Battling Militancy

Pakistan today faces a growing threat from violent extremists and Islamic militants.

This reflects:

• the fallout of the continuing war in Afghanistan
• the limited gains achieved both by the US and Pakistan against al Qaeda
• the increasingly violent activism of longer established organisations

As militant violence in Pakistan has escalated, it has grown in numbers and in sophistication.

Violent extremist groups have formed an increasingly interconnected web.

Close collaboration is emerging between:

• the Pakistani Taliban
• al Qaeda
• the Afghan Taliban.

In the first several years after the US-led attack on Afghanistan, mainly Pashtun militants based in Pakistan conducted attacks almost exclusively in Afghanistan.

They sought to:

• drive the US-dominated coalition forces away
• overthrow the Hamid Karzai government.

Since 2007, they have also fought the Pakistani military.

A distinctive Pakistani Taliban movement has evolved to establish its retrogressive rule in:

• the tribal areas
• the adjoining Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Al Qaeda has grown in strength due to the new alliances with Pakistani militants.

Recent assessments have asserted that:

• al Qaeda has been crippled
• the number of foreign militants in Pakistan’s tribal territories has decreased to a few hundred

In reality, there is a new generation of al Qaeda in Pakistan, comprised primarily of Pakistanis.

It includes a flood of new recruits from youth and the educated middle class.

The emergence of the local Taliban movement occurred simultaneously with Pakistan’s battle to flush out al Qaeda from the borderlands.

This did not happen overnight. It was a consequence of war in Afghanistan and military operations carried out by Pakistan that severely undermined the age-old administrative structure in the tribal areas.

The members of the tribal council or maliks through whom the federal government established its authority were either killed or driven out by the militants.

A new crop of Pakistani militants or Taliban emerged to fill the vacuum created by the collapse of the administrative system in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) over which the Pakistani government had at best tenuous control.

The situation worsened in 2006 as Taliban groups sprang up in the adjoining areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

These militants forcibly closed down video and audio shops, as well as Internet cafes, declaring them un-Islamic.

The Taliban also ordered barbers not to shave beards.

People were prohibited to play music, even at weddings and traditional fairs, which provided some form of entertainment to the public.

The emerging Taliban mostly came from the mainstream Islamic political parties, which had ruled northwestern Pakistan from 2002 to 2007.

The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), a six-party Islamic alliance, was swept into power in what was then called the North West Frontier Province after winning pluralities in the 2002 parliamentary elections during the Musharraf administration .

• It had Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, the two most powerful religious political parties

The alliance was also a part of a coalition government 145in Balochistan, making it a formidable political force in the country.

It was the first time in Pakistan’s history that squabbling religious groups representing different Islamic sects had united in an alliance.

The MMA grew from an informal grouping of religious and jihadi groups that took shape following the events of September 11 and the subsequent US military campaign in Afghanistan.

Initially, approximately 36 Islamic groups united under the banner of the Defence of Afghanistan Council in a show of solidarity with the Taliban regime and Osama bin Laden.

It was later renamed Defence of Afghanistan and Pakistan Council with the aim of opposing US military action in Afghanistan.

After October 2001, the council organised demonstrations across the country in support of the Taliban regime.

The MMA itself was hurriedly cobbled together just before the 2002 polls with the blessings of the military leadership.

The Musharraf regime saw this alliance as a counterbalance to its liberal opponents.

Their new-found unity was predicated on a shared perception of the post- September 11 world and an anti-US position. Its electoral success came on a wave of strong anti-American sentiments among Pakistan’s Pashtun population.

Despite being mainstream political parties, both Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam—the two major components of the alliance—had a long history of active association with jihadist politics.

Their members overlapped with those of militant and sectarian organisations. Several militant commanders who had fought in Afghanistan and Kashmir were elected to the National and NWFP state assemblies. Outlawed militant and sectarian groups played a significant role in the MMA’s election campaign.

They saw the electoral success of the alliance as a triumph for their cause of jihad. The Islamists used their new-found political power to enforce rigid Islamic rule in the province. Besides pushing for the adoption of Shari’a laws, their administration pledged to end co-education and close down movie cinemas, which it considered as a mark of ungodly Western values.

These policies created an enabling environment for extremists within the ruling alliance to press their agenda, which also opposed female education. In July 2005 the NWFP provincial assembly passed the 146controversial Hisba (accountability) law which envisaged the setting up of a watchdog body to ensure people respected calls to prayer, did not engage in commerce at the time of Friday prayers and that single men and women did not appear in public places together.

The law also prohibited singing and dancing. Reminiscent of the infamous Department of Vice and Virtue in the Taliban’s Afghanistan the law proposed the appointment of a ‘Mohtasib’ (one who holds others accountable) to monitor the populace and ensure conduct consistent with Islamic tenets.

This marked a dangerous step towards Talibanization and establishment of the kind of religious fascism Pakistan had never experienced before. But the law was never to be implemented as the Supreme Court of Pakistan, encouraged by the Musharraf government, struck it down as contrary to the country’s constitution.

But other measures taken by the MMA government during its five-year rule provided a favourable environment for extremists who advocated use of force to achieve their objectives.

Many activists, particularly from the JUI, broke away from the party and joined the ranks of those militants who were later to form the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in 2007.