Pakistan's Internal Security Challenges: Will the Military Cope?
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Issue Brief # 230 August 2013 Innovative Research | Independent Analysis | Informed Opinion Pakistan’s Internal Security Challenges Will The Military Cope? Brig (retd) Gurmeet Kanwal Adjunct Fellow (Non-resident), CSIS The greatest challenge that the new despite the army’s counter-insurgency Pakistan government faces is on the campaign and appears capable of national security front. The inability of the breaking out of its stronghold to Pakistan army to meet internal security neighbouring areas. Only concerted army challenges effectively is a particularly operations launched with single- worrying factor. Fissiparous tendencies in mindedness of purpose can stop the TTP Balochistan and the restive Gilgit-Baltistan juggernaut. Northern Areas are a perpetual security nightmare. Karachi remains a tinderbox Over the last decade, the deteriorating that is ready to explode. The Al Qaeda has internal security environment has gradually gradually made inroads into Pakistani morphed into Pakistan’s foremost national terrorist organisations like the Lashkar-e- security threat. The Pakistan army and its Toiba (LeT), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), intelligence arm, the Inter-Services Harkat-ul-Jihad Al-Islami (HuJI), Tehreek-e- Intelligence (ISI) Directorate gained Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) and considerable experience in aiding, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), and while it is abetting and fuelling insurgencies and still far from forming an umbrella terrorism in Afghanistan during the Soviet organisation encompassing all of them, it is occupation in the 1980s and in Jammu and moving perceptibly in that direction. Kashmir (J&K) and other parts of India since 1988-89. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has consolidated its position in North Waziristan Having concentrated solely on preparing for a conventional war with India, the army had no worthwhile experience in fighting Brig Gurmeet Kanwal (Retd) is former Director, insurgencies successfully and has Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi. At expectedly failed to deliver, particularly in present, he is Adjunct Fellow, Centre for Strategic ground operations in the picturesque Swat and International Studies, Washington, D.C Valley. Views expressed are author’s own. 1 PAKISTAN’S INTERNAL SECURITY CHALLENGES 2 I insurgency operations due to Counter-insurgency Campaign: apprehensions that fighting fellow Muslims Challenges Galore would be demotivating in the long run. Many soldiers, including officers, are known As the Pakistan army’s previous operational to have refused to fight fellow Muslims. expertise lay in creating and fuelling Several cases of fratricide have been insurgencies and not in fighting them, it reported. Questions are now being raised failed to sense that it was creating a about the army’s lack of professionalism in Frankenstein monster at home by counter-insurgency operations and its encouraging fundamentalist terrorism withering internal cohesion. General abroad and failed to fight the scourge Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the COAS, was effectively for almost 10 years. Large parts asked some hard questions by junior of Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa and FATA have officers when he went around the country been under Taliban control for many years. to pacify agitated officers after the US The challenge to Pakistan’s sovereignty in Navy SEALS had taken out Osama bin Swat and Buner was addressed with brute Laden in a spectacular operation. force only after the Taliban appeared to be on a triumphant march to Islamabad. The army’s convoys have been repeatedly The insurgency in South Waziristan was ambushed; it has faced numerous terrorist tackled on a war footing after years of strikes in the shape of suicide attacks and procrastination, but the writ of the Tehrik-e- bombings; many of its personnel Taliban Pakistan (TTP) still runs in North (especially Pushtun soldiers) have deserted Waziristan. The civilian administration as they do not wish to fight fellow continues to place its trust in the false hope tribesmen; and, many soldiers have been that it can sign durable peace deals with captured by the militants in humiliating the Taliban – a tactic that has failed in the circumstances. While some of these past. soldiers were later released by the militants for a large ransom, some others were killed. The army has been facing many difficulties Soldiers are routinely overstaying leave or in conducting effective counter-insurgency going AWOL (absent without leave) and operations even though it has deployed even regular army battalions have seen more than 150,000 soldiers in the Khyber- their morale dip to worryingly low levels. Pakhtoonkhwa and FATA, and has suffered There have been some reports of soldiers over 15,700 casualties, including over 5,000 disobeying the orders issued by their dead since 2008. Total casualties including superior officers. Complicating the issue civilians number almost 50,000 since 2001. further is the fact that the army has been Casualties in Operation Al Mizan were gradually Islamised since General Zia ul particularly high. Special Forces units of the Haq’s days and the early converts to the Pakistan army, the elite SSG, are also Jihadi way of life are now coming into directly engaged in fighting the militants. positions of command. The only conclusion Sometimes the army is seen to be unwilling that can be drawn is that a once proud to conduct high-intensity counter- professional army appears to be headed inexorably downhill. The Pakistan army has been forced by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), headed for The army has been facing many difficulties in many years by the late Baitullah Mehsud, conducting effective counter-insurgency to wage a three-front "war": against the TTP operations even though it has deployed more and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) in South Waziristan; against the anti- than 150,000 soldiers in the Khyber- Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) in the sensitive Pakhtoonkhwa and FATA, and has suffered over Darra Adam Khel-Kohat area of Khyber- 15,700 casualties, including over 5,000 dead Pakhtoonkhwa and the Shia-dominated Kurram Agency of FATA; and, against the since 2008. Tehrik-e-Nifaz-Shariat-e-Mohammadi 2 2 IPCS ISSUE BRIEF # 230, AUGUST 2013 (TNSM), headed by Maulana Fazlullah, and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) in the Swat Valley of the NWFP. The TTP’s cadre base is over 20,000 tribesmen and Mehsud ... the army has been gradually Islamised since commands about 5,000 fighters. Mangal General Zia ul Haq’s days and the early converts Bagh Afridi leads Lashkar-e-Islam (LI), a to the Jihadi way of life are now coming into militant group that has refrained from joining the TTP and is independently active positions of command. The only conclusion that up to the outskirts of Peshawar. Meanwhile, can be drawn is that a once proud professional radical extremism is gaining ground in army appears to be headed inexorably downhill. Pakistan and the scourge of creeping Talibanisation has reached southern Punjab. On September 5, 2006, the Government of II Pakistan had signed a “peace accord” Military & The Taliban: Failed Peace with the tribal leaders of Waziristan (and Talks probably the Taliban as well, though the government denies this) in the North Waziristan town of Miranshah. The salient Though it has flirted with peace deals with points of this rather surprising agreement the militants, the army finds it impossible to included the following: meet the demands of the TTP and the TNSM. According to the late B. Raman, a • The Government agrees to stop air noted counter-terrorism expert, these and ground attacks against militants in include the suspension of all military Waziristan. operations in the tribal areas; the withdrawal of army posts from the FATA; • Militants are to cease cross-border the release of all tribals arrested under the movement into and out of Afghanistan. Anti-Terrorism Act; the release of Maulana Abdul Aziz Ghazi and tribal students • Foreigners (understood to mean arrested during the commando action in foreign jihadists) in North Waziristan will the Lal Masjid of Islamabad in July 2007; have to leave Pakistan but "those who and, enforcement of the Sharia in the tribal cannot leave will be allowed to live areas. peacefully, respecting the law of the land and the agreement". Stung to the quick by a series of Taliban successes in “liberating” tribal areas and • Area check-points and border under pressure from the Americans to patrols will be manned by a tribal force. deliver in the “war on terror”, in the initial Pakistan army forces will withdraw from stages the Pakistan army employed control points. massive firepower to stem the rot. Helicopter gunships and heavy artillery • No parallel administration will be were freely used to destroy suspected established in the area. The law of the terrorist hideouts. This heavy-handed Government shall remain in force. firepower-based approach without simultaneous infantry operations failed to • The Government agrees to follow dislodge the militants but caused large- local customs and traditions in resolving scale collateral damage and served to issues. alienate the tribal population even further. Major reverses led to panic reactions • Tribal leaders will ensure that no one including the hurried negotiation of attacks law enforcement personnel or “peace accords” that were invariably damages state property. broken by the militants. • Tribesmen will not carry heavy 3 3 PAKISTAN’S INTERNAL SECURITY CHALLENGES 4 weapons. Small arms are allowed. of Taliban-al Qaeda insurgency in the NWFP and FATA. The government and the • Militants will not enter agencies army were groping in the dark and hoping adjacent to this agency (the agency of that something would work out. North Waziristan). Frontier Corps • Both sides will return any captured weapons, vehicles, and communication The far less capable and less well-trained devices. and equipped Interior Ministry paramilitary force, the Frontier Corps, is being • The Government will release employed in direct fighting in the captured militants and will not arrest them Waziristan agencies.