Pakistan on a downward spiral: Dissenting note

Dr Masooda Bano

Saturday, August 02, 2008

The month that last year marked the tragic Lal Masjid operation has this year again been littered with a series of clashes between the Pakistani forces and the militants. This week alone clashes between state agencies and militant groups have been reported on most days. On Wednesday, operations in the Swat area resulted in the deaths of 25 alleged militants and five troops, while on Tuesday, two security personnel were killed and 30 Frontier Constabulary and police personnel captured by militants in the Kabal area of Swat. What is happening in these areas needs government explanation. But none is coming.

All the public gets to hear are the media reports about the reported number of deaths. Who the militants are what are their demands, and how the government identifies them is increasingly becoming more blur. This over reliance on use of military force rather than intelligence is only creating more chaos.

There is a dramatic difference between Lal Masjid resistance and the situation being witnessed nowadays. In case of Lal Masjid, it was clear who the so-called "militants" were and what their demands were. Even in case of initial resistance in Swat, there was a clear image of the target in the person of Maulana Fazlullah. This makes a great difference in understanding the causes of the resistance and its legitimacy. The problem now is that increasingly not just in the tribal belt but even in the settled areas of the NWFP these clashes involve individuals and groups who have no clear identity or demands. What is motivating these groups and who is sponsoring them is entirely unclear. In fact, in recent months these operations seem to be involving more criminal rather than militant groups. What is leading to this mixing of identities and whether such a mixing is being encouraged by external forces needs serious attention. The problem, however, is that the government does not seem to be serious in resolving the problem.

The fact that military operations are not a solution to the militancy is clear from the results of war on terror within Pakistan and globally. In Pakistan, the military operations in the tribal belts and episodes like Lal Masjid have led to increased militancy, not reduced it. Globally, the results are no different either. A recent report by RAND, a leading US think-tank, also records the ineffectiveness of the current reliance on use of military force as the prime strategy of the war on terror. The report looks at examples of cases since 1968 where militant groups have been disbanded and finds that in eighty percent of the cases, success resulted through political negotiations or use of intelligence forces. What is required urgently is for the government to develop a sense of who it is fighting. Its intelligence agencies need to be able to identify the different groups that have been involved in these clashes and their differing motives so that it can then devise relevant strategies to deal with these groups.

A group like that behind Lal Masjid, which was motivated by genuine issues like civilian deaths in military operations in the tribal belts or concern for the "missing people" can be subdued by the state by very different strategies than a criminal group at the outskirts of Peshawar which might be taking on the name of Talibans or Islamic jihad either because of being externally sponsored or as a means to secure some income. The emphasis of the government strategy has to be first of all on making a sense of who it is fighting. These random military attacks on vague targets are clearly having very dangerous repercussions.

What has to be remembered is that unchecked military operations are not a solution to militancy, rather they are the best means to mobilise genuine fighters for militant groups. As a recent mail from a reader belonging to FATA asked me to note that "one of my relatives in Hangu area of Kurram Agency came to visit me last week in Peshawar and told the story of a woman who was killed in a rocket attack. The lady was cooking meals for her four-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter and she was six months pregnant when she was hit by the shell; the shell belonged to Pakistan's armed forces. Her four-year-old son, who will grow up in a few years, will only remember that his mother was killed by Pakistani armed forces. How can we stop him from becoming a militant?" That is the question the Pakistani government has to ask itself every time it approves another military operation.

Dr Masooda Bano is a research fellow at the Oxford University. Email: mb294@ hotmail.com

Source: The News, Pakistan

URL: https://newageislam.com/war-terror/pakistan-downward-spiral-dissenting-note/d/401