The Terrorism Spectre

Peace in Pakistan becomes ever more elusive because of a resurgent Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan

An outlawed militant group, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) aka the Pakistani Taliban, seems undeterred by the warnings issued by the Pakistan government of using force against them if they do not cease their terrorist activities.

The TTP have, in fact, taken their terrorist activities in the country up a notch further, and are quite lucid about their agenda and objectives.  They consider Pakistani law and the Constitution un-Islamic and the Pakistan’s security agencies puppets of the West, and intend to continue with their operations until they establish their writ and an Islamic state — as per their interpretation of the faith — in the former tribal agencies bordering Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, in response, mixed signals are emanating from the government high-ups, who are simultaneously talking of negotiations and the use of force.

Last week, Pakistan’s civil and military leadership announced that “the full force of the state” would “take on all and any entities that resort to violence.”

In an indirect reference to Afghanistan, the National Security Council (NSC) warned that “no country will be allowed to provide sanctuaries and facilitation to terrorists…Pakistan reserves all rights … to safeguard her people.”

The meeting was held after the Islamabad police foiled an attempt to carry out a suicide bomb attack in the city on December 23, the first since 2015. A suspected militant blew himself up, in the process killing a police constable who was frisking him for arms.

Just one day after the NSC declaration, a TTP militant shot dead two officers of Pakistan’s premier agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in Khanewal, Punjab.

TTP spokesman Muhammad Khorasani issued a statement claiming responsibility for killing the two officers, Deputy Director, ISI Multan, Naveed Sadiq and his colleague, Inspector Nasir Butt, on January 3 outside a hotel in Khanewal district.

Later, Punjab’s Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) confirmed the killing, saying the two officers held a meeting with the suspected killer at the hotel and had a cup of tea with him, but subsequently, as they walked out, he fired at them in the hotel parking lot and fled.

The suspect had been believed to be an informant for the agency.

Despite the escalation of the TTP’s terrorist activities, the Pakistan government seems to be pursuing the same old dual policy of taking action against the militants on one hand, and talking to them in the hope of arriving at a negotiated settlement on the other.

The declaration issued following the NSC meeting on January 2 gave the impression that Pakistan’s forces were ready to start a major ground and air offensive against the TTP, an umbrella organisation of militants that has close links with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban. But soon thereafter, mixed signals were sent by government quarters.

“The recent meeting of the NSC this week has resolved that there will be zero tolerance for terrorism in Pakistan,” said Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, declaring in the same breath that Pakistan would continue its efforts to hold peace talks with the outlawed TTP.

However, he did stipulate the condition for this: that the insurgents had to surrender their arms first and accept the Pakistani law and the country’s Constitution. “Efforts are being made and will be made to bring the TTP to the negotiating table,” the Minister said. The 13-party coalition government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, with the PML-N and the PPP being the major two partners, seems to have some major policy differences as far as dealing with terrorism is concerned.

While the interior minister, belonging to the PML-N, talked of continuing negotiations with the TTP, Foreign Minister and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said the coalition government would abandon “the policy of appeasement of terrorists,” which he claimed was pursued by the previous Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government.  Bilawal was alluding to the talks held by several delegations of tribal elders and clerics with the TTP in Kabul with the facilitation of the Afghan Taliban in February-March 2022, during the PTI’s tenure.

The TTP is clearly not impressed with the warnings of a military offensive against it. It is so emboldened that in a recent statement, the group warned the political parties — the PPP and the PML-N — of consequences and starting attacks against them if they stuck to their stance against the TTP.

The statement said: “The TTP’s jehadi field is only Pakistan and its security forces occupying the country who at the behest of the West are working against the country…The TTP has not acted against any political party for some time.”

The group said that Bilawal Bhutto and Shehbaz Sharif have themselves pushed their parties into this conflict by announcing a war against the TTP. Obviously, the purpose of the statement was to terrorise the political parties and their leaders and workers so that the government would be hesitant about taking full-fledged action against the outlawed organisation.

Already, the surge in the TTP’s now nearly-daily terror attacks have plunged the country into a new cycle of violence. On November 28, 2022, the TTP formally ended the ceasefire with the security forces that was agreed upon in November 2021 (renewed in June 2022), even though during the truce and so-called peace talks it was continuing its activities.

Since the Afghan Taliban took over Kabul in August 2021, the TTP has carried out more than 420 attacks in Pakistan, with 141 attacks in just the last three months. It has killed and injured scores of soldiers and policemen in armed assaults, targeted killings, roadside bombings, and suicide attacks in different parts of the KP and Balochistan.

According to the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, the number of deadly attacks inside Pakistan has gone up three times.

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah stated that 67 per cent of the terrorism incidents occurred in the KP, 31 per cent in Balochistan, and the rest in other provinces. There are also reports of an alliance between some Baloch separatist groups and the TTP.

During the days of President Ashraf Ghani, it was propagated by the Pakistani media that the TTP was conducting terrorist activities in Pakistan with the joint backing of the Afghan government and the Indian intelligence establishment in order to destabilise Pakistan.

It was contended that once the Afghan Taliban would take over power in Kabul they would help Pakistan secure its western borders. That proved to be wishful thinking.

The Taliban sympathisers would argue that there were ‘good’ Taliban and ‘bad’ Taliban and that the Afghan Taliban were not involved in terrorism in Pakistan.

That, as later events were to prove, was also not true. And now, despite the situation, the Afghan Taliban refuse to take any action against the TTP based in that country.

They have emphatically told Pakistan they can only facilitate peace talks. Afghan Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani is said to have told Pakistani officials that they and the TTP fought together against the US forces in Afghanistan and now could surely not take action against their erstwhile comrades.

Pakistan’s leadership has indicated that it plans a major ground offensive against the TTP bases in the KP, especially in four districts of North and South Waziristan, Dera Ismail Khan and Lakki Marwat, supported by an air campaign against its camps inside Afghanistan.

However, the Afghan Taliban have strongly reacted to these reports. Last week the Taliban Defence Ministry denied that the TTP was operating from Afghan territory. It said: “Taliban forces are ready to defend its territorial integrity and independence.”

Nonetheless, Pakistan may be emboldened to act as it has the backing of the US, who have promised support for its operations against the TTP. At a media briefing on December 19, State Department spokesman Ned Price said the US would help Pakistan to address the “increasingly dangerous threat” posed by Afghanistan-based terrorist groups like the TTP.

He said: “We have partnered with our Pakistani friends to help them take on this challenge. We stand ready to assist, whether with this unfolding situation or more broadly.”

Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that in the US budget for 2023, Congress has approved tens of millions of dollars of funding to help Pakistan with border security.  It is also believed that the Pentagon and the CIA will provide Pakistan with intelligence gathered by satellites and drones as regards the movements of the TTP militants on either side of the border with Afghanistan.

The US could also carry out drone strikes against suspected TTP militants and other militant groups like al Qaeda. But while the government would welcome US assistance in curbing terrorism, there are many opinion-makers in Pakistan who look at this possible cooperation with suspicion; they think the US is planning to use this as an opportunity to find a foothold in the region for its strategic gains.

It is estimated that 7,000 to 10,000 TTP militants – along with 25,000 of their family members – are living in Afghanistan. And it doesn’t end there. The TTP also has numerous sleeper cells all over Pakistan.

It has sympathisers in thousands of seminaries all over the country and facilitators in religio-political groups. The fencing along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border is not as effective as it was hoped to be.

The TTP militants keep uprooting the fence to move across the border. There are nearly three million Afghan refugees who have been living in Pakistan for decades, but who still maintain close tribal links with the Afghan Taliban. It is thus not easy for law-enforcement agencies to track down and nab suspected militants as they have a vast support network that provides them boarding and logistics.

The situation is not helped by the fact that the Pakistan government has not been able to promote a counter narrative against the Taliban’s ideology, which is popular among a large section of the conservative sections of society.

There is an elite capture of the state, a worsening economic situation and mass unemployment. A situation with unemployed youth disillusioned with the state provides recruiting ground for radical groups like the Taliban.

Kinetic operations against the Pakistani Taliban may weaken them and reduce the intensity of their terrorist activities for the time being, but the issue cannot be effectively addressed unless other factors responsible for militant ideology are addressed.

At present, the Pakistani state and society seem to be in for the long haul against militant ideology.