In Pakistan nowadays, people are talking about terrorism, but why has it returned when it was widely believed to have been eradicated? Are we experiencing a spike and why was it happening, if this was true? There are questions that people have as they search for answers to their doubts. They have a right to hear the truth and be informed about the reality on ground as it unfolds.
Pakistan has been fighting terrorism since 9/11, yet terrorism was not a new discovery in Pakistan that surfaced only after the event of 9/11. It in fact existed long before 9/11. It’s just that we tolerated it better then and co-existed with it long before 9/11, living in our comfort zones, doing nothing and saying nothing.
Terrorism began with the shooting of Liaquat Ali Khan, and it spanned the years through the Ahmadiyya riots of the ’50s, the language riots of Bengal ever since partition, the separation of the country in 71, sectarianism and extremism where Shias and Sunnis searched for God in the souls of their adversaries as they murdered one another in the name of their respective beliefs.
The state looked on, weak and helpless, lacking the wherewithal to handle the situation as violence expanded to every corner, becoming a way of life, being the most dominating factor in state affairs, governance and administration. The leadership, corrupt, compromised or obliged, lacked the moral capacity and political will, to take a strong position against violence and extremism, and found it convenient to look the other way, allowing the elements of disruption and chaos a free hand.
The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979 and the US withdrawal later in 2021 aggravated this culture of violence that kept growing while it cast its ominous influence and impact across the borders. There was an open, standing invitation to the world’s jihadists to wage war from Pakistani soil, first against the Soviets and later against the United States: the self-righteous and the do-gooders regardless of caste, creed or nationality, flocked to the holy land, to do their worst.
Pakistan, on the other hand, unregulated, misgoverned and poorly administered, managed to work itself into an existence where its society was polarised, provincialism was rampant, extremism was at its height, crime at its best while the world smiled down at us benignly as it condemned us to being a safe haven for terrorists and militants promoting violence and extremism; we floundered on, limping on from one day to another, barely surviving despite ourselves.
Nevertheless, when we talk of terrorism, what exactly does the term imply and how is it defined. Although the United Nation’s has a vague perspective of terrorism by stating it as a ‘criminal act’, there is no universal agreement as to what the term really means. After all, every and any state can perpetuate a criminal act, in commensuration with their respective capacity, whenever they find it beneficial to their own cause. So we live the moment where one man’s terrorism is another’s one’s freedom fighter and so on; with Kashmir and Palestine, the only two long-outstanding United Nations resolutions still unresolved, there will always remain a cause and casus belli to continue war by other means in search of such a resolution.
The world is divided, with each state justifying its position in the interest of its own national security/objectives and thus those with more clout, qualify to define what is just and what is not but always at the cost of the less fortunate. Israel’s genocide in Palestine is kosher and the Indian occupation of Kashmir remains justified as the people of Kashmir are denied the right to self-determination and a plebiscite.
Whenever there is no recognised recourse to a just resolution, society is reduced to being radicalised in the search for justice through violence – some call it terrorism, others justify it as natural to struggle for what is considered as a just objective. As societies within respective nations are divided, politicised and disenfranchised, an environment susceptible to intrusion is created. This allows an external influence to enter the scene with resources, training, weapons and a promise.
People are easily convinced to join the ‘cause’ and a movement starts that spreads its impact through violence. Such a movement is always sponsored by hostile states and their intelligence agencies as each competes with the other to get the upper hand. These hostile agencies are always on the lookout for dissident groups, dissatisfied people and communities with a grievance who they then set out to recruit and exploit.
The game is all about putting pressure on sitting governments where diplomacy can then be extended through regulating the scale of violence as each moment is negotiated and each event leading to a bargain. This is why, it is the firm opinion of this author, at the least, that terrorism is a phenomenon that is exploited, expanded and created by intelligence agencies of all states the world over, as each competes with the other.
Now, in the context of terrorism in Pakistan, having been involved in the war against terrorism since 9/11 in one form or the other, I am often asked the question, ‘We were fighting ever since 9/11 and we are still fighting now – what difference has it made?’ My simple answer to them is that, ‘Then we were fighting for our survival as a state and now the terrorists are fighting for theirs!’ A subtle difference that may be missed by the uninitiated, but one that has a huge strategic undertone.
In the early days, the KP government was contemplating shifting to Abbottabad, the Peshawar airport was closed, the Kohat Tunnel was disrupted, bombs went off every day, businesses collapsed or shifted out of the province and the state of Pakistan wilfully surrendered the people of Swat to Sufi Muhammed to enact his own constitution parallel to the one in the rest of the country. This senseless initiative and a move that demonstrated a high degree of government cowardice was labelled as ‘giving peace a chance’.
The parallel constitution still exists and has not been thrown out; the complete exercise is never spoken about and no one knows who was responsible for this brilliance for which we later had to fight for every inch of territory to right the wrong done by an obvious stroke of insanity. Thus Pakistan has lived with the current terrorist conflict for the last 23 years at great cost in human lives and lost treasure crowned by a leadership in every department that had no dearth of incompetence, stupidity and intellectual bankruptcy, all wrapped up and disguised as wisdom as it was sold to the people in false promises and fake commitments.
The question still remains, that if terrorism is a state-sponsored phenomenon here in Pakistan, then what are the issues that Pakistan is required to address to halt this perpetual cycle of violence, to the satisfaction of those states perpetuating it in Pakistan? How would the powers-that-be stand appeased enough to hold their hand? The first contentious issue is that of the CPEC and Pakistan’s close relationship with China; both must be toned down to levels of irrelevance, without meaning and no substance.
The second is the nuclear issue which must be capped immediately and then later scrapped. This would effectively defang Pakistan’s destructive potential, where in the event its national interest, in an unlikely probability, is ever tested, may trigger a threat towards the offending party. The third is to amicably resolve the Kashmir issue to the liking of the international community, an exercise in glorious procrastination leading to what the world prefers – letting bygones be bygones.
The fourth area of concern is improving relations with India at the pleasure of India, the unconditional recognition of Israel, open and unlimited support to Ukraine and a public condemnation of Iran. The fifth issue is to provide land and air access to Afghanistan whenever needed by any international power needing to engage Afghanistan. If any agreements are arrived at to mutual satisfaction in these matters, then Pakistan would no longer be a safe haven for terrorism and there would be a visible and demonstrated global concern for peace and an international commitment towards ensuring a stable Pakistan.
That Pakistan would eventually be reduced to a client state is of course a moot question, but with the current serious economic challenges and political instability, one may well argue, that we are already well on our way to becoming a client state anyway, that is, if we already have not become one. Thus to insert the element of a terrorist manoeuvre into a state, an enabling environment for such an insertion must exist.
The overall spectrum of terrorism or the continuation of war by other means is a very all-encompassing phenomenon and is practically manifested in many different ways. It could be through engineered political instability, vested separatist movements, manufactured freedom struggles. It could also be through other subtler means such as an economic collapse, inflation and devaluation; it could be through energy management, infrastructural collapse or other threat within the realms of national security paradigms.
The purpose of the above activities is to challenge government, overwhelming it and forcing it to eventually succumb to pressure. The government is then susceptible to surrendering to the demands being made to it, compromising on its international standing, position and posture. In the quest to manufacture and shape the environment to facilitate terrorism, the activity undertaken intentionally or inadvertently, facilitating terrorism become the immediate causes of terrorism. The government and every department unknowingly become an accomplice to creating space for intrusion.
These weaknesses, omissions and commissions allow a conducive environment for terrorism to take hold and influence matters in governance, politics, administration and day to day lives. First and foremost is the collapse of the judicial system. Justice was difficult to get, so people looked for alternative sources and found them in the informal Taliban courts. This allowed local legitimacy of such non-state actors to develop and then expand. The current judicial push-back that we are witnessing in the country is an attempt to regaining space that was lost due to corruption and misuse of authority.
The judges now are offended, having given up space themselves, and not being taken seriously for some time, have now begun asserting themselves to regain their lost authority, as they should. Nevertheless, because of the dysfunctional lower courts, their terrible reputation and total lack of credibility, we arrive at our first reason that allowed a parallel system to start working in the first place.
The second factor is the total absence of governance in the border regions and far-flung areas, thus creating a vacuum that was filled by non-state actors who established their own authority and revenue system in no-go areas. The third is the rampant corruption and a narco-trade allowing illegal cross-border movement of men, resource and wealth, making the government totally irrelevant.
The fourth is the intelligence agencies setting up ‘aman (peace) committees’, who created revenue by coercing people and creating a hatred towards the government as they were seen as representatives of the government, acting on their behalf. By fiddling with the nature of the societal hierarchy, all traditions and customs were replaced by violence and militancy instead of historical precedence, ethics and social norms.
The fifth is the operational incompetence, a total lack of accountability, rewarding failures and glorifying shahadat – there is no example of any one ever being held to account. Notwithstanding the remarkable sacrifices by the rank and file, the continued violation of SOPs and lack of proper military application and training is causing unnecessary losses and cost. The sixth is politicising terrorism and using terrorist activities to score political points, justifying illegal government misuse of authority by answering to the call of false-flag operations and trying to secure political objectives through real or perceived terrorist activity.
The seventh is to cultivate TLP-type religious pressure groups and other political groups such as MQM through the auspices of various intelligence agencies with a view to applying pressure on government/politicians in times of need and to create space for interfering in administrative functioning. The eight is the complete state of anarchy where the state is not visible in its commitment to protect the people, or their rights and is itself seen more as the problem rather than the solution – the people feel abandoned and there is a total lack of ownership.
The ninth is the collapse of the economy due to which poverty has become widespread, unemployment has grown considerably, crime has become a way of life, corruption has grown out of proportion and all services such as energy, water and sewage have started to fail along with an infrastructural collapse. The tenth cause is merger-in-haste of FATA with KP; trying to change the administrative position of a region without consulting the people, or following a formal development and plan for social progress. This has now created a dissatisfied populace who already have a culture of violence and are prone to settling issues through the barrel of a gun – they feel they have been duped.
There could be many other causes explaining the phenomenon of terrorism and its sudden reappearance in Pakistan, but those listed above are some of the main ones. However, one single factor that stands out as an over-riding cause in the spike in terrorism is explained as follows: the TTP, the single largest terrorist body operating in Pakistan, were comprehensively defeated in 2010 but having been routed, they ran to Afghanistan and set themselves up there along the Pak-Afghan border.
It is not understandable as to why the authorities concerned agreed to a ceasefire, a negotiated settlement and then facilitated their return to Pakistan. This was a self-aggravated injury administered to the nation by an ignorant, incompetent and clueless intelligence system and faulty leadership, due to which we are suffering to date. This too shall slowly be forgotten and there will be no inquiry or investigation to determine what were the factors behind such a silly decision – there will be no accountability.
Now, with all that the country is suffering from, politically, administratively, judicially, economically, law and order etcetera, the national moral is wallowing in the doldrums. With the police set upon their own people, with an establishment indifferent to the plight of the public, the nation and the state as they continue to leverage an artificial government in the most ridiculous manner, it is no longer surprising that in Pakistan, there is a mass sentiment expressing a desire to leave the country, a total lack of national identity and one of the worst passports to display anywhere in the world – such an environment is highly vulnerable to hostile intrusion and exploitation, since the people are not united to defend their own nation and this state of affairs must be addressed immediately.
Correction lies in first recognising the reality of what has been listed above and not going into a state of denial, where one insists on convincing the nation that matters are fine. The next step is to correct what one has discovered and recognised by simply righting the wrong – we do not need to look for complicated solutions to simple problems, just simply follow the convention with honesty and sincerity. It is for all of us to learn, to call a spade a spade and then lay out the facts as they are, and only then can we move in any corrective direction, hoping to stride towards normalcy.
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