A Taste of Your Own Medicine

The terror attack in Islamabad has hit the Pakistani Establishment in its home turf, and raised questions over how long the Government will be able retain control over its own backyard even. Still, course correction seems unlikely

Terror attacks in Pakistan these days hardly grab headlines elsewhere, as they happen on a near daily basis across that country. Nevertheless, the bloodbath in Islamabad on Monday deserves attention. For one, it was a rare incident even by Pakistan’s standards. Though other urban centres, such as Karachi and Peshawar, have come under attack and repeatedly so, the capital city has been largely insulated from the onslaught of terrorists in recent years. Indeed, this was the first major attack since June 2011 and the deadliest since 2008 when the Marriott Hotel was bombed.

On Monday morning, gunmen ran into a district courthouse complex, located in the posh F8 Sector of Islamabad, firing indiscriminately at bystanders. After about 45 minutes of utter mayhem, two of them blew themselves up inside a courtroom while others reportedly fled. Eleven people, including a judge, were killed in the attack that bore a striking resemblance to the 26/11 carnage in Mumbai.

The attack has hit the Pakistani elite on its home turf, and raised questions over how long the Government will be able retain control over its own backyard even. Many believe that Islamabad, specifically the Government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has struck a devil’s deal with terror groups: Keep your hands off Islamabad and the surrounding Punjab Province (by far, Pakistan’s most prosperous region and Mr Sharif’s stronghold) — and, in return, the state machinery will look the other way as you wreak havoc in other parts of the country. Monday’s attack shows that any such deal which may have been in place is now unravelling.

According to the Pakistani Government, the attack also shattered the ceasefire agreement that it had entered into with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan less than 24 hours ago. On Sunday, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had announced that the Government would halt ongoing airstrikes against the militants in response to the latter’s offer to hold fire for a month, that came the day before. On Saturday, the military had targeted the hideouts of Taliban leader Hazrat Nabi, also known as Mullah Tamanche, who Government officials hold responsible for a March 1 attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province that claimed the lives of 11 policemen guarding polio workers. The state’s retaliatory response resulted in the killing of least five militants and, although it remains unclear if Mullah Tamanche was one of them, it seemed to have forced the TTP to call for truce.

Given the Taliban’s long history of violating ceasefire promises, it was assumed that the peace would not hold for long but few could have predicted a massacre the very next day — and this seemingly includes the TTP itself. On Tuesday, the group’s spokesperson Shahidullah Shahid washed their hands off the attack, while making vague accusations about foreign involvement to derail peace negotiations with the Government that could have been re-started. The talks had been suspended weeks ago after militants killed 23 Frontier Corps soldiers it had been holding in its custody since 2010, despite promises of ceasefire during negotiations.

Instead, a little known group, Ahrar-ul Hind, has taken responsibility for the attack. Now, few in Pakistan seem to believe that the TTP was not involved in the attack. By most accounts, it is using the new group to give itself the advantage of plausible deniability. Interestingly, it is precisely this that has been the Pakistani Government’s strategy with regard to anti-India attacks and activities emanating from its soil. But that is a different story altogether. For now, there is reason to believe that the TTP may not have actually been directly involved in courthouse attack.

The Ahrar-ul Hind claims to have separated from the Pakistani Taliban network in February, after the latter began peace talks with the Government which were supposed to be premised on two pre-conditions: First, that the Taliban accept and honour the Constitution of Pakistan and second, that any potential peace deal cover only ‘violence-hit areas’ (code for restive tribal areas that are safe havens for militants). The Ahrar-ul Hind is opposed to both and has made clear it will accept nothing less than the implementation of sharia’h law across Pakistan.

Another interesting aspect of the group is that while its spokesman has claimed that it is led by one Maulana Omar Qasmi, Pakistani media has reported that security agencies believe the ‘Kashmiri fighter’ Mast Gul, is probably its driving force. The former commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen led the 1995 siege of the Charar-e-Sharif shrine in Jammu & Kashmir. After a two month long standoff that gutted the  14th century shrine, the Indian Army eventually flushed out the militants but Mast Gul escaped. According to Former Union Minister Jaswant Singh, he received a hero’s welcome across the border as he drove to Muzaffarabad from Chakothi on August 2, three months after the arson. For a while, Gul was supposedly the ISI’s blue-eyed boy but later went off the radar. Then, this February, he resurfaced in Northern Waziristan with a TTP commander claiming responsibility for the hotel bombing in Peshawar.

But irrespective of the nature of the TTP’s ties with the Ahrar-ul Hind, the fact remains that this is not the first time that it has distanced itself from a terror attack. For example, last year the group refrained from taking responsibility for two high-profile incidents — the Nanga Parbat shooting in June and the Peshawar church attack in September, both of which were claimed by lesser known groups. Viewed along with the TTP’s refusal to take ownership of the Islamabad courthouse attack, it highlights the highly amorphous nature of the Pakistani Taliban and is indicative of the fact that the top leadership of the network does not have direct charge of every jihadi foot soldier.

This effectively dooms any peace dialogue that the Pakistani Government undertakes with the TTP. Unfortunately, Islamabad has chosen to persist with the talks. On Wednesday, Government negotiators met TTP representatives at a seminary in the northwestern city of Akora Khattak where the Afghan Taliban chief, Mullah Omar, and several of his top commanders are said to have studied. This was inspite of the fact that earlier in the day, a roadside bomb in Hangu had killed six soldiers.

The only way to contain terror, at least in the short term, is to use military action and purge terrorist safe havens from that country. And in this effort, Pakistan cannot afford to cherry-pick its targets — cracking down on those who are detrimental to Pakistani interests while protecting ‘assets’ it hopes to use against India or Afghanistan.

(This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on March 6, 2014)