SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 7, No. 28, January 19, 2009

PAKISTAN

Skirting Failure
Kanchan Lakshman
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management; Assistant Editor, Faultlines: Writings on Conflict & Resolution

Pakistan’s descent towards state failure gathered momentum in year 2008. Conflict data and broad governance indicators, today, reflect a nation at war with itself.

The country’s progressive collapse has been much more rapid and irretrievable than most had envisaged. In a vast swathe of Pakistani territory today, the state has simply withered away. A wide array of militant groups is currently engaged in varying degrees of violence and subversion across the country. A cursory look at the map indicates that the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), and Balochistan are witnessing large-scale violence and insurrections. Violence also increasingly afflicts parts of Punjab, Sindh, and the Gilgit-Baltistan region. Islamabad’s writ is thus being challenged vigorously – violently or otherwise – in wide geographical areas, and on a multiplicity of issues. More than half of the territory presently under Pakistan’s control, including Gilgit-Baltistan and ‘Azad Jammu and Kashmir’, has passed outside the realm of civil governance and is currently dominated essentially through military force.

The sheer rate of acceleration of violence is an index of the enveloping loss of control. In year 2003 – when Pakistan was already being viewed as a place of instability and widespread strife – total fatalities in terrorism-related violence amounted to just 189. By 2004, this number had risen to 863, to slide marginally to 648 in 2005, but mount dramatically thereafter to the unprecedented minimum of 6,715 killed in 2008.

Annual Fatalities in Terrorist Violence in Pakistan, 2003- 2008

	Civilians	SF Personnel	Terrorists	Total
2003	140	24	25	189
2004	435	184	244	863
2005	430	81	137	648
2006	608	325	538	1471
2007	1523	597	1479	3599
2008	2155	654	3906	6715
Total	5291	1865	6329	13485

[Since media access is heavily restricted in the troubled areas of Pakistan, and there is only fitful release of information by Government agencies and media reports, the actual figures could be substantially higher].

Suicide Attacks

A startling aspect of the patterns of violence witnessed across the country is the increasing frequency of suicide attacks. There were 59 suicide attacks in 2008 as against 56 in year 2007. At least 852 persons, including 712 civilians and 140 Security Force (SF) personnel, were killed and over 1,867 persons injured by 65 suicide bombers involved in these attacks. 729 persons, including 552 civilians and 177 SF personnel, were killed and 1,677 persons injured by 58 suicide bombers, in 2007. The magnitude of Pakistan’s slide towards chaos is best illustrated by the fact that, between March 22, 2002 (the first suicide attack) and end-2006, there were 22 suicide attacks; in 2007 alone, there were 56 such attacks, rising to 59 in 2008. In 2008, fidayeen (suicide squads) relentlessly targeted Army convoys and check-posts, Police Stations and training units, Government officials, polling stations, schools, jirga meetings, hotels, restaurants, mosques and various soft targets. Almost 11 per cent of total fatalities in Pakistan during 2008 were inflicted through suicide attacks.

While 32 of the 59 suicide attacks in 2008 occurred in the NWFP, 13 were reported from FATA, 12 from Punjab and one each from Balochistan and Sindh Provinces. In 2007, while 27 of the 56 suicide attacks occurred in the NWFP, there were 13 in FATA and five attacks in the national capital, Islamabad. These figures are a clear demonstration of the suicide bombers’ capacities to strike across Pakistan. There were two instances – October 9 (in Islamabad and FATA) and November 6 (FATA and NWFP) – when Pakistan experienced two suicide attacks in a single day. Suicide attacks not only occurred in the conflict zones but in major cities like Islamabad and Karachi as well. There were four attacks in Islamabad, four in Lahore, four in Peshawar, two in Rawalpindi, and one each in Karachi and Quetta.

The 32 suicide attacks in the NWFP were spread across 11 of the Province’s 24 Districts – Swat: 11; Buner: 2; Charsadda: 4; Bannu: 3; Peshawar: 3; Hangu: 1; Mardan: 2; Upper Dir: 1; Kohat (Darra Adamkhel town): 2; Dera Ismail Khan: 2; and Lakki Marwat: 1. Three suicide bombers struck the besieged provincial capital Peshawar in 2008 to kill 55 persons, including 47 civilians, and injure 108 others. A presentation by a NWFP Police official before Provincial Government authorities indicated that 290 people were killed and 711 were injured in 30 suicide bombings in the Frontier during 2008. At least 337 people were killed and 585 wounded in 28 suicide bombings in the NWFP in 2007, according to official statistics.

Suicide attacks were reported from all the tribal agencies – Khyber, Mohmand, Bajaur, Orakzai, Kurram, North Waziristan and South Waziristan – during 2008.

There were 12 suicide attacks in Punjab in 2008, with four in the provincial capital, Lahore. Four suicide bombers struck targets (Danish embassy, Marriot Hotel, Police lines and Melody Market) in the national capital, Islamabad, while two suicide bombings occurred in the adjacent garrison town of Rawalpindi. While a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd at the residence of Rashid Akbar Niwani, a Shia Member of the National Assembly, in Bhakkar, 260-km southwest of Islamabad killing 25 people, two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the gates of the Pakistan Ordnance Factories in the high-security cantonment town of Wah, around 30 kilometers from Islamabad, killing 70 persons in what was described as the deadliest attack on a military installation in the country’s history.

Apart from the killing of three would-be suicide bombers, suspected to be Sunni militants of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), in capital Karachi on September 26, no suicide attack occurred in the Sindh province.

A single incident was reported from Balochistan when a suicide bomber blew himself up and killed a teenaged female student, Shahida, and injured 22 persons while targeting a Frontier Corps convoy in the cantonment area of provincial capital Quetta on September 23.

Alarmingly, some Taliban clerics reportedly boasted of converting ordinary persons into suicide-bombers "in six hours flat".

"From the 26 suicide attacks where we recovered a head in 2007, we made a startling discovery… The vast majority [of suicide bombers] came from just one tribe, the Mehsuds of central Waziristan, all boys aged 16 to 20," an analyst at the elite Special Investigation Group (SIG) told The Guardian. Qari Hussain, also known as Ustad-e-Fidaeen (teacher of suicide cadres), a Mehsud tribesman in his early 30s, is identified as the ‘commander’ who manages Baitullah Mehsud-led Taliban suicide bombing training centres and is directly responsible for indoctrinating youth for suicide missions. One of the training centres was discovered at a Government-run school in the Kotkai area of South Waziristan by the Army. GOC-14 Division Major General Tariq Khan told reporters in Dera Ismail Khan on May 18, 2008: "It was like a factory that had been recruiting nine to 12-year-old boys, and turning them into suicide bombers." The computers, other equipment and literature seized from the centre give graphic details of the suicide training. There were videos of young boys carrying out executions, a classroom where 10- to 12-year olds are sitting in formation, with "white band of Quranic verses wrapped around their forehead, and there are training videos to show how improvised explosive devices are made and detonated."

"Pakistan is now a one-stop shop," says Tariq Pervez who recently retired as the Director General of the Federal Investigation Agency. He told The Guardian in an interview, "ideas, logistics, cash from the Gulf. Arab guys, mainly Egyptians and Saudis, are on hand to provide the chemistry. Veteran Punjabi extremists plot the attacks, while the Pakistan Taliban provide the martyrs. And it all came together in the Marriott case."

In fact, so pervasive is the phenomenon of suicide attacks that suicide bombers are also now available for a price to settle personal scores. This was revealed during Police investigations into a suicide attack in Bhakkar on October 6, 2008, in which 25 persons were killed and 60 wounded. According to Crime Investigation Department of the Lahore Police, accused Waqas Hussain and his four accomplices had hired a suicide bomber and explosives expert from Wana in South Waziristan to kill a former friend with whom they had a monetary dispute.

Balochistan

Peace remains elusive in the strategic and resource-rich Balochistan province, which has long remained on the periphery of Pakistan's projects and perceptions. The "dialogue with those who are up in the mountains" in Balochistan – initiated after April 2008 - is unraveling, with serious repercussions for Islamabad. Violence saw an increase in 2008 in comparison to 2007, as at least 348 persons, including 130 civilians, 111 SF personnel and 107 insurgents, were killed and another 383 were injured in more than 397 insurgency-related incidents. Violence in 2007 saw at least 245 persons, including 124 civilians, killed. The situation could, in fact, have been far worse had the three principal insurgent groups – the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the Baloch Republican Army (BRA) and the Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) – not declared a unilateral cease-fire on September 1, 2008.

Portents of renewed violence are already visible on the ground. On January 4, 2009, these three insurgent groups announced the formal end of their four-month old cease-fire, stating that the Government had killed several innocent Baloch tribesmen in fresh military operations in Dera Bugti District and elsewhere in the Province. Declaring the end of the truce, the BLA spokesman Bibarg Baloch said the three groups were disappointed by the Government’s ‘lacklustre’ response to the truce. Consequently, levels of violence are likely to increase in the immediate future in the absence of any meeting ground between the state and the insurgents.

The momentum of the Baloch insurgency, which declined relatively in 2007 as some leaders either fled Pakistan or were neutralized by the state, is now beginning to recover pace. The BLA, the most prominent insurgent group in the Province, appears to have augmented its operational capacities, as is evident from the trajectory of violence till September 1, 2008, when it declared a truce. In 2008, it targeted personnel of the Pakistan Army, Frontier Corps, Police, intelligence agencies and others, including members of the Punjabi community as also those who the BLA claim, ‘spied’ for the Government against Baloch interests.

Despite the reconciliatory efforts by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Government and the short-lived dialogue process, the insurgency continues to simmer, with a steady stream of bomb and rocket attacks on gas pipelines, railway tracks, power transmission lines, bridges, and communications infrastructure, as well as on military establishments and Government facilities. Official data indicates that there were 120 bomb blasts, 208 rocket attacks, 141 landmine explosions and 32 hand grenade attacks recorded in the province during 2008. The Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources informed the National Assembly that 80 attacks on the Sui Gas Pipelines in Balochistan in the last five years had caused a loss of PKR 526.923 million to the Government. The insurgents retain capabilities to carry out acts of sabotage on a daily basis across the province and a political solution to the insurgency is nowhere in sight. Acts of violence are, importantly, not restricted to a few districts but are occurring in practically all of the 26 Districts, including the provincial capital Quetta. According to the SATP database, a preponderance of the violence and subversion is reported from the Dera Bugti (which continues to be the insurgency’s hub), Quetta, Sibi, Kohlu, Mastung, Khuzdar, Gwadar, Bolan, Panjgur and Nasirabad Districts. The provincial capital Quetta, like the other provincial capitals of Pakistan, continues to be vigorously targeted. At least 81 incidents relating to the Baloch insurgency were reported from Quetta in 2008 while 72 occurred in 2007.

Presently, there are at least five active insurgent groups in Balochistan: the BLA, the BRA, the Baloch People’s Liberation Front, the Popular Front for Armed Resistance, and the BLF. According to Muhammad Tahir, "The number of BLA activists is not known, but Pakistani military sources suggest that there are currently 10,000 Baloch insurgents involved in separatist activities, of which 3,000 are active in the insurgency." Sources in Pakistan told SAIR that an Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) report to the Prime Minister quoted the number of insurgents to be around 2,000.

Despite the modest goodwill generated [largely as a reaction to the intense hatred for former President General (Retd.) Pervez Musharraf] by the PPP’s ascent to power, the dialogue with the insurgents has not progressed beyond mere intent. A significant reason for the ‘peace process’ being a non-starter is that it ignores the fundamental issues which sustain the insurgency, including control over resources, equal authority, and autonomy. Islamabad is, consequently, perceived as being merely involved in peace-keeping. With the euphoria of a democratically elected regime in Islamabad fading, the average Baloch views the ‘peace process’ merely as a tactic by Islamabad to buy time. Pakistan’s Security Forces are, moreover, immensely over-stretched in the FATA, the NWFP and elsewhere in the country. The temporary political management of the protracted insurgency in Balochistan, thus, provided the SFs some relief.

Above all else, there is a tremendous trust deficit, since the Baloch find little reason in their history to put their faith in Islamabad. The Baloch Republican Party Chief and insurgent leader Nawabzada Brahamdagh Bugti, who is the grandson of slain insurgent leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, has urged the Baloch nationalist groups to abandon parliamentary politics and form a united front in their struggle for ''freedom''. Rejecting the idea of negotiations with the Government, he said, during a telephonic Press Conference from an unknown location, the Baloch people did not trust state elements, who he claimed had deceived them in the past.

Most of the violence in Balochistan is 'nationalist' and there is no co-operation between Islamist militants in pockets in the North and the Baloch nationalist insurgents. The Baloch insurgency, however, adds to the complexity of the situation, since the Islamist militants in the north are orchestrating violence on both sides of the Afghan border in their areas of domination. There were regular reports, throughout 2008, of the presence of al Qaeda-Taliban operatives in Balochistan. Further, the Balochistan National Party Information Secretary and former senator Sanaullah Baloch disclosed, on January 4, 2009, that Taliban supporters had ‘captured’ land worth PKR Two billion in the eastern and western parts of provincial capital Quetta with the covert support of the ‘establishment’ in order to undermine the Baloch nationalist movement and promote Talibanisation in Balochistan. In an interview to Daily Times, he stated that the Government had failed to establish its writ in Quetta, where the Taliban and their supporters were consolidating their grip. Several parts of the provincial capital had become ‘no-go areas’, where the Taliban and their supporters had consolidated their position, he claimed. Baloch asserted that the Government was fully aware of these encroachments, but was deliberately silent because the Taliban enjoy the support of the Government and its intelligence agencies, who wish to pit the religious elements against the Baloch nationalists. "We are surprised why the Government does not undertake a military operation against these elements who have openly challenged the writ of the Government. Military operations were carried out in Dera Bugti and Sui areas by the Government on the pretext of establishing the writ of the Government, but the state machinery does not move against the Taliban and their supporters, who have illegally and forcefully captured large areas of land in Balochistan." Sanaullah Baloch added further that the Government was trying to patronise the Taliban in Quetta and its outskirts in order to undermine the power of democratic forces. The Afghan refugees, besides being a burden on the economy of Balochistan, have become the biggest cause of lawlessness and terrorism in the country’s largest province, Baloch concluded.

The protracted nature of the Baloch insurgency suggests that Islamabad’s overwhelming reliance on the disproportionate use of force has failed in the Province, as it has elsewhere. Moreover, attempts at political management have also failed repeatedly. In the immediate future, the scale of the insurrection and accompanying violence in Balochistan is expected to increase, further augmenting the province’s transition to absolute alienation.

FATA

FATA continues to be the most violent region in Pakistan. At least 3,067 persons, including 1,116 civilians, 242 SF personnel and 1,709 militants, were killed and over 1,315 persons were injured in more than 1,154 incidents in 2008. This is almost double the death count in 2007, when 1,681 persons, including 1,014 militants, 424 civilians and 243 SF personnel, were killed in the region. The writ of the state, which was always fragile in FATA, has now vanished. Levels of violence, have, over the years, risen continuously. In 2005, 285 people, including 92 civilians and 158 terrorists, were killed in 165 incidents. In 2006, the death toll was 590, including 109 civilians, 144 soldiers and 337 terrorists, in 248 incidents. The fatalities in 2008 are bound to be much higher than the numbers available, and categories are certainly suspect, since independent and open source reportage from FATA has serious limitations. For instance, during Operation Sherdil (Lion Heart) which began in Bajaur Agency in August 2008, some 2,744 ‘terrorists’ were killed, including 321 foreigners, and 1,400 were injured, according to a military briefing during the joint session of Parliament in Islamabad on October 8, 2008 (since most of the ‘terrorist’ kills have been the result of aerial strikes, there is no authoritative separation of terrorist and ‘collateral’ civilian fatalities).

Within FATA, violence is reported from all the seven Agencies – Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram, North Waziristan, and South Waziristan – in varying degrees. The continuing instability in neighbouring Afghanistan and the rapid fading of the Government’s writ in FATA in 2008 has only intensified the conflict in the region. After Waziristan, Bajaur is arguably the most significant stronghold of the militants, who have entrenched themselves in the area, transforming the Agency into a nerve centre of the Taliban – al Qaeda network. Sources indicate that foreign al Qaeda militants – including Chechens, Uzbek, Tajik, Sudanese and Afghans - are converging on Bajaur to bolster the ranks of the jihadis. These foreigners are reportedly leading counter-attacks, since local militants alone were having difficulties confronting the Army action.

The Taliban, led by ‘commander’ Abdul Wali alias Omar Khalid, has near-complete control in the Mohmand Agency. Khalid, in his early 40s, was the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) chief in the agency before becoming a Taliban commander. One of the most influential Taliban leaders after Baitullah Mehsud and Maulvi Faqir, sources indicate that Khalid, who claims to have more than 3,000 fighters with him, has strong links with some Kashmiri militant groups. It is during 2008 that the Pakistani Taliban made a surge in the Mohmand Agency, where they now run a parallel state, implementing the Sharia (Islamic law), largely under duress.

The increasing reliance on air power to strafe militant targets in FATA and NWFP has resulted in large numbers of civilian casualties, data for which is currently unavailable. The multiple conflicts across Pakistan have now also led to the issue of large scale displacement. Bajaur Agency alone has generated more than 400,000 refugees since September 22, 2008.

Throughout 2008, attempts at regaining territory by the armed forces in FATA proved to be unsuccessful, with the militants swiftly recovering lost spaces. In essence, the state does not have a civil administrative system worth its name in FATA and, indeed, across the NWFP and Balochistan, and efforts to hold and sustain territorial gains rely almost exclusively on the presence of the Armed Forces.

During 2008, the Taliban-al Qaeda combine, notwithstanding sustained military operations, also consolidated their sway on the Khyber Agency. In fact, strengthening their presence in the Jamrud and Landikotal sub-divisions of Khyber Agency by the end of the year, the Taliban from Khyber began to extend support to their brethren in the NWFP and to threaten the supply lines of NATO forces stationed in Afghanistan. Baitullah Mehsud’s fighters have now established at least nine centres in Jamrud and Landikotal, with at least one of these centres located no more than 10 kilometers from the NWFP capital, Peshawar.

The state’s withdrawal is tangible. While senior officials seldom venture into any of the Agencies, the administration virtually lives at the mercy of the militants and is unable to exercise any real authority. The SFs in FATA are also faced with the dangerous scenario of their Pashtun elements demonstrating reluctance to fight their fellow Pashtuns. Apart from the "high" casualty rate there is also an "unprecedented" level of desertions and discharge applications being reported from FATA (numbers for which are presently unavailable), an unambiguous sign that multiple insurgencies are bleeding the Pakistan Army.

Despite the presence of approximately 120,000 troops from the Pakistan Army and paramilitary Frontier Corps, the state has virtually vanished. Although military operations have been launched across FATA, it is still the forces of a radical jihad that have the upper hand. Owais Ahmad Ghani, the NWFP Governor, is reported to have told a delegation of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in Peshawar, on January 16, 2009, that there were approximately 15,000 militants in the tribal belt, who had no dearth of rations, ammunition and equipment. He also claimed that a militant was normally given PKR 6,000 to PKR 8,000 per month while their leaders got PKR 20,000 to 30,000 per month.

Based on current indications, no amount of troop consolidation and strategy change can yield a reversal of trends in FATA. For any turnaround, the Pakistani state needs to initiate a radical course correction. The state cannot neutralize the insurgency in FATA or elsewhere within the existing ideological paradigms, articulated eloquently by ISI chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, who described Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud – the Pakistan Army’s most relentless tormentor – as a "true patriot". Shuja Pasha also defended the Taliban in an interview with Der Spiegel, stating: "Shouldn't they be allowed to think and say what they please? They believe that jihad is their obligation. Isn't that freedom of opinion?"

NWFP

Approximately 2,944 people, including 1,021 civilians, 281 SF personnel and 1,642 militants, were killed and 1,748 sustained injuries in more than 2,183 incidents across the NWFP through 2008. The death count has more than doubled over 2007, a year which witnessed the sweeping transformation of the Frontier as a major battleground for radical Islam. At least 1,190 persons, including 459 civilians, 538 militants and 193 SF personnel, were killed in 2007. The collapse in NWFP has been rather swift. In fact, throughout 2006, a comparatively small number, 163 persons, was killed in the province in approximately 84 incidents. Two years ago, the Province was witness to no more than sporadic violence, though it was already ranked as a low-intensity conflict zone with an extraordinary explosive potential due to the spill-over from adjacent FATA.

During 2008, the Taliban-al Qaeda was able to unambiguously demonstrate their supremacy to the extent that the NWFP, a region where the state’s presence has historically been relatively strong, is almost as ungovernable as FATA. While the Government has declared eight Districts out of the Province’s 24 as ‘high security zones’, all the Districts are presently affected by various levels of militant mobilisation and violence. The extent of state collapse is visible in the fact that only six Districts were declared ‘normal’ for elections on February 18, 2008. A parallel system of governance now exists under the command of the Taliban in Swat District and the militants have announced the enforcement of Sharia in the Shakai, Sheikhan and Mulakhel areas of Hangu District as well.

32 of the 59 suicide attacks in 2008 occurred in the NWFP. With the exception of April and June, there have been suicide attacks in every single month of 2008. NWFP Provincial Police Officer Malik Naveed Khan stated on November 20, 2008, that during the preceding 10 months, Police had foiled 75 terrorist attacks and arrested 36 accused involved in these attacks, besides recovering large quantities of explosive materials, 39 explosive jackets, 636 hand grenades/dynamite sticks and 295 rocket launchers.

Within the Frontier, the militancy has gradually become dispersed and the conventional distinctions between settled and tribal zones (of the Province’s 24 Districts, 17 are ‘settled’ and seven are ‘tribal’) have diminished, with the result that the whole Province bears striking resemblance to FATA.

Peshawar, the NWFP capital, is under siege and is vulnerable to collapse. There were three suicide attacks among 71 terrorism-related incidents in Peshawar during 2008. In December 2008, the Taliban in Peshawar, facing little resistance, blew up at least 261 vehicles carrying logistics and supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan. Earlier, in June 2008, as the Taliban advanced towards the city, NWFP Police Chief and top administrators warned that, unless the Government took decisive action, Peshawar would fall. Peshawar is home to the headquarters of the Army’s 11^th Corps, the paramilitary Frontier Corps, the Frontier Constabulary and the Police. The Taliban have always had a significant presence in the capital and adjacent regions, including the Khyber Agency, Darra Adamkhel, Mohmand Agency, Shabqadar, Michni and Mardan.

Even as violence continues unabated across the Swat District, where Daily Times reported on January 19, 2009, after a year of military operations, the territory controlled by militants has increased from 25 per cent to 75 per cent, the provincial Government has, time and again, stated that it was ready for a dialogue with the Taliban – an offer that has been contemptuously ignored. While the dialogue process failed repeatedly in 2008, temporary cease-fires, in fact, allowed the Taliban-al Qaeda combine to regroup and rearm, while the state capacity has gradually diminished in the region. Worse still, continuous military operations in Swat, Dera Ismail Khan, Kohat, Peshawar, Bannu, Hangu, Malakand, and other areas have failed to establish the state’s dominance in any of the territories temporarily ‘regained’.

One of the fundamental reasons for the state’s inability to hold territory in the Frontier is the absence of an effective mechanism for governance on the ground. This is compounded further by severe deficiencies in fighting capacities. While the Army is a relatively well-equipped force, the hamstrung Police forces face a grim challenge of constituting the first line of defence against urban militancy. According to the National Police Bureau’s Annual Report, 2006, the Police operate under significant constraints, including the paucity of funds (only 12 per cent of the annual budget is available to meet Police development requirements) and shortage of Police strength (50 per cent deficit against sanctioned strength). In attempting to make amends, the Awami National Party-led provincial Government has proposed the creation of an elite police force of 7,500 personnel, which could be deployed on short notice in militancy-affected areas. However, reports on January 13, 2009, indicate that approximately 600 specially-trained commandoes of the newly established Elite Police Force have refused to get posted in the besieged Swat Valley, saying they would prefer dismissal to being made "scapegoats". "The services of around 600 commandoes of Platoon No-1 to Platoon No-13 were placed at the disposal of the District Police Officer of Swat. They were supposed to join duty during the first week of January. However, none of them left for the troubled town," The News reported. Parents of the newly trained commandoes had also reportedly refused to send their sons to Swat, where Policemen have been slaughtered and strangulated publicly on various occasions in 2008. Large-scale desertion is being reported from the Frontier. "Many cops had to place advertisements in local newspapers to assure the militants that they were no more part of security forces," said a local from Swat. A November 13, 2008, report said that approximately 350 Policemen had resigned from their posts, subsequent to a Taliban threat to either leave their jobs or get ready for "dire consequences".

Punjab

While the progressive collapse in NWFP and FATA is well documented, it is Punjab that is, in many ways, emerging as a jihadi hub. While 304 persons, including 257 SF personnel and 34 civilians, were killed in 78 terrorism-related incidents in Punjab in 2008, it is the presence of many militant groups in the province that is alarming. Data indicates, further, that more SF personnel and civilians were killed in Punjab than militants. While this is a clear indication that the Taliban-al Qaeda network is securing the upper hand, it is also evident that the extremists are bringing the conflict to Pakistan’s urban heartland, including the national capital Islamabad, the provincial capital Lahore and the garrison town of Rawalpindi. In fact, out of the approximately 78 incidents in 2008, 21 were reported from Islamabad and 22 from Lahore. Apart from the fact that some of the terrorist attacks in Punjab have been carried out by the Taliban-al Qaeda network, suspects arrested in places like Faisalabad, Sargodha, Islamabad and Lahore, among others, in 2008, included persons from the FATA and NWFP. Militants from across the country and outside easily find safe havens in places like Islamabad and Lahore. With Peshawar, the NWFP capital which is just 150 kilometers away from Islamabad, already under militant siege, it is not surprising that Islamabad and Rawalpindi are being targeted. A senior Punjab Police officer has claimed that all cases of suicide bombings in the province had links to Baitullah Mehsud and his sub-groups operating in the NWFP: "The bombers and their accomplices have close links with Baitullah Mehsud and his sub-group leaders like Kali Zafar, Maulvi Rabbani and others who all belonged to Waziristan."

While there were 12 suicide attacks in Punjab during 2008, security agencies successfully neutralized many suicide modules. At least 53 ‘potential suicide bombers’ and 16 linkmen were arrested in 2008 from places including Lahore, Sargodha, Rawalpindi, Jhang, Islamabad, and Sialkot, an indication of the enormous pool of fidayeen who can inflict mayhem not only in Punjab but across Pakistan.

While the lone terrorist arrested during the Mumbai attacks of November 26, 2008, Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman alias Kasab, hails from Faridkot village in the Okara District of Punjab province, eight of the nine who were killed during the attack were also from Punjab. Both the LeT and the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) draw a majority of their cadres from south Punjab, including Multan and Bahawalpur, which is also the JeM headquarters. The LeT and its recently banned front, Jama’at-ud-Da’awa, have long maintained an open presence in places like the provincial capital Lahore and Muridke (approximately 40 kms from Lahore), where the group is headquartered. Qudsia Mosque in Chauburji Chowk in Lahore is the Jama’at-ud-Da’awa headquarters. On December 11 and 12, under relentless international pressure, authorities sealed 34 offices of the Jama’at-ud-Da’awa across Punjab, Police sealed the group’s offices in south Punjab cities of Bahawalpur, Rahim Yar Khan, Rajanpur, Arifwala, Bahawalnagar, Khanewal, Arifwala and Rajanpur. These sealed offices, however, represent no more than a tiny fraction of the large LeT presence across Punjab. The Punjab Government has appointed administrators in 10 Jama’at-ud-Da’awa schools after intelligence agencies reported that these institutions were promoting extremism. At least 26 educational institutions of the outfit operate in various parts of the province. Before the recent crackdown, LeT leaders like Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, Abdur Rehman Makki, Abu Hashim and Ameer Hamza were openly seen in Lahore. And despite the recent ban on the Jama’at-ud-Da’awa/LeT and the house arrest of its chief, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the group continues to function quite openly.

Groups like the LeT, with considerable state support, have, over the years built an elaborate socio-economic infrastructure in Punjab, functioning as an alternative to the state, since the latter is unable to provide the needed social capital for an overwhelming proportion of the population. The worldview of groups like the Jamaat-ud-Dawa / LeT thus enjoys wide acceptability. Given the quantum of popular acceptance, the Punjabi dominated armed forces – themselves deeply ambivalent on this count – may find it difficult to engage with the jihadis in Punjab, if subversion in the Province become unmanageable in the proximate future.

The outlawed Sunni sectarian formation, LeJ, which carried out the suicide attack on the Marriott Hotel on September 20, 2008, killing 60 people, also has a strong presence in Punjab, particularly in Gujranwala, Jhang, Multan, Lahore and Islamabad.

Militants from Punjab are also fighting elsewhere in Pakistan. For instance, six men killed in an US missile strike on December 11, 2008, in Azam Warsak in South Waziristan were found to be militants from Punjab. Further, the NWFP Governor Owais Ghani warned Punjab on September 22, 2008, that militancy was gaining strength in its backyard:

Militants in the tribal areas of the NWFP have established firm networking (with jihadi groups) in southern Punjab and most fresh recruits for suicide attacks are coming from there. Militant leaders and commanders are also coming from Punjab. The militants’ field commander in Swat too is from Punjab.

Ghani warned, further,

It will be ill-advised to think that the militancy will remain confined to the NWFP. Militants’ activities have already shifted to the settled areas and Punjab and they have established strong links with south Punjab. It’s a national issue, a question of survival for (entire) Pakistan.

While there is some substance in the growing belief among American officials and experts that the next terrorist attack against the United States is likely to originate from within the FATA, there is a distinct possibility that such an attack could, more plausibly, involve urban jihadis from Punjab’s extremist environment.

Sindh

Levels of violence in Sindh province were relatively low with some 42 incidents reported during 2008, in which 52 persons, including 29 civilians, were killed and 109 injured. There is, however, growing evidence to suggest that militant groups maintain a significant presence in the Province, notably in capital Karachi, Sukkur, Khairpur, Jacobabad, Badin, Larkana, Mirpur Khas and Hyderabad. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain stated, on August 9, 2008, that Taliban activities were visible in the interior of Sindh in areas like Badin and that an unspecified number of people were coming from FATA and Northern Areas to Karachi and the interiors of Sindh, on a daily basis.

Karachi, Pakistan’s commercial capital, has seldom been out of the headlines for all the wrong reasons. While sectarian strife between the majority Sunni and minority Shia Muslims persists, the city is also a safe haven for Islamist extremists linked to Taliban – al Qaeda combine. The Taliban are present in Karachi and have links with the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and other banned religious organisations, but have no intention of carrying out attacks in the provincial capital, unless provoked by a political party or the Government, a Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman, Mullah Omer, clarified on November 23, 2008. Earlier, on February 15, 2008, Karachi Police arrested 10 members of a militant group linked to the Taliban, who were planning massive terrorist attacks in the city during elections. The Inspector General of Police Azhar Ali Farooqi said the group, Tehrik-i-Islami Lashkar-i-Muhammadi, had ties with Mullah Dadullah, and with Taliban commander Tahir and Sirajul Haq Haqqani. Farooqi disclosed that the arrested men were formerly members of other banned outfits, such as the Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, but after the Lal Masjid operation they formed a group of their own because their former organisations had ‘deviated’ from their mission.

Sources indicate that the LeT maintains a training camp in Azizabad in Karachi. The ten LeT militants who carried out the multiple terrorist attacks in Mumbai on November 26, 2008, set sail from Karachi. Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman alias Kasab, the lone militant arrested during the Mumbai attacks, stated during his interrogation, that Zaki-ur-Rehman-Lakhvi, the LeT ‘operations chief’ and one of the masterminds of the Mumbai carnage, had briefed them in Azizabad. The Jama’at-ud-Da’awa reportedly has offices in all major cities of Sindh where recruitment drives are conducted every year. It is from the metropolis, with a population of approximately 16 million, that many al Qaeda operatives, including Ramzi Binalshibh – the "20^th hijacker" of the 9/11 attacks – have been arrested. The city also houses the Binoria mosque complex, which has long been the nerve centre of the Military-Jihadi enterprise.

Police indicated in August 2008 that the Taliban, in order to accelerate the funding process, has hired youngsters belonging to the JeM, HuM, Harkat ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) and other militant groups, from Karachi. Intelligence agencies have indicated that Baitullah Mehsud, the LeJ and other outlawed jihadi groups have joined hands to pursue terrorist acts in Karachi. Daily Times reported on September 4, 2008, that this new grouping is headed by Raheemullah alias Naeem alias Ali Hassan, a 35-year old resident of Orangi Town. Adviser on the Interior, Rehman Malik, warned on November 21, 2008, that the LeJ may launch terrorist attacks in Karachi and "we need to discourage them and increase the vigil."

Among the other groups whose presence was noted in 2008 were the Jundullah, which, according to an arrested militant has 600 militants in Karachi, including many former students of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid. In addition, jihadi groups like the HuM and Al-Badr have established new offices in Karachi, after remaining underground for the past several years. Further, Daily Times reported on July 12, 2008, banned sectarian and jihadi groups are flouting proscription orders and are re-emerging in various parts of Karachi. Dawn News stated that sectarian slogans, flags and posters of ‘defunct’ sectarian groups are visible on walls across the city, indicating their re-emergence. The Sunni group, SSP, the Shia groups Sipah-e-Muhammad Pakistan (SMP) and Mukhtar Force are the most conspicuous groups at present.

The Inspector General of Police (Sindh), Sultan Babar Salahuddin Khattak, informed a Press briefing on December 30, 2008, that Police had disrupted the activities of four terrorist groups in 2008, averting major suicide bombings in Karachi. While claiming a stable law and order situation in the Province during 2008, as no major incident of terrorism, suicide bombing, attack on foreigners, etc., was reported, he added that six militants were killed and 37 were arrested in encounters. 28 detonators, 40 hand grenades, 32 sophisticated arms, 38 rockets, five suicide jackets and 12 live bombs were also seized, he disclosed.

Available evidence indicates that the core provinces of Pakistan – Sindh and Punjab – will witness augmented jihadi activity in the immediate future.

Sectarian Violence

The only positive during 2008 was the relative reduction in sectarian violence. This was partly because of the changing situation in Parachinar in Kurram Agency, where most of sectarian strife continues to occur, and also due to some resolute state action in locations like Peshawar, Karachi and Quetta – historically the sectarian battlegrounds. Despite the occasional reverses, however, the LeJ, the main Sunni militant group, has retained a substantial capacity to strike across Pakistan, and, more significantly, has emerged as a key provider of logistical support and personnel to al Qaeda and the Taliban. This was, for instance, seen in the suicide attack on Marriot Hotel. Among others, the SSP, and the Shia groups – Sipah-e-Mohammed Pakistan (SMP) and the Tehreek-e-Jaferia Pakistan – maintained a relatively low profile during 2008. They have not, however, altered their organizational structures and objectives and, though their cadres remain underground, they continue to function. The SSP brought several hundred supporters near its headquarters in Karachi on February 29, 2008, as it denounced the ‘blasphemous’ caricatures of the holy Prophet published in some Danish newspapers, and declared jihad against Denmark and the West. It was the fist major public rally by the SSP since it was banned in 2001.

Sectarian Violence in Pakistan

Year	Incidents	Killed	Injured
2008	97	306	505
2007	341	441	630
2006	38	201	349
2005	62	160	354
2004	19	187	619
2003	22	102	103
2002	63	121	257

Prognosis

Amidst multiple insurgencies, there is current uncertainty over what constitutes state leadership in Pakistan. President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the ISI and the military establishment are all competing for power, with each of these players further complicating the situation in the pursuit of divergent personal and partisan agendas. Adding urgency to these struggles is the reported conflict between the President and Prime Minister. The News in its January 1, 2009, editorial noted:

Tales of ‘differences’ between the two have been circulating for weeks, but have never been of sufficient substance to create the warp-and-weft of hard(ish) news until now… Taken all together and looked at with a critical eye, this batch of rumours and corridors-of-power bedtime stories begins to look like an all-too-familiar real-time scenario rather than the product of the fevered imagination of journalists. An all-powerful President once again is set against a would-be-if-allowed powerful Prime Minister who might just be flexing his muscles for a bit of a tussle.

In an environment of escalating militancy and consequent violence in Pakistan, these complexities and contradictions severely undermine capacities for governance and for the restoration of order.

At the beginning of 2008, the hopes of the US, and many elsewhere, rested essentially on the fact that a "democratically-elected regime will be a more natural partner than the military." It is now clear that Pakistan’s transition from the disastrous military rule of General Pervez Musharraf to an apparently democratic dispensation has only worsened the crisis in the country. Figures for 2008 and the narrative over the year have seen a further escalation of the multiple insurgencies under the PPPg regime. Pakistan, at the moment, displays most of the risk factors which could lead to what the U.S. Joint Forces Command describes as a "rapid and sudden collapse." The Joint Operating Environment report, which analyses global security trends, says Pakistan, in the event of such a rapid collapse, would be susceptible to a "violent and bloody civil and sectarian war", made more dangerous by concerns over the country's nuclear arsenal. Pakistan’s recent history leaves little scope for optimism.