The army set up large camps where it hunkered down

Transcription

1 THE RUSI JOURNAL Pakistan s Anti-Taliban Counter-Insurgency Syed Manzar Abbas Zaidi Before Pakistan s military operations Rah-e-Haq and Rah-e-Nijat, the state s counterinsurgency strategy was inconsistent. Further, current operation are focused on heavy firepower without due emphasis on political and economic solutions. This risks creating a protracted conflict. Conflict maps and an analytical matrix illustrate the trends in Pakistan s counter-insurgency policy in military context. Counter-insurgency (COIN) is the co-ordinated set of civilian and military activities that tackle insurgency, with non-military means often being a primary element of COIN regimes. COIN requires a broad understanding and experience of several disciplines, along with a minute comprehension of the specific situation on ground. COIN regimes should have the ability to push the insurgency away from the contested area, simultaneously pulling the target populations towards the state in terms of loyalty, nationalism or patriotism. Standard doctrine of clear, hold and build implies the use of force to displace the extremists and then to protect the populace. The next step in this strategy is to rebuild civilian infrastructure so that the local populace turns against the insurgents. The Pakistan army has done the complete opposite: ever since it began to engage militarily in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) since 2000, 1 it has followed a policy of engage, destroy, and negotiate. The army first evacuated civilians, flattening villages and entire towns with artillery, bombings and bulldozers. This thereby created vast free fire zones, 2 which gave the Taliban opportunities to ambush personnel. The COIN strategy has also been defined in official Pakistani army communiqués as a fish-out-of-water approach. Ostensibly, in order to catch the fish, the water (in this case representing the civilian population) had to be dried up. 3 The operations created vast numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs), who suffered innumerable hardships resulting from the ongoing operations. This generated resentment which Taliban indoctrination was able to tap into. The operation in Bajaur alone created 400,000 IDPs, their misery attributable to their displacement. 4 Many of these people were vehemently anti-taliban, and could have provided human intelligence (HUMINT) for Pakistani military operations had they been offered protection from militants. 5 One of the more common allegations levelled against the army was that it had caused collateral losses; the tribals tended to blame the army for killing many innocent civilians besides the Taliban. 6 The army set up large camps where it hunkered down Instead of initiating roving tactical search and seize squads, the army set up large camps where it hunkered down, trying to flatten Taliban strongholds with heavy and destructive firepower. 7 Its efforts displaced the civilians instead of the insurgents, created more unprotected open spaces rather than securing the existing ones, and consequently gave an opportunity for the insurgents to retreat. Even though the official policy was said to be dialogue, development and deterrence, it is clear that engage, destroy and negotiate has tended to be a more apt term for the actual mode of COIN adopted by the army. A look at the US Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency field manual 8 reveals that the kill-capture model did not succeed during the early days in Iraq this strategy may be even more unsuitable in Pakistan s troubled areas, creating more enemies than it can eliminate. Even the US had to resort to protecting the population centres in Iraq to improve the COIN profile of its forces stationed there. In all operations before Rah-e- Haq and Rah-e-Nijat, the Pakistani Government s counter-insurgency policy has been inconsistent in its response to the escalating insurgency. Ineffective military operations overly emphasised destroying infrastructure and captured few important militants, and were followed by negotiations which were then usually succeeded by a cease fire. The intermittent cease fires have tended to be violated by the warlords. The intervening period has been used to either strengthen their positions, or violate the terms of the peace treaty, by capturing security personnel and imposing their radical laws on the local populace. Pakistan has concluded the following peace deals with the militants (see Table 1), with all of them failing on various pretexts. The collapsing deals were invariably followed by military counter-insurgency operations, which tended to peter out into another peace deal. 9 RUSI JOURNAL FEBRUARY 2010 VOL. 155 NO. 1 pp DOI: / RUSI 155_1 TEXT.indd 12 12/02/ :17:52

2 Pakistan army soldiers patrol on a road in Matta in Pakistan s troubled Swat Valley. Photo courtesy of AP Photo/Abadullah Khan. Conventionally, COIN regimes are said to be 80 per cent political and 20 per cent military in nature. 24 However, what is clear in the Pakistani case is that when military operations are only minor, the impact of the COIN operation is smaller. This is arguably a vindication of the proponents of the hard-line stance towards militant groups; that they do not seem too amenable to the political overtures. In fact, they have apparently used the negotiation table as a tactic to interrupt operations underway at the time. The state always tried to reason with the militants as a logical enemy, but has not gained any useful advantage from it. If they had, the COIN impact column in Table 1 would have responded with a significant reading in response to deals offered by the state. The militants, on the other hand, have used the time between intervening peace deals to entrench themselves which is obvious from their gradual penetration of the Tribal Areas and Swat. However, a note of caution needs to be sounded here; the presumptions above relate to the initial phase of a COIN regime, where political as well as harder means to contain the insurgency are tried. When political reconciliation with the insurgents is no longer on the agenda as in Pakistan s current attitude towards the Taliban the per cent doctrine may still hold true in medium to longer term COIN regimes in order for them to re-stabilise troubled territory and maintain peace. Negotiations with militants that are dependent on concessions present a particular problem in COIN literature. 25 It is generally held that concessions to the nationalist grievances prevalent in the terrorists community have the potential to reduce popular support for further terrorism, making further indoctrination difficult. It also improves the standing of more moderate nationalist elites who are in competition with the terrorists. This is only possible, however, if concessions provide remedy to genuinely held grievances, and the approach is non incremental and holistic. However, the Pakistani state has generally not adhered to these parameters. 26 A typical pattern of radicalisation and subsequent COIN response by the state is visible. Militancy would take root in a village or a small region, and little or nothing would be done in response by the local government or police forces to resist it. Then, when the problem escalated, there would either be a military operation, which would cause a blowback, or negotiations would ensue. 27 The Pakistani tendency has been to allow partial, incremental, or deliberately staggered concessions that have dragged out over a substantial period of time, adding to the malady instead of relieving it. Such compromises may appear (or be portrayed) as delaying tactics, and thus fail to address the concerns of the communities in which terrorists operate. Thus, when people in tribal areas and Swat wanted development measures, they instead saw the state as pandering to the militants by allowing Sharia courts. 28 As is obvious from Table 1, RUSI 155_1 TEXT.indd 13 12/02/ :17:53

3 Pakistan s Anti-Taliban Counter-Insurgency Table 1: Pakistan s Peace Deals with the Militants and Resulting Measures No. Peace Deal Result Counter-insurgency measures COIN intensity 1 Shakai Agreement with militant commander Nek Muhammad Wazir 10 in South Waziristan Between March and July after ineffectual blockade of the Mehsud area of South Waziristan - the state concluded the Sararogha Accord Attacks on security forces resumed in South Waziristan in July 2005, which led to talks resulting in a peace deal A peace deal signed in North Waziristan in September 2006 with Baitullah Mehsud. 5 Peace treaty signed in March 2007 with Maulvi Faqir Muhammad Peace deal in Khyber Agency after the tribal operation Sirate-Mustaqqim Military offensive against Fazlullah in November 2007 in Swat, code named Operation Rah-e-Haq I The Taliban in Bajaur start operations, forcing the army to withdraw substantial number of troops from Swat to concentrate on the area contiguous to the Durand Line - Operation Sherdill. 23 Agreement broke down within a month due to Wazir s death by a missile attack in June Tribal Areas vacated by army with undertaking not to carry out similar operations in future. Peace deal soon broken by the militants. Peace deal soon violated by the militants. 16 Deal broke down after drone attack on a seminary. 18 The targeted warlord Mangal Bagh, heading the Lashkar-e-Islam in Khyber Agency, though initially routed, reappeared in September 2008 and re-established himself. 20 Negotiations initiated. In April-May 2008 Maulana Sufi Muhammad released. Sharia introduced in the Provincially Administrated Tribal Areas (PATA). Fazlullah s activities continue unabated, causing the NWFP Government to request the army for aid. Negotiations. Low-level Al-Qa ida arrests but no operation. Negotiations ensued. Short peace in South Waziristan, but insurgency continued unabated in North Waziristan. State resumed negotiations with the tribes. State resumed negotiations with Mehsud. Negotiations by the state, which broke down. Mangal Bagh and Lashkar-e-Islam largely left undisturbed. The Pakistani Army launched Operation Rah-e-Haq II in July Negotiations ensued after a half-hearted operation. Peace deal, later violated by the militants. Mild COIN impact Mild RUSI JOURNAL FEBRUARY 2010 RUSI 155_1 TEXT.indd 14 12/02/ :17:53

4 Syed Manzar Abbas Zaidi 9 Fazlullah continues militant activities. Operation Rah -e-haq III launched in January 2009 to secure the main supply lines to the district capital Mingora in the Swat province. Negotiations broke down again, with Sufi Muhammad being involved in another round of talks as a mediator between the state and the Taliban. 10 Peace negotiations with Maulvi-Faqir-Mohammad seemed to be making no headway. A full scale, more vigorous military operation, in Bajaur launched on 6 August A military operation initiated in earnest, which displaced hundreds of thousands. Severe Significant 11 Negotiations involving Sufi Muhammad regarding the implementation of Nizam-e-Adal in the Swat and Malakand areas initiated. The Taliban seemed to be spreading beyond Swat to adjacent areas, consistently flouting the terms of the peace accord. Operation Rah-e-Haq IV launched in earnest in May 2009, displacing up to 2 million. Severe Significant Note: The COIN impact column of the matrix is graded from mild to significant based on the news reports emanating from the region in the wake of operations or talks. Mild effects indicate temporary gains being made, with cessation of hostilities between the state and militants, but no effect on the continued militant entrenchment in the area. gains imply a more protracted cessation of hostilities (more than six months) and/or a temporary displacement of some (but not all, or even a majority) militants from the area in the wake of government operations, but they tended to re-establish their footholds in the area under consideration. Significant results mean that an area had been cleared and held, with militants forced to be on the run. In the significant portion of the COIN impact column of the matrix, there has never been a peace deal which has stabilised an area in the form of complete cessation of activities by the militants. this incrementalism provided time and opportunities to the terrorists in the short term: they could re-radicalise their own community and actually escalate their long- and medium-term efforts. This is borne out by the COIN impact column of Table 1, which shows the dismal response to peace deals offered by the state. Even when a settlement projected as an effective one was negotiated with the Taliban, they have tended to continue attacks. 30 Concessions seemingly create an expectation threshold. 31 If terrorism in Pakistan were mainly irrational or even disorganised, a more incoherent pattern would emerge in which either political goals are not properly articulated, or the stated goals varied considerably even within the same conflict. 32 This is not what we are currently seeing in Pakistan, where goals are stated (such as the enforcement of Sharia courts), and timelines for repercussions are laid down if those goals are not met. During that time, pending the breakdown of talks or initiation of military action, ceasefires are generally adhered to. It needs to be remembered that, historically, COIN campaigns have almost always been more costly, more protracted and more difficult than initially anticipated at the planning stage. 33 This may have prompted the Pakistani state to opt for negotiated settlements instead of going for an outright military solution. It must be said that military operations in these areas are not easy due to the ideological and physical proximity with Afghanistan, entrenched kinship, tribal bonds, and hostile terrain. The Pakistani Taliban also use a combination of territorial control and flexible guerrilla tactics, 34 which means that, while holding a swathe of territory, they can also send roving groups of guerrillas to secure areas further afield. On the other hand, the garrisoned Pakistani security forces have to fight for every inch of ground gained, and cannot emulate Taliban s terror tactics. 35 The primary element used earlier in the COIN regime was the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary (FC), which is predominantly Pashtun. Regular army units were mobilised at later stages, when the levels of insurgency seemed to be escalating exponentially. The FC was at the forefront of Pakistan s support for the Taliban regime: the FC soldier not only has family ties with the Taliban side in FATA and Swat, but has been thoroughly imbued with jihadist ideas from the Afghan war and afterwards. 36 FC faces the same dilemma that faces the Pashtun tribals today; they have little love for strangers, with the Pashthunwali code binding them more tightly to the Taliban than the predominantly Punjabi army forces. Thus, after three decades of supporting jihad in Afghanistan and India as part of state policy, a cognitive dissonance has been established whereby the same jihadists are enemies of the state. 37 Therefore when the FC was used as a paramilitary force in the earlier phase of the operations, it suffered from large-scale desertion, surrender and loss of morale. Table 1 also demonstrates that whenever the purely military side of the COIN regime was augmented, in the form of increased troop strength deployment, 15 RUSI 155_1 TEXT.indd 15 12/02/ :17:54

5 Pakistan s Anti-Taliban Counter-Insurgency the levels of success tended to be better than when paramilitary outfits like FC were used. 38 The Pakistani army s COIN strategy has often verged on the myopic. Its approach has always been India-centric, and many observers maintain it has still not sunk in that the Taliban are a more immediate existential threat to Pakistan s security than India. 39 Arguably, the increased vigour of more recent operations indicates that the state is now more alive to this reality than it has been previously. Another COIN principle is the concept of self-defending populations. This would, in theory, seem to be a bestfit approach for the Frontier province, since it is customary for the tribals to be equipped with small arms. It should have been easy for the state to organise them into lashkars (ad hoc militias) as supplemental paramilitary forces, since all they ostensibly needed was support from the state in the form of protection. Sadly, that was not forthcoming. The tribals have tried organising lashkars, 40 such as in Buner, where it seems that the trend of communities organising self-help militias was spurred on by the failure of the Taliban to win the support of the general public in the areas under their control. Police ineffectiveness in the area thus prompted the emergence of the first organised lashkar in Buner, FATA. 41 After Buner, jirgas were held in other districts of the Frontier province in which the local elders vowed to resist Taliban intrusion. For example in Maidan, a town in Dir Lower district where the militants had reportedly fled from Bajaur Agency, a jirga held talks with the militants on 15 August 2008, managing to expel them from the area. The locals also formed a force of volunteers and set up road checkpoints. 42 Similar jirgas were held in Mardan, Swabi, Salarzai 43 and other districts of the Frontier in which lashkars were formed to resist the Taliban. 44 Simultaneously, in Buner, Dir, Peshawar, Mardan and elsewhere, communities organised themselves to defend against militants. Lashkars also sprang up in areas such as Mardan, Charsadda, Hangu, Tank, Dera Ismail Khan, and even in the NWFP capital city of Peshawar. There was some support given by the government functionaries to these volunteer squads in the form of fuel and ammunition, 45 but logistics were inadequate. Perhaps the biggest deficit felt was that of security. 46 The Taliban have sent out suicide bombers to attack jirgas of tribal elders and clerics hostile to them in Darra Adamkhel, Bajaur and Orakzai, and terrorised entire villages. This was the case in Shalbandai in Bunir, Hayagai Sharqi in Upper Dir and Mandaldag in Swat, where the late anti- Taliban commander Pir Samiullah had dared to raise a lashkar against them. 47 Due to the obvious hazards involved for the researchers, very few credible research surveys have been carried out in war zones like FATA to illuminate why the community supports such extremism. One study was attempted by Mia Bloom in Sri Lanka, in LTTE controlled areas. It illustrates a high degree of acceptance of suicide terrorism against military targets, and a correspondingly low level of support for attacks against civilians. 48 Interpolating these projections to FATA paradigms, it is debatable how much support exists for Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Judging from the media reports, the general population of Pakistan are increasingly antagonistic towards against these attacks. However that may be insignificant in real terms to strategists trying to stop or prevent suicide terrorism. The ethos of the spectator community is important in this context (the FATA population) as being the substrate and stronghold of terrorism. Research clearly shows that people in war zones have different perceptions about these matters, particularly compared to the government and the rest of the society. However, it also needs to be remembered that the Pakistani society as a whole has tended to turn against the Taliban and terrorism in recent years. Public indicators 49 need to be comprehended as a driver of the COIN regime in Pakistan; when Taliban started gaining footholds in the country, they were more popular than they are now. Arguably, this has conversely helped the army to step up the intensity of their operations. This is borne out by polls: recent surveys found a progressively larger number of the Pakistani public turning against suicide bombing as well as Osama bin Laden. 50 Pakistanis as a nation seem concerned about extremism affecting their lives, with 72 per cent decrying extremism in a 2008 survey: the highest response elicited across the board in eight Muslim countries surveyed at the same time. 51 Only a tiny minority of the Pakistani sample population agreed with the Taliban discontinuing education for girls. 52 A majority of Pakistanis supported the government on the issue of eradicating home-grown terror outfits, with 60 per cent of respondents in a Gallup poll holding the view that the government needed to take a tough stance against terrorism. 53 Debatably, this sea-change in public opinion has facilitated the state s stepping up the pace of operations. This can be seen through the congruence of COIN regime timelines in the matrix with the change of public opinion over the years. This underlying factor was helpful in ushering in the allout military offensives Rah-e-Rast in Swat and Rah-e-Nijat in Waziristan. Operation Rah-e-Rast The operation against the militants in Swat valley, started under the auspices of Rah-e-Haq IV, changed its name to Rah-e-Rast ( the right way ). Before launching Rah-e-Rast, the army had carried out three operations in Swat from November 2007 to January 2008; August to October 2008; and December 2008 to January 2009 with seemingly little achieved each time. The common perception was that every time an operation ended, the Taliban grew stronger. 54 For example, it was during the second phase of operations that the Taliban reached Mingora and beheadings started there, which had never been reported from the valley before the army s deployment there in However, Rah-e-Rast marked a watershed in Pakistan s COIN campaign by proving to be a much larger military operation. The adopted strategy targeted weapons, ammunition dumps, caves and training centres with air power. Cobra gunships were used to target small concentrations of houses in cities such as Sultanwas, Matta and Mingora, 56 while land forces engaged in hand-to-hand fighting in Mingora, Kabal and Kanju. 57 RUSI JOURNAL FEBRUARY 2010 RUSI 155_1 TEXT.indd 16 12/02/ :17:54

6 Syed Manzar Abbas Zaidi To limit collateral damage in the towns, the Pakistani army took the calculated risk that the Taliban would abandon their fortified positions in built-up areas in order to launch direct offensives. This was to prove a miscalculation; the road exits and mountain passes were not all blocked, possibly due to a lack of resources. 58 There were not enough helicopters delegated to the task of preventing the retreat, which permitted a large number of Taliban to melt away in pickup trucks. A communication by a senior army officer to a defence analyst summed the situation up: Our security agencies are still doing a lousy job. They virtually have no information on extremists leadership Contents of daily sitreps [seem] as if fighting [is] taking place between two regular forces. 59 Rah-e-Rast was conducted more seriously than other operations It should be mentioned that Rah-e-Rast was conducted more seriously than other operations, with the capture of a number of high-level militants. Taliban members were said to be leaving their positions and fleeing, with a number of top commanders arrested, although Maulana Fazlullah still seems to be at large. Commitment and morale were running high. The average officer-tosoldier ratio in combat fatalities during conventional operations is around 1:17 in most armies, while in Swat operations it has been 1:5 to 1:6. 60 This is higher than the usual Pakistani average of 1:10, suggesting that the officers are leading from the front. 61 Rah-e-Nijat After Rah-e-Rast seemed to be settling in to a holding pattern, operations to take the fight deep into the militant heartlands in Waziristan started in mid- October 2009, and are still ongoing. Since the Pakistan army maintains a presence of 20,000 soldiers in parts of Swat, the government did not want to open another front immediately. Although it was initially delayed, the Waziristan operation had to be started in order to capitalise on success of Rah-e-Rast. 62 Dubbed Rahe-Nijat ( the path to salvation ) these operations have been widely described as successful in capturing most of the TTP bases in the difficult terrain along the Afghanistan border. The operation, launched on 17 October 2009 after months of preparation, involved nearly 30,000 troops near the South Waziristan Agency and shelling of the Mehsud tribes in order to weaken the Taliban position. Besides a full-fledged offensive, Pakistani forces not only used heavy weaponry, but also fighter jets and helicopter gunships. There have been pitched battles between the government s 30,000 soldiers and what officials described as 10,000 hardcore militants. This number also included between 1,000 and 1,500 foreign fighters, mostly Uzbeks. 63 In the first six weeks of the operation, the military were reported to have killed more than 600 militants, taking seventy casualties themselves. 64 Meanwhile, many analysts have been depicting this much-awaited operation as the mother of all battles ; ostensibly, the militants would put up their toughest fight yet. 65 The killing of Baitullah Mehsud on 5 August 2009 in an American drone attack led officials to believe the time was ripe for an all-out military offensive while the TTP were in disarray after the loss of their charismatic leader. As with the Rah-e-Rast, Pakistani forces easily captured some important places, like Makeen, Sararogha, Laddah, Kunigaram and Kotkai, in four weeks without any tough resistance. It is also clear that top TTP leaders have survived and escaped to other secure regions; this includes the movement s current leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, and his top lieutenant, Wali-ur-Rahman. Their exact whereabouts are unknown, but they have started a reign of terror by unleashing their suicide bombers throughout Pakistan, which has faced a spate of suicide bombings and IED attacks. The conflict now risks becoming protracted. Protraction Protraction is defined in the US Counterinsurgency manual as insurgents prolonging: 66 [T]he conflict in order to exhaust opponents, erode their political will, and avoid losses. Typically insurgents react to government countermeasures by going quiet (reducing activity and hiding in inaccessible terrain or within sympathetic or intimidated population groups) when pressure becomes too severe. They then emerge later to fight on. This may be what is going on in Pakistan right now: 67 After the army s announcement [to commence operations], the Taliban based in the area called a meeting at a local mosque to inform villagers that they were going to escape overnight It is still unclear where these militants went despite the army having cleared and occupied 95% of Swat, they have not been captured or killed since they fled on the night of June 15. This is a pattern which seems to be repeating across the COIN-targeted areas. Before Operation Rah-e-Haq commenced in Swat, officially communicated figures about the number of militants in the valley ranged from 10-12,000 at the high end, to 4-5,000 in more recent statements. 68 Simultaneously, the Pakistani Inter-Services Public Relations office (ISPR) put the number of militants killed at about 1,600. This implies that even after accounting for those Taliban insurgents captured, several thousand had simply escaped. 69 This is particularly relevant since the surrounding upper Dir area to the West is cordoned off by government-friendly lashkars, and the military is present in surrounding districts of Kohistan, Shangla and Lower Dir. Ostensibly, there seems nowhere for the militants to escape to A serious lacuna in the present COIN operations is that once operations are over, there is no significant effort made to secure areas or protect the population. Police left Swat a long time ago, and the army, apart from the six months it has fought since July 2007, remained in its quarters or at checkpoints. They did not re-emerge to protect civilians. It appears that the Taliban have adapted: they try to flee embattled areas during operations 17 RUSI 155_1 TEXT.indd 17 12/02/ :17:54

7 Pakistan s Anti-Taliban Counter-Insurgency rather than put up a fight. Presumably, they plan to return later because there seem to be no long-term plans to secure these areas by the state. The Taliban s military strategy appears to be to call a temporary retreat when faced with outright confrontation with a superior force they are guerrilla fighters with hit-and-run tactics. This is reminiscent of the Taliban s strategic retreat to the mountains in the face of a combined US and Northern Alliance onslaught in 2001, when they abandoned Kabul and fled to the mountains only to regroup and launch attacks on coalition forces within a few months. To a certain extent this pattern has been repeating in Swat. The battle for Mingora was expected to be prolonged and bloody, but after initial resistance and heavy losses, the militants fled, enabling the army to secure the area earlier than expected. Even though the army projected that the Taliban s command, control, communication and training networks were more or less destroyed in Swat valley, the fact that much of the top Taliban leadership and remaining militants have not been caught, presumably scattered in the mountains or moved to adjoining areas, lends them the ability to regroup at a later stage. Taliban could also use the adjoining areas which are not well cordonedoff because they lack strong civil administration and police infrastructure, of which Shangla is an example. Traditionally, it has never had a strong Taliban presence, but there seems to increased militant activity reported in the Puran and Chakesar areas. The fighters from Swat and Buner have crossed over from the mountainous Kala Dhaka, or Torghar area, in Mansehra district. 72 Geographical continuity of the terrain, and weak security force presence, would allow them to cross over to Kala Dhaka and Battagram, where the militants have recently carried out attacks against the police and exploded bombs. 73 Other militants have converged in adjoining parts of the Mansehra district, like Shinkiari and Oghi, which have also seen an escalation of militant attacks, which were previously quiescent areas. 74 Kohistan may experience turbulence as well, as a few hundred militants operating in Swat s Kalam and Bahrain tehsils have reportedly returned home to escape the onslaught by the security forces. 75 The Way Forward The Taliban are an existential threat to Pakistan: a fact which seems to have been recently recognised through an escalation of the COIN campaign in the country. The military s COIN strategy has suffered from some basic errors. With a traditional outlook focused solely on fighting a conventional war against India, the Pakistani army adopted an ad hoc strategy. The Pakistani army is also heavily influenced by the Americans, who have consciously or unconsciously passed on their legacy of firepower focus or what one American expert has termed the Army Concept, the tactics used during the Vietnam War. 76 The myopic use of a firepowerintensive approach is a classic flaw in counter-insurgency campaigns, and its indiscriminate use alienates the target audience like nothing else. When heavy artillery shelling failed, the army has tended to pull back completely in favour of political and economic peace agreements with insurgents as stand-alone bargaining chips. This has undermined promising military successes, with the gains accruing to the state coming to naught in the face of renewed insurgent defiance in these areas. Thus there is a structural imbalance between the utilisation of the hard and soft power used by the state for the past four years. Given the long-standing India- Pakistan rivalry, conventional warfare has tended to shape the trajectories of Pakistani COIN operations, which had proved unsuccessful before Rah-e-Rast and Rah-e-Nijat were initiated. That said, both these operations are far from finished success stories. Time will show whether these are supplemented by the proper deployment of softer COIN methodologies. Pakistani forces should consider their choice of weapons for low-intensity conflict, besides saturation of an area with ground troops. Sustained, consistent minimal use of force should be a guiding principle rather than a protracted, heavy-firepower driven campaign. The COIN regime needs to provide equipment for low-intensity conflict such as night vision, communication sets, and body armour to every soldier; these are the mainstays of a protracted ground operations COIN strategy. In this respect, troop deployment to provide physical security to locals is important. This troop presence can carry out intensive, areadomination patrols. In order to counter the threat from IEDs and landmines (the weapons of choice for the Taliban insurgents), it is advisable to maintain unpredictable routines and conduct vigorous cordon-and-search operations (CASO). This has the dual advantage of securing built-up areas near roads and communications corridors. Pakistani troops need to be trained in CASO and area-domination patrolling strategies. This will also have the effect of protecting military convoys, traditionally an easy target for insurgents in FATA. 77 It is important to have benchmarks in place to assess whether the COIN regime has lent stability to an area or not. This will further ensure that adequate monitoring of a cleared area takes place. A proposed model is the ladder of escalation proposed by Joshua T White. 78 The model progresses from control by the local civilian authorities at the start of the ladder to military intervention the higher one goes up the ladder, in order to identify gaps in that process that can be addressed in advance: 79 These plans should attempt to answer questions like: Who responds in this region, and how, and within what period of time if: a) A police station is bombed? b) A small group of locally-known Taliban begins threatening businesses or politicians? c) Unknown Taliban (perhaps from Waziristan, Punjab, or elsewhere) begin threatening local institutions? d) Large groups (20 or more) of Taliban engage police or paramilitary forces? e) Militants begin shuttering girls schools? f) Local Islamist groups begin using widespread radio propaganda? Utilising an ink spot strategy, the state may find it advisable to implement and sustain small clear, hold and build areas within FATA, since in the short-to-medium RUSI JOURNAL FEBRUARY 2010 RUSI 155_1 TEXT.indd 18 12/02/ :17:54

8 Syed Manzar Abbas Zaidi term it does not seem possible to implement this regime throughout FATA till the Taliban insurgency is effectually crippled. By assuring distributive social justice while respecting local traditions, the state stands to regain some of its lost credibility. These areas could then be expanded in response to COIN successes on ground. One of the ways that this could be accomplished might be in the form of a phased COIN regime; first, the military would need to clear and secure the area, ensuring the safe return of an interim civilian administration. This administration would need to be given the capability and support to be fully entrenched, and be able to take care of citizens before the military leaves. Subsequently, a fully functional civil administration and the police will return to the secured area. Then the community and political leadership, accompanied by local opinion leaders, should come back and take control of their communities. The local defensive mechanisms, along with the police, would need to be strengthened in order to provide security in collaboration with the army in the medium to longer term. To counter the backlash from the refugee problem, counter-insurgency plans need to be paired with detailed plans for relocation and rehabilitation of the displaced population; this policy should have been reviewed in light of the experiences of the Afghan refugee camps and the 2005 earthquake. It should be remembered at all times that the counter-insurgency should be treated as an ongoing effort to combat a whole spectrum of ideological, political, military, socio-economic and humanitarian imperatives. Lashkars can be part of a counterinsurgency strategy that incorporates these local self-defence militias. They can be the first line of defence in a village. This could take the form of small units supplementing the civilian forces which could help in patrolling, forward deployment, mobilisation of community support conducting patrols, mobilising community leaders and providing local human intelligence. The perception of these as poorly equipped and trained civilians has to be shaken off since they would at best be units operating forward of major garrisons. Perhaps if they had been organised earlier they could have expanded the military s in reach, by moving from the garrisoned urban areas into the poorly controlled rural areas. Furthermore they could have been equally, if not more, effective than the FC under properly controlled circumstances. Garrisoning and semi-permanent military deployment may work in the short term, but it is not the long-solution. There has traditionally been a longstanding local resentment against any protracted army presence in the PATA and FATA areas. The US attack on Afghanistan has provided ample opportunity for the Islamists to reinforce this popular narrative, by portraying the state security forces as being under the patronage of the Americans. Since it is the radical mullah Pakistani forces should consider their choice of weapons for lowintensity conflict who has filled the authority vacuum left by the non-ideological tribal chiefs, 80 they have portrayed the incursions of the Pakistani army as a dual challenge to both tribal independence as well as a proxy war waged by the Great Satan, the United States. This purportedly makes the forces party to the crimes of the West, and thus a legitimate target. This feeling of anti-americanism is not just present in the tribal belts; as elucidated above, anti-americanism is rife throughout the societal fabric of Pakistan. Moreover, this makes human intelligence efforts extremely difficult, since anyone who spies for the state purportedly commits the severest crime in tribal society, 81 and beheading of Western spies has been common under the Taliban. One way out of this human intelligence deficit could be through efforts to inculcate a counterinsurgency intelligence cohort composed of former, disaffected insurgents: a strategy successfully cultivated by the US forces in Iraq s Anbar province. 82 Police and FC in tribal areas have a better rapport with the populace than the army, but are incapable of holding out against the insurgents on their own. There does not seem to be any long-term strategy to secure the area with the help of a better trained police and paramilitary force a point even the highest police official in NWFP concedes. 83 The same applies to the change in the compensation, training, facilities and equipment available to the Frontier Constabulary and the khasadars, who police FATA and the borders between the tribal and settled districts. A COIN regime using aerial bombing and heavy artillery will not solve the problem unless there is a post-operative plan in place to surrender control to a well-functioning police and paramilitary force. The COIN challenge here would be to equip and train police and paramilitary forces simultaneously with ongoing operations, in order for army units to hand over cleared areas to these more legitimate forces in the future. The tribal belts are now ready for socio-economic change, the populace want better lives. Tribalism may have played a part in the past, and may still do so now, but it should not be allowed to pervade the minds of policy-makers in Islamabad. Indeed, some think this has been used as an excuse for tardiness in alleviating FATA s problems. It is imperative that military operations (which are resented by tribals) are seen to be promptly followed by state s investments into socioeconomic development (which will be welcomed by the tribals). A protracted conflict will have dire results for Pakistan, which may already be in the offing: 84 Militants forced to flee their havens in Pakistan s mountainous tribal areas are establishing new, smaller cells in the heart of the country and have begun carrying out attacks nationwide, U.S. and Pakistani officials say... American and Pakistani officials say the militants widening reach has added to the challenge for both nations intelligence, which must now track an insurgent diaspora that can infiltrate Pakistan s teeming cities and blend seamlessly with the local population They [Al- Qa ida and Taliban] have truly gone underground, said Ashraf Ali, director of the FATA Research Center. 19 RUSI 155_1 TEXT.indd 19 12/02/ :17:54

9 Pakistan s Anti-Taliban Counter-Insurgency Thus it seems that the theatre of conflict has the potential to shift from the tribal belts to the densely populated cities of Pakistan, where the phenomenon of terrorism becomes much harder to detect, and consequently that much harder to control. Therefore policy-makers in Islamabad need to recognise that a hard COIN regime which is not supplemented by the entire panoply of reconciliatory and reconstruction measures will only serve to displace the conflict, which will then tend to smoulder in the form of protracted guerrilla warfare. In order to prepare for this eventuality, the army and policy echelons have to cultivate assets on ground in the tribal belts. This can only be done by means of an attentive national counter-insurgency strategy, which presumes and caters to the medium- and longer-term implications of a protracted counter-insurgency. Syed Manzar Abbas Zaidi is TEXT TEXT TEXT TEXT TEXT TEXT TEXT NOTES 1 Agnieszka Paczynska, Development and counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan, National Bureau of Asian Research Special Report No. 19, November 2009, p Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan s Continued Failure to Adopt a Counterinsurgency Strategy, CTC Sentinel (Vol. 2. No. 3, March 2009), p Interview with Major General Athar Abbas, Director General Inter Services Public Relations, by Umer Farooq, Pakistan Herald, 20 June Pakistan Daily Times, 14 Militants, 3 Women Killed in Bajaur, 21 August Rashid, op. cit., p Ibid. 7 Ibid., p Sarah Sewall, The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). 9 For a detailed discussion on the subject of the inefficacy of peace deals, see Syed Manzar Abbas Zaidi, US and the Counterinsurgency: the Peace process in Pakistan, American Foreign Policy Interests (Vol. 31, No.3, 2009). 10 Nek Muhammad was a pro-taliban tribal leader, who shot to prominence in the wake of Shakai Accord between the Pakistan Army and the Wazir tribes, under which amnesty was granted to tribesmen and foreign militants were supposed to surrender and register with the Political Agent, the administrative representative of the state. 11 Mumtaz Hamid Rao, The Death of Nek, Media Monitors Network, 24 June 2004, set/print/headlines/the-death-of-nek, accessed 28 January Ibid. 13 Gall, Carlotta and Ismail Khan, In Pakistan, Doubts over the Fight in Tribal Areas, New York Times, 12 February Amir Mir, War and Peace in Waziristan, Asia Times, 4 May Ibid. 16 Muhammad Amir Rana, Another Deal with Militants for Peace in Tribal Areas, Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies, SAN-Pakistan/SAN-PAK-Article36/ San-Pak-Main-A36-D.asp, accessed 28 January Bill Roggio, Pakistan signs the Bajaur Accord, The Long War Journal, 17 March News International, 80 Die in Air Attack on Bajaur Seminary, 31 October Mohammad Malick, Operation Sirat-e- Mustaqeem: as straight as a coil!, News International, 2 July Syed Manzar Abbas Zaidi, A Profile of Mangal Bagh, The Long War Journal, 11 November For officially communicated details of this operation, see News International, Operation in Swat Wrapped Up: DGMO, 17 January Kaustav Dhar Chakrabarti, Swat Slipping from Pakistan s Hands, Observer Research Foundation, 6 February Observer Research Foundation, Pakistan Timeline: 2008, < observerindia.com/cms/sites/orfonline/ html/assessment/timeline.html>. 24 Joshua T White, Applying Counterinsurgency Principles in Pakistan s Frontier, Brookings Counterinsurgency and Pakistan Paper Series, No. 2, 25 June 2009, p A seminal article in this context is Robert A Pape, The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, American Society for Psychical Research (Vol.97, No.3, August 2003). Also see Ami Pedahzur, Suicide Terrorism (Manchester: Polity Press, 2005) and Mia Bloom, Dying to kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). 26 Syed Manzar Abbas Zaidi, Organizational Profiling of Suicide Terrorism: a Pakistani Case Study, Defence Studies (Vol.9, No.3, September 2009) pp White, op. cit., p See rows 7, 9 and 11 of the matrix. 29 See for instance columns 2, 4, 5, 10 and 11 of the matrix. 30 Columns 4, 7 and 11 of the matrix. 31 Zaidi, op. cit. in note Ibid. 33 Sewall, op.cit., p Zaidi, op. cit. in note 26. RUSI JOURNAL FEBRUARY 2010 RUSI 155_1 TEXT.indd 20 12/02/ :17:55

10 Syed Manzar Abbas Zaidi 35 Ibid. 36 Arthur Keller, Propaganda and Peace Deals: The Taliban s Information War in Pakistan, CTC Sentinel (Vol. 1, No. 8, July 2008). 37 Rashid, op. cit., p Rows 6-11 of the matrix, with the success indicator showing moderate to significant successes. Enhanced military deployment was the principal COIN regime utilised in this case, rather than the FC, which tended to provide mild results. 39 Sameer Lalwani, Pakistani Capabilities for a Counterinsurgency Campaign: A Net Assessment, New American Foundation, Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative, September Yousaf Ali, In Self-Defense, News International, 31 August Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Pakistan Herald, Lashkars and their Critics, November 2008; News International, Peril at Prayers, 12 September Rahimullah Yusufzai, Swat Operation and the Fallout Beyond, The News, 9 June Mia Bloom, Tamil Attitudes Toward Terrorism, Tamil Eelam, 5 November 2004; Richard Gorman, `Tracking the World s Suicide Bombers, Rutgers Focus, 18 November Syed Manzar Abbas Zaidi, Hating the Taliban, Hating the United States: Trajectories of Pakistan s Anti-Americanism, American Foreign Policy Interests (Vol. 31, No. 6, 2009), pp The Pew Global Attitudes Project has surveyed more than 90,000 people in fifty nations since 2002, including many Arab and majority Muslim countries. The pertinence of their research is demonstrable by the fact that they were asked to give testimony to US House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, regarding their findings about anti-americanism in the Arab and Muslim World; < accessed 29 January Richard Wike and Kathleen Holzwart, Few in Pakistan Support Extremists But Few Favor Military Confrontation, Pew Global Attitudes Project, 12 March Ibid. 52 Gallup, 6 in 10 Pakistanis Support Crackdown on Terror Outfits, 18 December 2008, < pk/forums/current-events-socialissues/ pakistanis-supportcrackdown-terror-outfits-gallup-poll. html>, accessed 29 January Arifa Noor, Operation Rah-e-Rast: Are We on the Right War Path?, Pakistan Herald, 20 June Ibid. 55 Farooq, op. cit. 56 Ibid. 57 Ikram Sehgal, Avoiding a Quagmire?, News International, 11 June Ibid. 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid. 61 Imtiaz Ali, Military Victory in South Waziristan or the Beginning of a Long War?, Terrorism Monitor (Vol. 7, No. 38, December 2009). 62 Daily Times, Pakistan edging towards Path to Salvation in Waziristan?, 21 July Sailab Mehsud, Army embarks on Rah-i- Nijat finally, Dawn, 18 October Geo Pakistan, 600 militants killed in S Waziristan operation, 30 November Daily Times, Tough resistance expected in Waziristan, 8 October Sewall, op. cit., p Hameedullah Khan, A Tenuous Peace, Pakistan Herald, July Ibid. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid. 72 Yusufzai, op. cit. 73 Ibid. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid. 76 Andrew F Krepinevich Jr, The Army and Vietnam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), pp Associated Press, Officials: Islamic Militants in Talks to Free More than 120 Soldiers, 31 August White, op. cit., p Ibid. 80 The tribal chiefs have traditionally been much more interested in retaining power, upholding tribal norms and cultures, and stopping any violence that may have illuminated their weaknesses. However, the mobilisation of mullahs during the Afghan jihad shaped the discourse as being largely ethnocentric rather than pan-islamist; Islamism was just another tool in their arsenal in order to identify more closely with their ethnically allied brethren, the Taliban. Christine Fair, Interview on the Frontline, PBS, 3 October Associated Press, More than 100 Killed in Pakistan Tribal War, 21 March For more details see John F Burns and Alissa J Rubin, U.S. Arming Sunnis in Iraq to Battle Old Qaeda Allies, wnew York Times, 11 June Noor, op. cit. 84 Griff Witte and Joby Warrick, Insurgents Forced out of Pakistan s Tribal Havens form Smaller Cells in Heart of Nation, Washington Post, 19 December RUSI 155_1 TEXT.indd 21 12/02/ :17:55