Indian Defence Review

Also, the sectarian conflict between Pakistan’s Sunnis and Shias became bloody and deadly as Sunni cadres attacked Shia congregations in Shia mosques. Between January 1989 and June 2005, 1793 Pakistanis were killed while 3288 persons were injured. Today the situation has deteriorated so much that Shias and the hapless Ahmediyas may have to look for sanctuary in a neutral country. The editorial of the February 2012 edition of a popular journal of Pakistan, Newsline leads me to this conclusion. Where were the law enforcement agencies of the Government, when the proscribed groups, the Jammat-ud-Dawa, formerly the LeT and the Khatm-e-Nabbuwat held a rally against the Ahmediyya community in Rawalpindi on January 12, 2012?

These creatures of hate had pronounced their intent well in advance through anti-Ahmediyya posters and banners that appeared on Rawalpindi lampposts and shops many days earlier. Neither the local authorities nor the law enforcement agencies lifted a finger to stop this public display of hate literature against a section of society in the nation’s capital twin city. In 2011 alone 24 lawyers from this community were targeted and in the New Year four more have been killed. Not so long ago it was the Shia doctors who were targeted. Eighty Shia doctors were shot dead in clinics, hospitals and on the streets and many hundreds were forced to flee Pakistan and settle abroad.

The situation in Pakistan took a second turn for the worse, when the Al Qaeda after years of planning sent in three suicide bomber planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Tower in New York and into the Pentagon. It was a complete failure of intelligence of the CIA and related agencies of the United States. The US government however found out immediately that the plot was hatched from the Frontier Agency of Pakistan and Al Qaeda was behind the plot. Musharraf, the former Chief who had taken over as President of Pakistan after a coup was bluntly asked by the United States whether Pakistan was with them or against them. He had to say yes to this after consulting his Generals and then he had to hand over two of his Air Bases to the United States for their operations into Afghanistan, besides directing his Intelligence agencies to coordinate with the Central Intelligence Agency to locate Al Qaeda cadres hiding in the FATA and North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

The ISI however continued to play a double game in direct defiance of United Nations resolutions, and continued to send in supplies of arms ammunition and fuel to the Taliban. Thus while some ISI officers were helping the United States to locate Taliban targets for US bombers, others were pumping in fresh armaments to the Taliban. Though Musharraf had promised to pull back all ISI personnel from inside Afghanistan, before the US bombing began, dozens of officers from the Pakistan Army stayed back in Afghanistan.

The first attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan commenced on October 7, 2001. In a bombing that continued for four weeks and then Dostum, the Uzbek chief led cavalry charges against the Taliban positions and routed them. Some 8000 Taliban retreated and the US Air Force targeted the retreating Taliban and the entire north became a shooting Gallery. Soon Kabul was captured. The retreating Taliban collected in Kunduz and Kandahar. In Kunduz a number of ISI officers and other Pakistani Army officers were trapped along with the Taliban. At this stage Gen. Musharraf spoke to the US President George Bush requesting to stop the bombing and to give him an air corridor so that he could send some Pakistan Air Force planes and evacuate his trapped officers. The US President agreed and kept the operation secret.

On November 15, 2001, Northern Army Commanders in Kunduz reported that Pakistani Air Force planes were flying in to Kunduz to evacuate/air lift the Pakistanis at night. Gen. Richard Myers Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff denied this. He was lying. ICRC and UN officers who were on the ground at Kunduz confirmed the air lift. Taliban and Al Qaeda cadres also escaped in these air lifts. Meanwhile the Taliban retreated from Kandahar into the FATA areas and also into Baluchistan further south and sought shelter in Quetta, where the ISI arranged to shelter their leader Mullah Omar and set up his rear HQs. The majority of the Taliban retreated to North Waziristan and connected to old war lords like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Haqqani family. Mullah Omar began rebuilding the Taliban.

The Lal Masjid Operation

This was a turning point for Pakistan. It spelt the end of Musharraf as the head of the Pakistan Government and sent the country spinning into a maelstrom of fundamentalism from which as we see it today there is very little chance of Pakistan ever recovering.

The Lal Masjid had been founded by Maulana Abdullah, a veteran jihadi who had fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The mosque had strong ties with radicals like Mullah Omar, Dr Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Tahir Yuldachev and Osama bin Laden. After Abdullah was assassinated, two of his sons, Maulana Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rasheed Ghazi became Lal Masjid’s Prayer Leader and Deputy. The Pakistan Army had intensified operations in the Tribal areas in mid 2003.

The move was unpopular from the beginning. In the Frontier Tribal areas, the people saw the Taliban as an anti-imperial movement. On the advice of Al Qaeda, Maulana Abdul Aziz issued a decree in 2004 that declared the South Waziristan operation of the Pakistan Army as un-Islamic. The decree prohibited the burial of soldiers killed in these operations in Muslim graveyards. Funeral prayers for the soldiers who had died in action against the Muslim militants in South Waziristan were prohibited. The decree was circulated throughout the country and 500 clerics signed it. That was all the spin required to ignite further anti- American feelings in Pakistan. All the combined guns of the militants could not have been so useful in belittling the Pakistan Army as that religious decree. The result was the demoralisation of the Pakistan armed forces.

By 2007, Lal Masjid had become an Al Qaeda powerhouse in the federal capital of Islamabad, directly in the face of the ISI in Islamabad and the Army GHQ in Rawalpindi. Meanwhile the militant’s strength kept increasing throughout the country. They expanded their influence from South Waziristan to North Waziristan, and then moved on to Bajaur, Mohmand and Orakzai agencies.

In January 2007, the Pakistan Taliban in South Waziristan, broke its ceasefire with the Pakistan Army and unleashed a series of attacks on their positions. Shortly thereafter, the Lal Masjid students took to the streets against the demolition of some mosques built illegally. Then women students of the Lal Masjid Madrassa illegally occupied a Children’s Library nearby and would not vacate unless Sharia law was enforced in the country. Then a Chinese beauty parlour worker was abducted by the students of Jamia Hafsa of the Lal Masjid. In July 2007 the Pakistan Army surrounded the Lal Masjid and forcibly entered it after a siege of a few days. In the ensuing firefight, Abdul Aziz Ghazi was captured when trying to flee in a burqa, while his brother Abdul Rashid Ghazi was killed. A number of students of the Madrassa were killed. Osama bin Laden installed Abu Obaida al Misri as the Imam-e-Khurruj the leader of a revolt against Pakistan. The strategy of Al Qaeda was working as per their plan. The Lal Masjid operation changed the dynamics of the country forever.

Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan

Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was established by Beitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan in 2007 with Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Faqir as his lieutenants. Within a few months of its inception the TTP was able to extend its foothold in South Waziristan and adjacent areas. The tribal areas of FATA steadily fell to the Taliban groups and the Waziristan Shura came into being. In 2007, the agencies of North and South Waziristan became a no go area for the Pakistan security forces. The TTP surrounded and captured 300 soldiers of the Pakistani forces in 2007. By 2008, the TTP had spread to the areas around Peshawar. Mullah Omar now claimed that the TTP would spread to Karachi soon.

Karachi by this time had become a smouldering cauldron. It was initially controlled by the Mohajirs—Indian Muslims from Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan who had migrated to Pakistan after separation of India into India and Pakistan to replace Hindus who had migrated to India. The Mohajirs organised into a political party, the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) that generally controlled Karachi. The situation changed with the Russian invasion of Afghanistan when thousands of Pashtuns came as refugees and settled in Sind and carved a niche for themselves in Karachi. Soon turf wars started in Karachi for control of the spoils of the financial capital of Pakistan. It did not take much time before Karachi was awash in arms and pitched battles between the MQM Mohajirs and the Pashtun immigrants became a regular feature in Karachi, with each encounter claiming casualties.

Karachi was once a rocking city—bustling with life energy and hope. A city of dreams that embraced all who entered its fold, starry eyed, full of aspirations to make it big—or simply make it. But now an ominous silence descended on the city.

As people step out of their homes to go about their work, there is the nagging fear that they may return home as bullet ridden corpses. There is the smell of death in the air. Karachi has been turned into a graveyard of sorts by those who preside over its destiny—the PPP, the MQM and the ANP. They are engaged in a shameless turf war to seize control of the country’s economic lifeline, strangling it in the process, and caught in the bitter battle are the people of Karachi, from the business houses, who are being forced to cough up millions by extortionists of all political shades, or face abduction or closures, to the poor vegetable vendors, rickshaw drivers, daily wage earners, who are being killed on a daily basis because they belong to one or other ethnic group. In three days of strikes in March 2012, 35 vehicles were torched, 40 innocent people killed. This government in Pakistan is the most impotent government that the country has ever had.

The Al Qaeda targets the North West Frontier Province (NWFP)

The Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) was renamed Khyber Pakhtunkwa (KP). Its population though it had a sizeable Pashtun element was religion wise moderate Bahrelvi. In Pakistan the Bahrelvi was a moderate group who prayed in mosques but also believed in worshipping at Sufi shrines. The main route of transporting supplies for the NATO and US troops in Afghanistan was from Karachi to Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkwa and from there through the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan.

The Al Qaeda wanted to disrupt these supplies and then put in a plan to get the Taliban to dominate this region. A group was created under the leadership of Maulana Sufi Muhammad who had fought against the Russians that was named Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM). Maulana Sufi Muhammad’s son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah then began to preach through his Radio Fazlullah to threaten the moderate Muslims of Swat to adopt Sharia law. They began enforcing Sharia Law by burning girl’s schools and CD shops. A wave of terror swept across the beautiful Swat valley as the TNSM, which translated meant the movement for the enforcement of Islamic laws began operating in the Swat valley. The TNSM is a Wahabi militant group whose objective was to implement a strict version of Islam in the Malakand and Swat province of Khyber Pakhtunkwa region.

This was only the beginning of the real troubles of the beautiful Swat valley. A much more extremist leader had appeared on the scene—Bin Yameen sponsored by the Al Qaeda. His group was called the Tora Bora group comprising local Pashtuns, Uzbeks and Arabs. Bin Yameen’s group ambushed Army convoys and brutally slit their throats. They took camera footage of this and forwarded it to TV channels. Waziristan’s Qari Hussain Mehsud a former leader of the anti Shiite Lashkar-e-Jhangvi together with Bin Yameen established a reign of terror in the Swat valley. Within weeks, the entire Police network in the valley had collapsed. Pir Samiullah, a Bharelvi spiritual guide and his followers were armed by the Pakistan Army to fight the Al Qaeda group. Before Pir Samiullah could organise his group, his shrine was attacked. Pir Samiullah and dozens of his supporters were killed. Bin Yameen found that the Pir had been buried. He had his body exhumed and hung it up for several days and then looted all the banks. By late 2008 Swat was completely in the hands of the Al Qaeda insurgents.

The Pakistan Government then tried to use Maulvi Sufi Muhammad to bring back Swat under Government control. Al Qaeda however sent Bin Yameen again into the area. He organised the Al Qaeda forces and stormed Buner, only 65 miles from Islamabad in the first week of April 2009. Sufi Muhammad could not be found for some time. When he finally surfaced, he was not alone. He was accompanied by Bin Yameen and eight suicide bombers! Sufi Muhammad then read out a speech given to him by Bin Yameen. “There is no room for democracy in Islam,” read out Sufi Muhammad. He then gave a deadline for all judges to withdraw from Malakand Division within four days and set up a Darul Qaza an Islamic appeal court to hear appeals against the Government’s Qazi courts. Sufi Muhammad’s speech changed everything.

The international media publicised his address and depicted it as Swat’s rule by the Taliban. The Pakistan Government now deployed a strike corps in Swat and ruthlessly started a second Swat operation Rah-e-Rast (Operation for the Right path). 2.2 million people of Swat and Malakand division were shifted to camps outside the area. The Strike Corps then used air power and bombed the militant hideouts. Hundreds of militants were killed. The operation continued till end July 2009, when the Al Qaeda militants retreated to the Hindu Kush Mountains and the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan.

Attacks on the NATO convoys in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Major Haroon retired from the Pakistan Army when he found the turnaround of the Pakistan Army against the Taliban after the US attack on the Taliban. The death of his brother Major Khurram led to his retirement and he soon worked himself into the inner circle of the Al Qaeda. Major Khurram was posted in the elite Special Services Group of the Pakistan Army. Pakistan’s policy turnaround on the Taliban after the US invasion of Afghanistan had disillusioned the whole of the middle cadre of the country’s armed forces. Both Major Haroon and Major Khurram resigned from the armed forces. Both brothers joined the LeT. Due to their motivation many officers from the Pakistan Army resigned their commissions.

Haroon now found a new comrade in Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri, who had fought in Kashmir. All of them shifted their location to North Waziristan and settled there, fighting for the Al Qaeda against US forces in Helmand. It was in Helmand that Major Khurram died in an encounter with US forces in 2007. Major Haroon now planned the operations to disrupt the NATO supply line of containers from Karachi to Afghanistan. There followed a series of attacks on the NATO convoys in Karachi and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Curiously there were virtually no human casualties. Convoys were held up and torched. The convoys were being run by civil contractors. The US lost hundreds of crores worth of supplies, POL etc.

The final humiliation for Pakistan was the attack on the Mehran Naval base in Karachi on 22 May 2011 by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. There must obviously have been an inside contact, else, the base so heavily guarded could not have been breached. Eighteen military personnel were killed and sixteen injured before the defenders could control the situation. Two P-3C Orion aircraft and one helicopter were damaged. The interesting sequel to this dramatic incident is that one of Pakistan’s most daring reporters Syed Salim Shahzad went missing a few days after he had reported on this incident, that there was complicity by security personnel in helping the intruders to penetrate the defences of the base. His body was found a few days later. We have to come to our own conclusions as to who killed Syed Salim Shahzad.

Finally to close this dismal story of Pakistan, we have the gunning down of Salman Taseer, Governor of Punjab, Pakistan by his own bodyguard. The bodyguard confessed that he shot him because the Governor had opposed the blasphemy law of the country. The only silver lining to this brutal story is that the honourable judge before whom, the bodyguard of Salman Taseer was tried courageously sentenced him to death after the trial despite open threats. The final shame for Pakistan was that the judge had to be secretly settled abroad fearing that he would be killed for sentencing the bodyguard of the slain Punjab Governor.