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Pakistan Assessment 2006

Large tracts of Pakistan are now clearly conflict-afflicted with a wide array of anti-state actors and terrorists engaging in varying degrees of violence and subversion. A cursory look at the map indicates that the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan are witnessing large-scale violence and subversion. Violence in parts of the Sindh, Punjab and North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has also brought these provinces under the security scanner. Islamabad’s writ is currently being challenged vigorously – violently or otherwise – in wide geographical areas, and on a multiplicity of issues.

Crucially, where 648 persons (including 430 civilians and 137 terrorists) were killed in insurgent and terrorist conflicts through year 2005, by September 17, year 2006 had already recorded 1219 deaths (including 505 civilians and 443 terrorists). Given Islamabad's understated accounts, the suppression of the Press and erratic reportage, the actual numbers could be considerably higher.


Year 2006

0
Civilians
Security Force Personnel
Terrorist
Total
January
114 29 22 165
February
88 16 2 106
March
91 19 221 331
April
96 144 53 193
May
43 39 5 87
June
26 29 47 102
July
12 52 49 113
August
22 43 64 109
September
13 0 0 13
Total
505 271 443 1219
* Data till September 17, 2006
Source: Institute for Conflict Management database.

 

Fatalities of Terrorist Violence – 2005

0
Civilians
Security Force Personnel
Terrorist
Total
January
30 7 2 39
February
11 0 6 17
March
77 15 3 95
April
6 2 2 10
May
63 5 2 70
June
8 1 0 9
July
29 2 43 74
August
14 10 1 25
September
32 17 40 89
October
27 15 16 58
November
13 0 12 25
December
120 7 10 137
Total
430 81 137 648

Source: Institute for Conflict Management database.

The Balochistan province – accounting for approximately 44 per cent of Pakistan’s landmass – is now afflicted by an encompassing insurgency, as are most parts of North and South Waziristan in FATA – another three per cent of the country’s total landmass. Gilgit-Baltistan has long been simmering, and it is only the repeated cycles of repression and state-backed Sunni violence that have kept the restive population in rein in a region that accounts for another eight per cent of the country. 55 per cent of Pakistan-controlled territory, including Pakistan-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan, is, consequently, outside the realm of civil governance and is currently dominated essentially through military force. Further, sporadic acts of terrorist violence have been recurrent in parts of the NWFP, Punjab and Sindh, even as these emerge as safe-havens for a broad assortment of Jihadi and other anti-state actors.

The killing of tribal chief Nawab Akbar Bugti at Bhamboor Hills in the Dera Bugti district of Balochistan province on August 26, 2006, by the Pakistani security forces and the resultant violence across Balochistan and in some areas of Sindh province have exacerbated the military regime’s problem. If Islamabad’s repression does not succeed in Balochistan, Bugti’s death will mark the beginnings of a greater consolidation of nationalist forces and a shift in tactics, from conventional guerrilla warfare – which is much more susceptible to detection and neutralization – to more decentralized and subversive means, including the targeting of infrastructure and assets outside Balochistan, and in urban concentrations, as well as an effort to bring in other groups, such as the Sindhis, the Seraikis, the Pashtun, and other disaffected political formations, into a broader insurgency. There is a danger, moreover, that the secular-nationalist Baloch movement may also see the influence of radical Islamist parties such as the MMA, which have, till now, remained restricted to the Pashtun areas of the North, growing in the Baloch areas of South Balochistan.

Notably, violence and the accompanying retreat of civil governance has occurred amidst the fact that Pakistan has committed approximately 80,000 troops in the FATA and 123,000 in Balochistan, with support from helicopter gun-ships, artillery and the Air Force. The writ of the state is increasingly fragile in these regions, with recurrent violence undermining official claims that the situation is ‘under control’. Despite the ‘intense’ Army operations in FATA, sources indicate that frontline Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives still maintain a significant presence in the region adding to problems of the already-challenged US Coalition forces in neighbouring Afghanistan. Although the military regime has been claiming that most foreign terrorists have been evicted, there is mounting evidence that the Jihadi presence in FATA is strengthening, that Islamist extremists are regularly confronting the Pakistani state, and that they, in fact, control a substantial area in North Waziristan, and widening areas in South Waziristan, to an extent as to make a permanent military presence impossible.

That the local Taliban had gained immense influence in the FATA was officially acknowledged when the military regime entered into an agreement with them on September 5, 2006. The three-page agreement was signed by seven militants on behalf of the Taliban shura (advisory council) and by the Political Agent of North Waziristan, Dr. Fakhr-i-Alam, who signed on behalf of the Government. The agreement, mediated by a tribal Jirga (council), contains 16 clauses and four sub-clauses. Salient features include:

  • There shall be no cross-border movement for militant activity in Afghanistan. On its part, the Government pledged not to undertake any ground or air operations against the militants and to resolve issues through local customs and traditions.

  • The agreement will come into force with the relocation of the Army from checkpoints in the region. The Khasadar force (a local tribal force) and Levy personnel will take over the check-posts.

  • Foreigners living in North Waziristan will have to leave Pakistan, but those who cannot leave will be allowed to live peacefully, respecting the law of the land and the agreement.

  • Both parties will return each other’s weapons, vehicles and communication equipment seized during various operations.

  • Tribal elders, Mujahideen and the Utmanzai tribe would ensure that no-one attacked security force personnel and state property.

  • There will be no target killing and no parallel administration in the agency.

  • Militants would not enter the settled districts adjacent to North Waziristan.

  • Government would release prisoners held in military operations and would not arrest them again.

  • Tribesmen’s ‘incentives’ would be restored. The administration is to resolve disputes in accordance with local customs and traditions.

  • Government would pay compensation for the loss of life and property of innocent tribesmen during recent operations.

  • There is no ban on display of arms. However, tribesmen will not carry heavy weapons.

  • A 10-member committee – comprising elders, members of political administration and ulema (religious scholars) – is to monitor progress of the accord and ensure its implementation.

Islamabad has followed a strange mixture of carrot and stick in its strategy for FATA. Large-scale military operations, including targeted killings and strafing of population centres, have been a recurrent feature in the region over the past three years. On the other hand, the military regime has also sought to procure the allegiance of local leaders by doling out large sums of monies. Rising civilian fatalities have, in fact, deepened public alienation, and increased the likelihood that the disorder and instability gradually consume areas that are currently peaceful. Islamabad’s attempts to restore order in Waziristan have, according to one estimate, led to 300 civilians and 250 troops being killed and about 1,400 persons wounded in 2005. According to open source information monitored by the South Asia Terrorism Portal, during January 1, 2005-August 31, 2006, 846 people, including 181 civilians and 176 soldiers, were killed. Once again, given the constraints on information flows from the region, these numbers may well be significant underestimates.

Sources indicate that the Taliban-led Islamist extremists are now in control of parts of the FATA bordering Afghanistan. The Dand-i-Darpa Khail region in North Waziristan, near the main town of Miranshah, is the focal point for Islamist extremists in Afghanistan, including former Taliban ‘commander’ Jalaluddin Haqqani, and his son Sirajuddin Haqqani. Maulana Abdul Khaliq, chief of the Gulshan-e-Ilm seminary in Miranshah, was declared the ‘mastermind’ of the March 2, 2006- incident in which the local Taliban occupied Government buildings, including a telephone exchange, in Miranshah. Sikander Qayyum, the Peshawar-based security chief for the tribal zones, told AFP on March 18, 2006 that the extremists had killed at least 120 pro-government tribal chiefs in recent months, even as the heads of sundry decapitated ‘enemies of Islam’ are flaunted on flagpoles in many areas. Federal Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Sherpao admitted on March 11, 2006, that ‘miscreants’ were trying to wrest control of Government buildings and challenging the writ of the state in the region. He also warned of a spillover from tribal areas to settled areas while referring to two explosions in Dera Ismail Khan and three in Tank districts.

In a parallel and troubling development, there have been indications that the administration is under intense pressure from the Taliban to introduce Sharia (Islamic law) in Waziristan. In fact, clerics announced the enforcement of Sharia in South Waziristan on March 10, 2006 saying that disputes would now be resolved through Islamic laws instead of the tribal Jirga. An announcement to this effect was reportedly made during Friday prayer sermons in Wana and other towns of South Waziristan. The announcement came following letters from local Taliban commanders to all prayer leaders asking them to enforce the Sharia.

Comparable conditions of collapse prevail in Balochistan, where all 22 districts are reeling either under a sub-nationalist tribal insurgency or, separately, Islamist extremism. A crucial pivot of the insurgency in the Balochistan province, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, was killed along with 38 insurgents during a military operation in the Chalgri area of Bhamboor Hills in Dera Bugti District on August 26, 2006. At least 21 SF personnel, including a Colonel, two Majors and three Captains, were also killed in the intense clashes. The 79 year-old Nawab Bugti, leader of the dominant Bugti tribe and a former Chief Minister of Balochistan, went underground in 2005, and was since directing the armed insurgency, which has claimed more than 700 lives in 2005-06.

A small measure of the intensity of the Baloch insurgency is visible in the fact that approximately 1,500 rockets were fired in 40 attacks in January-February 2006 alone. According to official estimates, in the past two years, saboteurs have staged nearly 27,000 rocket attacks aimed at military personnel and outposts, Government installations and foreign nationals in Balochistan, the Karachi-based Newsline reported in its September 2006 issue. Attacks on critical installations have also led to power and gas shortages in the Punjab, the province whose domination over Baloch resources fuels the insurgency. The Pakistan Railways has reportedly stopped operating passenger trains at night all over Balochistan. Railways Minister of State Ishaq Khan Khakwani clarified to the Senate that night journeys were ‘not safe’ because of terrorist activities in the province, adding further that even at daytime, pilot engines were being operated on tracks to pre-empt terrorist activity. The state now engages 123,000 military and paramilitary personnel in the ongoing operations in the province, expending Rupees Six billion a month, according to Senator Sanaullah Baloch. Some 600 check posts have been set up in Balochistan in an effort to contain the movement of insurgents. Structural and constitutional biases prevailing against the provinces feed popular anger and the insurgencies, and militate against any possible solution, particularly given Islamabad’s track record of intransigence. Adding to the Baloch insurgency are the Pashtun Islamist extremists concentrated in and around Quetta, tied closely to the Taliban, and engaged in a campaign of terror on both sides of the Afghan border in their areas of domination. Most of the violence in Balochistan is, however, 'nationalist' and there is no co-operation between Islamist terrorists in pockets in the North and the Baloch insurgents. There is, moreover, little love lost between the mullahs and the Sardars (Baloch tribal Chieftans).

FATA, NWFP, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan are areas of long-term neglect and of recurrent insurrections. However, the Pakistani ‘heartland’, Sindh and Punjab – particularly the politically and militarily dominant Punjab province – are now also passing progressively into the ambit of violence by anti-state actors. There were as many as 34 terrorist incidents in Punjab in 2005, and another eight in 2006 (till July); Sindh witnessed 50 incidents in 2005. Among the significant incidents in 2006 was the suicide car bomb attack near the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, in which American diplomat David Fyfe and two others were killed, and 54 persons injured, on March 2, a day before President George W. Bush visited Pakistan.

Pakistani insecurities on the Afghan front are directly related to the contested nature of the Durand Line. Most Afghans (and Pashtuns) believe that the Durand Line should rightly have been drawn much further South, at Attock, and this is what the Afghans will inevitably press for when their country is strong enough. Within this context, it is useful to note that, south of the Durand Line, in what are currently the Pakistani NWFP and FATA, land records, police, legal and administrative records still refer to the people as 'Afghan'.

The Taliban, as has been documented extensively, exists on both sides of the border. While they have obviously been weakened, they retain substantial subversive capacities. With Islamabad’s strategy to quieten the chaotic Waziristan region along the Afghan border having failed, the mountainous terrain along the Durand Line provides a secure pathway and safe hideout for the Taliban and Al Qaeda. On February 17, 2006, Afghan television channel Tolo broadcast video recordings of men beheaded in Pakistan because they opposed the presence of Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists there. The macabre images showed the heads of three men being held up in front of a crowd, which chanted "Long live Osama bin Laden" and "Long live Mullah Omar." "The footage... shows half a dozen dead bodies being dragged by a vehicle through the streets of Mandrakhel [in Waziristan] – while a uniformed Pakistani military officer drives past without interfering," Tolo stated.

Afghan officials have consistently asserted that Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives are coming in from Pakistan, where they are reportedly based in areas of the NWFP, FATA, and also from Balochistan. Afghanistan has given Pakistan detailed information about members of the Taliban who, Kabul says, are orchestrating an insurgency from Pakistani soil. On February 18, 2006 President Hamid Karzai told a news conference at Kabul, "We gave our brothers a lot of information, very detailed information about individuals, locations and other issues", referring to the intelligence handed over to the Pakistani authorities. Karzai, according to noted Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, handed over extensive intelligence dossiers to Musharraf, containing details of how suicide bombers who attack targets in Afghanistan are being recruited, trained and equipped in Pakistan. The dossiers reportedly include the names and addresses of Pakistani recruiters, trainers and suppliers. “In places like Karachi, Pakistani extremist groups working on behalf of the Taliban for a fee carry out the recruitment and then bring them to safe houses in Balochistan for training and equipping with the (suicide) vests,” said a senior Afghan official who accompanied Karzai. The official said that all top Taliban ‘commanders’, including Mullah Mohammed Omar, are known to be living in Pakistan and the issue had been repeatedly raised with Pakistan.

Taliban have regrouped rather well along the Afghan countryside, particularly in provinces along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Unsurprisingly, violence is significant near the Pakistan border. The subversion that targets Afghan provinces close to Pakistan, like Paktika, is a reality despite the fact that Islamabad has deployed approximately 80,000 troops on their side of the border. The burden of evidence suggests that the Taliban/Al Qaeda have in fact been provided space by the military to operate in the Pakistani areas along the border. Notably, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, an Islamist alliance with close links to the Taliban, governs Balochistan and the NWFP.

Assisting the Pakistani and Taliban strategy is the regrettable reality that the Karzai regime has little control over southern and eastern Afghanistan. The end-game that Islamabad seeks to achieve, while reframing its quest for 'strategic depth', is to prevent the Kabul regime from stabilizing without a pre-dominant Pakistani role. Anything contrary to this would mean an increase in the dissent on the Durand Line, and a further destabilization of North Balochistan, the NWFP and FATA.

A look at the current security and socio-political matrix of the region suggests that the state has suffered a significant retreat. Islamist extremist forces, evidently, provide a semblance of what is denied by the legitimate state structure. There has been a stream of reports indicating that clerics were replacing chieftains in all committees in South Waziristan. The Taliban has reportedly opened recruiting offices in the Wana, Makeen and Barwend areas of South Waziristan. The state’s retreat has also meant that the Taliban now also assumes a role in the political administration in certain areas of Waziristan.

The social sphere has for long been the focus of radical Islam in Pakistan. The Taliban was a state of mind even before it became a regime in Afghanistan. In a mirrored evolution, moral policing and social edicts are now an accepted reality in Waziristan: shopkeepers are debarred from trading in music or films in any manner, barbers have been ordered not to shave beards, and women have been told not to go to the market or other public places.

Taliban-linked operatives have reportedly opened offices and set up check-posts at the main marketplace in Wana, collecting toll from vehicles. They have also set up a court to conduct summary trials. Bringing back memories of the gruesome Taliban executions in Afghanistan, a man ‘convicted’ of killing his son was shot dead in front of a crowd of 150 people in late March 2006. Earlier in December 2005, at least seven alleged bandits at Miranshah in North Waziristan were killed and their mutilated corpses hung from an electric pole. A DVD of the macabre incident was widely circulated subsequently. The state, meanwhile, preferred to overlook these incidents and did nothing to stop these public executions. Nor has anything been done to encumber the movement of the ‘local Taliban’ who continue to consolidate their presence, encouraged by the state’s inaction.

Despite occasional successes, Pakistani troops, with a fair measure of assistance from the U.S. military across the border in Afghanistan, have largely been unable to move out of their fortified positions to carry out area domination exercises, with the result that a large expanse of territory continues to remain under the influence of the Taliban-backed terrorists.

On December 17, 2005, the Pakistani Army and paramilitary launched an operation against the Baloch insurgents in the Kohlu, Dera Bugti, Noshki and Makran Districts, as well as other parts of the Balochistan province. The subsequent and escalating violence, including the indiscriminate bombing and strafing of civilian populations, and repeated and widespread clashes with suspected Baloch insurgents and dissenting tribesmen has led many to describe this as the 'fourth rebellion' in the Province since the creation of Pakistan.

The province is of critical importance to Pakistan, both strategically and otherwise. There are four major cantonments, 59 'mini cantonments', six missile testing ranges and three nuclear testing sites in Balochistan. Pakistan Air Force has six bases and the Navy another three in the troubled province, which is dotted with over 600 military check posts. Baloch nationalists describe the entire province as a 'mega-cantonment'.

Contrary to General Musharraf's position that only three of the 78 tribal chiefs in the province were "troublemakers", the truth is that insurgent attacks have left no part of the province unaffected. There has also been a continuous series of bomb and rocket attacks on gas pipelines, railway tracks, power transmission lines, bridges, and communications infrastructure, as well as on military establishments and governmental facilities and enterprises since the beginning of 2005.

Official data indicated that 187 bomb blasts, 275 rocket attacks, eight attacks on gas pipelines, 36 attacks on electricity transmission lines and 19 explosions on railway lines occurred in the year 2005. According to open source information monitored by the South Asia Terrorism Portal, at least 182 civilians and 26 security force personnel died in the Province during 2005. However, given Islamabad's understated accounts, the suppression of the Press and erratic reportage from this poorly covered region, the actual numbers could be much higher.

It is useful to recall in this context that a report of the Balochistan Inspector General of Police in January 2005 had indicated that in 2002 a total of 7 cases of rocket firing were reported in A areas in which only two persons were injured, while in the B areas 13 cases of rockets firing were reported in which two persons were killed and 12 injured. In 2003, 43 rockets were fired in A areas in which 4 persons were killed and 8 injured and in B areas, 58 rockets were fired in which three persons were killed and four injured. In 2004, 117 cases of rocket attacks were reported in A areas, in which two persons were injured. In B areas however, 553 cases of rocket attacks were reported killing four and injuring 17 people.

The year 2005 saw a marked decrease in the fatality index of sectarian violence. Approximately 160 persons were killed and 354 others injured in 62 incidents of sectarian violence in 2005 as compared to 187 persons killed in 19 incidents during the year 2004. Among the major incidents of sectarian violence in 2005 were:

October 7, 2005: Eight persons are killed and 19 others were injured when unidentified assailants opened fire in an Ahmadiyya place of worship at Mong village near Mandi Bahauddin in the Punjab province.

May 30, 2005: Six people, including two of the three assailants, among them a suicide bomber, are killed and 19 persons sustain injuries during an explosion in the courtyard of a Shia mosque at Gulshan-e-Iqbal in Karachi.

May 27, 2005: At least 25 people, including a suspected suicide bomber, are killed and approximately 100 others sustain injuries during a powerful explosion at the Bari Imam shrine of the Shia sect located in vicinity of the diplomatic enclave in capital Islamabad.

March 19, 2005: At least 50 people are killed and over 100 others sustain injuries during a bomb explosion at a crowded gathering near the shrine of a Shia saint at Fatehpur village in the Jhal Magsi district of Balochistan province.

January 8, 2005: At least 15 people are killed, including six members of a family who were burnt alive, and 14 were injured during sectarian clashes at Gilgit in the Northern Areas of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) where a curfew was imposed and troops deployed to restore law and order.

More than six years of General Musharraf’s authoritarian rule have pushed peripheral movements of political dissent into full-blown insurgencies, and the widening trajectory of violence demonstrates that the military regime is failing to shape an appropriate strategy of response in the face of multiple insurgencies and a rising trend of terrorist attacks across the country. Past experience in South Asia has, moreover, shown that the recovery of geographical spaces, once anti-state violence escalates beyond threshold levels, is extraordinarily difficult. The preceding and extended narrative is a clear indication that Gen. Musharraf has opened far too many fronts, his security forces are overstretched, and there has been a comprehensive and augmenting failure to contain the widening insurgencies, sectarian strife and Islamist terrorist violence that now envelope large swathes of the country.

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