Return
to Carnage
Ajit
Kumar Singh
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management
'Revengeful'
and 'regrouped' terrorists are again on the rampage across
Pakistan. During a span of just seven days (February 13,
2017 to February 19, 2017) Pakistan accounted for at least
205 fatalities [100 civilians, 21 Security Force (SF)
personnel, 84 terrorists) in 22 terrorism-related incidents.
In the
worst attack, on February 16, 2017, at least 88 civilians
were killed and more than 343 were injured when a suicide
bomber blew himself up inside a historic Sufi shrine in
the Sehwan town of Jamshoro District in Sindh Province.
The shrine, built in 1356, was dedicated to Syed Mohammad
Usman Marwandi, better known as Lal Shahbaz Qalandar.
This is the worst attack, in terms of civilian fatalities,
recorded in Pakistan since the December 16, 2014, Peshawar
Army Public School attack
which resulted in 150 fatalities, including 143 civilians.
Daesh (the Islamic State) claimed the attack.
On February
15, 2017, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a government
office in the Ghalanai area of Mohmand Agency in the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), killing five civilians.
Another attacker was killed by the guards before he could
explode his suicide vest.
On February
13, 2017, at least 14 persons, including eight civilians
and six policemen, were killed and another 85 were injured
when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Punjab
Assembly Building on Mall Road, Lahore, the provincial
capital of Punjab. The attack was carried out during a
protest by a large group of chemists and pharmaceutical
manufacturers opposing a Government crackdown against
the sale of illegal drugs. The dead included Captain (Retd.)
Ahmad Mobin, Deputy Inspector General (DIG), Traffic,
Lahore, and Zahid Gondal, Senior Superintendent of Police
(SSP), Operations, Punjab Police. There was a significant
presence of SFs in the area to manage the protest. The
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), a breakaway faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban
Pakistan (TTP),
claimed responsibility for both the February 13 and February
15 attacks.
Earlier,
on January 21, 2017, in the first major attack of the
year, at least 25 civilians were killed and more than
87 were injured in a bomb blast at the Sabzi Mandi (vegetable
market) area of Parachinar in the FATA’s Kurram Agency.
In a text message sent to journalists, the al-Alami (International)
faction of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LeJ-A)
claimed that it, along with the TTP-Shehryar Mehsud group,
carried out the attack. The Shehryar Mehsud group did
not independently claim the bombing.
According
to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism
Portal (SATP), since the beginning of 2017,
at least 284 terrorism-related fatalities (141 civilians,
32 SF personnel, 111 terrorists) have been recorded across
Pakistan (data till February 19, 2017). In just these
50 days, at least five suicide attacks have been executed,
resulting in at least 112 fatalities.
The dramatic
surge in violence during the early days of the current
year is significant, given the fact that through 2016,
Pakistan had managed to maintain the declining trend of
overall fatalities, on year on year basis, since 2010,
barring 2014. [2014 recorded 5,496 fatalities as against
5,379 fatalities in 2013]. There were 1,803 fatalities
(612 civilians, 293 SF personnel, 898 terrorists) in 2016,
as against 3,682 (940 civilians, 339 SF personnel, 2,403
terrorists) in 2015. The number of major attacks (involving
three or more fatalities) and resultant fatalities fell
from 322 and 2,923, respectively in 2015, to 172 and 1,369,
respectively, in 2016. The number of sectarian attacks
and related deaths also declined – 276 fatalities in 53
incidents in 2015, as against 131 fatalities in 33 incidents
in 2016.
Unsurprisingly,
on December 21, 2016, a buoyant Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan,
Federal Minister of the Interior, claimed (inaccurately)
that Pakistan was the only country where the terrorism
graph had recorded a sharp decline. He further boasted,
“I can say with complete responsibility that as of now
no terrorist networks exist in Pakistan.” On the same
day, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had declared that there
was no presence of Daesh in Pakistan. More recently, referring
to Operation Zarb-e-Azb, Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan’s
permanent ambassador to the United Nations, told the UN
Security Council on February 13, 2017, "This comprehensive
approach has succeeded in expelling terrorist organisations
from our territory and greatly constrained their ability
to carry out lethal attacks, as evident from the dramatic
decline in the number of such attacks, despite the cowardly
attack in Lahore.”
These assertions
were evidently premature and imprudent. Pakistan remains
an extraordinarily dangerous place. Indeed, recent incidents
demonstrate that several terror networks continue to thrive
across the country, prominently including Daesh, JuA,
and LeJ-A, among the domestically active formations, not
to mention the many state-backed terrorist groupings that
operate across international borders, into Afghanistan
and India.
Meanwhile,
reports indicate that the large number of TTP 'commanders'
who were operating out of the tribal areas in Pakistan
when the Operation Zarb-e-Azb [Sword of the Prophet]
was launched and who had managed to cross over into the
bordering areas of Afghanistan, have decided to come together
and form a 'united front', joining hands with other terrorist
outfits. These 'commanders' of rival factions of TTP were
fighting each other to establish dominance in their respective
areas of influence. In November 2016, leaders of eight
terrorist groups held a meeting in Afghanistan’s Ghazni
Province for this purpose. Arranged by Yousaf Mansour
Khurasani, chief of LeJ-A, the meeting was attended by
Javaid Sawati, a close aide of former TTP 'chief' Mulla
Fazlullah*; Wajid Mehsud of Jandullah; Maulvi Khatir of
TTP-Sajna group; Shahryar Mehsud of TTP- Shahryar group;
Abdul Wali of JuA; Mufti Ghufran of TTP-Khalifa Mansour
group; and Mullah Daud of TTP-Qari Hussain group. On February
2, 2017, TTP-Sajna merged with the TTP-Fazlullah group.
In fact
other parameters of violence registered in 2016 demonstrate
that the crackdown
against terrorists has failed to
secure the nation beyond a point. Launched by the Pakistani
forces in the aftermath of the attack
on Karachi Airport on June 8-9, 2014, in which at least
33 persons, including all ten attackers, were killed,
the crackdown has repeatedly been declared a success,
but has also been repeatedly extended. Significantly,
though overall
civilian fatalities
in Pakistan declined through 2016, Balochistan and KP
registered increases in fatalities in this category.
In the SF category, fatalities
increased in the Punjab Province. The number of suicide
attacks in 2016 remained the same, 19, as recorded in
2015, but the resultant fatalities recorded a sharp increase
– 161 in 2015, spiking to 401 in 2016. Further, though
Pakistan recorded 139 incidents of bomb blasts in 2016,
as against 216 such incidents in 2015, the resultant fatalities
increased from 495 in 2015 to 502 in 2016. Five suicide
attacks resulting in 112 deaths have already been recorded
in 2017.
On several
accounts, Operation Zarb-e-Azb has been overhyped,
and only targeted a few terrorist formations that had
turned 'rogue', while allowing a multiplicity of other
terrorist formations that operate out of Pakistani soil
to thrive, with the attendant problem that there is little
possibility of controlling one set without constraining
the other. A more serious allegation, according to Arif
Jamal, a US-based expert on political Islam, is that "actually,
it [Operation Zarb-e-Azb] was aimed at weakening
political parties and not eliminating terrorists."
Meanwhile,
the favorable environment provided to 'pro-Government'
terrorist formations has resulted in a further radicalization
of Pakistani society, helping groups like Daesh to mobilize
and recruit. Daesh’s spread, in turn, has helped rogue
terrorist outfits to regain lost ground, as most of these
have now established some linkages with Daesh, resulting
in a measure of unity, consolidation and effective coordination.
SAIR
has repeatedly highlighted the fact that the Pakistani
establishment has, for long, provided open support to
terrorist formations which has served its purported strategic
interests. Most recently, Islamabad, in connivance with
Beijing, opposed the imposition of an international ban
on the Jaish-e-Mohammad (
JeM)
chief, Maulana Masood Azhar, who openly operates out of
Pakistan. JeM has been one of the most lethal terrorist
groups operating in India, particularly in the State of
Jammu & Kashmir, and has been responsible for
a large number of major attacks .
The group is closely allied al
Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, and
has been notionally banned in Pakistan since 2002, though
it faces no visible restraints. On the other hand, there
is no conclusive proof to suggest that any action has
been taken against Haqqani Network and Afghan Taliban
terrorists operating out of Pakistani soil and targeting
the Afghan as well as Indian and other countries’ interests
inside Afghanistan. Indeed, Abdul Raouf Ibrahimi, Speaker
of National Assembly of Afghanistan, stated on February
18, 2017,
Terrorism remains a threat to the South Asian countries,
including Pakistan but unfortunately rulers of Pakistan
have always supported terrorism. This policy of
Pakistan is not in the interest of the South Asian
region. In the future it is going to be a big threat
to Pakistan."
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It is
widely believed that the aid which flows from the U.S.
is one of the main sources of the Pakistani establishment's
capacities to carry on its with policy of exporting of
terrorism. Indeed, a report
titled A New U.S. Approach to Pakistan: Enforcing Aid
Conditions Without Cutting Ties released by the Hudson
Institute and The Heritage Foundation in February 2017
observed,
"The new Trump Administration must review its policies
toward Pakistan in order to more effectively contain,
and eventually eliminate, the terrorist threats
that continue to emanate from the country... Accordingly,
the objective of the Trump administration's policy
toward Pakistan must be to make it more and more
costly for Pakistani leaders to employ a strategy
of supporting terrorist proxies to achieve regional
strategic goals... It no longer makes sense to waive
the counterterrorism conditions on U.S. aid to Pakistan.
The U.S. can and must better leverage U.S. military
aid to encourage tougher policies against terrorists
who operate from within Pakistan. While a grace
period may have been merited for Pakistan seven
years ago, it would be foolish to keep giving the
Pakistanis a pass when it comes to taking action
against terrorist groups that are directly undermining
U.S. regional interests, not to mention killing
U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. Whereas U.S. government
agencies were divided seven years ago over the nature
and extent of Pakistan's support to the Afghan Taliban
and other terrorist and extremist groups, today
no one in the U.S. government disputes that Pakistan
provides such support."
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Regrettably,
there is no immediate reason to believe that there has
been any dramatic shift in U.S. policy towards Pakistan,
though the broad theme of official pronouncements from
the fledgling Trump administration suggests that such
a shift is in the offing. In the absence of genuine and
overwhelming international pressure, Pakistan is unlikely
to alter its policy of 'export of terror' in its immediate
and extended neighborhood, while it targets domestically
active terrorist formations within Pakistan. Pakistani
strategists continue to believe that such a policy has
served the country’s strategic interests, and are inclined
to ignore the devastating repercussions this policy has
caused within the country.
*Note: In the original
assessment published on February 20, 2017, it was incorrectly
mentioned that Mulla Fazlullah was killed in March 2015.
Media reports, however, indicate that Fazlullah is still
alive and heading the 'parent' TTP. The mistake is rectified
on February 23, 2017.
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