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Submitted By EXTREMISM-TERRORISM IN THE NAME OF ISLAM IN PAKISTAN: CAUSES & COUNTERSTRATEGY Submitted by: RAZA RAHMAN KHAN QAZI PhD SCHOLAR DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS UNIVERSITY OF PESHAWAR (DECEMBER 2012) 1 EXTREMISM-TERRORISM IN THE NAME OF ISLAM IN PAKISTAN: CAUSES & COUNTERSTRATEGY Submitted BY RAZA RAHMAN KHAN QAZI PhD SCHOLAR Supervised By PROF. DR. IJAZ KHAN A dissertation submitted to the DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS UNIVERSITY OF PESHAWAR, PESHAWAR In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN International Relations December 2012 2 DECLARATION I hereby declare that this dissertation is the outcome of my individual research and it has not been submitted to any other university for the grant of a degree. Raza Rahman khan Qazi 3 APPROVAL CERTIFICATE Pakhtuns and the War on Terror: A Cultural Perspective Dissertation Presented By RAZA RAHMAN KHAN QAZI To the Department of International Relations University of Peshawar In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Ph.D. in International Relations December 2012 We, the undersigned have examined the thesis entitled “Extremism-Terrorism in the Name of Islam in Pakistan: Causes & Counterstrategy” written by Raza Rahman Khan Qazi, a Ph.D. Scholar at the Department of International Relations, University of Peshawar and do hereby approve it for the award of Ph.D. Degree. APPROVED BY: Supervisor: ___________________________________ PROF. DR. IJAZ KHAN Professor Department of International Relations University of Peshawar External Examiner: ………………………………………………. Dean: ________________________________________ PROF. DR. NAEEM-UR-REHMAN KHATTAK Faculty of Social sciences University of Peshawar Chairman: _______________________________________ PROF.DR. ADNAN SARWAR KHAN Department of International Relations University of Peshawar 4 INTRODUCTION The World in the post Cold War period and particularly since the turn of the 21st Century has been experiencing peculiar multidimensional problems that have seriously threatened human and state security. Of these problems religious extremism and terrorism specifically after the September 9, 2001 attacks in the United States (US) have profoundly endangered international peace, security and stability. The twin phenomena of extremism-terrorism have not only actually and potentially endangered international and regional security in the South Asian and Afghanistan-Pakistan region but have also imperiled the solidarity and survivability of many states. Extremism-terrorism are as old as history but their manifestations in the 21st Century particularly after the watershed events of 9/11 in the US are unique in many respects. The US blamed the 9/11 incidents on global terrorist network1—Al Qaeda—which got corroborated when the Al Qaeda founder, Osama bin Laden and other leaders accepted responsibility for the attacks. The subsequent arrest of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and other Al Qaeda leaders and their admission for carrying out the attacks, reaffirmed the group’s involvement. As the Al Qaeda leadership including Osama and Khalid Sheikh were residing in Taliban militia-ruled Afghanistan, whose territory was also used for planning the attacks, Washington demanded of Kabul to handover the Al Qaeda leadership. Mullah Omar-led Taliban refused unless the US provided solid ‘evidence’ of Al Qaeda’s involvement. In retaliation the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) spearheading an international coalition force (ISAF)2 invaded and occupied Afghanistan by overthrowing the Taliban regime. On the other hand the Taliban started a guerrilla war to liberate Afghanistan from foreign occupation but in the meanwhile Al Qaeda leadership after losing its sanctuaries in Afghanistan shifted to Pakistan. This can be gauged from the arrest of Khalid Sheikh in Rawalpindi (Rashid, 2008:225), Abu Zubaydah in Lahore on March 28, 2002 apart from many others commanders from time to time in different areas of Pakistan. In 2002 President G. Bush administration 1Al Qaeda claims to be an international Jihadist organization and many Muslims also consider the group fighting for an Islamic cause 2 The international forces had got a mandate for operation in Afghanistan. 5 claimed that out of the 2700 suspected Al Qaeda member nabbed in 60 countries 500 had been arrested in Pakistan. (Rashid, 2008:225) Pakistan’s case in the situation that emerged after the 9/11 incidents has been critically important. Pakistani strategists particularly former interior minister retired Major General Naseerullah Babar are widely-believed to have nurtured Afghan Taliban. The aim was to make Taliban Strategic Assets to attain the objectives of Islamabad’s overall Afghan policy of making Afghanistan its Strategic Backyard and to use its territory against arch-rival India. Islamabad has also been allegedly fuelling the Kashmir insurgency in India. Pakistan based so-called Islamist militant groups are believed to have been anchoring the Kashmir insurgency (1989-2009) since the outset while it also helped Kashmiri insurgent groups to launch terrorist attacks inside India. A number of Kashmiri militant groups had their training and planning camps in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and in this regard they had the support of Pakistan military-intelligence establishment. Through such a strategy Islamabad deflected the criticism from Delhi and the international community of hosting anti-India insurgents on its soil. As the international coalition forces occupied Afghanistan it meant an end to the Strategic Depth for Islamabad in Afghanistan, which it had under the Taliban. Simultaneously Pakistan apprehended that dislodging of the Taliban regime would result in the return of an anti-Pakistan government in Afghanistan. Thus it decided to clandestinely back Afghan Taliban and all those groups that had started a guerrilla war against the foreign forces. This was despite of the fact that Pakistan under General Pervez Musharraf (1999-2008) officially allied itself with the US in its Global War on Terror (GWoT) against the Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban after the 9/11 incidentss. However, while hosting and staging Afghan Taliban, Al Qaeda and their other foreign affiliates for the Afghan war theatre, Islamabad could not manage deliberately or inadvertently the coming of a large number of alien Muslim militants from across the World on its territory. Empirically Islamabad turned a blind eye to the descending of thousands of foreign militants on Pakistan to fight against the international coalition forces in Afghanistan. Otherwise for Pakistan, having the seventh largest well-trained and well–equipped militarily in the World, manning and managing its borders and mainland should not have been a difficult task. As most of these foreign militants wanted and were let to have their sanctuaries in the border regions most of them went to the 6 strategically-located Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which make most of Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. In the meanwhile Islamabad-backed Kashmiri insurgent groups could not achieved their mandated task of compelling India to the negotiating table for solving the Kashmir dispute through their militant attacks. In frustration these groups started attacking India’s mainland, which put irresistible diplomatic pressure on Pakistan. Therefore, under duress Islamabad had to shift the so-called Kashmiri Mujahideen groups to the FATA also, so that to cool down things on its border with India and to reinforce the anti-US-NATO insurgency in Afghanistan. The Jihad against the Western-dominated foreign forces in Afghanistan also attracted a large number of Pakistani youths to join the resistance. This first resulted in the emergence of disparate Pakistani Taliban groups in different parts of the FATA and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province seemingly with some help from the state agencies and afterwards in the formation of the umbrella organization of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or the Pakistani Taliban Movement in December 2007. Strangely the TTP after a few months of its emergence turned its guns at Pakistan by shunning its basic aim of fighting the international coalition forces in Afghanistan. Since 2007 the TTP has spearheaded the unprecedented wave of terrorist attacks inside Pakistan, which has so far claimed the lives of more than 40,000 Pakistanis besides inflicting financial damages of around $70 billion dollars on the country. The rise of extremist and terrorist groups operating in the name of Islam in Pakistan has not happened out of nowhere rather their emergence has a historical context. This study finds that the terrorist groups, operating in the name of Islam in Pakistan and out of the country, have had emerged largely as the result of the processes and forces of radicalization of society spanning several decades. This radicalization has largely been the consequence of official sponsorship and mass social engineering carried out by the state. It is important to note that not only the Afghan Taliban got their education and military training inside Pakistan and was helped by the country’s military-intelligence establishment to emerge as a fighting machine but also the Al Qaeda also emerged in Pakistani city of Peshawar in 1989. As Pakistan came into existence in the name of Islam because the founding fathers wanted to separate the Muslim-dominated regions from Hindu-dominated parts of the Indian subcontinent they had to make Islam as the base to justify
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