Mathematics of terror: Of the nine terror attacks until 16th October, seven targeted the army, the para-military or the police, suggesting a dramatic surge in attempts by terrorists to inflict as much damage on the security apparatus as possible, ahead of an impending military assault on terror outfits in the rugged and lawless region South Waziristan near the Afghan border. “These attacks underscore a new strategy by terrorists nestled in areas between South Waziristan and southern Punjab (central Pakistan) and require the government to urgently calibrate its counter-terror policy,” opined Tasneem Noorani, a former top bureaucrat of the ministry of interior. Like many others, Noorani, too agrees that Pakistan is now dealing with living bombs – youngsters who are extremely motivated and excessively brainwashed to the extent that they are ready to kill and die.
Militants’ methodology: Militants have also begun tricking security forces by disguising themselves and their vehicles in army fatigues, with their vehicles carrying official vehicle number plates and stickers, making it difficult for the forces to instantly identify and neutralize them. The other upsetting element is the surprise commando raids of the targets; the assault on the GHQ bore similarities to the terror strike on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore on March 3 and the attack on the Police Training School at Manawan, Lahore later that month this year. The three attacks on police buildings on Oct.15th in Lahore resembled the ones carried out at GHQ and earlier this year in Lahore, underscoring the growing nexus between militants based in Waziristan and central Pakistan regions of southern Punjab, which had been a hotbed of sectarian terrorism since the early 1980s. Most people refer to this terror network as the Punjabi Taliban.
Terror shaking Pakistan: In the terror-stricken Pakistan, October 15th broke the record for the number of attacks in a day; three dare-devil commando raids on police facilities in Lahore, the country’s second largest city, and one in Kohat, near Peshawar, where a car suicide bombing on a Criminal Investigation Department (CID) building killed about a dozen a day later. This meant terrorists struck seven times against the security establishment since Oct 10, when in the most brazen attempt yet, ten militants staged an audacious attack on the Pakistan army General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi, the garrison town south of Islamabad. Awe-struck Pakistanis and the world watched helplessly as army commandos eventually freed 39 hostages from the basement of the GHQ after about 20 tension-packed hours. The entire operation cost 23 lives – about a dozen army personnel, three hostages and eight terrorists.
On October 5, five UN World Food Program lost their lives when a suicide bomber dressed in military uniform walked into their office in Islamabad and blew himself up. More than 52 suicide bombers have also rocked various cities sofar this year, killing more than five hundred people – half of them members of security forces.
Intra-Taliban’s cooperation: The claim for responsibility by the Punjabi Amjad Farooqi group also supports the nexus between the Pashtoon and Punjabi militants. Farooqi had belonged to the Jaishe Mohammad terror group and was killed in a 2004 shootout with the Pakistani security forces. The GHQ attack bore unmistakable signatures of the kind of Fidayeen Attacks that the anti India Lashkare Taiba terror group had unleashed in 1998; it involved ready-to-kill disguised zealots charging military garrisons, sensitive installations and para-military security targets. They simply surprise the target through their surprise unfolding of weapons and use of hand-grenades. The LeT staged scores of such attacks in Kashmir as well as in New Delhi– the siege of the Parliament and those in Mumbai on November 26, 2008.
Evolution of the Punjabi Taliban: The journey began with the Saudi funding for the Sipahe Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) in Jhang, southern Punjab , to counter the Iranian Revolution’s expansion to neighbouring countries in the early 1980s. It suited the then dictator Ziaul Haq and also the American establishment, which found in parties such as SSP ready volunteers to fight the Russians. The Iranian response to SSP was the Tehreeke Jafria Pakistan and then the Sipahe Mohammad – the militant arm of the TJP. The SSP response to this emerged in the form of Lashkare Jhangvi, which again provided a lot of leadership for Jaishe Mohammad. The fact that Punjabi Taliban a re scattered all over FATA, attached either with the TTP or other outfits also explains the ideological nexus that exists between groups based in and outside FATA.
Musharraf’s ban did not help: Soon after former president Pervez Musharraf proscribed most of the sectarian organizations including the Jaish-e-Muhammad, Sipahe Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Sipahe Mohammad (SM), Lashkar-e- Taiba (LeT) and Harkatul Mujahideen (HM) in a nationally televised speech on 12 January 2002, most of these groups had shifted their assets to FATA. A number of these Punjabi outfits, except for the shia Sipahe Mohammad, had their roots in the anti-Soviet Russian jihad, and had moved to Kashmir after the February 1989 Russian pullout from Afghanistan. But their contacts with the mujahideen-turned Taliban remained in tact through the training camps that the Jaish-e-Muhammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harktul Mujahideen were running in Afghanistan.
Once the international coalition against terrorism swept the Taliban from power in December 2001, followed by the ban that General Musharraf slapped on the militant organizations, most of their leadership and hard-core activists gradually sought sanctuary in FATA, where they created alliances with various pro-Al Qaeda Taliban outfits. Most of the Punjabi Taliban are associated with groups like Harkatul Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Sipahe Sahaba Pakistan, and Al Badar – all focused on the Kashmir militancy until recently. Scores of activists and fighters of these Pakistani jihadi organizations were based in Afghanistan when the anti-terror war began. They also suffered huge human losses, losing important commanders and hundreds of warriors to the US bombing. Harkatul Jihad-e-Islami lost as many as 340, Harkatul Mujahideen lost 79, Jaish-e-Muhammad 36 and Lashkare--Jhangvi 27 militants in the coalition attacks.
Militants from Pakistan in Guantanamo: As many as two-thirds of the 450 prisoners at the notorious Guantanamo Bay Camp X-Ray were from Pakistan, all of them captured inside Afghanistan, among them about 14 of Harkatul Mujahideen, 7 of Jaish-e-Muhammad and 11 of Harkatul Jihad, which underscored the presence of hard-core Punjabi jihadis within the militant ranks—both Taliban and Al Qaeda. Punjabi militants also filled and supplemented the ranks of Kashmiri militants, who have been battling the Indian forces since 1989 for what they call ‘independence from India.’ The state of Pakistan now faces an al Qaeda-inspired militant challenge – from South Waziristan to South Punjab. Involvement of external factors, intent on destabilizing Pakistan, is almost certain.
Foreign/hidden hand? Most intelligence officials believe that some of the militant outfits are being used by external forces who want to soften up Pakistan army establishment. Some suggest that the US, India and Afghanistan, for example, still consider Pak army as a source of support for militant groups operating in the region. That is why the US congress added so many conditions in the Kerry Lugar Aid bill for Pakistan, they insist. But how these factors influence and motivate religiously-driven zealots – ready to kill and die – remains a great mystery. What is clear, however, is that the Godzillas – born out of the womb of the Iran-Saudi-Arabian proxy war, and the US-sponsored anti- Soviet Union jihad are now unraveling against their erstwhile supporter.
Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer, my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental. Any resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. The question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold them is left as an exercise for the reader. The question of the existence of the reader is left as an exercise for the second god coefficient. (A discussion of non-orthogonal, non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope of this email.)
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