The terror groups, once supported by the Pakistan establishment, have become its nemesis, compounding its myriad problems
Bhopinder Singh
In Pakistan, religion not only offers a collective identity, and sovereign rationality, but this existential underpinning also affords to flirt creatively with religion as a distinct state activity. Such a fixation with religiosity has bred an inevitable industry i.e., religious extremism or terrorism. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar refers to it as the ‘basic industry' of Pakistan. Nurtured exclusively for ‘export purposes' across the Line-of-Control (LOC), Durand Line or even the Iran-Pakistan border – it led the former Prime Minister Imran Khan (‘Taliban Khan') to concede that some 30,000 to 40,000 terrorists had trained and fought in “some part of Afghanistan or Kashmir” and were now in Pakistan. The most famous export brand from this industrial hub is the polylithic ‘Taliban' that was dutifully incubated, nurtured and thrust upon its internationalistic task.
As per Human Rights Watch, Pakistan's hand in the Taliban is, “distinguished both by the sweep of its objectives and the scale of its efforts”. Pakistani journalist and regional expert, Ahmed Rashid noted the staggering levels of Pakistani efforts, “between 1994 and 1999, an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 Pakistanis trained and fought in Afghanistan”, on the side of the Taliban! It can be argued that it was an investment that paid off well (initially) in terms of fructifying Islamabad's much-cherished dreams of ‘Strategic Depth' in Afghanistan, with the coming of the first Taliban government (1996-2001). Irrespective of the cancerous ideology and puritanism that it was breeding that was sure to spillover across the Durand Line, Pakistan kept its parleys with shadowy elements of the Taliban even during the ‘War on Terror' (when it had supposedly reneged and declared war on the Taliban). The Americans were frustrated with the Pakistani doublespeak and the short-lived joy of Pakistani brass was visible to all when Kabul fell yet again on 15th August 2021. Surreal images of Pakistani ISI chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed smiling and sipping tea with the roughshod Taliban in town amidst the ruin of Kabul declaring a nonchalant, “Don't worry, everything will be okay”, is a haunting memory. That, it was going to be anything but okay for the brand owners (read, Pakistan) or for Lt Gen Faiz Hameed himself, is a classic twist in the tail.
Hillary Clinton's much-ignored forewarning to the Pakistanis of keeping snakes in the backyard under the misplaced assumption that they would only bite the neighbours was to come true with the metastasizing of its export products i.e., terrorists, within Pakistan itself. One such offshoot of the original Pak-created Taliban was Baitullah Mehsud who created a new organisation to fight the US presence in Afghanistan, albeit, with one additional objective i.e., resistance to the Pakistani State. His outfit added a telling ‘P' to the standard nomenclature of the Taliban when it called itself Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP. Suddenly products made exclusively for export purposes went out of Pakistani control and got themselves a domestic purpose and market – Pakistan soon came under attack from its own creation.
Longtime warrior and Afghan spymaster (Head of Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security), Amrullah Saleh, who went on to become First Vice President (now self-styled ‘Acting President' in the resistance movement) has lived to tell Pakistani fate. Amrullah tweeted mockingly, “Tehrik Taliban (TT) is a Pakistani brand exclusively for export. Per military law it shouldn't be used internally. The problem is just with the P in the TTP. Should the TTP assure Rawalpindi that it is ready to fight elsewhere then within minutes the brotherhood will be restored”. Amrullah states the obvious of a rogue strain within the Pakistani brand that has become its nemesis. This is the same Amrullah who had tweeted three days before Kabul fell i.e., on 12th Aug 2021, “The official name of the Taliban for the last 20 years Has been “Quetta Shura”. Quetta is a Pakistani city & capital of Balochistan province. @sanctionPakistan”. Valiant Amrullah was only calling the bluff of the real power behind the picture of marauding Taliban, though his pleas to ‘sanction' Pakistan went obviously unheeded and it took nature to take its own Frankenstein course, to turn its back on the Pakistani narrative.
Pakistan Institute of Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) recorded Jan 2023 as the most violent month with 44 recorded terror attacks and 134 fatalities. Last month was even more chilling with 80 policemen perishing in a singular mosque attack and brazen other attacks on Police stations and outposts. Ironically, portents of a seemingly ‘Reverse Strategic Depth' are looking for the Pakistanis, with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan attacking Pakistani State with utter impunity and an undiscussed shadow of 40 million Pashtuns on the Pakistani side of the Durand Line, as opposed to just 16 million on the Afghan side, of its unrecognised Durand Line.
Today, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan's (TTP) leader is Noor Wali Mehsud (4th ‘Emir') who too was part of the original Taliban and has since redirected his ire at Pakistan. Mehsud alluded to the religious texts to contextualise and posit TTP's inextricable linkages to the principal Taliban movement, “according to the teaching of Islam, the victory of one Muslim is necessarily helpful for the other Muslim. But how the victory of the Afghan Taliban will prove helpful for the Pakistan Taliban, time will tell”. The ‘P' in the TTP is already paining unbearably for the Pakistanis.
Blurb: Hillary Clinton's much ignored forewarning to the Pakistanis of keeping snakes in the backyard under the misplaced assumption that they would only bite the neighbours, was to come true with the metastasizing of its export products
(The writer, a military veteran, is a former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. The views expressed are personal)
