Operation Zarb-e-Azb: Will it end

terrorism from Pakistan?

1) Zarb-e-Azb after a failed Dialogue
a. Failure of Dialogue
b. Economic Losses
c. International Pressures
2) Will Zarb-e-Azb end terrorism in Pakistan?
a. Owning the operation
b. Weak or dysfunctional National Internal Security Policy
c. Police inefficiencies
d. Lack of Police Women officers
e. Low Conviction Rate
3) The notion of Strategic depth and the distinction between good and bad
terrorists
4) The Punjabi and Karachi Taliban
a. Support from Punjabi Taliban
b. Safety Nets in Karachi
c. Necessity to eliminate the urban hide outs
5) Public support for the operation
6) Taking care of the Internally Displaced People
7) Conclusion: moving towards strategic rather than tactical.

The Pakistani armed forces launched a military offensive christened Zarb-e Azb,
against the Pakistani Taliban and local and foreign militants based in North
Waziristan on 15 June 2014. North Waziristan is one of the tribal agencies in
Pakistan which borders Afghanistan and was seen as the most important sanctuary
for Al Qaeda, Pakistani and Afghan insurgents. Describing the operation, the military
spokesman Major General Asim Saleem Bajwa, characterized the operation as the
beginning of the end of terrorism in Pakistan. He further added that the military
would not discriminate between the good and the bad Taliban and that for
military, there is no discrimination among different Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)
groups or the Haqqani Network. Army will crush them all.
The government of Nawaz Sharif in March had sought to engage the Taliban in
peace talks which collapsed with the brazen attack on Karachi airport and never
halting militant activities prior to that. The operation was launched in the backdrop
of the daring attack on the busiest international airport of Pakistan, the Jinnah
International Airport at Karachi. Ten militants of TTP and Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan (IMU) attacked the airport on 8 June 2014, killing 36 people.
The terror activities in Pakistan for last decade have reached the tipping point,
where the economy of Pakistan could not bear more brunt. According to Economic
Survey of Pakistan 2013-2014, during the last 13 years, the direct and indirect cost
incurred by Pakistan on the war on terror and the losses due to terrorist attacks
amounted to $102.51 billion, which is equivalent to Rs 8,264.4 billion. 1 Taliban
spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, after the airport attack further warned that Foreign
investors, airlines, and multinational companies should cut off business with
Pakistan immediately and leave the country or else they will be responsible for their
damage themselves. Heeding the call, Cathay Pacific announced the suspension of
its Pakistan operations from 29 June 2014. If more multinationals decided to exit
Pakistan, the already teetering economy would have take another hit leading to
higher inflation and unemployment.
Moreover, it was not only the economic necessity which led to the military
operation; international pressure was also mounting on Pakistan to do more. The
Americans and the Afghan government had been calling upon the Pakistan
government to launch an operation in this area for long as this area was considered
the epicenter from which militants launched operations against the International
Security Assistance Force, ISAF and Afghan forces. Pakistans all weather friend
China, had also expressed concern over the sanctuaries of the East Turkestan
Movement in the area. Pakistan is alleged to be reluctant to carry out any military
offensive in North Waziristan since this was the base of the good or the proPakistan Taliban like the Haqqanis who were being used to further Pakistans geostrategic interests in the region.
1 http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/national/03-Jun-2014/pakistan-lost-rs-8-264-billionin-war-on-terror
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In order to end terrorism completely, the Pakistani state must have a strategic
vision and strategy to deal with the issue of terrorism confronting it. Unfortunately,
the country lacks consensus amongst its politico-military leadership on the most
effective methodology to tackle terrorism. Currently, the state has adopted tactical
rather than strategic approach to tackle terrorism.
In any war it is not only the armed forces but the nation that goes to war. To
succeed, every instrument of state i.e. the government, political parties, civil
society, media etc have to be on the same page and endorse the strategy adopted.
It seems however that consensus still eludes the nation on the question if force
should be used against the militants based in North Waziristan. Though the military
in its press release claimed that it was acting on the direction of the government,
subsequent statements revealed that not all political leadership/parties were on
board or fully briefed. The provincial governments of Sind and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
(KPK) complained that they had not informed before the launch of the operation. 2
While Imran Khans Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf has lent grudging support to the
operation, the Jamat-e-Islami (JI) has opposed it. This lack of consensus amongst
political parties, who serve as important builders and mediators of public opinion,
may seriously compromise the achievement of objective as set out by the
operation.
In February 2014, the Nawaz Sharif Government brought out the National Internal
Security Policy (NISP) which envisaged developing multi-pronged strategies to meet
the challenges of terrorism. However, there are reports that NISP was prepared
without the participation of an important stakeholder; the armed forces of Pakistan.
So far not much work has happened on the provisions of the NISP. The National
Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) Act was passed in March 2013, but as Ansar
Abbasi wrote (The News, June 18, 2014) not a single meeting of the authoritys
high-powered board of governors3, headed by the prime minister and comprising all
the key government players including spymasters has been held as yet.

2 Shabbir Ahmed Khan, the provincial Secretary-General of Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), a

part of the ruling coalition in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said The Federal government did
not take the provincial government into confidence. Similarly, Senator Farhatullah
Babur of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) stated that the Sind government of PPP
had received no prior intimation about the operation.
3 This board has a key role in implementing the NISP which promises capacity
building of criminal justice system, police, civil armed forces and other law enforcing
agencies for border management besides setting up of a key institution to be called
the Directorate of Internal Security (DIS), which would be established under the
NACTA to coordinate intelligence and operational work of all the civilian and military
agencies to effectively counter terrorism.
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International experience in fighting terrorism shows that professional and motivated

police forces supported by effective intelligence agencies are the best instruments
in fighting terrorism. However in Pakistan police are hardly in the lead in fighting
terrorism as this role has been taken over by the military. An Asia Society report
(edited by Hassan Abbas) on Police reforms in Pakistan stated, Pakistans police
system suffers severe deficiencies in a number of areas, including equipment,
technology, personnel, training, and intelligence capability. Moreover, the political
will needed to address these issues is largely missing.
Another weakness noticed in the police force is Pakistan is the lack of women police
officers. In a report prepared by the Institute of Inclusive Security (March 2014) it
was stated, Policewomen improve the operational effectiveness of these forces by
building trust with local communities, more effectively de-escalating violence, and
collecting vital intelligence that men could not. Due to prohibitive norms, only
women in the police can serve as first responders to care for female victims of
terrorist attacks. Statistics released by the National Police Bureau of Pakistan in
2011 revealed that out of 453,901 members of the police forces, only 4,027 were
women. This represented only 0.89 per cent of the total police strength of Pakistan.
Most of them served in lower ranks, from constable to inspector level.
Similarly, the convictions of captured terrorists remain low. While the conviction
rates in countries like the United States is close to 95 per cent, in Pakistan it
remains a dismal five per cent. In a report titled Anti-Terror Laws, Policing and the
Criminal Justice System: A Case Study of Anti-Terrorist Efforts in Punjab it was
stated that out of 1,015 cases pending before the Anti-Terrorism Courts (ATC) in
Punjab, only 506 were adjudicated with 136 convictions only. The report calls for a
holistic reform of the criminal judicial system in Punjab.
Pakistan is often alleged by the international communities to have supported many
of the sectarian groups to achieve its perceived geo-strategic interests in the region.
Groups like the Haqqani Network, based in North Waziristan were said to be
supported with a view to achieve strategic depth in Afghanistan while anti-India
groups were supported to wage a proxy war against its eastern neighbor. However it
is hard to claim that with the launch of Zabr-e-Azb Pakistani state has ended the
concept of relying on strategic depth. Analysts believe that Pakistan militarily still
believes that it would need the support of the good Taliban post the withdrawal of
ISAF forces in 2014 to counter its arch-rival India in Afghanistan. The good
Talibans, including the Haqqanis, are mostly believed to have slipped into
Afghanistan's Khost province a couple of weeks prior to the operation.

The militants based in North Waziristan have developed organic linkages with other
terrorist and sectarian groups based in other regions of Pakistan especially in Punjab
and Karachi. 4
According to a conservative estimate, more than fifty percent of the militants hail
from Punjab. The prominent operatives of Al-Qaeda like Khaled Sheikh Muhammad,
Abu-Zubaida and Abu Khalifan were all arrested from big urban centres of Punjab
and Rawalpindi, Faisalabad and Gujarat whereas hundreds of other terrorists were
captured from different cities of province. It is also worth mentioning here that the
greatest supply of cannon fodder of the militants to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the
Tribal areas comes from Punjab.
In addition, Karachi has an ethnic Pashtun population of around four million which
provides a safety net to the militants of FATA. 5 As per police estimates nearly 65
per cent of bank robberies in the city can be traced back to various Islamist groups,
particularly the TTP. A large number of sleeper cells of various militant outfits exist
in Karachi. During the period 2010-2012, nearly 300 TTP activists/financers have
been arrested from the city.6
Unless action is taken against all militant groups in all parts of the country, chances
of a terrorism free Pakistan will remain a chimera. So far the state has shown no
prominent inclination of desire to curb the activities of these terrorists groups.
More importantly, for any operation to succeed, unstinting public support to the
armed forces is a prerequisite. It is more so from the people of the region who suffer
the most. Right now, the Pakistani population in general supports the operation
barring the extreme right-wingers. However, whether this support will last if the
operation drags on and there are blow backs in the form of increased instances of
4In his seminal work Punjabi Taliban, Mujahid Hussain (page 38) writes, Today the
greatest number of organisations and groups indulging in extremism, sectarian and
jihadi activities in the region are located in the different cities and towns of Punjab.
Except for certain militant groups that are active in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the
Tribal Belt, the centre of all jihadist and sectarian outfits are situated in Punjab. It is
also worth mentioning here that the greatest supply of cannon fodder of the
militants to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Tribal areas comes from Punjab.
5 These linkages go back to the 1990s when Taliban had established its first office
in the areas of Sohrab Goth and Pashtunabad areas in late 1994 which were only
closed down when Pakistan recognized the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 1996.
Karachi has also emerged as the purse of militancy in Pakistan with militants
engaging in extortions, kidnappings for ransom and also bank robberies.
6 (Imtiaz Gul, Pakistan before and after Osama, page 144-5).
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terrorism and suicide bombings in the heartlands of Pakistan is any bodys guess.
The cries for talks with Taliban rather than operation could gain momentum, thus
putting Pakistan in a state of greater confusion.
For the residents of the tribal areas, the experience of both Rah-e-Rast and Rah-eNijaat suggests increased hardships. Since the Pakistani army uses aerial bombings,
heavy artillery and other area weapons in its counter terrorism operations, not only
do they become Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), the economy of the area is also
destroyed. Bombings destroy the agricultural economy of the area and blown up
bridges and roads affect transportation and communication. Latest reports in the
newspapers suggest that about seventy five thousand IDPs are facing hardships in
the relief camps set up by the government. Intriguingly, non-religious NGOs are
finding it comparatively difficult to set up base. Paradoxically while the operation
has been launched with the expressed objective of ending terrorism in Pakistan, it
may instead be achieving the exact opposite. Their hardships will pave the way for
recruitment of more jihadis from amongst the IDPs or build greater sympathy for
these outfits amongst the displaced people. This is not an ethnic issue the IDPs
are physically, psychologically and emotionally vulnerable, which makes them easy
targets for exploitation.
In conclusion it can be said that the final outcome of the operation Zarb-e-Azb may
be no different from the earlier operations Rah-e-Rast and Rah-e-Nijaat. The
operations may lead to the army establishing its presence in the area and some writ
of the state being enforced. However it is imperative that the top leadership of the
militant outfits must be eliminated. The state will have launch counter terrorism
operations against the Punjabi Taliban or clamp down on sources of finance of the
extremist groups who continue to gain strength in order to attain a long lasting
peace. The doctrinal overhang of strategic depth and terror as an instrument of
state policy though muted survives. All in all, the objective of the operation should
be more strategic and tactical in order to free Pakistan from the menace of
terrorism.