Good of Shahidullah Shahid to clarify the Karachi bombing. But what of the earlier attacks, numbering at least one-a-day since the talks began? Was the TTP playing its usual hide and seek or was it really taken by surprise? And if it was, will such attacks continue or will a formal ceasefire really bring lasting peace within sight?
These questions raise more unsettling questions. For example, we have known for some time that the TTP has had funding and arming links with Afghanistan’s security service, the NDS, and, most likely, with our old friends in India’s RAW. The irony of how those opposed to the TTP’s Afghan Taliban mentors are facilitating their jihad against US-backed Pakistan is not lost on those familiar with different players who have called for Sharia from the rugged badlands of FATA. And if this particular call is being financed by CIA money rolled through Kabul, just like petrodollars bankrolled the original Soviet jihad, then its driving force cannot really be Sharia-or-die-trying, can it? Strange that foreign backing for the TTP has not come up even once in the dialogue process.
Then there’s the make-up of the TTP, an umbrella organisation comprising splinter groups. Ch Nisar’s good offices put their number (repeatedly) at around 40. But the interior ministry fails to read out the fine print alongside the numerical strength. These tribal militias were spun into a loosely controlled conglomerate by Al Qaeda fighters and funds fleeing Afghanistan. Their aim was to expand the jihad by slowly bleeding the Pakistani state and dismantling its military through coercion, conversion, and head-on confrontation. Considering the foreign influences, it’s far more likely that these militias banded together for promises of greater riches and power as opposed to the fierce reading of Sharia they allegedly wish to impose across the country. Yet the government takes their word at face value, and the media floods extreme right religious views, favouring the Sharia perception.
There’s one more thing. Supposing the Al Qaeda, NDS, etc, link is real (which it is), then peace through talks is an impossibility. Surely the funds and arms are not routed to FATA to enforce Islamic law in Pakistan. And should certain proxies really lean to an accommodated settlement with the state, wouldn’t it suit outside controllers to divert the goodies to other, more compliant groups? And this might just explain the rise in attacks since Mr Sharif’s bright four-member-committee idea.
Interestingly, while the government bends over backwards to talk and the media trumpets extreme right religious and political ideology, the military’s careful silence might just imply it understands the situation best, and is waiting for democracy and negotiations to run their course before a final showdown in North Waziristan. Till then the TTP will recalibrate, just like it did before Karachi, and it will strike again.