to the Senate that night journeys were ‘not safe’ because of terrorist activities in the province, adding further that even at daytime, pilot engines were being operated on tracks to pre-empt terrorist activity. The state now engages 123,000 military and paramilitary personnel in the ongoing operations in the province, expending Rupees Six billion a month, according to Senator Sanaullah Baloch. Some 600 check posts have been set up in Balochistan in an effort to contain the movement of insurgents. Structural and constitutional biases prevailing against the provinces feed popular anger and the insurgencies, and militate against any possible solution, particularly given Islamabad’s track record of intransigence. Adding to the Baloch insurgency are the Pashtun Islamist extremists concentrated in and around Quetta, tied closely to the Taliban, and engaged in a campaign of terror on both sides of the Afghan border in their areas of domination. Most of the violence in Balochistan is, however, 'nationalist' and there is no co-operation between Islamist terrorists in pockets in the North and the Baloch insurgents. There is, moreover, little love lost between the mullahs and the Sardars (Baloch tribal Chieftans).

FATA, NWFP, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan are areas of long-term neglect and of recurrent insurrections. However, the Pakistani ‘heartland’, Sindh and Punjab – particularly the politically and militarily dominant Punjab province – are now also passing progressively into the ambit of violence by anti-state actors. There were as many as 34 terrorist incidents in Punjab in 2005, and another three in January-February 2006; Sindh witnessed 50 and four such incidents over the same periods, respectively. Among the significant incidents this year was the suicide car bomb attack near the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, in which American diplomat David Fyfe and two others were killed, and 54 persons injured, on March 2, a day before President George W. Bush visited Pakistan.

Confounded by the violence, Islamabad has now directed district administrations in the Federal and provincial capitals to provide police escorts to Government officials working at the Presidency, Prime Minister’s House, Prime Minister’s Secretariat, the Governors’ and Chief Ministers’ offices and homes. The step came after intelligence agencies had warned against a ‘strong backlash’ by militants against ongoing military operations in Balochistan and FATA.

More than six years of General Musharraf’s authoritarian rule and repressive practices have pushed peripheral movements of political dissent into full-blown insurgencies, and the widening trajectory of violence demonstrates that the military regime is failing to shape an appropriate strategy of response in the face of multiple insurgencies and a rising trend of terrorist attacks across the country. Past experience in South Asia has, moreover, shown that the recovery of geographical spaces, once anti-state violence escalates beyond threshold levels, is extraordinarily difficult. The preceding and extended narrative is a clear indication that Musharraf has opened far too many fronts, his security forces are overstretched, and there has been a comprehensive and augmenting failure to contain the widening insurgencies, sectarian strife and Islamist terrorist violence that now envelope large swathes of the country.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kanchan Lakshman is Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management; Assistant Editor, Faultlines: Writings on Conflict & Resolution. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal