Pakistan Assessment 2000

The closing months of 1999 and the first nine months of 2000 have showed signs of relative stabilisation in Pakistan's internal security scenario. This is unlike the first half of 1999, when Pakistan was plauged by a series of sectarian conflicts. Yet, a series of bomb blasts in several major cities of Pakistan which have left an estimated 79 killed and 316 injured, indicates that Pakistan is still besetted by problems of terrorism. The only change from 1999 is that terrorists are increasingly resorting to bomb attacks in public places rather than firing upon crowds. The government has been quick to hold India's external intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) as responsible for organising these bomb blasts.

After an intense bout of ethnic violence in the early nineties, Pakistan had witnessed sectarian violence in the late nineties, which peaked in 1997 and continued to linger thereafter. The first half of 1999 too was marked by a series of attacks where gunmen of a particular sectarian terrorist outfit would indulge in random shootings on unarmed worshippers of other sects. The focus of internal conflicts had already shifted from ethnic to sectarian strife, as the minority Shia community came under numerous bomb and other violent attacks orchestrated by militant groups from the majority Sunni community. There were some incidents of retaliatory attacks (411 Shias were killed against 212 Sunnis gunned down in Punjab between 1991-99, as a result of sectarian clashes). The major venue of internal violence has also shifted from Karachi to Lahore (in 1998 while 662 were killed in Karachi, 998 were killed in Lahore). This was interspersed with isolated incidents of sectarian and tribal conflicts in other urban regions of Pakistan.

The near cessation of this violence in the latter half of 1999 and in 2000 appears to be a temporary lull as terrorist groups assess the ideological nature and political stance of the military regime. Two major developments in 1999 contributed to this deceptive calm in internal conflict in Pakistan: The strong measures by the erstwhile Nawaz Sharief government; and the advent of the military at the helm of affairs in Pakistan.

There were two bursts of extraordinary violence in January and October 1999 (with sporadic incidents in between). However, a lull set in after General Parvez Musharraf’s military coup on October 12. Major incidents of internal strife in 1999 included the January 1 massacre of 17 Shias, the gunning down of 13 worshippers in Karachi on October 1, and of 12 mourners in Haripur on December 27, besides a tribal clash near Sukkur which claimed nine lives on the night of December 31.

Shia-Sunni rivalry was the dominant cause of most incidents. From the majority Sunni community, two organisations have spearheaded the violence: the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan [SSP] and the Lashkar-e-Jangvi [LeJ]. Retaliatory attacks were carried out primarily by the Sipah-e-Muhammad of Pakistan (SMP) the militant wing of the Shia religio-political organisation, Tehrik Jafaria Pakistan (TJP). The LJ, headed by Riaz Basra, was believed to be responsible for two major incidents: a bomb blast on the Lahore-Raiwind road a couple of hours before the Prime Minister was to pass through on January 4, 1999, and the massacre of 17 Shias the next day. The SSP was believed responsible for a wave of attacks on Shias, including students in Shia Madarsas (religious schools or seminaries).

A lull in violence towards the middle of 1999, which marked the end of the first phase, was induced through ruthless state suppression, where about 76 suspected militants were killed in 56 alleged encounters with the police. During the second phase of violence (30 killed in the first week of October alone), the government suspected Taliban run training camps in Afghanistan as the main source of the sectarian terrorists. This marked a departure from the normal government stand of accusing India for all incidents of internal strife and violence. The Nawaz Sharief regime had publicly demanded that the Taliban close these schools and an ISI delegation was sent to Kandahar to convey the government demand to the Taliban).

Following up these initiative, the military regime too approached the Taliban regime for extradition of sectarian terrorists hiding in Afghanistan.

Besides this, a crackdown on Madarsas suspected of breeding sectarian terrorists within Pakistan was also announced. The Anti-terrorist courts, revived in May 1999, were aimed at quick trials of terrorists and their execution, bypassing normal judicial channels.

Before these measures could yield results, the army coup of October brought about a sudden cessation, marking the end of the second phase of violence in the year. Two bomb blasts were, however carried out, on November 20 at Lahore and November 30 at Hyderabad, by a new and hitherto unknown organisation styled Al-Nawaz, demanding the release of Nawaz Sharief and restoration of his government. Other bomb attacks carried out after the military coup – a total of eight, including one on January 17, 2000, which killed eight – have been blamed on the Indian intelligence agency the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW).

There have been several official and independent estimates of deaths caused due to internal strife in 1999. An independent estimate put the number of dead due to sectarian strife at 95 till end-September. Official estimates put out from Lahore paint a positive picture; the number of killed in the city was 18 in 1999 as compared to 30 in 1998. Two districts of Punjab, Faisalabad and Jhang – which have been affected by sectarian violence since 1990, have recorded a significant decrease in 1999 with four killed in 1999 as against 13 in 1998 and 42 in 1997.

Following the strong-arm measures implemented by the erstwhile democratic regimes of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharief in Karachi and other urban regions of Sindh, the violent component of the ethnic mohajir movement came to a standstill after the frenetic violence of the early Nineties. Ethnic strife, which was the dominant feature of urban Sindh (particularly Karachi) has now by and large been replaced by sectarian strife and crime which may partly be related to political strife. Karachi and other urban regions of Sindh had, for long, been the stage for a brutal internecine conflict between the two major mohajir groups the Muttahid Quami Movement–Altaf (MQM-Altaf) and the Mohajir Quami Movement–Haquiqi (MQM–Haquiqi), splinter groups of the parent mohajir organisation, the MQM. The Benazir Bhutto regime, during its second term (1994-96), had handed over a burning Karachi to the Army. After a brief alliance with the ruling party, the Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz (PML–N) during the initial year of Nawaz’s second term (1996-99), the MQM (Altaf) broke away when the Sindh provincial govt was dismissed in 1998 in the aftermath of the Hakim Said assassination – which was blamed on the MQM (Altaf) by the then Nawaz Sharief government. A brutal state crackdown was initiated against the militant cadre and leaders of the MQM (Altaf), and its activities after 1998 have largely been confined to non-violent protests.

The Shia-Sunni conflict, an offshoot of the General Zia-ul-Haq regime’s (1977-88) legitimisation strategy, emerged as the main cause for internal violence in Punjab. The increasing Islamic fundamentalist militant fervour mounted against the backdrop of the war in Afghanistan, and had led to the creation of numerous madarsas specialising in the indoctrination and training of highly motivated militants who were to carry out the violent campaign between the Sunnis and Shias in Pakistan, as well as to export their brand of jehad (holy war) far beyond its borders. Tit for tat killings between the prominent militant groups the SSP, LJ and the SSM were a common feature during the early nineties. After the 1997 flare up, a police crackdown on the SSM tilted the balance of terror in favour of the Sunnis as demonstrated by statistics of those killed in 1998: three Sunnis against 74 Shias.

To facilitate regime interests, all successive regimes after Z.A. Bhutto (1971-77) have supported the growth of Islamic militancy. These militants were to be used in struggles against inimical countries and foreign regimes such as India, (pre-Taliban) Afghanistan and Russia (Chechenya, Daghestan). After the consolidation of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, several interdependent ties have been established between militant groups based in Afghanistan and Pakistan and aimed at US interests within and outside the region. A violent demonstration of these ties was the six rocket attacks on US and UN establishments in Islamabad on November 12, 1999.

The conflict between the radical demands of Islamic fundamentalists and the state (which is not inclined to accept their core demand of enforcing orthodox Islamic rule within Pakistan) is worsening. The state crackdown on the activities of these militants and their breeding grounds, the madarsas has worsened this conflict. An ominous portent is the threats from these fundamentalist groups of a jihad against the Pakistani state itself. An instance is the warning to the military government delivered by Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the leader of the militant Islamic Dawat-wal-Irshad against any moves to curb the activities of Islamic mujahideen within or outside Pakistan. This could imply a fresh round of anti-state violence.

However, an uneasy truce does presently exists between all militant groups and the military government, as the former judge the ideological stance of the latter. Significantly, the fundamentalist Islamic group, Jamaat-i-Islami, has already begun criticising the liberal secular stance of the military government, while the MQM–Altaf has protested against the continued state persecution of its cadre. The violent factions in the Shia-Sunni conflict have also adopted a wait and watch posture for the time being. The military government is yet to seriously address the root cause of violent internal conflicts in the state, specifically the free availability of weapons and the increasing influence of fundamentalist militant religious ideologies, and the impact of Pakistan’s support to the Taliban movement in Afghanistan and to the Kashmir insurgency.

RELATED LINKS