Sort out the TTP now or prepare for a worse 2015
The Karachi airport incident has shifted focus back to the possibility of a comprehensive military operation in North Waziristan. The TTP main body, not some splinter group opposing talks, claimed responsibility. This one was for Hakeemullah, said Shahidullah Shahid, while reiterating the Taliban grudge that the government’s offer of talks was insincere, and the military continued targeting their personnel and positions.
Quite smartly, though, the TTP left the option of talks still open, which has led to some confusion in Islamabad. Initially there was little doubt about a tough military response. Gen Raheel has been clear about hitting back, and only recently ordered sorties into North Waziristan, killing dozens of militants. But the interior minister did not help matters.
First, as usual, he went mum. And when he talked he deliberately avoided the T-word, accusing internal and external elements instead. As if the situation wasn’t already confusing enough. The other great advocate of talks, the PTI, broke fresh ground and criticised the TTP directly, even though it did not rule out talks either. But Ch Nisar has made no official comment about the future of negotiations of which he was perhaps the principal architect. And he’s distanced himself from the press. The Sunday press conferences are over, and word is that the prime minister, not too impressed by the results of the Nisar doctrine, is keeping a strange distance. But again, no official clarifications.
Things have changed
Things have, no doubt, changed since the talks first began. According to COIN officials, differences relating to talks triggered sensitive rivalries within the TTP conglomerate, which agencies were able to turn into a decisive split within the Mehsuds, the principal fighting force of the TTP.
But a lot remains to be explained, especially after Karachi. According to the government, the Mulla Fazlullah group, which also heads the TTP, was for talks, and entered into a temporary ceasefire. It distanced itself from all attacks during this period, blaming them on runaway elements no longer part of TTP-proper. But now that they have owned the Karachi strike, with Shahidullah Shahid promising “hundreds more”, does going back to talking to Fazlullah’s shurabecome a sovereign government?
Then, again, there is the question of the military. How long before its patience runs out, as repeatedly questioned in the press, and it takes matters in its own hands? And does a unilateral strike roll back the prospect of talks altogether?
Talks must still be favoured, according to Gen Gul, even after the Karachi attack. Taliban groups that continue with attacks must be made examples out of, no doubt, but they must not be allowed to derail progress with groups that are more responsive.
“The military will only strike recalcitrant elements that have shown they can’t be reasoned with”, said Gen (r) Hameed Gul, former ISI chief, head of the Ex Servicemen Society, and part of the multi-party Difa-e-Pakistan Council that advocates conservative, centre-right politics.
“The lesson of history is never fight your own people. If you must, make it quick and short. And the army realises it cannot continue with this mistake”.
Talks must still be favoured, according to Gen Gul, even after the Karachi attack. Taliban groups that continue with attacks must be made examples out of, no doubt, but they must not be allowed to derail progress with groups that are more responsive.
It is also more urgent than ever to secure fata because the Americans are about to leave, and they are visibly trying to install India as the region’s proxy power in times to come. And even if New Delhi might have some reservations with such a role, it will not miss any chance to make things difficult for Pakistan. It has already been pretty active in Afghanistan.
Also, with an on-and-off operation for years, which ends in truce every time, Gen Gul believes it is time to end the fight once and for all. Each time talking ended the fighting, the Americans killed a key member of the Taliban, provoking them into more bloodshed.
“From Nek Mohammad to Baitullah Mehsud to Waliur Rahman to Hakeemullah, they clearly played the spoiler role”, he added. “Now we must be very careful about our priorities. We need peace, not an unending war that is forever linked with Afghanistan”.
But the government did not adopt the right approach to talks. Their way has been secretive, and they did not take the military along. The “same page” slogan, he said, is false. “If they really were on the same page why were they poles apart on the Geo incident?”
And the media hasn’t helped. In times of war, the media’s reporting arm adopts a more responsible posture than peace times. But some of the local media’s coverage of the insurgency has been wrong.
“The charge that the Taliban are separatists, for example, is false”, he added. “They do not want to create another state or break away”. This is an uprising, in other words, where some grievances can be addressed, on both sides, and elements that continue with violence should be repaid in kind, and with authority. “This is a bloody, messy, dirty war, and the media must be careful not to portray false positions”.
And the Karachi incident, despicable as it was, was merely the “last gasp” of renegades within the insurgents, predominantly Uzbeks and breakaway Mehsuds, and will fizzle out eventually. “A good way to know who to target is to get those willing to talk to identify those bent upon more war”.
And the PTI
Otherwise the ruling party’s fiercest critic, the PTI was able to find rare common ground with the N-league over the issue of talks. Initially there was a clear convergence of interest. Both parties had lobbied on talking the insurgency to an end, as opposed to fighting it. And both seemed eager to avoid a strong backlash in urban centres, where militant proxies have holed up for blowback operations.
Hit them in the mountains and they will spread in the cities, Gen Gul cautioned, defending former chief Gen Kayani’s statement that about a 40 per cent decrease in insurgent activity can be assured at best.
And the national security strategy paper won the government more PTI points.
The security situation has continuously worsened everywhere except Punjab. Karachi, despite successive operations, is still very unstable, and the airport attack exposed its lack of security.
“It had been in the works for some time, but we must credit the government for taking it forward”, said Asad Umar, central senior vice president of the PTI. “But the operational implementation was very weak, very unimpressive”.
This is where a divergence emerged once again in PTI and PML-N’s positions. Firstly, PTI did not understand the timeline. Why was it, Umar asked, that an issue cooking for ten years, with crystallised unanimity following the APC, sat unattended for another four months? Why the delay in the prime minister’s decision making process? Then when the dialogue began the PM promised to monitor it every week, but no such follow up ever took place.
Then there is the habit of not taking stakeholders along. The inclusion of PTI’s Rustam Shah Mohmand in the talks committee, for example, came as a surprise to the party. Nobody was consulted, and the KPK government, which is a natural stakeholder, is regularly kept out of the loop.
Such tendencies exhibit what Umar calls “intellectual confusion” within ruling party ranks. It might have an understanding of what it wants, like talking to militants, but has no idea about which tactics to employ.
And the way forward, according to the PTI, is pretty clear. “The Karachi attack actually reinforced our position”, he added. “There are clear differences within the Taliban. Those willing to talk and those opposed are being segregated. And we must talk to those who are willing”.
But that still does not explain the Fazlullah puzzle. His flagship group was the most prominent among those ready to talk. But he orchestrated Karachi, and is still willing to talk. So how can there be a guarantee of no more about turns?
“Our mandate is very clear”, insisted Umar. “We deliberately used these words in our manifesto: disengage, isolate, eliminate. Distance pro talks groups, isolate the rest, and then eliminate troublemakers”.
But, again, even if these arguments broadly justify what must be done, they are very poor on how it must be done.
“I’d like to ask those still advocating talks to name one group from the TTP that is willing to talk, can be identified, and accepts the constitution”, Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi, prominent analyst and commentator, told Pakistan Today.
“If there were any real possibility of talks, then the government would have done it by now. In all this time there has only been one direct contact with the Taliban, and that was two months ago. If you cannot hold talks, how can you have a framework for talks?”
Facts, according to Dr Rizvi, paint a different picture than one PTI and PML-N would like to see. The security situation has continuously worsened everywhere except Punjab. Karachi, despite successive operations, is still very unstable, and the airport attack exposed its lack of security.
The Taliban, meanwhile, have grown confident over this government’s first year in office. And things may have come to the point where government inaction might prompt the military to act on its own.
“That would be a major embarrassment for Nawaz Sharif”, added Dr Rizvi. “So far the army has given preference to civilian endorsement of its strikes, but Nawaz is not willing, he seems suffering from very serious political paralysis”.
And the longer N procrastinates, the more he decreases his own relevance. The talks were never intended to be open ended. The military would not have given it beyond Ramzan, since the Americans are leaving, and the emerging border vacuum makes it important to secure the tribal area by Sept/Oct.
“The talks issue will not linger much longer”, he said. “Either the military will force the civilian government to opt for action, or it will go its own way, claiming retaliation against attacks. If the TTP is nor sorted out now, ’15 will be a very messy year for Pakistan.
Yet the government, especially the interior minister, remain silent, and probably very confused.