Fighting to the End

by C Christine Fair

  Analysts generally cite 2007 as the year that the TTP formally coalesced. In November of that year, several Pakistani militant commanders, rallying under the leadership of Baitullah Mehsud, announced that they would henceforth operate under the banner of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP). Mehsud (who was killed by a US drone strike in August 2009) claimed many allies, most of them Deobandi militants seeking to establish sharia within their personal areas of operations throughout the Pakhtun belt. But it should be noted that many commanders who call themselves Pakistani Taliban were not a part of this alliance. In late February 2008, two important dissident commanders, Mullah Nazir and Hafiz Gul Bahadur, temporarily set aside their differences with Mehsud to forge the Shura Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen. But the short-lived alliance collapsed almost as soon as it was announced because the commanders had serious differences of opinion about the suitability or prioritization of fighting the Pakistan military versus assisting the Afghan Taliban to oust the foreign occupiers and the Karzai regime they installed and support (Abbas 2009).

  Following Baitullah Mehsud’s death, TTP leaders announced that Hakimullah Mehsud would take over the leadership role. Under him, the TTP became more coherent and intensified its campaign of suicide bombings of Pakistani security and intelligence agencies (New York Times 2010; Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies 2009; PBS 2010). Under the leadership of Hakimullah, TTP campaigns against civilian targets became more vicious, singling out Shia and Ahmedis (also spelled Ahmediyyas by some), who are considered munafiqin (Muslims who spread discord in the community) and murtad (apostate), respectively. Nor has the TTP spared important Sufi shrines: since 2005, militants have launched more than 70 suicide attacks on such sites, killing hundreds. Attacks have intensified in recent years. For example, Lahore’s prominent Datta Ganj Bakhsh—perhaps the most important Sufi shrine in the Punjab—was attacked in late June 2010 (Tavernise 2010; Tohid 2010), and in April 2011, suicide bombers assaulted a shrine dedicated to a Punjabi saint, Sakhi Sarvar, in Dera Ghazi Khan (Masood and Gillani 2011). This focus on sectarian violence no doubt reflects Hakimullah’s long-time association with the sectarian terrorist group Sipah-e-Sahaba-e-Pakistan. The United States killed Hakimullah on 1 November 2013 in a drone strike. He has been replaced Mullah Fazlullah. At the time of writing it is too early to discern how the TTP will fare under his leadership (Golovnina and Tanveer, 2013).

  But the Mehsuds are far from the first, or only, highly visible Pakistani militant commanders. Several individual militant commanders had risen to prominence prior to the official consolidation of the TTP in November 2007. For example, Nek Mohammad Wazir (from the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe in Wana, South Waziristan) was perhaps the first Pakistani militant to acquire some degree of infamy. During the Pakistan Army’s spring 2004 offensive in South Waziristan, Mohammad fought the army to a standstill, compelling it to ratify its own defeat in a peace deal known as the Shakai Accord, the terms of which were dictated by Mohammad. The signing ceremony for the accord was held in Shakai, his own stronghold, and during the ceremony he was publicly garlanded by the 11th Corps Commander, Lieutenant General Safdar Hussain. This event was heavily covered by Pakistan’s media, helping Mohammad gain widespread legitimacy (Yusufzai 2006). Baitullah rose to prominence in the same way, forcing the Pakistan Army to concede and ratify defeat in the Sararogha Agreement of February 2005.

  Hafiz Gul Bahadur, another prominent mujahideen leader, became the amir (commander) of the Pakistani militants of North Waziristan. Bahadur quickly distanced himself from the TTP and its leadership. During the winter of 2007–2008, Bahadur refused to come to Baitullah’s assistance when the latter was under attack by the Pakistan Army and warned him against fighting the Pakistan security forces in North Waziristan. Bahadur subsequently signed a peace accord with the Pakistan security forces. He remained opposed to the TTP’s now-deceased leader, Hakimullah, as well as the TTP’s targeting of Pakistani civilians and defense and intelligence personnel. Bahadur focuses exclusively on US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. For this reason, the United States has sought to kill him through armed drone strikes, although thus far without success (Gopal et al. 2010; Khan 2007).

  Furthermore, several militant groups had begun challenging the writ of the Pakistani state long before the TTP formally announced its existence. These groups arguably began to gain prominence coincident with—or even as a result of—Pakistani military operations in the FATA undertaken at the urging of the United States. Several Pakistani analysts contend that the onset of US air strikes in the FATA—first via conventional air platforms and later by unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones—catalyzed the insurgency. They point in particular to US drone strikes in October 2006 against an al-Qaeda–affiliated madrasa in a Chingai village, Bajaur, as the most important catalyst of suicide attacks against security forces in the FATA and North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) (Gul 2009; Kronstadt 2006; Radio Free Europe 2006). (The strikes were targeting top al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.)

  The Chingai madrasa was run by the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), a Sunni militant group founded by Sufi Mohammad. (Mohammad achieved some notoriety in 2001 when he sent 8,000 volunteers to Afghanistan to support the Taliban’s war against the United States and the Northern Alliance.) Sufi Mohammad’s deputy, Maulvi Liaquat, was killed in the Chingai strike. Following that attack, Inayatur Rahman, a local pro-Taliban elder, announced that he had prepared a squad of suicide bombers to target Pakistani security forces, using tactics similar to those employed against Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that the squad would carry out these suicide attacks soon (Ansari and Khan 2006; Roggio 2006). When Sufi Mohammad was imprisoned, his son-in-law, Mullah Fazlullah, took over the organization.

  Although the so-called Talibanization of the tribal areas was initially limited to North and South Waziristan, the phenomenon spread rapidly. Pakistani Taliban surfaced in areas that had previously been free of such activity, including Bajaur, Mohmand, Orakzai, and Kurram agencies. In 2008, aid workers with whom I spoke expressed surprise that Kurram had become so dangerous. But the agency has long been the site of sectarian violence due to its large Shia population. Given the intensifying sectarian agenda of the TTP, these developments in Kurram should not have been surprising (Abou Zahab 2002). The Pakistan Taliban also undertook activities in the frontier regions of Bannu, Tank, Kohat, Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan, and in the settled area of Swat. Throughout the summer of 2007, the Frontier Corps and the Frontier Constabulary battled Pakistani militants associated with the TNSM, which had seized the Swat Valley in late October 2006 (Fair 2011b).

  The local leaders of these various TTP-affiliated militant groups effectively exploited socioeconomic grievances (e.g., the state’s failure to provide services, including access to rule of law and justice) and frustration with the corrupt colonial-era governance structures in place in the FATA. The Pakistani Taliban in Swat reportedly pursued a system of redistributive justice, seizing the land of wealthy landowners and awarding it to landless peasants who supported the group (Khan 2009; Perlez 2009a; for an opposing view see Taj 2008). Similarly, militant commanders in the FATA have pressured political agents to provide services without demanding bribes and have established a functional, albeit draconian, police system and process of dispute resolution. The much maligned qazi courts (courts run by qazis, or Islamist jurists) to be established in Swat were required to add new qazis if the caseload of the existing bench exceeded 150 cases. No such provision exists for the mainstream courts. The TTP also established procedures for solemnizing love marriages; this measure appealed to youth who resent forced marriages and lowered the economic barrier to marriage for young men who would otherwise have to pay high bride prices (author fieldwork in Pakistan in February and April 2009 and August 2010).

  In April 2009, news reports announced the arrival of the Punjabi Taliban, referring to the various militant groups ensconced in the Punjab, the most populous province in Pakistan (Abbas 2009; Tavernise et al. 2009). Despite its ostens
ibly recent coinage, the term Punjabi Taliban has a long and complex history. Since 2009, however, it has acquired significant political importance (Yusufzai 2010). Many Pakhtuns support the use of the term to emphasize that Pakistan’s insurgency is not solely Pakhtun, but many non-Pakhtuns reject the term for the same reason. The latter prefer to attribute the threat against Pakistan to the Pakhtun other, often stereotypically characterized as uncivilized, warlike, and violent (author fieldwork in summer 2010; see also Sana 2010).

  Pakistan’s political class has also sought to exploit the controversy over the term. Leaders of the Punjab-based Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) object to the term, likely in part because of the PML-N’s ongoing support for groups such as SSP and LeJ, which is largely driven by electoral considerations. Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab and a member of the PML-N, accused Interior Minister Rehman Malik of using the terms Punjabi Taliban and Punjabi terrorist to foment conflict between provinces—a tactic, he argued, that is tantamount to a condemnation of the people of Punjab (Yusufzai 2010).

  While it is tempting to view Punjab as a new theater of Talibanization, sites of militancy across Pakistan are interrelated. Punjab-based groups such as the Deobandi LeJ and JeM are components of the TTP and conduct attacks in its name. In fact, the so-called Punjabi Taliban groups form the backbone of the TTP and have played an important role in attacking Sufi, Shia, Ahmedi, and other civilian targets throughout Pakistan and in the Punjab in particular (Roggio 2010).

  In addition to the Pakistani groups, Pakistan also hosts elements of the Afghan Taliban, with shuras in Quetta, Peshawar, and Karachi (Levin 2009). The Afghan Taliban remain focused on ousting foreign forces in Afghanistan, overthrowing the Karzai regime, and reclaiming a role in governing Afghanistan. Pakistani territory is also used by al-Qaeda, whose operatives are known to reside in North and South Waziristan and in Bajaur, among other parts of the Pakhtun belt. Moreover, many al-Qaeda operatives(e.g., Abu Zubaidah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) have been arrested in Pakistani cities with the help of Pakistani authorities (BBC 2007). The Americans, working unilaterally, eventually found and killed Osama bin Laden in his refuge near the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) at Kakul.

  The Pakistani people were slow to countenance the government’s counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency efforts. Public opinion surveys conducted in Pakistan in 2007, and even later, demonstrated that Pakistanis overwhelmingly supported government efforts to reach peace deals with militants and believed that such efforts would secure peace, despite consistent evidence to the contrary. Equally important, Pakistanis remained opposed to the army undertaking offensives against Pakistan’s own militants. These trends remained more or less constant until April 2009, when public opinion dramatically changed course after the Taliban reneged on the sharia-for-peace deal and overran Buner. Survey results in May 2009 and July 2009 suggest that the public was increasingly opposed to peace deals and supportive of military action (Fair 2009c). The Pew Research Center has monitored Pakistani support of and opposition to the Pakistan government’s fight against terrorism since that important event in 2009. While opposition to the government counterterrorism efforts remained relatively stable (between 20 and 25 percent) from 2009 to 2011, it jumped to 35 percent in 2012. Over the same period, support for the effort plummeted, from 53 percent in 2009 to 32 percent in 2012. The remainder of respondents (33 percent in 2012) refused to answer the question (Pew Global Attitudes Project 2012).

  Figure 9.1 Graphic depicting the relationships among the various Pakistani militant groups.

  Figure 9.1 attempts to graphically depict the relationships between the myriad militant groups and allied Islamist political parties that operate in and from Pakistan. To the left is a large cluster of groups commonly associated with the Deobandi interpretive tradition. This cluster includes not only the Deobandi ulema political party, the JUI, but also the various Deobandi sectarian militant groups, the so-called Kashmiri tanzeems, the Pakistan Taliban, and the Afghan Taliban. To the left of that cluster is an arrow indicating that these groups have historically maintained close ties with al-Qaeda through their association with the Taliban and the constellation of Deobandi madrasas and mosques that link the various Deobandi militant groups and political factions of the JUI.

  To the right is a smaller cluster representing the Ahl-e-Hadith interpretive tradition and the primary militant group it has spawned, the Lashkar-e-Taiba. This organization, which never shared training camps and other infrastructure in Afghanistan with the Taliban, is not organizationally linked to al-Qaeda—although some analysts (e.g., Raman 2002; Riedel 2012) have tried to prove a connection. Contrary to conventional belief, LeT did not sign Osama bin Laden’s fatwa, or declaration of jihad against the West in 1998 (Federation of American Scientists n.d.). While LeT has disavowed the TTP, individual LeT fighters have joined the ranks of Deobandi militant groups, and some members have even provided assistance to al-Qaeda. However, LeT currently has no need to form an alliance with al-Qaeda. It is the preeminent terrorist group in South Asia, enjoys massive support from the Pakistani state as well from key sectors of its citizens, and maintains extensive sanctuaries in Pakistan. Joining al-Qaeda would jeopardize all of these amenities. Thus, one could argue that (at least in the context of South Asia) al-Qaeda has greater need for LeT than LeT has for al-Qaeda.

  The bottom of Figure 9.1 depicts the group mostly tightly associated with the Islamist political party, the Jamaat-e-Islami, namely the Hizbul Mujahideen (and related splinters thereof). This group remains focused on Indian-administered Kashmir and has not provided assistance to the TTP (Fair 2011b).

  While Pakistan has a long history of using Islamist militants as proxies, Washington’s 1979 determination that the country had crossed nuclear red lines enabled Islamabad to expand the scale, scope, territorial range, and intensity of its use of asymmetric proxies (Tellis et al. 2001). Recognition as an overt nuclear power allowed Pakistan to support irregular militant groups with increasing impunity, confident that New Delhi would find conventional punitive measures too risky. Thus, it is not a coincidence that Pakistani jihadi groups spread in increased numbers to Kashmir in the immediate aftermath of the US decision to apply proliferation-related sanctions to Pakistan.

  Throughout the 1980s, Pakistan became even more aggressive in its use of such actors. But it was the reciprocal nuclear tests in 1998 that allowed Islamabad to really push the envelope of its asymmetric strategy. In May 1999 Pakistan launched a limited incursion into Indian-administered Kashmir with the objective of seizing a small amount of territory in the Kargil–Dras sectors. Though Pakistan’s territorial aims were limited, the use of mujahideen as a cover for the military incursion was part of a denial and deception strategy that marked a watershed in Pakistan’s use of low-intensity conflict. Many analysts have argued that such a brazen incursion would have been unlikely before Pakistan became an overt nuclear weapons state following the nuclear tests of May 1998 (Kapur 2007; Tellis et al. 2001).

  Kargil was the first conventional conflict under the nuclear umbrella (albeit with a mujahideen cover story), but Pakistan has also used proxy warfare and irregular fighters more brazenly since 1998, underscoring the fact that nuclearization has both enabled and emboldened its use of militancy. Subconventional attacks since 1998 include the 1999 LeT attack on a security establishment near a New Delhi tourist attraction, the Red Fort; the 2001 JeM attack on the Indian Parliament; the LeT massacre of army wives and children in Kaluchak in May 2002; and various strikes by LeT and affiliated groups throughout India, including the 2006 and 2008 attacks in Mumbai. The development of first a covert and then an overt nuclear capability (and the concomitant means of delivery) appears to have enabled Pakistan to pursue the boldest aspects of its proxy strategy with confidence that doing so will have few, if any, important consequences.

  Pakistani Support for the Militants?

  Implicit in various US attempts to compel Pakistan to cease its support for militant groups is th
e assumption that the country could do so if it mustered the requisite will. The truth of this supposition is far from obvious. Islamabad’s ability, or lack thereof, to fight these groups will arguably condition its readiness to cease active and passive support, much less take aggressive action to eliminate these groups.

  This section advances several propositions about the degree of Pakistani state support for various groups and assesses the state’s ability to control or counter them. This assessment overwhelmingly draws on my fieldwork in Pakistan (including discussions with military, intelligence, and civilian officials as well as with journalists and analysts) over several visits beginning in 2000, fieldwork throughout Afghanistan since 2007, and extensive interactions with US officials about Pakistan and Afghanistan over the same period.

  Pakistan’s army and intelligence agencies tend to segment the country’s militants into a range of groups over which the state exercises varying degrees of control. Pakistan is widely assumed to wield significant influence over the Afghan Taliban (including Jalaludin Haqqani’s North Waziristan–based network), even holding Taliban families hostage in Pakistan to ensure compliance. Since 2001, however, the Afghan Taliban have experienced regular turnover of midlevel commanders (Giustozzi 2008). The new commanders are less beholden to Pakistan, in part because of their age: they were children in the mid-1990s, when the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) began nurturing the Taliban. What’s more, the tribal foundations of the Afghan Taliban are also changing. Thus, Pakistan is struggling to cultivate influence among the emerging Afghan Taliban factions even while it seeks to control elements of Mullah Omar’s Quetta Shura, the organization’s top leadership council. Islamabad worries that members of the Quetta Shura may forge a separate peace with Afghan president Karzai, one that does not recognize Pakistan’s equities. Exemplifying its efforts to counter such moves, in February 2010, Pakistan arrested Taliban leader Mullah Baradar because he was negotiating with Karzai independently (Nelson and Farmer 2010).