Current Scenario
Under the Executive Order 13224 the United States on Sept 1s, 2010 formally designated the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan as a foreign terrorist. Daniel Benjamin, the Ambassador-at-Large for Counterterrorism formally announced it at a press briefing, thereby making the TTP the latest addition to a list of 47 such banned organizations.[1]
Benajamin said that by implication both Hakimullah Mehsud and Wali Ur Rehman also stand designated as terrorists. ‘The TTP and Al-Qaida have a symbiotic relationship. TTP draws ideological guidance from Al-Qaida while Al-Qaida relies on the TTP for safe haven in the Pashtun areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border.’ This mutual cooperation gives TTP access to both Al-Qaida global terrorist network and the operational experience of its members. Given the proximity of the two groups and the nature of their relationship, TTP is a force multiplier for Al-Qaida,’ Benajamin explained.
This move reinforced two things: First, several Islamist militant organizations, inspired by al Qaeda, have emerged not only in Pakistan and Afghanistan but also enjoy close nexus with like-minded outfits elsewhere.
The other dimension, which is equally worrying, is the shifting of the battle between Al Qaeda and the US-led western world. This battle of ideologies and cultures is rooted in the Afghan war against the Soviet Union. This war of course turned out to be a watershed and provided a new platform to militant Islamist groups from all over the Muslim world.
American / Pakistani Role
It is quite an irony that the American CIA which played a major role in bringing the Muslim fighters from across the world to get them trained by the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency against the Soviet Union, is currently pitched against the first and second generation of Jihadis which the Pakistani and American security establishments themselves had fostered.
It primarily America versus Al Qaeda. It is also the Pakistan army versus Afghan and Pakistani Al Qaeda auxiliaries battling it out in the plains and mountains of both countries.
Saudi Arabian Role in Development of Transnational Networks
The royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia contributed to the spawning of Wahabite-Salafi groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan in its own way; it not only matched America dollar for a dollar during the jihad against the Soviet Russians but also funded creation of new mosques and seminaries. The Saudis also created their own proxies ´ Sipaha Sahaba Pakistan, Lashkare Jhangvi and several others ´ to counter what they perceived as the Shia advances in Sunni regions.[2]
The Pakistani ISI had its own axe to grind ´ craving for the so-called strategic depth in Afghanistan. It saw in Taliban a force-multiplier for itself, a force it thought should be able to counter Russian, Indian and Iranian influence. This way various militant groups emerged, guided and influenced by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, both nurturing their favorite outfits. Most of these organizations derived impressions from Al-Qaida, and Osama Bin Laden was revered as the hero of the Muslims across the world, somebody who had dared the sole super power i.e. the United States and its prot├âŒg├⌠Israel.
What has been the consequence: the consequence of this anti-Moscow jihad is the creation of al Qaeda, and the graduation of many Afghan and Pakistani organizations into trans-nationalist movements ´ that stretch from Asia to Africa, from Asia to Europe and across the Atlantic Ocean, in the Americas.
The US-led anti-terror war in Afghanistan (Oct 2001) and the invasion of Iraq provided yet ever greater impetus to trans-nationalist movements such as al Qaeda to raise cadre for an organized resistance to the ‘US-led western imperialism.’
As a consequence, a synergy or fusion of interests and similarity of causes has emerged between the traditionalist clergy and the radical reformists ´ largely led and influenced by al Qaeda and supported by the Muslim Brotherhood Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri – in South and Southwest Asia, a sort of synthesis between Islamist militants and traditional mullas, who earlier prospered under the American largess, and now serve as direct supporters or apologists ´ indirect supporters ´ for the pan-Islamist missionaries.
This mission, basically the al Qaeda ideology, also resonated in a video statement by the Egyptian Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri which he issued in the context of the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict in summer 2006, Aneela Salman wrote:
¿The whole world is an open field for us. As they attack us everywhere, we will attack them everywhere. As their armies got together to wage war on us, our nation will get together to fight them….The shells and missiles that tear apart the bodies of Muslims in Gaza and Lebanon are not purely Israeli. Rather; they come and are financed by all countries of the Crusader alliance. Thus, all those who took part in the crime should pay the price. We cannot just stand idly by in humiliation while we see all these shells fall on our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon–.[3]
It is this messaging that seems to have galavanise various Pakistani and Afghan outfits, those who believe in, and work for, a militant brand of Pan-Islamism
a) Al-Qaeda
b) Muslim Brotherhood
c) Hezbul Tehrir
d) IMU
e) Tableeghi Jamaat
f) Lashkare Taiba
g) Jamaate Islami
h) TTP
Conclusion[4]:
Viewed against this backdrop, it is quite clear that Pakistan has a long struggle at hand. The omnipresence of apologists for transnationalist organizations inspired by Al Qaeda, as well as ambivalence within some state institutions about some of the groups operating in the border regions represents a formidable challenge. The real challenge, in addition to disruption of their activities, lies in penetrating the command structures of terror networks to figure out their links with sponsors and financiers. Where the guidance and money coming from is, is the main question simply because what Pakistan is witnessing today cannot be explained away just as ‘acts of terror by religiously motivated groups.’ It is a war of attrition through groups which are delivering cuts into the body of the country with the clear objective of creating instability and denting its economy.
Pakistan is currently pitched against a multitude of domestic and external vested interest, a combination of religious zeal, political ideology, and external drivers who may be using local militant groups or their splinters to keep Pakistan destabilized. It is for the mighty intelligence establishment to figure out. If it cannot, the collusion of ideologically driven outfits, criminal gangs and external forces ´ the al Qaeda force multipliers – will keep bleeding this country. It is primarily an intelligence challenge, coupled with the daunting task of improving governance and delivering quick and inexpensive justice to the common man.[5]
This clearly means Pakistan has to deal not only with al Qaeda, its foreign extension the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan but also with the increasingly lethal LeJ-TTP combination, with most of them housed in the Paktia-Khowst region as well as the mountains of Waziristan, Kurram and Khyber.
Among them are people from all over Chechnya, Germany, Somalia, the United States, Europe, Chinese Uighurs, Uzbeks. Not only do they share the al Qaeda ideology but also supplement each other wherever needed. The deadly attacks on the Parade Lane Mosque (Dec 4, 2009), the siege of the GHQ (Oct 10), the raid on the Mananwan Police Academy (October 2009), the strike on the Ahmedi Mosque in Lahore (May 28th, 2010), are all but a few examples of how the transnationalist organizations, influenced by Al Qaeda, are increasingly networked in their attack on the interests of the United States as well as on all those aligned with the US and NATO.
Chickens have come home to roost. OBL, Zawahiri, Haqqanis,Hekmetyar, Mulla Omar, Ilyas Kashmiri ´ they all have spread their tentacles like small godzillas, terrorizing and eliminating all those who believe in democracy and liberal Islam. All those affected by this clash of ideas and beliefs must join hands to eradicate and neutralize the godzillas that are killing innocent men and women. Taking on this transnationalist complex is an uphill task and requires a very calculated, concerted but determined collaboration among all the nations.
(Read at The Regional Conference on AfPak (Nov 12-13, Islamabad ) by Institute of Strategic Studies and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Germany.)
[1] (US government official website, September 2010)
[2] (Imtiaz Gul, The Most Dangerous Place; Pakistan Lawless Frontier, Penguin, June 2010)
[3] BBC 2006: quoted by Snow and Byrd 2007: p 8).
[4] Several articles by the author in the Foreign Policy Magazine and its AfPak Channel also served as the primary source.
[5] (Gul, Imtiaz in Foreign Policy Magazine, June 10, 2010)