Written evidence submitted by M J Gohel,
Asia-Pacific Foundation
THE CHALLENGE OF TERRORISM FOR INDIA AND
PAKISTAN
INTRODUCTION
The region of South Asia, is an unpredictable
part of the world, and which is beset with numerous and conflicting
security challenges resulting in intractable, and also quite discernible
dilemmas. The ongoing conflicts often spill over ethnically and
geographically, mostly porous frontiers bringing states into conflict,
fuelling ethnic and communal divides and creating an arms race,
on the one hand, and bringing greater misery to the people who
have been the worst sufferer in conflict situations, on the other.
The threats and challenges have now evolved further where the
emergence of trans-national terrorism has become a feature to
the security dynamics of the region and in particular for India
and Pakistan.
Trans-national terrorism is a complex rather
than a simple phenomenon, and if nations are to respond appropriately
to terrorist challenges, these complexities must be taken into
account. The cases of India and Pakistan illustrate some of the
diverse forms of terrorism, and suggest that there is no easy
solution to the problem that it poses. At the same time, the interconnections
between countries in South Asia require the integration of responses
so that they produce viable measures and strategies in tackling
terrorism.
In the post-September 11 era, the phenomenon
of terrorism in India and Pakistan was hardly new. There is, however,
a crucial difference between the experiences of India and Pakistan.
The forces of terrorism have not significantly undermined the
capacities of the Indian state but nevertheless have inflicted
a high number of civilian casualties. Alternatively, terrorism
has severely compromised and weakened the position of the Pakistani
state and as a result also Afghanistan, albeit in different ways
and in parallel with other forces of debilitation.
In India, ordinary people have largely fallen
victim to the intrusion of trans-national terrorism, whereas in
Pakistan terrorism has come in the form of sectarian attacks mounted
by extremist groups, against those whom they socially construe
as enemies. Yet ironically, the growth of sectarian violence in
Pakistan itself derives in the most part from Pakistan's nurturing
of forces with a trans-national character, which has given rise
in the country for both the means of extreme violence, and an
ideology that legitimates its practice both within its territory
and beyond. Pakistan spent most of the past two decades holding
a tiger by the tail, and it is far from clear that either it or
others will manage to escape the worst consequences of that precarious
partnership.
PAKISTAN'S
PARADOXICAL RELATIONSHIP
WITH TERRORISM
The problem of terrorism in Pakistan has a paradoxical
character, since its manifestations spring from two seemingly
contradictory features of the political system. On the one hand,
the weakness of the state has permitted sectarian terrorism to
flourish in recent years. On the other hand, elements of the armed
forces, have played a role in nurturing terrorist groups committed
to advancing Pakistan's geopolitical interests with respect to
its eastern neighbour India and its western neighbour Afghanistan.
As a result, the challenge of terrorism in Pakistan is intimately
related to the debilitating centrifugal forces that afflict the
country more generally.
Forces of this sort thrive on the vacuum of
effective state power that marks the Pakistani political order.
One of the most striking contrasts between India and Pakistan
is that whereas the former was largely successful in building
on the legacy of legislative and judicial institutions inherited
from British colonial rule, Pakistan almost from its origin was
faced with severe challenges in its search for appropriate political
forms and national identity. The 1948 death of Pakistan's founder,
Muhammad Ali Jinnah from tuberculosis, and the 1951 assassination
of its first prime minister, Liaqat Ali Khan, removed two of the
steadiest hands from Pakistan's helm, and set the scene for the
internal conflicts that led to prolonged periods of military rule
from 1958-62, 1969-72, 1977-88, and from October 1999 to the present
day. Faced with the threat of military intervention in politics,
civilian politicians all too often concentrated on using public
office as a positional good to extract resources from the wider
society that in turn fuelled popular cynicism and discontent,
and created a constituency for the messages of purification that
Taliban-like forces set out to articulate in the 1990s. In the
meantime, as a result of the Islamisation policies of General
Zia ul-Haq from 1977 to 1988, religious groups managed to secure
a foothold in the military, thanks in part to the influence of
the Jamaat-e-Islami (Islamic Assembly) and the Tablighi Jamaat
(Proselytizing Group).1
Pakistan has fallen victim not to terrorism
directed against it by external forces, but rather to the corrosive
effects of extremist groups, many with a trans-national ideological
orientation, that have flourished within its own borders, and
often with the tacit support of military intelligence elements.
Therefore, the remedy for the security dilemma must and can only
lie primarily within Pakistan itself.
The fear of an Islamist takeover in Pakistan
has been the driving force behind most Western countries' foreign
policies toward Islamabad in recent years. The possibility that
violent extremists would assassinate General Pervez Musharraf,
the country's military ruler, and throw Pakistan into turmoil,
take over the country and its nuclear weapons and escalate regional
and trans-national terrorism has dominated the psychological and
political landscape since 11 September 2001. Such fears have usually
led to support of the Pakistani military as the only institution
able to contain the danger.
However, the reality is that the Islamist threat
is not as autonomous and visibly distinctive as many assume. It
is clear that internally within Pakistan there has been an increasing
emergence of religious violence, both sectarian and jihadist,
but serious law-and-order problems do not necessarily mean the
fate of the state is in jeopardy. No Islamic organisation has
ever been in a position to politically or militarily challenge
the role of the one and only centre of power in Pakistan, the
army.
On 8 May 2002, in the southern Pakistani city
of Karachi, a suicide bomber rammed a car full of explosives into
a minibus in front of the Sheraton hotel killing one French national
and three Pakistanis. The Sunni sectarian group, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
(LeJ), claimed responsibility for the attack. It was also in Karachi
that on 14 June 2002, a suicide attacker crashed a bomb-laden
car into a guard post outside the US Consulate, killing 11 people.
The massive blast came only hours after US Defence Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld departed from Pakistan.
The same infrastructure that supports regional
sectarianism is now being used for the current Afghan insurgency.
Pakistan has now become the headquarters for the resurgent Taliban,
based in Quetta and Peshawar.2 It is from here that the Taliban
have remerged, become revitalised, and have learnt from the tactics
of the insurgents in Iraq and implement them in Afghanistan with
deadly effect. For example, in 2006, there has been a sharp increase
in the number of suicide attacks. To put it in to context, suicide
bombings have soared from two in 2002 to about one every five
days.3
By failing to stop the Taliban and al-Qa'ida
from escaping into Pakistan, then diverting troops and resources
to Iraq before Afghanistan was resolved, the back door was left
open for a Taliban comeback. Compounding the problem, reconstruction
efforts have been slow and limited, and the US and NATO didn't
anticipate the extent and ferocity of the Taliban resurgence or
the alliances the insurgents have formed with other Islamic extremists
and with the world's leading opium traffickers.
THE KASHMIR
EXPERIENCE
In contrast to the situation in Pakistan, India's
political system has not been undermined by terrorism. Nonetheless,
the country has had diverse encounters with this threat. While
the cases of Punjab and Kashmir are well known, in the northeast
of India there are a number of regions that have experienced complex
terrorist threats on their territory, notably Nagaland, Manipur,
Assam, and Tripura.
Terrorism has largely been limited to particular
regions of the country, and when it has struck at particular officeholders,
like with the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by a Tamil Tiger suicide
bomber, the positions that they have occupied have been sufficiently
institutionalised so that the loss of a particular incumbent did
not destabilise the system as a whole. It's an important feature
to which procedural norms and the political ideal of the rule
of law have taken root in India.
Amongst all the areas where terrorism has a
presence, the violence unleashed in Indian Kashmir has proved
vastly more intractable than any other. The terrorist movement
that erupted in Indian Kashmir in 1989 has devastated the regional
state administration and its people's lives. Similarly to the
present situation in Afghanistan, the trans-national character
of the security challenges in Kashmir is one of the key contributing
factors to its intransigence. While the status of Kashmir has
led to wars between India and Pakistan in 1948 and 1965, and a
major clash in 1999 in Kargil,4 its violence has largely played
out in the form of terrorist attacks in the Indian part of Kashmir.
Following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan,
the problems in Indian Kashmir began in 1989. Pakistan's military
intelligence agency, the Inter Services Intelligence directorate
(ISI), then under the command of General Akhtar Abdur Rehman,
started making a case for a conflict there in the mid-1980s.5
The plan was that when the jihad in Afghanistan had successfully
seen off the Soviet Union, the mujahideen that the ISI had trained
and controlled would be unleashed into Indian Kashmir. The intention
was to replicate the policy of "death by a thousand cuts"
that was so successfully used in Afghanistan. Rehman did not survive
to see his plans come to fruition. He died in an air crash that
also killed military dictator General Zia ul-Haq on 17 August
1988. He was succeeded by Hamid Gul for whom Kashmir was the
central focus of activity for generals of this ilk, and Afghanistan
became a theatre in which they could nurture extremists for conflict
in Kashmir without a trail leading directly back to them. According
to former CIA Chief of Counter-terrorism, Vincent Cannistraro
"This arrangement allowed Pakistan "plausible denial",
that it was promoting an insurgency in Kashmir."6
The US 9/11 Commission Report, revealed that
"Pakistani intelligence officers reportedly introduced [Osama]
Bin Laden to Taliban leaders in Kandahar, their main base of power,
to aid his reassertion of control over camps near Khowst, out
of an apparent hope that he would now expand the camps and make
them available for training Kashmiri militants."7
For the military and fundamentalists in Pakistan,
Kashmir is an obsession, the only task unfulfilled since the time
of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Moreover, a crisis in Kashmir constitutes
an excellent distraction and outlet for the frustration at home,
an instrument for the mobilization of the masses, as well as gaining
the support of the Islamist parties and primarily their loyalists
in the military. However, the armed struggle currently waged in
the name of the Kashmiri people has very little to do with their
fate and future. Through the army's manipulations, Islamabad has
portrayed the Kashmiri struggle into a drive for Kashmir's unification
with Pakistan.
One of the most controversial incidents involving
the ISI and its murky connection to terrorism, involved British
Pakistani, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who allegedly on the instructions
of General Mahmoud Ahmed, the then head of the organisation, wired
$100,000 before the 9/11 attacks to Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker.
It remains a curious concern that neither Ahmed nor Sheikh have
been charged and brought to trial over this incident.8 Prior to
this, Sheikh, had been arrested by Indian police in 1994, for
kidnapping an American and three British tourists in New Delhi.
In 1999, while serving a prison sentence for terrorist offences,
an Indian Airlines plane was hijacked to Kandahar in Afghanistan,
and in exchange for the 155 hostages on the plane, Sheikh and
two other terrorists, were freed from jail. Sheikh, later went
on to be directly involved in the abduction and brutal beheading
of US journalist, Daniel Pearl.9
THE BRITISH
CONNECTION
The larger issue and problem here is that British
Muslims like Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh are being increasingly drawn
to join up with extremist groups in Pakistan and take part in
terrorist attacks. This was vividly and graphically illustrated
on 7 July 2005, when four devices exploded in London killing 52
people and leaving over 700 injured. On 12 July it transpired
that four home-grown suicide bombers, three of Pakistani origin
and one Jamaican convert, carried out the terrorist attacks. The
names of the perpetrators—Hasib Hussain, Mohammad Sidique
Khan, Shehzad Tanweer and Germaine Lindsay—have been permanently
etched on the minds of British society ever since. It has been
established that Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer did
travel to Pakistan on a number of occasions before the 7/7 attacks.
However, what is not clear and what no one has been able to definitely
ascertain is what they did whilst in Pakistan.10 Some Britons
have gone to Pakistan where they have joined terrorists groups
launching attacks in Kashmir and now more recently in Afghanistan.
Whilst in Pakistan they are trained and given the skills and tools
to carry out an attack as well as the ideological religious justification,
as adopted by the radicals, to kill and be killed. It is through
this experience that some end up as the new generation of recruits
for al-Qa'ida and the global jihad movement.
Terrorists that operate in Kashmir employ guerrilla
and military tactics similar to the methods of the insurgents
in Iraq, including hit-and-run strikes, raids, ambushes, kidnappings
and beheadings and use of mines and remote-controlled explosives.
Their expert use of weapons, timing of attacks, and selection
of targets and knowledge of terrain indicates a high level of
professionalism. They use the narrow and winding lanes and by-lanes
of urban areas to strike by surprise and melt away in to the civilian
fabric of society. They use the hills, forests, and gullies of
the mountainous terrain for their hide-outs. Disturbingly, they
undertake suicide (fidayeen) missions. The deadliest fidayeen
assault so far has been the bombing of the Indian Kashmir state
legislature on 1 October 2001, when a suicide bomber rammed a
car full of explosives into the main gate of the building, killing
29 persons, including five policemen.11
Terrorists also engage the Indian army and police
forces in regular encounters, and exhibit a high degree of tactical
skill and grit in such situations. On 25 December 2000, 24-year
old Bilal Mohammed took part in a fidayeen mission and blew himself
up outside an Indian army headquarters in Srinagar, killing 10
people. Bilal was a Briton of Pakistani origin, from Birmingham,
a youth who frequented nightclubs until he reportedly had became
very religious. Bilal's notoriety will be that he was the first
British suicide bomber.
The point here is that the terrorist infrastructure
in Pakistan whilst still in place will continue to act as a recruiting
ground for young British and other European Muslims that are being
drawn and attracted by the ideology and doctrines that Osama bin
laden preaches. Pakistan needs to recognise the terror groups
for what they are. Dangerous institutions which they have become,
whose resources and reach have continued to grow over the years
and which now are threatening to destabilize and bleed not just
Pakistan but the entire region and beyond.
Pakistan's reluctance to clampdown on terror
groups that are particularly aligned to al-Qa'ida's ideology suggests
that it does not recognise its own susceptibility to the culture
of violence it has helped nurture and maintain. Therein lies the
problem. The three main terrorist groups that operate in Pakistan
which are affiliated to the al-Qa'ida school of thought and launch
trans-national attacks are the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed
(JeM) and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM). These groups also currently
operate under a number of different aliases particularly as they
have been banned in most European Union countries as well as the
United States.12 The LeT also has many international linkages
including in the United Kingdom. On Friday 17 March 2006, Mohammed
Ajmal Khan, from Coventry, was jailed for nine years in the UK
after admitting directing a terrorist organisation, including
providing weapons and funds to the LeT.
THE BATTLE
OF IDEAS
Many terrorists active in the region, and indeed,
the wider world, received training in the same madrassas (religious
seminaries) where Taliban and al-Qa'ida fighters studied, and
some received military training at camps both in Pakistan and
Afghanistan.13 Pakistan's madrassa system of Islamic education
has come under intense scrutiny in the wake of the attacks in
the United States on 9/11. The debate evokes images of jihad,
warfare training, terrorism and an archaic system of education.
Madrassas do indeed play a role in violence and conflict but they
also have a key place in Pakistan's religious and social life.
Madrassas have a long history in Pakistan and
in Muslim societies generally. They serve socially important purposes,
and it is reasonable for a government to seek to modernise and
adapt rather than eliminate them. International assistance to
Pakistani education, especially from Western donors, however,
should focus heavily on rebuilding a secular system that has been
allowed to decay for three decades. Any international assistance
for the government's madrassa reform project should be closely
tied to proof that it represents a genuine commitment to promote
moderate, modern education and on the condition the government
identifies and closes madrassas affiliated with banned extremist
groups, makes it obligatory for all madrassas to disclose their
sources of income and declare dissociation from any militant activity
or group. Funding for reform projects should be suspended if the
government fails to do so. International financial institutions
providing, or intending to provide, financial assistance for madrassa
reform should also make their grants conditional on the above
criteria.
The Musharraf government's dilemma lies in Pakistan's
political history, in which the military has retained state power
at the expense of democracy and socio-economic development. To
prolong their rule, military governments have formed domestic
alliances, including with the clergy. In this process, civil society
has been undermined and bigotry has flourished. For instance,
madrassas multiplied under Musharraf's predecessor, Zia ul-Haq.
The military is now reaping a harvest of militancy the seeds of
which were sown a quarter of a century ago.14
Since taking power in a military coup on 12
October 1999, General Musharraf has made numerous pledges to modernise
madrassas, change their image, and integrate them into the formal
education sector. Seven years on, the government has done little
to change its madrassa policy. The clergy has successfully lobbied
against any attempt to the reform madrassa system or eliminate
militancy.
TERRORIST ATTACKS
IN INDIA,
POST SEPTEMBER
11
On 13 December 2001, five individuals drove
into India's parliament complex in New Delhi through its main
gate. On being challenged by security personnel, the terrorists
opened fire resulting in a shootout that lasted for nearly an
hour. Nearly 200 Members of Parliament, including senior ministers
were present inside Parliament at the time of the attack. Although
none of the MPs were harmed, eight people and the five terrorists
were killed during the ensuing shootout.
The terrorist attack was blamed on the Lashkar-e-Toiba
and the Jaish-e-Mohammed. The modus operandi of the suicide squad
was similar to the fidayeen attacks in Indian Kashmir. The attack
on the New Delhi parliament almost brought India and Pakistan
to war which was narrowly averted due to intervention by the international
community.
Following the then Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee's
"hand of friendship" speech towards Pakistan on 18 April
2003, there has been some easing of tensions between the two countries.
In February 2004 composite dialogue began in which India and Pakistan
took a number of positive steps in improving relations between
both countries.15
Within Indian Kashmir, the relative decline
in violence has helped stabilise the economy, and tourism is increasing
in the Kashmir Valley. For most people, the ceasefire on the Line
of Control (LoC) is the most significant development. However,
the trust and goodwill essential for resolving more contentious
issues like cross-border infiltration by terrorists is absent.
There is still deep scepticism that Pakistan's
support for insurgents and terrorists in Kashmir has ceased. Musharraf's
stance on the issue are currently restricted to rhetoric. Unlike
former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who had
the backing of their domestic constituencies for reconciliation
with India, Musharraf's only constituency is a military establishment
that retains the belief that a proxy war in Kashmir is the only
way to pressure it into making concessions on areas of national
interest.
A reduction of infiltration and violence in
Indian Kashmir would benefit all parties—India, Pakistan
and the Kashmiri people. Jihadist organisations are as much a
threat to the Pakistani state as they are to India, and it would
best serve Pakistan to eliminate their infrastructure. If violence
and terrorist attacks recede in Kashmir, India will be in a position
to reduce its troop presence in Kashmir, and the Kashmiri people
can rebuild their lives in peace, no longer targeted by the militants
or forced to live in a virtual state of siege.
THE KASHMIR
EARTHQUAKE
The Pakistan government's ill-planned and poorly
executed emergency response to the 8 October 2005, earthquake
highlighted the inadequacies of authoritarian rule. As the government
now embarks on up to four years of reconstruction the absence
of civilian oversight and inadequate accountability and transparency
could seriously undermine the process. Should jihadist groups
that have been active in relief work remain as involved in reconstruction,
threats to domestic and regional security will increase. It was
deeply worrying that that the military was tasking the militant
groups to redistribute western aid to the earthquake victims.
Although civil society volunteers and international
organisations rushed into action just hours after the earthquake,
countless lives were lost because of the military's ineffective
response. The army's incapacity reflected its institutional shortcomings
and neglect of the civilian infrastructure needed to manage responses
to natural disasters. While civilian authorities and institutions
usually undertake humanitarian relief, the military has excluded
elected bodies, civil society organisations and communities and
sidelined civil administration from the effort, as well as its
reconstruction and rehabilitation plans.
However, ironically, by accepting a major role
for banned jihadist groups in humanitarian relief efforts, the
government's policies are helping Islamist radicals to bolster
their presence in the earthquake-affected areas of the North West
Frontier Province (NWFP) and Pakistan Kashmir. The willingness
of western donors to accept the Pakistani military's directives
and priorities, willingly or reluctantly, has also inadvertently
empowered extremists and could further undermine the prospects
of democratisation in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Natural disasters sometimes create the political
conditions for peacemaking. While the October earthquake led to
some minor confidence-building measures, it did not dissipate
India and Pakistan's mutual mistrust. This was to be expected
since banned terrorist groups such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba and
Jaish-e-Mohammed are operating under new names or through front
organisations in relief efforts, thus providing ample evidence
that their infrastructure remains intact.16
The real danger of Islamist relief groups radicalizing
people will arise if they play a major role in educating the young
generation, especially the tens of thousands of earthquake orphans.17
BEYOND KASHMIR
Trans-national al-Qa'ida affiliated terror groups
have begun to spread their activities from the confines of Kashmir
to the urban heartlands and the commercial and religious centres
of India. The primary aim is designed to create economic, political
and social turmoil. The strategy is to undermine the growing development
of India's burgeoning economy by inflicting maximum collateral
damage. Kashmir is now a mere stepping stone of a wider agenda
by terrorist groups that have adhered themselves to the bin Laden
world view.
On 11 July 2006, a synchronised series of seven
bomb blasts, during the evening rush hour, took place on the railway
system in Mumbai, India's financial centre for commerce and industry
and largest populated city. It was a highly sophisticated and
well planned operation involving high grade explosives in which
209 people were killed and over 700 injured. Investigators have
blamed the LeT for this attack.18 Mumbai is to India as New York
is to the US or Shanghai to China. The city is driving India's
economic boom. It is for that reason that commercial hubs like
Mumbai, London, New York and Madrid are natural target for terrorist
attacks.
The Mumbai bombings came after a number of other
mass casualty terrorist attacks in India's major cities and holy
sites. This includes the attack in Mumbai on 23 August 2003 which
killed 55 people, the bombing in New Delhi on 29 October 2005,
that killed 61 people, and the explosions in the holy city of
Varanasi on 7 March 2006 in which 15 people were killed.
It is important to note that the Mumbai 11 July
attacks came just a few days before the G-8 Summit on 15 July
in St Petersburg, Russia. The London attacks in 2005 also coincided
with the G8 Summit held in Scotland. In addition, there were also
a plethora of al-Qa'ida statements in 2006 by Osama bin Laden
and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Often when they issue copious
messages it acts to inspire and encourage regional affiliates
throughout the world to launch attacks. In the past India has
been mentioned and singled out by the al-Qa'ida leaders six times
in total. India has also developed strong relations with the United
States at a strategic and diplomatic level. US Presidents, Bill
Clinton and George W Bush have visited the country in 2000 and
2006 respectively. In addition, there is also now an annual UK-India
summit and relations with the European Union has been further
enhanced over the last few years. This has brought New Delhi further
into the focus of the global jihad movement.
It is unlikely the Indian economy will be deflected
by terrorism anymore than it has in New York, London or Madrid,
so an attack may not undermine the commercial fabric of a city
but it will leave deep indelible scars. For India's business leaders
there will be a need to maintain foreign confidence as the country
is on the verge of a large increase in foreign investment that
will not only create jobs but markets as well. Foreign direct
investment helps build commercial relations with investing countries
and it is this relationship the terrorists seem keen to disrupt
and damage permanently.
AL-QA'IDA'S
SOUTH ASIA
PRISM
The first indication that bin Laden wanted to
add South Asia to his global ideological agenda was on 16 September
1999, when his views were printed in Pakistan's mass circulation
Urdu language newspaper Jang : "India and America are now
our biggest enemies... all Mujahideen groups in Pakistan should
come together now to target India."19
There were three reasons for bin Laden's comment.
Firstly, prior to the Taliban being dislodged in Afghanistan,
India's "proactive" support for the weak and outnumbered
Northern Alliance and their leaders Burhanuddin Rabbani and Ahmed
Shah Masood which was to the detriment of his hosts, the Taliban,
rankled with bin Laden. Secondly, the al-Qa'ida leader saw India
and the United States continue to develop their evolving relationship
through new dimensions and most alarming to bin Laden through
the field of counter-terrorism which involved sharing of intelligence
on groups that operated in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Lastly, he
wanted to increase his own standing in Pakistan and by aligning
with the Pakistani terrorist groups he would increase his sphere
of influence and spread his doctrine of global jihad in South
Asia against the secular and democratic nations.
In the "Letter to the American People"
November 2002, which was claimed to be from bin Laden, al-Qa'ida
continued the policy of mentioning Kashmir and the need to expel
Indian forces. It illustrated that Kashmir was a firm fixture
on the al-Qa'ida agenda, particularly as bin Laden's views were
receiving an ever increasing amount of support with Pakistan's
terrorist groups as well as the people in Pakistan's urban heartlands
and tribal areas.20
In the past the Pakistani terror groups and
al-Qa'ida operated in different spheres but over the last few
years through the rapid increase of fundamentalism in Pakistan
there has been a meeting of minds for global jihad. Many Islamists
in Pakistan have moved away in their India-centric hatred and
now also encompasses the United States, Israel, the West and the
secular world. In addition, the collective experiences of having
trained, fought and died together in Afghanistan led to camaraderie.
The post 9/11 trajectory of al-Qa'ida's network demonstrates that
the loss of its training camps in Afghanistan has not damaged
the operational capability of the group, Pakistan has become its
primary logistical base.
As the hunt for bin Laden continues, it has
become increasingly likely that he is sheltering in Pakistan.
What is interesting and worrying at the same time is that senior
al-Qa'ida members are being captured in major urban heartlands
throughout Pakistan and not in the mountains along the Afghan-Pakistan
border as has become the popular myth for al-Qa'ida's lair. It
is also of some concern that the al-Qa'ida terrorists feel comfortable
to reside in large Pakistani cities where their activities would
be far easier to monitor.
Through the efforts of the CIA and the FBI Abu
Zubaydah was arrested in Faisalabad on 28 March 2002; Ramzi Binalshibh,
was captured in Karachi on 11 September 2002; on 29 April 2003,
Tawfiq bin Attash was apprehended in Karachi; on 25 July 2004,
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was arrested, following a shootout, in
the city of Gujrat, southeast of Islamabad. The biggest capture
so far of an al-Qa'ida member was of 9/11 master planner Khalid
Shaikh Mohammed on 1 March 2003, in Rawalpindi.
Five years after the September 11 terrorist
attacks, Osama bin Laden has not been captured, nor has his deputy,
Ayman al-Zawahiri or the Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Worryingly
Pakistan remains at the epicentre of the global jihad movement.
THE DEMOCRACY—SECURITY
CONNECTION
Following in the footsteps of his military predecessors
General Musharraf has tried to justify authoritarian rule by maligning
Pakistani politicians, and to consolidate his regime by marginalising
opposition parties. Pakistan's moderate opposition parties are
under siege. The leaders of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP),
Benazir Bhutto, and the Pakistan Muslim League, Nawaz (PML-N),
Nawaz Sharif, the principal members of the anti-military coalition,
the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, are in exile, in
prison, or disqualified from elections. Also, like his military
predecessors, Musharraf has created his own party, the Pakistan
Muslim League—Quaid-e-Azam (PML-Q), to give authoritarian
rule a civilian face and undermine the political opposition.
Throughout Pakistan's history, a weak and polarised
political system has enabled the military to seize and maintain
power. A successful transition to democracy, therefore, will require
the PPP and the PML-N to renounce the vendettas that characterised
their rivalry during the flawed democratic transition of the 1990s.
Successful democratic transition depends as much on the parties'
willingness to sustain their own reform, as on the military's
acceptance of civilian supremacy.
Western governments should not let fear of an
Islamist threat distort their dealings with Islamabad. Neither
in Indian Kashmir, where infiltrations had resumed before the
recent earthquake, nor in its Afghan policy is the Pakistani Army
constrained by majority public opinion or any specific constituency.
Changes in policy merely reflect changes within the army and are
not related to domestic pressures or Islamist influences. It is
unwise and unnecessary to heed arguments that one should not press
the Pakistani president, General Musharraf, to crack down on the
terrorist infrastructure for fear of causing his overthrow by
extremists.
Western governments undermine their own interests
by invoking the "Islamist threat" to justify support
of military regimes. This approach has contributed to the perception
in the Muslim world in general, and in Pakistan in particular,
that democracy is something to be applied selectively. Restoring
democracy in Pakistan should be a priority.
Strong internal and external political pressures
will be necessary to reform the regime because the army will not
voluntarily empower civilian institutions. Countries whose financial
assistance, arms, and political counsel Pakistan needs should
condition economic and military aid on steps toward genuine democratisation
and development. Such conditionality is often claimed but rarely
enforced.
As irksome, as protracted, and as expensive
as this strategy may sound, it is important to remember that constant
support to the Pakistani Army and to regimes whose legitimacy
is questioned by Pakistan's population has led to resentment and
suspicion of the West and has not significantly improved either
Western or South Asian security.
ASSESSMENT
India and Pakistan's leaders insist that the
normalisation process is irreversible but while the two countries
have stabilised their relationship, reducing the risk of war,
many challenges lie ahead. One of the greatest to sustaining the
process is an asymmetry of perceptions and expectations. Indian
policymakers want to move cautiously, hoping that an improved
bilateral environment will help create the conditions to persuade
Islamabad to act on halting cross border terrorism. Pakistan's
military government has made the expansion of ties and bilateral
cooperation, such as trade, conditional on the issue of Kashmir.
India and Pakistan reflect somewhat different
challenges. The overall integrity of India as a territorial and
political unit is not fundamentally threatened by terrorism, although
the ongoing killings in Kashmir, and occasional spectacular attacks
in the major cities like New Delhi and Mumbai, means that Indian
authorities have no room for complacency. However, India does
face the risk of sliding into a war with the state from which
terror groups operate, and this ensures that security will figure
prominently on the agenda of issues that preoccupy the Indian
political elite. Pakistan, as a result, in part, of its existential
insecurity, has permitted jihadist and sectarian groups to operate
in pursuit of its own regional foreign policy objectives. However,
it may find that like the sorcerer's apprentice, it has let loose
forces that have affected it in a destructive way.
Intent on appeasing the mullahs, the Pakistani
military continues to stall on measures to contain Islamist extremism,
including madrassa reform. However, its alliance with the mullahs
has resulted in a resurgence of such extremism, which will ultimately
work to its disadvantage. It is in the Pakistani military's own
interests to ensure that its religious clients do not gain even
greater internal autonomy and influence.
What the West perceives as a threat to the regime
in Pakistan are in reality manifestations of the Pakistani army's
strategy to maintain total political control. This monopoly of
power by the military is preventing the emergence of a truly democratic
and economically stable Pakistan. By focusing on only Islamist
militancy, Western governments confuse the consequence and the
cause, which is that the army is central to what transpires in
Pakistan.
The experiences of India and Pakistan is that
terrorism is a complicated phenomenon. It can be home-grown or
externally supported, and a major threat to the authority of the
state or merely a manageable source of sorrow for ordinary people.
The idea that a "War against Terrorism" is a simple
struggle runs the risk of abstracting dangerously from this complexity.
There is no easy solution to the problem of terrorism in South
Asia. Each case needs to be diagnosed on its own terms, so that
appropriate responses can be crafted. At the same time, the interconnections
between India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan require the integration
of these responses.
M J Gohel
CEO Asia Pacific Programme
28 October 2006
REFERENCES 1
The Tablighi Jamaat is an Islamic missionary and revival movement.
The Jamaat-e-Islami, is an Islamic political movement founded
in Lahore by Maulana Maududi on 26 August 1941. It is one of the
largest partners of the coalition of religious parties, the Muttahida
Majlis-e-Amal. For more information on the nexus between the military
and the Jamaat-e-Islami and Tablighi Jamaat, see Hasan-Askari
Rizvi, Military, State and Society in Pakistan (London: Palgrave
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2 Ken Herman, Sparing leaders of Pakistan, Afghanistan
dining together with Bush, Cox News Service, 27 September 2006.
3 Tom Regan, The "surprising tenacity"
of the Taliban, Christian Science Monitor, 25 September
2006, http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0926/dailyUpdate.html
4 In 1999, Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf led
a limited military operation, infiltrating several hundred Pakistani
soldiers and jihadis into the Kargil region across the Line Of
Control, in the belief that Pakistan's nuclear weapons capability
would prevent India from escalating to a full-fledged conventional
war. Indian decision-makers, however, believed that it was possible
to fight a limited conventional war against their nuclear-armed
adversary. Concerned that the conflict could escalate to the nuclear
level, the US pressured Pakistan to withdraw its regular forces
and their jihadi supporters. The result of the Kargil episode
was a major deterioration in relations between New Delhi and Islamabad.
5 Shahzad, Syed Saleem, Pakistan rethink over support
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6 Congressional Testimony by Vincent Cannistraro,
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Royton, The Pakistan connection, "The Comment" section,
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9 Nick Fielding, The British Jackal, The Sunday
Times, 21 April 2002, For more information on the Indian Airlines
hijacking see Sharan, Captain Devi & Chowdhury, Srinjoy, Flight
into Fear, The Captain's Story, Penguin Press (New Delhi), 2000.
The other two terrorists that were freed in exchange for the hostages
on the Indian Airlines flight were Maulana Masood Azhar, and Mushtaq
Zargar. Both are currently residing in Pakistan. Azhar currently
heads the al-Qa'ida affiliate, the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).
10 Intelligence and Security Committee Report into
the London Terrorist Attacks on 7 July 2005, House of Commons,
May 2006.
11 Militants attack Kashmir assembly, BBC News Online,
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12 Harakat ul-Mujahedeen ("Islamic Freedom Fighters'
Group"), Jaish-e-Muhammad ("Army of Muhammad"),
Lashkar-e-Toiba ("Army of the Pure"). The Lashkar-e-Toiba,
currently operates under the name of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (Party
of the Calling). The leader of the Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen group,
Farooq Kashmiri Khalil, signed al-Qa'ida's 1998 declaration of
holy war, which called on Muslims to attack all Americans and
their allies. Maulana Masood Azhar, who founded the Jaish-e-Muhammad
organisation, swore allegiance to al-Qa'ida.
13 Kashmir Militant Extremists, Council of Foreign
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14 Stern, Jessica, Pakistan's Jihad Culture, Foreign
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15 The composite dialogue covers the following peace
and security subjects: CBMs and Kashmir; Siachen; Wullar Barrage/Tulbul
Navigation Project; Sir Creek; terrorism and drug trafficking;
economic and commercial cooperation; and promotion of friendly
exchanges in various fields.
16 Mohammed Rizwan, "Western relief agencies
fear harassment by jihadis", Daily Times, 21 December
2005.
17 James Rupert, Militant groups aid quake victims,
Newsday.com, 28 December 2005, http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wojiha284567280dec28,0,1720131.story?coll=ny-worldnews-toputility
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19 Harrinder Baweja, Osama Bin Laden, "We should
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