A tactical achievement
“The groups based in Punjab have largely been spared because of their resourcefulness on foreign policy fronts: due to the state’s policy to spare these groups, the penetration of these groups inside the society have given them not just more support and influence but also legitimacy.”
Since the announcement of the operation Zarb-e-Azb, Pakistan has made great strides in its campaign against terrorism. From a military perspective, the operation has been a success: the overall levels of violence have dropped significantly across the country. In comparison to the last few years, suicide bombings have depleted. The country has reestablished its writ in the lawless northern, particularly in FATA.
A month ago, the military announced the end of the operation but cautioned that the anti terror campaign will continue without giving any deadline for its closure. In the larger perspective, however, the operation points to a “long drawn” battle where the Pakistani leadership will have to make a lot of changes about how it views and fights militancy in the country.
The Zarb-e-Azb operation, thus far, has come out as a campaign that is only targeting the anti state groups. For instance, the Pakistani Taliban was targeted because of their ferocious terror campaign against the country not because they were an armed group that enjoyed safe havens in the county. Moreover, the military’s anti terror campaign have by and large been in the northern regions of the country while major other terrorists groups are based in the mainland Pakistan, especially in urban areas of the country.
An attack in Lahore a few months ago again raised questions on the ability of militant groups to target the heart of Pakistan on will. The military over the last one year has openly claimed that it had fractured the Pakistani Taliban’s infrastructure and their capability to strike inside Pakistan was downgraded significantly. “These guys are demonstrating that, yes there’s a military offensive against them, yes they’re on the run, yes they’ve been dislodged from their hideouts, but they still retain their capability,” said Kamran Bokhari, a fellow with the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.
The militants based in Punjab have not been targeted despite the promises made to target all terrorist groups in the country. The southern districts of Punjab house some of the brutal sectarian – and otherwise – terrorist groups. The groups based in Punjab have largely been spared because of their resourcefulness on foreign policy fronts: due to the state’s policy to spare these groups, the penetration of these groups inside the society have given them not just more support and influence but also legitimacy. Some of the terrorist groups based in Punjab are anti India and have been used for various strategic reasons. Pakistan has long considered India as a threat and as long as this consideration remains the part of Pakistan’s policy formation, the groups based in Punjab and elsewhere are likely to operate freely.
Under the military’s nose, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), a banned Islamist organisation, has been running Sharia courts in the country. The courts have been operating at least in seven Pakistani cities. These disturbing revelations have put a big question mark on Pakistan commitment to fight militancy and Zarb-e-Zab’s tactical achievements. Some analysts have argued that these reported courts could not have operated without the knowledge of the country’s security agencies. Arif Jamil, an expert on the group and an author of multiple books on LeT, says that “The JuD is not the only Islamist organisation that runs an illegal judicial system in the country; most jihadist groups are “dispensing” Islamic justice in accordance with their interpretation of the Shariah. The madrassahs (religious seminaries) are often used as Shariah courts.”
Moreover, the clandestine activates of the ISIS have also been reported in number of major cities in Pakistan. The group has been involved in making alliances with number of sectarian groups based in the country. Recently, the chief of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) said that the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Sipah-i-Sahaba have a “soft corner” for ISIS and have been involved in recruitment for the group. While Pakistan has not targeted the above mentioned groups as aggressively as it did in the Taliban’s case, these networks might become a challenge in the near future: the ISIS doesn’t need to ship its mercenaries from Syria or Iraq to Pakistan when it can radicalise and influence the locally based groups.
Just a week after the army in Pakistan claimed that Karachi’s security situation had improved significantly due to the military’s series of counter terrorism operation in the city, kidnapping and target killing in the country’s metropolis have surged again. On June 23, thousands of mourners flooded the city streets to pay tribute and register their protest against the brutal killing of Amjad Sabri, a famous Sufi singer who was murdered by the Pakistani Taliban a day ago. In another incident of high profile kidnapping in the city, the son of the provincial high court’s chief justice was abducted on June 20. On June 21, a doctor belonging to the Ahmadiyya Muslim community was killed in a broad daylight.
Although over the last two years, the overall levels of violence in the city have decreased considerably, the recent incidents of violence point to the city’s complex militant landscape that is not likely to go away soon.
If Pakistan truly wants to get rid of terror from the country, it needs to take action not just against all militant groups but also against their terror loaded ideology.
