Post-Elections Theatre of Terror in Pakistan

Zoha Waseem

Post-elec­tions, Pak­istan has offered lit­tle respite from ter­ror­ist vio­lence and mil­i­tan­cy with­in the coun­try as is evi­dent from the on-going spate of attacks in the sum­mer of 2013. Trends can eas­i­ly be not­ed in ter­ror­ist activ­i­ty in com­par­i­son with that of last sum­mer. Balochis­tan and Khy­ber Pakhtunkhwa remain the epi­cen­tres of vio­lence; sol­diers and for­eign­ers remain the ide­al tar­gets – favourably devour­ing atten­tion from the inter­na­tion­al press, with reg­u­lar col­lat­er­al dam­age rais­ing our num­bers of civil­ian casu­al­ties.

Tac­ti­cal­ly, groups have opt­ed for var­i­ous modes of attacks inclu­sive of guer­ril­la war­fare, sui­cide ter­ror­ism, tar­get killings and the use of impro­vised explo­sive devices (IEDs) and vehi­cle-born impro­vised explo­sive devices (VBIEDs). The ver­sa­tile nature of TTP’s oper­a­tions, along­side those of oth­er mil­i­tant groups, demon­strates the sur­vival instincts of these groups regard­ing evo­lu­tion and growth, both tac­ti­cal and strate­gic.

This year’s June was marred with the destruc­tion of Muham­mad Ali Jinnah’s res­i­den­cy in Ziarat, Balochis­tan. The attack was claimed by the Baloch Lib­er­a­tion Army (BLA), a group that has alleged­ly been liais­ing with TTP in Karachi to assist the lat­ter in car­ry­ing out its oper­a­tions along­side crim­i­nal syn­di­cates in the city, accord­ing to police and media reports from 2011.  A splin­ter group of BLA, the Baloch Lib­er­a­tion Front (BLF) has also been sus­pect­ed of its occa­sion­al alliances with the TTP. Activ­i­ties between the two groups includ­ed exchang­ing weapons, mon­ey, and ter­ror­ists to car­ry out attacks in Karachi. What may just be a rela­tion­ship of con­ve­nience may exac­er­bate Karachi’s increas­ing­ly tense eth­nic land­scape.

Hours lat­er, the province wit­nessed twin sui­cide attacks in Quet­ta, tar­get­ing female stu­dents on a bus and in Bolan Hos­pi­tal. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty, and it was revealed fol­low­ing inves­ti­ga­tions that the first attack was car­ried out by a female sui­cide bomber, burkha-clad and pre­tend­ing to be a stu­dent. LeJ and TTP, close tac­ti­cal and ide­o­log­i­cal allies, have both used female sui­cide bombers in Pak­istan since the past three years – pos­si­bly influ­enced by the ben­e­fits and suc­cess rates of female Tamil Tigers in Sri Lan­ka. Sui­cide ter­ror­ism flowed into Peshawar five days lat­er, which claimed the lives of 15 peo­ple.

While events of his­toric and reli­gious sig­nif­i­cance unfold­ed in Balochis­tan, they over-shad­owed unfor­tu­nate devel­op­ments for the health sec­tor of FATA. On 15^th June this year, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, TTP com­man­der in North Waziris­tan, banned anti-polio dri­ves in his region. Ten days lat­er, the Mul­lah Nazir group fol­lowed suit by in South Waziris­tan. Anti-polio vac­ci­na­tion bans have left over 150,000 chil­dren at risk since the sum­mer of 2012.

June in Pak­istan fur­ther suf­fered from local and inter­na­tion­al shame when 16 armed mil­i­tants killed ten tourists and a local guide at a base camp for Nan­ga Par­bat in Diamer. Tehreek-e-Tal­iban took respon­si­bil­i­ty for the attack, claim­ing its Junood-e-Haf­sa fac­tion was set up espe­cial­ly to attack for­eign­ers in retal­i­a­tion to drone strikes. Gilgit Baltistan, a Shia-major­i­ty region of Pak­istan, has suf­fered from sec­tar­i­an­ism since the 1970s, when State Sub­ject Rule was abro­gat­ed in 1974 and non-locals were encour­aged to set­tle here to shift the sec­tar­i­an dynam­ics of this region. Demo­graph­ic changes in Gilgit Baltistan have increased lev­els of vio­lence with­in an oth­er­wise peace­ful pop­u­lace, a con­di­tion TTP mil­i­tants are read­i­ly prof­it­ing from.

Last year’s June had also wit­nessed mul­ti­ple attacks on Shias and Haz­ara pil­grims. But, like the Nan­ga Par­bat inci­dent this year, the bru­tal­i­ty wit­nessed last year dur­ing the same time peri­od, was that of the behead­ing of sev­en Pak­istani sol­diers by the Pak­istani Tal­iban. Anoth­er attack which stood out last year bears a time­ly resem­blance to the attack in Lahore this year. Ear­ly morn­ing, on 12 July2012, TTP gun­men attacked a police hos­tel, killing nine police­men and injur­ing sev­er­al oth­ers, rem­i­nis­cent of the Lahore acad­e­my attack in 2009.

This year Lahore wit­nessed its first ter­ror­ist attack since that on the hos­tel last year. On 6^th July, New Bukhara restau­rant in Old Anarkali’s food street in Lahore was busy as usu­al for a Sat­ur­day night when din­ers were rat­tled by a plant­ed timed device which claimed 5 lives, includ­ing that of a six-year-old girl, Sadia. Although Lahore – and Pun­jab gen­er­al­ly – has wit­nessed com­par­a­tive­ly less ter­ror­is­tic vio­lence over the past decade, the pres­ence of mil­i­tants with­in Pun­jab remains indu­bitable. Recur­ring attacks on Ahmedis, Shias, politi­cians, police and civil­ians have tak­en place through­out the years, high­light­ing the dan­gers of breed­ing mil­i­tan­cy in the south of the province – an ele­ment that has put not only Pun­jab, but the entire coun­try at risk.

July also saw its first sui­cide attack in Karachi since that on a Rangers com­plex in Novem­ber last year. The attack on Bilal Sheikh, Pres­i­dent Zardari’s chief of secu­ri­ty, reeks of TTP and Al Qae­da-inspired tac­tics, inclu­sive of the sui­cide vest, recon­nais­sance con­sist­ing of Sheikh’s car and where he is like­ly to pur­chase his fruits and the tim­ing of the blast – the eve of Ramzan, a clas­sic pref­er­ence for those who per­ceive it to be ‘the month of jihad’. The attack not only empha­sis­es a direct threat to the Pres­i­dent, but also under­scores how crim­i­nal and polit­i­cal turf wars in Karachi are play­ing into the hands of Tehreek-e-Tal­iban, who were hap­py to express their appraisal, if not respon­si­bil­i­ty, for this attack.

They did, how­ev­er, accept respon­si­bil­i­ty for an attack on Sindh High Court Judge Maq­bool Baqar, who is serv­ing as a judge in spe­cial anti-ter­ror­ism courts. Inves­ti­ga­tions fol­low­ing the attack on Judge Baqar revealed that a net­work of banned out­fits had been threat­en­ing the Judge, includ­ing TTP, Tehreek-e-Tal­iban Move­ment (TTM) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). All are known to have oper­a­tives in Karachi.

What is dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing Tehreek-e-Tal­iban Pakistan’s activ­i­ties this year from those of last year, is the surge of urban mobil­i­ty that has been offer­ing new recours­es for the umbrel­la group, with greater oppor­tu­ni­ties for its mil­i­tants to liaise with crim­i­nal, eth­nic and sec­tar­i­an ele­ments with­in mul­ti­ple cities of Pak­istan – most notably, Karachi – in attempts of increas­ing its out­reach and, most impor­tant­ly, a flow of finances for fur­ther­ing tac­ti­cal, strate­gic, and oper­a­tional activ­i­ties. This has been demon­strat­ed by the group’s activ­i­ties over the past few weeks.

Law enforce­ment agen­cies in Karachi have been report­ing how the nev­er-end­ing tur­moil in Lyari and oth­er ‘no-go’ areas of Karachi have forced set­tlers (pre­dom­i­nant­ly inter­nal­ly dis­placed peo­ple from Swat and oth­er north­ern areas) to vacate their premis­es and relo­cate with their fam­i­lies to inte­ri­or Sindh. This mobil­i­ty has cre­at­ed an ide­al space for TTP mil­i­tants in city who, true to their noto­ri­ety for land-grab­bing, are find­ing new bases for oper­a­tions. What this sig­ni­fies is the like­ly increase in mil­i­tant and crim­i­nal activ­i­ties in sev­er­al volatile areas of Karachi. Those who chal­lenge the pres­ence of TTP in Karachi would like to be remind­ed of the arrest of TTP Karachi chap­ter chief, Ameer Sahab in May this year – one of many mil­i­tants linked with TTP arrest­ed over the past cou­ple of years.

Not only have TTP expand­ed their reach with­in Pak­istan it seems their nation­al focus has grad­u­at­ed to inter­na­tion­al the­atres. Reports have indi­cat­ed that TTP mem­bers have pledged their sup­port for rebels in Syr­ia this sum­mer, which can exac­er­bate the social­ly and polit­i­cal­ly con­struct­ed sec­tar­i­an-ori­ent­ed atroc­i­ties being com­mit­ted in the name of reli­gion. It seems that for­mer for­eign fight­ers and ex-Afghan jihadis have been facil­i­tat­ing the expor­ta­tion of TTP mil­i­tants to aide rebels fight­ing against Assad’s pre­dom­i­nant­ly Shia regime. The poten­tial threat this pos­es is that mil­i­tants from the Mid­dle East, espe­cial­ly those affil­i­at­ed with al Qae­da such as the al-Nus­ra Front, could return the favour by pledg­ing sup­port to the Pak­istani Tal­iban in its sec­tar­i­an mis­sions. Need­less to say, this will not bode well for the future of Shias in Pak­istan.

What the roundup of activ­i­ties above sig­ni­fies is that every ter­ror­ist inci­dent in Pak­istan sym­bol­is­es dif­fer­ent ele­ments. Attack­ing an anti-ter­ror­ism judge in Karachi dis­plays a threat on the judi­cia­ry on behalf of the Pak­istani Tal­iban. Retal­ia­to­ry attacks to drone strikes dis­play intol­er­ance for for­eign pres­ence in Pak­istan and Afghanistan. The attacks on Anarkali and Bilal Sheikh bear reli­gious and polit­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance. Oth­ers con­tin­ue to have sec­tar­i­an, crim­i­nal or eco­nom­ic ele­ments, com­pli­cat­ing the dynam­ics of ter­ror­ism in Pak­istan fur­ther, mak­ing any counter-ter­ror­ism pol­i­cy that much more dif­fi­cult to derive, giv­en the fact that it must, at all costs, be all-inclu­sive.

It will be inter­est­ing to see how the All Par­ties Con­fer­ence on ter­ror­ism, PML‑N’s new counter-ter­ror­ism poli­cies, and Abbot­tabad Com­mis­sion rec­om­men­da­tions influ­ence our nation­al secu­ri­ty pol­i­cy­mak­ers. How­ev­er, as our mil­i­tant groups con­tin­ue to trans­form and evolve, new the­atres of ter­ror­ism in Pak­istan will con­tin­ue to emerge and this spate of vio­lence may con­tin­ue unde­terred for sev­er­al years.

Mul­ti­ple nar­ra­tives have been offered over the past few months from with­in polit­i­cal, media and social spheres, regard­ing nego­ti­at­ing with the ene­my — an ene­my that has no inten­tion of restrain­ing its bru­tal inflic­tions on the cit­i­zens of Pak­istan; an ene­my that shows no signs of weak­en­ing (nei­ther numer­i­cal­ly, nor in capac­i­ty) and no desire of lay­ing down its arms; an ene­my that is, basi­cal­ly, a scorned lover no longer inter­est­ed in talk­ing to us. My apolo­gies if the us ver­sus them dis­crim­i­na­tion is offen­sive. It is nec­es­sary, nonethe­less.

Zoha Waseem is from Karachi and has a post-grad­u­ate from King’s Col­lege Lon­don in Ter­ror­ism, Secu­ri­ty and Soci­ety.