Indian Defence Review

Jihadi Groups: Bases and Area of Operations

The Pakistan Army itself hardly fights. Instead, it directs others to do its bidding! The Pakistani generals consider the Taliban and other terrorist groups as the vanguard of the nation’s defense and their “strategic assets”.

It is now nearly two months since the Pakistan military suddenly changed its stance in dealing with a resurgent Taliban and launched military operations against a much strengthened and assertive Taliban. The military operations launched by Pakistan have no doubt stopped the overt spread of the Taliban to other areas of Pakistan. However, the series of bomb blasts and suicide terrorist strikes commencing in Lahore on 27 May, with the latest on 14 June at Dera Ismail Khan, indicate the capacity and resolve of the Taliban not to get intimidated, but to strike back.

The Pakistan Army itself hardly fights. Instead, it directs others to do its bidding! The Pakistani generals consider the Taliban and other terrorist groups as the vanguard of the nations defense and their “strategic assets”.

There is no doubt that the earlier appeasement of the Taliban by the Pakistani authorities, over a period of four years of the ‘on-again/off-again’ truces, did result in the Taliban becoming stronger. The Pakistan Army was reluctant to operate against them, for many reasons, the foremost being its usefulness, according to Pakistani thinking, as assets to fight the Indian military.

This convoluted logic has resulted in the steady strengthening of the Taliban as well as other terrorists. It was only on being arm-twisted and the promises of lucre by the United States that the Pakistan Army commenced operations against the Taliban in the area of Swat. They have reportedly contained the spread of adverse influence to the Pakistani polity. However, if history is an indicator, the Pakistani military is unlikely to carry on with such operations over an extended period of time, or to extend these operations further west, nearer the Afghanistan border, which is the safe haven for both the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda.

For nearly a decade, the Pakistani military has successfully followed the policy of appearing to fight terrorists and covertly supporting and nurturing the same terrorists. In this respect, the United States has been quite obviously naïve in its approach to dealing with Pakistan, thinking that it would be able to get Islamabad’s unstinted support by inducements like making it a non-NATO ally; doling out billions of dollars (more than $12.3 billion since 9/11, with additional $ 1.5 billion per year for the next five years); a steady arms supply; overlooking its nuclear proliferation activities; making light of the genuine concerns voiced by India; and ignoring its anti-US activities. Resultantly, the much-trumpeted war on terrorism in the badlands bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan petered out and the terrorists of the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other varieties flourished and gained strength steadily.

We need to fully understand the ground situation before we venture to analyse its repercussions on India and what we should do to ensure that we do not get singed by the flames that are currently enveloping the western parts of Pakistan.

Area of Interest

Leaving aside Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK), which includes the so-called Northern Areas, Pakistan has been administratively divided into four provinces, viz. Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan and North West Frontier Province (NWFP). In addition, it has FATA (The Federally Administered Tribal Areas), which is a geographically separate area governed through “political agents”. Only tribal laws are applicable in FATA. The only non-tribal law applicable to residents of FATA is the Frontier Crimes Regulations, a colonial-era edict sanctioning collective punishment for tribes and sub-tribes guilty of disrupting the peace.

Ethnic Groups in Pakistan

Within FATA, there are seven near autonomous “agencies”. These are the Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram, North Waziristan and South Waziristan. All residents of FATA and the vast majority of those in NWFP are ethnically Pakhtuns. There are also a large number of Pakhtuns in Baluchistan. In the Pakhtun minds, their “nation” encompasses wherever Pakhtuns may live, irrespective of the formal border –  the Durand Line!

The ethnic groups in Pakistan are highlighted in Map.

Taliban and Other Terrorist Groups

The Taliban was created by the Pakistani Army and its dirty-tricks department, the infamous ISI, in the 1980s when the Soviets had occupied Afghanistan. The creation of the Taliban was a joint effort of the United States (funds and weapons); Saudi Arabia (funds and religious motivation); China (political support, funds and some weapons); the Mullahs in Pakistan  (indoctrinated manpower); and the Pakistan Army and the ISI (leadership, motivation, planning and training). This joint effort did succeed in forcing the Soviets to leave Afghanistan, but the monster created for those short-term gains continues to haunt the same players who had jointly created it.

There are broadly three types of terrorists operating in the tribal areas of Pakistan. These are Al-Qaeda, Taliban and the Lashkars. After the Afghanistan operation of 2001–02, many Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters escaped into FATA, where the local tribes sheltered them. They started crossing the border to fight the US military in Afghanistan, with the tacit approval of the Pakistan Army. The Al-Qaeda groups that had entrenched themselves in FATA influenced a new Taliban mindset that was far more aggressive towards the Pakistani military and disruptive towards the local, tribal traditions. This resulted in the emergence of the so-called “bad” and “good” Taliban.

The most prominent Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud is the nominal chief of the “Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan” (TTP). Maulvi Nazir is his rival in South Waziristan. Nazir is a darling of Pakistan’s military establishment as he is only interested in fighting the US, Afghan, and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The Pakistani Army considers his group as the “good” Taliban versus Baitullah Mehsud and his TTP, who are the “bad” Taliban!

The TTP, which was seen till recently as merely a collection of young suicide bombers with limited capability for territorial control and dominance, started demonstrating that it had evolved into a conventional army, which could fight, occupy and administer territory. Its objective of fighting for the defeat of the US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan was supplemented by its independent agenda of expanding its territorial and ideological dominance to other areas of the Pakhtun belt in the NWFP initially and then to non-Pakhtun areas.

Lashkars (literally irregular tribal militias) are permanent fixtures in Pakistan. Among the prominent ones, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is committed to fighting India, in and out of Kashmir; Lashkar-e-Janghvi is bent on killing Shiites, and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) is ready to attack anyone!

Pakistan’s Power Structure

The army, for all practical purposes, is the government, while Zardari and the PPP led by Gilani are only there to show the democratic face! The army has a veto over most critical decisions affecting both foreign and security policies. During the Zia era, it expanded its reach into some areas of domestic politics as well, fomenting, and then containing, ethnic discord in Sindh and pandering to religious zealots. Civilian governments in Pakistan are of transient significance. The military, the higher echelons of the civil service, and the intelligence services are the permanent features of the state. The army rules on all the critical issues important to it, like the nuclear program, the budget, security policy, relations with key foreign partners and so on. Although civilian governments have room to play in other areas, their choices are crowded out by prior military preferences.

The essence of the Pakistani security establishment’s paranoia is that they view everything through an India-tinted lens and are convinced that their real enemy is India. Successive governments in Pakistan have exacerbated this by their anti-India policies, where anti-India propaganda commences in school text books. However, it may be incorrect to assume that anti-India sentiments translate to Talibanization. Even today, the majority of senior Pakistan Army officers and the literate civil society are moderate Muslims.

Since the formation of Pakistan, the Pakistan Army has raised and nurtured hundreds of thousands of jihadis to engage India (and Afghanistan) in asymmetric was, while acquiring nuclear weapons to make any conventional reprisals difficult. The Pakistan Army itself hardly fights. Instead, it directs others to do its bidding! The Pakistani generals consider the Taliban and other terrorist groups as the vanguard of the nation’s defense and their “strategic assets”. The generals are loath to give up these assets, even though they seem to recognize the damage that militancy is doing to Pakistan itself.

However, the civil society in Pakistan has a more nuanced view of India and the world. While a large portion resents being pushed into confronting the Taliban by the United States, the spate of bomb blasts and suicide attacks throughout the country are changing their thinking.

Modus Operandi

The Pakistan military is using heavy artillery, fighter aircraft and helicopter gunships in the operations. Collateral damage being caused is colossal. Such operations against own people, albeit misguided, need to be conducted wearing kid gloves. Experienced armies are convinced that such sub-conventional operations are best conducted by putting maximum ‘boots on the ground’, ensuring minimum collateral damage and conducting people-friendly operations. The root causes, be they social, economic, ideological or political have to be tackled simultaneously with military operations.

The operations of the Pakistani Army highlight a number of points, including the following:

The military operations in Swat have already resulted in the mass exodus of nearly 2.8 million people. This is in addition to 6,00,000 other Pakhtuns who had been forced out of their homes in earlier army operations from the tribal areas. The humanitarian situation is bleak. Only about a tenth of the displaced are living in proper refugee camps. The other three provinces of Pakistan have reportedly refused to permit the establishment of refugee camps in their provinces.

If the internally displaced Pakistanis are not properly cared for, public opinion, which has shifted dramatically in recent weeks to support the offensive against the Taliban, could once again turn in support of compromise.

Prognosis and Assessment

An unstable nuclear-armed Pakistan, torn apart by militant groups, economic woes and sectarian tensions poses an extraordinary danger to India because of spill-over effects, including effects on India’s economy and its very large Muslim population. The spill-over could be in terms of increased terrorist actions, influx of refugees and a concerted effort to raise the stakes in J&K.

Pakistan’s stability is important for India. A break-up of Pakistan, as predicted by some, will impact adversely on India’s security. Pakistan’s love-hate relationship with Islamist extremists is fueled by a false strategic concept — that somehow such groups provide a hedge against Indian dominance. There is a need to bring about an attitudinal change in the Pakistani Army’s perception of India. This is best done by dialogues at various levels, including at the military level. Dialogue conjures up visions of returning to the composite dialogue, but that would be premature at this stage. However, dialogue to build up trust is sorely needed. This would, in time, result in a more formal and structured dialogue.

The Pakistan Army operations are gradually getting the support of political parties and the civil society. However, the troops currently engaged in the offensive lack adequate strength to increase the area of operations and to consolidate in the cleared areas. Pakistan could easily transfer forces from its eastern border for this purpose, provided its anxiety about actions by Indian forces are allayed. In reality, there is no reason for such anxiety, but the baggage of decades prevents it. A military to military dialogue to build trust and confidence, as mentioned above, may succeed but this can only come about if India’s political leadership and its bureaucracy shed their own fears first!

A Taliban setback may produce a reverse effect in the neighboring tribal areas and serve as a catalyst for binding together the loose confederation of militants operating in FATA and thus produce a more united fighting force.

The Taliban warriors are essentially Pakhtuns, but their nexus with Punjabi-based militant groups is deepening and increasingly many Punjabi dominated terrorist groups are aligning with the Taliban. Some analysts are already calling them the ‘Punjabi Taliban’. It is these groups that are responsible for most bomb blasts and suicide attacks in various locations in Punjab. India must not remain oblivious to this threat as their objectives can change and may well get directed at India.  Pakistan needs to be weaned away from their thinking that somehow such groups provide a hedge against Indian dominance.

The neutralizing of the Taliban and other terrorist groups by the Pakistani military needs to be encouraged; nothing will be achieved if the Pakistani military continues to think and plan in terms of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Talibans or other groups.

Failure of the Pakistan Army to decisively defeat the Taliban may well prompt the Pakistani military, especially the ISI, to divert attention in their well-tested method of increasing terrorist attacks against India. Should the Taliban presence become even partially effective in Punjab and Sindh, it would lead to a human exodus in the millions. As a counter, India needs to initiate action at many levels. Prevention is a viable course to adopt. This requires effective structures, high-grade intelligence and well institutionalized response mechanisms. We would have to ensure much better policing and sealing of our borders or else we will be faced with very serious security concerns.

Actions in Afghanistan are directly linked to events in NWFP. India needs to increase its support to Afghanistan, by incorporating assistance to the Afghan Army and police. At present it is confined to training a few personnel at the Indian Army’s training establishments. A quantum jump would be training and equipping entire units and formations. Such tasks are well within the current capability of the Indian Army and the dividends likely to accrue would be very high.

Kashmir continues to be a target of both the Pakistan Army and the various militant and terrorist groups. As the Pakistani Army has reportedly withdrawn two brigades from the Line of Control (LoC) in J&K and may withdraw more, it is quite capable of using it as an excuse for increased infiltration by terrorists. The US, while pursuing its own interests, is riding rough-shod on the sensibilities of India. It is trying to bring the Kashmir issue up front at the behest of Pakistan. India must resist this, as there is no change in the attitude of the Pakistani establishment. In addition, it only pays lip service to termination of Jihadi infiltration in Kashmir and in other parts of India. Trust is not only lacking but has been exacerbated by the Mumbai terrorist attack and the continuing ‘denial mode’ adopted by Pakistan.

Before India agrees to any overtures by USA, it must get guarantees relating to complete cessation of terrorist attacks against it from Pakistan. India can no longer afford to be held hostage to Mumbai-like terrorist attacks emanating from Pakistan by groups like LeT and JeM.

Conclusion

The Taliban are in an emboldened state today, despite the recent successes claimed by the Pakistani military. The Taliban have unfortunately been allowed to become too strong. Across the entire swathe of tribal areas along the Afghanistan border, the Taliban are rapidly consolidating power by activating their cells, regrouping and are challenging the army.

The Pakistan Army may well be treating the current anti-Taliban operations as a temporary phase, to please the United States and obtain the much needed funds. However, if they are not serious in pursuing the Taliban menance and the riposte weakens, the very viability of Pakistan would be at risk.

Any deterioration of the situation in Pakistan can have grave repurcussions for India. Our overall policy for meeting security related threats needs to be revamped. We need to strengthen our intelligence set up and hasten our decision–making processes. The need of the hour is to prepare a series of contingency plans, to meet the situations that are likely to crop up.