Without a will, there’s no way

In a war of attrition, the militants are calling the shots

The ongoing terrorism in the north western region carved up in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and federally administrated tribal region is an overstretching of what has been going on in the neighbouring Afghanistan. The devastation in Peshawar and other Pakistani towns and cities is what has been wrought because of what has been happening in Kabul, Kandahar and other cities of Afghanistan during the last few decades.

Fazle Subhan Abid, a young and popular Pashtun poet laments the happenings in Peshawar in his popular ballad sung by Hashmat Sahar as

“Pa Pekhawar ke parhar ma jodawa, La da Kabul parhar war ghaley na de,

Dalta la bal da veeney jam dakawey, Hagha dak jam de laa ghutaley na de”

Do not bleed Peshawar, for Kabul’s wounds have not healed yet, you haven’t finished gulping the blood of one, and yet you are planning another (Translation courtesy: Zalan Alam)

Alas! The entreaties went unheard; Peshawar has been bled for years and the wounds have been passed around the other parts.

The city has braved the bomb blasts and suicide attacks targeting secular politicians, civilian and security officials, assaults on police stations and RPG attacks on residential areas. Hardly a day passes by when it doesn’t go through the trauma, sound of the bomb blasts and noise of sirens rushing towards the scene and the news flash on the TV screens with Google maps imagery to identify the location and competing with each other on the scores of people killed and wounded in the incident

Surviving through the existential fear, some people may obliterate it with the catchy term ‘resilience’ but for most when feelings of despair are high, having barely any choice or alternative left, they will hardly find themselves in agreement with this. There underlies a deep sense of desperation among the people, which emanates from the inability of the security apparatus to forestall most of the attacks.

It is quite unrealistic to expect an overall preclusion of the terrorists’ attacks as fighting terror or withstanding their demands may have a political cost attached to it, and the political parties who have corroborated with military offensives against the militants are bearing the brunt of that support. But what perturbs many is the insistence of the higher military echelon for a consensus or more broader ownership of the ongoing war. Perhaps it is a case of without a will, there being no way.

The security apparatus has constrained itself to proportional responses to various act of terrorism. Small incidents of terror are pushed aside while some are responded with raids and surgical operations by the law enforcement agencies with claims of nabbing the alleged masterminds of a particular attacks, while at military level, casual bombing of the militants’ hideouts in various tribal agencies or direct clashes resulting in killing of adherents of Taliban make it to the news.

The territories known for Taliban concentration and presence are ‘no go’ areas. Military deployment around the entry and exit points does make it hard for the militants to pour out towards the settled areas. The repeated attacks on military check posts reflects the militants’ frustration with these arrangements. But these arrangements have been challenged on various occasions when militants came in large number to attack a police station and took away the severed head of a Police officer Khursheed Khan or the recent Peshawar grid station attack when militants fired dozens of RPGs at it from a distance, and then entered the premises, tortured and killed WAPDA officials, policemen and security guards, destroyed machinery worth tens of millions and took along four officials to the neigbouring Bara areas.

The leadership and the hardcore elements of Taliban are alive, well and safe in their dens and lairs planning and perpetrating assaults against their adversaries at the political front, issuing video footages and threatening messages lashing out at the ANP, the PPP and the MQM and making phone calls to the TV channels after every aggression

While political elements in good books of the bad Taliban either justify or ignore their assaults on liberal political forces, the Taliban have been elevated to the status of some rating agency, which has the discretion to award peace and immunity from the attacks on performing well or punish harshly with blasts and assaults on the basis of bad administrative performance.

The way militancy was dealt with during the last five years has been criticized by various quarters, each having a different set of arguments. The pro-Taliban political parties or religio-political groups have criticized the military offensives against the militants with the false assertions of Taliban representing the general populace of the areas they occupy, or the notion of revenge emanating from the mishaps and misgivings during the military offensives or by the drone attacks targeting militants using civilian populations as a human shield. The losses incurred to the militants or civilian populations at the hands of security forces are disproportionately lower than the losses and suffering of the civilians and law enforcement agencies at the hands of terrorists.

The liberal circles criticized the previous governments for lack of multipronged and comprehensive strategy regarding militancy, and of ceding space to religious groups bowing to their demands on many issues, while persisting nature of military influence in issues of national security has credence at the political and intellectual fronts. The overarching influence has been demonstrated well at different occasions to show the restraints on the role of political government i.e. Mumbai attacks, Kerry Lugar bill, the COAS extension suggested at Corps commander meeting and the Memogate scandal.

The threats to secular and progressive forces have not been responded to by the state institutions and the outcry of the ANP, the MQM and the PPP for a level playing field too has fallen on deaf ears.

The timid response to the terror attacks has dragged us into a war of attrition against an enemy which has aimed to wear us down over a period of time by using urban warfare causing civilian losses, propaganda tactics to create friction and dishonorable means of combat against those at the first line of defense, that is the Police and LEAs and political forces whose ideology and interests are in conflict with them. The rest are abiding by the rules determined by the militants.

Ali Arqam is journalist and researcher based in Karachi. He can be contacted at [email protected] interacted on twitter at @aliarqam