The battle between the Security Forces (SFs) and Tehrik-e-Taliban
Pakistan (TTP) has intensified and is clearly widening across
Pakistan. According to official data, 1,400 ‘militants’ (no independent
verification is possible, but it is widely believed that a significant
proportion of civilian fatalities are clubbed into this category)
have been killed so far in a military offensive that commenced
on April 26, 2009, even as the conflict has led to the displacement
of more than 3.8 million people. While the operations were initially
confined to Lower Dir, Buner and Swat Districts of the NWFP, they
have gradually enveloped the rest of the Malakand Division [comprising
seven Districts of Swat, Buner, Shangla, Dir Upper, Dir Lower,
Malakand and Chitral (the last is the only District where operations
are not currently taking place)] in the Frontier and, now in some
measure during the last week, to the South Waziristan, Orakzai,
Bajaur and Mohmand Agencies in the adjoining FATA. While the SFs
have stepped up their operations, the TTP has expectedly responded
with a welter of attacks across Pakistan’s urban areas and elsewhere.
Dramatic evidence of retaliation by the TTP was most recently
visible in a suicide bombing at the five-star Pearl Continental
hotel in Peshawar, the NWFP capital, on June 9, 2009 which killed
17 people and injured 60 others. The militants stormed the compound
in two vehicles at about 10:30pm, firing at the security guards
manning the hotel gate with bullets from one, and blowing up the
other in the hotel’s parking area. "It was a suicide attack,"
Capital City Police Officer Sefwat Ghayur told AFP. Among the
wounded was the ruling Awami National Party’s Hajj, Zakat and
Ushar Minister, Haji Zarshad Khan, Senator Nabi Bangash, UN officials,
foreigners and an airline’s crew. 40 vehicles parked in the compound
were destroyed and the hotel building was partially destroyed.
Bomb Disposal Squad officials determined that at least 500 kilograms
of explosives were used in the attack, which created a 15-foot
wide and six-foot deep crater. Approximately 600 kilograms of
explosives had been used to blow up the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad
on September 20, 2008. Incidentally, both these hotels are owned
by business tycoon Sadruddin Hashwani.
Khyber Road, where the explosion occurred, is a target rich area
with the NWFP Assembly and several Government and military buildings,
including the Peshawar High Court, residences of the Corps Commander,
Inspector General of the NWFP Police, the Golf Club, and District
Courts, located there. Hotel Pearl Continental, or PC as it is
more famously known, is considered "a symbol of the modern
and liberal Peshawar" and regularly hosted dignitaries and
officials who visited Peshawar despite the chaos. This was certainly
factored in by the militants who carried out the attack. Many
foreigners, most of them associated with aid agencies, were reportedly
staying in the hotel. Two foreign UN officials, Serbian national
Aleksandar Vorkapic of the UNHCR and Perseveranda So of the Philippines
working for UNICEF, and three local officials of the United Nations
Population Fund were among those killed in the suicide bombing.
A UN official said four of the injured UN workers included Gordon
Brown and Augustine Fredrick of the World Food Programme, Adili
Motupotu of the World Health Organisation and UNICEF intern Anna
Ciger. Furthermore, citing two US officials in Washington, The
Associated Press said that the State Department had been in negotiations
with the hotel’s owners to either purchase the facility or sign
a long-term lease to house a new American consulate in Peshawar.
There was, however, no American casualty. Nevertheless, the fact
that militants could travel through such a highly protected zone
with a truck laden with 500 kilograms of explosives in times like
these is an indication of the alarming state of affairs in Pakistan.
As is the practice of late, a hitherto unknown militant group,
the Abdullah Azzam Shaheed Brigade, claimed responsibility for
the suicide attack. Its spokesman, Amir Muawiya, a Pakistani TTP
commander operating from the arms bazaar of Darra Adamkhel, telephoned
reporters in Kohat city of NWFP on June 10, claiming responsibility
and threatened more such bombings. His group, led by Commander
Tariq Afridi, is affiliated to the Baitullah Mehsud-led TTP. He
said the bombing was in retaliation to military operations, at
the behest of the US, in Swat and the rest of Malakand, and also
in the tribal areas of Darra Adamkhel and Orakzai Agency. Subsequently,
the Tehrik-i-TTP Pakistan claimed responsibility for the June
12 suicide attacks in Lahore and Nowshera and the bombing of Hotel
Pearl Continental. "We claim responsibility for these attacks,"
a man identifying himself as Saeed Hafiz and claiming to be deputy
of Hakeemullah Mehsud based in Orakzai Agency told Dawn. He said
the TTP would soon release the video of the PC attack.
After a month and half of military operations, the Pakistan Army
has claimed progress in ‘securing’ the Malakand Division and there
is considerable chatter of an offensive in Waziristan. More significantly,
the Barack Obama administration, which has constantly been nudging
Pakistan ‘to do more’, appears to be content with the present
‘progress’. A pleased US administration has agreed to triple American
non-military aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion per year. Islamabad
has evidently been able to execute what Bowyer Bell has, in a
different context, described as a ‘tactical terrorist manipulation’.
And even as US Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke has pledged an
additional $200 million for Pakistan’s displaced citizens, there
are enough indications that Pakistan will continue to ‘extend’
such qualified assistance in the ‘war on terror’ and secure substantial
approbation and economic rewards for services rendered.
Crucially, the military operations are directed against the TTP,
which has turned against Islamabad, and there is nothing to suggest
that Pakistan has corrected course and abandoned its past policy
of duplicity. It continues to consider groups like the Afghan
Taliban, the Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and other terrorist
proxies operating in Afghanistan and India, as its strategic assets.
A deeper scrutiny not only detects the limits of the present pattern
of military operations, but also the divergence between the projected
and the actual. For instance, attempts at declaring victory by
claiming that the tide was turning against TTP are undoubtedly
a deception. By the Government’s own admission, there were at
least 5,000-6,000 TTP militants in Swat alone (TTP have, of course,
claimed a higher cadre strength). Officially, only a disputable
1,400 have been accounted for (as of June 12). According to open
source monitoring by the South Asia Terrorism Portal, 2,028 militants
have died in the whole of NWFP between April 26, 2009, and June
12, in addition to 310 civilians and 184 soldiers. ‘Securing’
Swat and the rest of Malakand Division obviously remains a distant
goal, even though Islamabad’s spin doctors are peddling narratives
of a military victory in the Frontier. Little of the TTP leadership
has been neutralized. In fact, no TTP key leader has been arrested
or killed in the Swat valley so far. Maulana Fazlullah, the Swat
unit chief, and other leaders, such as the spokesman and military
commander in Mingora, Muslim Khan, Fazlullah’s deputy Shah Doran,
Ibn Amin, leader of the ‘Tora Bora Brigade’, Mehmood Khan, Akbar
Hussain, Sher Muhammad Kasab, Sirajuddin, Bakht Farzand, Mian
Gul Ghafoor, Nisar Ahmed, Laldin a.k.a. Baray Mian, Anwarullah,
Bashir Ahmed, and Rashid Ahmed are all at large. While two ‘commanders’
identified as Malanga and Riaz were reportedly killed on May 18
(TTP has neither confirmed nor denied this), the military’s claim
of killing commanders Abu Tariq and Rashid Lala is yet to be verified.
Abu Tariq (who, some reports indicate, is in fact spokesman Muslim
Khan), has since May 21, when his killing was announced, talked
to the media on several occasions. On May 21, Lala also contacted
the media to prove he was alive. Notwithstanding such controversies,
the TTP leadership has all gone underground, with some moving
into Afghanistan. While some cadres have melted into the IDP camps,
others have just trekked to the mountains or to other parts of
Pakistan, retaining their capacity to strike at will. The retaliatory
campaign in Lahore, Peshawar, Islamabad, and other parts is a
testimony to this. On its part, the Government has claimed that
the second and third rung TTP leadership has been eliminated from
Swat while the top ones, including Fazlullah, have escaped to
South Waziristan.
Central to the TTP retaliation is Peshawar, which is now relentlessly
being attacked. Two days after the PC was bombed, there were another
two attacks in the provincial capital, including one in the same
area. While a man was killed and 13 others, including nine Policemen,
sustained injuries in a hand grenade-cum-suicide attack on a Police
party in the Lateefabad area on Ring Road, two suspects were killed
and six others arrested as troops foiled a audacious terrorist
attack at the house of Peshawar Corps Commander, Lt. Gen. Masood
Aslam, commander of the operations against the TTP in NWFP, on
Khyber Road. Incidentally, the boundary wall of his residence
had collapsed due to the suicide bombing at PC. Further, on June
11, Mian Nisar Gul Kakakhel, the Minister for Prisons in NWFP,
sustained bullet injuries while two of his security guards died
when militants attacked his car in Darra Adam Khel area, some
35 kilometers from Peshawar. One of three attackers was reportedly
killed in the exchange of fire.
Since military operations were launched in NWFP on April 26, there
have been 29 terrorism-related incidents in Peshawar, including
three suicide attacks, with a total of at least 83 persons, including
51 civilians and 21 militants, killed and 236 persons wounded.
Earlier, between January 1 and April 25, there were 28 incidents
in Peshawar in which 31 persons, including 12 civilians and 11
militants, died and 52 persons were injured. Within the Frontier,
they have also targeted places like Lakki Marwat, Kohat, Buner,
Hangu, Dera Ismail Khan and Haripur.
The TTP have also attacked other urban areas, including, repeatedly,
the national capita, Islamabad and the Punjab provincial capital,
Lahore. There have been four terrorist attacks in Punjab since
April 26: the May 27th attack when suicide bombers detonated a
vehicle loaded with 100 kilograms of explosives near offices of
the Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) and the Inter-Services
Intelligence in Lahore killing at least 27 persons and injuring
326 others; the suicide attack on June 6 targeting a Rescue 15
office in capital Islamabad, in which two Policemen were killed
and four others injured; and the June 12 suicide attack in Lahore
in which seven persons were killed.
There is a wave of violence, from both sides, sweeping across
Pakistan. On June 12, prominent anti-TTP cleric Maulana Sarfaraz
Naeemi was among seven persons killed in a suicide bombing at
the Jamia Naeemia seminary in Lahore. Naeemi was among those clerics
who had issued an edict on October 14, 2008, declaring suicide
attacks against Muslims and civilians as haram (forbidden). In
another blast at around the same time, five worshippers were killed
and 105 sustained injuries when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden
van into a mosque during the Friday prayers in the Cantonment
area of Nowshera in NWFP.
There is a squeeze factor at work here. The military operations
have, in fact, led to a dispersal of violence. If the situation
worsens in the days to come, the SFs will definitely be over-extended.
For instance, while the military offensive in six out of the seven
Districts of Malakand Division continues, operations have also
been launched in adjacent areas. Inter Services Public Relations
(ISPR) has indicated that the Janikhel area in Bannu is a staging
post for militants operating in Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Kohat
and Peshawar. Official sources claimed that over 200 militants
had been killed in the four-day operation in Bannu. These figures,
like the data for the other current conflict theatres, cannot
be verified through independent sources. The ‘militant’ category
may, moreover, include a large proportion of civilians, as no
credible system of identification appears to be in place. And
even as ground troops move into Bannu, reports suggest that 500
to 600 militants are coming in from the FATA to bolster the TTP
ranks in Bannu, a clear indication that the offensive in Bannu
will also be protracted.
The controlled military operations currently underway in South
Waziristan, Orakzai Agency and Mohmand Agency are part of a strategy
that intends to tie down the militants so that they are unable
to reinforce their brethren in the Frontier. It is also aimed
at disrupting their retaliatory action in the urban areas. Sources
in Islamabad indicate that operations in Bannu are also intended
at "softening up" the TTP before the probable offensive
in Waziristan. While President Asif Ali Zardari had indicated
to The Sunday Times on May 17, that Waziristan would be the next,
it is unlikely that any full fledged operation would be launched
in the region immediately. Based on the trajectory of the operations
in NWFP, full blown operations in FATA will probably get underway
only after the whole of Malakand is secure and may perhaps as
well be coordinated with comparable US action on the other side
of the Durand Line. However, with the ongoing narrative indicating
that the Army is in for a long haul in Malakand, operations in
FATA may, consequently, be a dangerous case of the Army over-extending
itself.
The augmenting refugee problem is largely due to the indiscriminate
use of aerial force and long range weapons, including missiles
and artillery, which have flattened of villages across large tracts
of the Frontier. It is this campaign of bombardment and strafing
which has led to the exodus of more than 3.8 million IDPs. There
has been minimal ground engagement in these operations in the
Frontier, and this is reflected in the low 100-odd fatalities
among SFs – with a majority of these deaths inflicted in terrorist
attacks, and not in frontal engagement with the militants.
The IDPs will be the most affected due to the continued targeting
of cities like Peshawar. In the immediate aftermath of the attack
on PC, there will be a flight out of Peshawar by most international
relief organisations. In fact, UN agencies and foreign missions
in Peshawar have reportedly suspended their activities and evacuated
staff members to national capital Islamabad after the PC suicide
bombing. NWFP had reportedly been placed in Phase-III of the UN
security since the past several months due to the adverse conditions
and the expatriate staff had been asked to stay away from Peshawar.
In the next security phase, the UN could completely halt its operations
in the Frontier. Even otherwise, Pakistan is struggling to cope
with the swelling number of IDPs. According to scholar Ahmed Rashid,
Islamabad says that no European or Muslim Arab country has sent
any major aid. This is also a fair measure of Pakistan’s progressive
international isolation.
While military operations targeting the TTP have secured a semblance
of public support, a surge in the TTP bombing campaign could undermine
this support. The ‘collateral damage’ from indiscriminate bombing,
missile attacks and strafing across the Frontier, and the augmenting
IDP crisis have already led to immense resentment across the country.
In fact, such ‘collateral damage’ will have perilous ramifications
in the immediate future, both in terms of public support and the
fact that accounts of Islamabad bombing its own will provoke further
militant recruitment. While the Army has admitted to a little
more than 100 casualties in the campaign so far, there has been
no mention about civilian casualties. And any probable military
action in FATA, howsoever necessary it may be from the strategic
point of view, and the consequent and inevitable displacement
and severe retaliation from militants, may undo all of Islamabad’s
plans. In fact, around 90 per cent of the local tribesmen have
already left South Waziristan and are now living in settled Districts,
according to Senator Saleh Shah, who added that the Government
had failed to make arrangements for the people who have fled the
area. In fact, according to U.N. officials, the mass exodus from
the Frontier is reportedly the largest and fastest displacement
of people since the genocide in Rwanda 15 years ago.
Absent the complete neutralization of, not only of the TTP leadership
and cadres, but of the entire TTP – al Qaeda network, the IDPs
will not return to their homes or whatever is left of it. In fact,
the possibility of the TTP – al Qaeda regrouping and waging a
long-term guerilla campaign has led to President Asif Ali Zardari
announcing, during his address to the nation on June 12, that
there would be a military cantonment in Swat. He also said Pakistan
was battling for its "sovereignty," adding that it would
fight "until the end." Much is obviously at stake for
Pakistan’s survival.
