Terror – the continuing plague

Chickens coming home to roost?

It’s an oft-repeated cliché that chickens have come home to roost. But that’s not an appropriate explanation of the gravity of the problem of terrorism that has been carried out across this region in the name of Islam. A similar strategy to the one used during the Afghan Jihad was deployed in Kashmir to resolve the dispute with India.

Commenting on the issue political commentator Saqlain Imam told DNA that Pakistan has been trying to reverse the strategy, but it has yet to establish that its policy has changed.

“Pakistan’s internal conflict between the civil and military leadership has normally been blamed for the inconsistency in its Afghanistan policy as well as in its Kashmir policy,” he said.

“But it is difficult to exactly put the finger on who defines the policy of the military: is it the serving chief of the army staff or are there some other hidden power corridors which define it and that policy sometimes surfaces through the ‘jihadi’ retired generals or journalists?”

Or it is that the confusion which helps the ‘establishment’ in maintaining its policy without actually saying it. Former president, Gen (R) Pervez Musharraf is known to have made impressive progress in dealing with the Kashmir dispute with India by taking it away from a domain of belligerency to the domain of ‘brotherly’ relations, Imam added.

Analysts and people engaged in track-2 diplomacy accuse each other, some people also say that when Musharraf was about to make that move, he suddenly found himself in a political crisis which led to his resignation from power.

Many analysts believe that Musharraf’s resignation showed that if anyone would try to part from the traditional Kashmir policy they would be unacceptable for the ‘establishment’, even if it’s an army general, like Pervez Musharraf.

However, now there are signs which suggest that there is a growing realisation among the top of the civil-military leadership that the Kashmir dispute may continue to influence the course of events, but it must not keep Pakistan and India’s economic collaboration hostage.

Many analysts believe that Musharraf’s resignation showed that if anyone would try to part from the traditional Kashmir policy they would be unacceptable for the ‘establishment’, even if it’s an army general

Imam added that Indian Prime Minister Modi’s apparently sudden visit to Lahore would not have been possible if there had not been an air of collaboration. And that air could not have been made possible if the Pakistan army had not been on board with the civilian leadership.

“Now the choice is very clear: break away from the vicious economic cycle. But it doesn’t mean that the chickens which are now returning home to roost are also on board with the changing strategies vis-à-vis Kashmir.”

He added that now the time has come for Pakistan’s civil and military leadership to not only articulate their resolve to ‘roast’ these chicken which are coming home to roost, but also to prove it in such a credible and convincing way that Pakistan gains the trust of its friends as well as its foes.

Saudi Arabia-Iran proxy war

Adding to what Imam stated political analyst and an academic Yasmeen Aftab Ali said terrorism has many faces. Its religion based, ethnic based so on and so forth.

“Pakistan is high on the list of sufferings from these multifaceted acts of terrorism. These can be broadly divided into acts of terrorism on civil population, acts of terrorism on security personal and apparatus and high profile sieges,” Ali told DNA.

“It becomes difficult at times to distinguish between different acts of terrorism, especially within Pakistan. We have the proxy wars between Saudi Arab and Iran being fought regionally.”

She added that Yemen and Syria are two examples only. Pakistan is the third. Then there are outside infiltrators on our local turf i.e., from an impossible to manage border between Pakistan and Afghanistan also used by India, to create trouble within Pakistan.

However, the home grown terrorists and their impact on the overall scenario cannot be overlooked and needs to be addressed. But military operations are inclusive of non-military operations to cleanse the society. It takes years if not decades to nullify the impact.

Ali reminded that it took Sri Lanka over 25 years, the war caused significant hardships for the population, environment and the economy of the country, with an initial estimated 80,000–100,000 people killed during its course before they returned the country to normalcy.

“The first thing Pakistan needs to do is to step back and take stock of its policy to deal with terrorism. Yes our military is engaged in a battle against terrorism on home ground. But we need to have a clear cut policy internationally too,” said Ali adding it was reactionary of us to say yes to Saudi Arab for the Yemen operation before back tracking.

Likewise we must play the role of peace maker in Syria. Pakistan should not have given in to pressure by the visiting FM of Saudi Arabia.”

Agreeing with what Ali said, Imtiaz Alam pointed at the “meek and hypocritical press release of the Foreign Office on Saudi foreign minister’s visit, you cannot draw any conclusion”.

Indeed we are not even sovereign enough to decline the most stupid demands of the House of Saud, a great source of decadence, sectarianism and terrorism in the Muslim world.

What steps of Saudis are being praised by PM Sharif — sectarian wars, destruction of Yemen, Libya, Syria and betrayal of Palestinians?

Pathankot assault

Imam thinks it is heartening to see that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chief of the Army Staff General Raheel Sharif have said that Pakistan’s territory would not be allowed to be used for an attack on any other country and that Pakistan will fully cooperate with India in the Pathankot attack investigation.

Commenting on the situation, political analyst Raza Rumi told DNA the militant infrastructure has grown over the last 35 years. We have a second generation of militant groups in Pakistan, many of which actually turned against the state in collusion with al Qaeda. Pakistan army is fighting these elements. Given the proliferation of these groups and the low level contacts they have made in state institutions the possibility of them acting on their own cannot be ruled out.

“But if the government is serious about normalising ties with India, the Kashmiri militant groups would have to be checked,” he said.

Agreeing with Rumi, Imam added that despite such a resolve of the civil and military leadership of Pakistan, it would still be extremely difficult for the authorities to eliminate the chances of more attacks.

“Pakistan still does not recognise the religious and, specially, the jihadi networks across the country as a potential source of instability not only in the country but also across the region,” he said, adding that it is of concern that the non-recognition will still take its own toll and no one knows when that structurally fundamental change will take place in the state of Pakistan.

The three terrorists who stormed a large house from which they targeted the Indian consulate left two messages written in blood on the walls of a strong room in which they had holed up

International Association of Human Rights Chair Rubab Mehdi H Rizvi thinks in Pakistan we have had some triumph over terrorism. However we remain deeply concerned that madrassas are producing millions of sectarian extremists every year.

“Even as of now the number of madrassa students is bigger than the combined strength of the personnel of all armed forces and law enforcement agencies and the motivation is incomparable.”

Rizvi said that we condemn the Pathankot and APS atrocity. Each time we talk about peace between India and Pakistan terrorists appear.

She added that the fate of thousands of poor people in both these countries should not be determined by those who are violent. The fate of peace talks should not be determined by the most recent atrocity. As a matter of fact it should form the basis of peace mongers from both sides to fight the menace of terrorism and extremism together.

“We have only one day remaining before foreign sectary talks and we are hoping that Modi and Nawaz Government will kill terrorism not talks,” Rizvi opined.

Talking of the attack on Pathankot, the timing is rather interesting. Following Modi’s ‘unexpected’ dash to Lahore, Ali said: Here I quote the Hindustan Times (Jan 6, 2016) the rest I leave up to your understanding. ‘Even as security forces wrapped up their operation to clear Pathankot airbase, it emerged on Tuesday that the attack blamed on Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed was linked to the assault on the Indian consulate in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

The three terrorists who stormed a large house from which they targeted the Indian consulate left two messages written in blood on the walls of a strong room in which they had holed up. Both messages were in broken Urdu and one described the attack as “revenge for Afzal Guru”, who was hanged for his role in the 2001 parliament attack.’

“The ball is now in our court. After quiet exchanges on certain ‘leads’ provided by India, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has assured his counterpart help in investigating the deadly assault on the airbase in Pathankot. Is the subcontinent ready for a change for the good of its people?” wrote eminent political analyst Imtiaz Alam in his article for reputable English daily.

He further wrote that Modi and Sharif governments deserve appreciation for not letting the peace process yet again get derailed by the terrorist attack on Pathankot.