by Meena Menon
The TTP openly admitted to attacks on Shia pilgrims at Mastung, and also other bomb blasts in public places in KPK. It continued attacking the army, military convoys, polio teams, schools, media personnel and just about everyone. The talks hit a roadblock after 16 February 2014 when the chief of the Mohmand TTP faction, Omar Khalid Khorasani, issued a statement claiming the beheading of twenty-three Frontier Corps men held in custody since 2010 from a check post in Shongari. This prompted a minister to say that even India had not beheaded its Pakistani prisoners of war after 1971. The TTP said it was responsible for a bomb blast targeting a police bus in Karachi, in which thirteen policemen were killed; the Peshawar TTP chief had claimed the attacks on Shias in a hotel in Peshawar and said that Mast Gul of the Hizbul Mujahideen had been in charge of that attack. The government team was not willing to take any more after Khorasani’s claim and decided not to meet the TTP nominees. A little later, the TTP first called for a month-long ceasefire (on 1 March 2014) and urged all its factions to stick to it, and a day later, the interior minister called a halt to the almost daily air strikes in North Waziristan and Khyber Agency, in which dozens of terrorists were reportedly killed. In April 2014 the TTP nominees travelled once again to Tank to meet the Taliban shura in Waziristan for the second time. The TTP submitted a list of non-combatants it wanted released, and the government wanted some high-profile captives like the late Punjab Governor Salman Taseer’s son and former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s son released (both were released in 2016). There were issues relating to foreign militants and matters regarding compensation and rehabilitation to be thrashed out, apart from dealing with the TTP factions which didn’t agree to peace. While the talks became something of a joke, Pakistan Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan after a cricket match, suggested the Taliban play cricket and stop fighting. The TTP put the onus of the ceasefire on the government which wasn’t backing off from air strikes, and the whole thing collapsed like a derelict building in a cloud of dust.
Earlier in February 2014, the first committee comprising Professor Ibrahim Khan and Maulana Yousuf Shah had travelled to Miramshah to meet the TTP leaders. Even the first two committees entrusted with peace negotiations, one government- appointed and the other by the TTP, had had a standoff over the issue of ceasefire, and any kind of peaceful settlement seemed distant. Maulana Samiul Haq of the Jamaat-e-Islami, spearheading the TTP side, was the one who mediated and tried to break the deadlock. For a man whose Darul Uloom Haqqania madrasa at Akora Khatak had spawned some top-rung Taliban leaders, including Hakimullah Mehsud and members of the Haqqani Network which gets its name from here, it was paradoxical that he should now be in charge of peacemaking. The TTP kept making unreasonable demands—it wanted a peace zone so that talks could be held without the fear of being targeted. While both the government and the TTP had called for a ceasefire in March 2014, this didn’t prevent the suicide strike on the Islamabad district and sessions court on 3 March. The TTP said it was not responsible, and another group called the Ahrar-ul-Hind claimed responsibility. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar said there could be half a dozen non-TTP factions, and within the TTP about thirty-seven or thirty-eight groups, which liked to believe they were united. He claimed some were not serious about the peace talks and there were non-TTP groups involved in ceasefire violations. The government then released several non-combatants from the Mehsud tribe.
All along, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf kept harping on the need for dialogue despite all the bombings. Imran claimed at a press conference that the army would only have 40 per cent chance of success in a military operation against the terrorists, and the government had not actually initiated talks. In the face of continuing attacks, there was little support for dialogue and the government was being criticized for its paralysis in tackling the TTP. Nawaz Sharif paid an unusual visit to the hilltop residence of Imran who endorsed the peace process. Imran was even nominated by the TTP to be on its committee for talks which he had the grace to refuse.
After Hakimullah’s death in November 2013, the new TTP chief, Maulana Fazlullah, ruled out talks. The TTP factions were in disarray and there were some who broke away and formed new groups. There was no one to talk to. Even before Hakimullah’s killing, the minister for interior, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, had declared in the National Assembly that the talks with the TTP had broken down and as long as the drone strikes continued, there was no point in a dialogue.
A fresh controversy erupted when the Jamaat-e-Islami chief, Syed Munawar Hassan, called Hakimullah a martyr. This drew sharp reactions from the Pakistan armed forces which demanded an unconditional apology. Calling dead terrorists martyrs was an insult to the thousands of men killed in combat, the army felt. And before that, another right-wing leader had said Hakimullah was a martyr because he fought the Americans and even a dog killed by the US would be considered a martyr.
The government tabled its long-awaited National Internal Security Policy in the National Assembly towards the end of February 2014 and clarified that there was no operation, only surgical strikes, amid confusion that the military was going in for the kill. The government persisted with the mirage of talks, dividing the good Taliban and the bad. These peace deals had been coming a cropper since 2004 when Nek Mohammed was killed in a US drone strike after the Shakai pact. Despite all the surgical and other strikes, the TTP continued to rule the roost. The Pakistan Security Report of 2013 by the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS) said the major actor of instability in 2013 was the TTP and despite the killing of some of its top leaders, the operational capabilities of the group remained intact. Six new groups emerged on the terrorism landscape in 2012, the report pointed out, adding that four of them were part of the al-Qaeda–TTP alliance.
In 2013, there was a 39 per cent increase in suicide strikes, and militant, nationalist, insurgent and violent sectarian groups carried out a total of 1717 terrorist attacks, killing 2451 people and injuring over 5000. The National Action Plan and the constitutional amendment to authorize military courts to try terrorists were the outcome of a society trying to fight terrorism with more and more draconian measures. The Protection of Pakistan (Amendment) Ordinance of 2014 gives expanded powers to security and law-enforcing agencies, paving the way for longer detention and arrest. The HRCP was among the few voices that spoke against this and said it violated constitutionally guaranteed rights, and legitimized illegalities. The HRCP said that there were far too many things in the ordinance that rights-respecting individuals would find difficult to stomach. ‘The main concerns include giving the authorities the power to withhold information regarding the location of any detainee, or grounds for such detention; detention of a person in internment centre instead of ordinary jails; creating new classifications of suspects such as “enemy alien” or “combatant enemy”; extending the preventive detention period for any suspect; and legitimising illegal detention and enforced disappearance through giving retrospective effect to the law.’ While laws provide a framework to punish the guilty, serious questions remain over the dismantling of terror networks and the training camps.
The talks with the TTP seemed hollow from another viewpoint. The committees didn’t have representation from the people of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), a group of seven tribal agencies which underwent vast changes after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It comes under the direct authority of the President. Battered by three cycles of war, everyone forgets that there are people living in these areas who are displaced after every military operation. At a seminar organized by the Institute of Strategic Studies just before the first round of talks with the TTP, author Ahmed Rashid observed that the region was suffering from the blowback of extremism and terrorism. He said it was unfortunate that the current debate was centred around whether to send the army or not instead of talking about bringing FATA into the fold of the state and making its people citizens. The issue of the status of FATA had disappeared from the Pakistan agenda.
With the Taliba
n gaining ground in Afghanistan and fingers pointing to the Haqqani Network in the various blasts there, FATA will continue to be a haven for terrorists. Its people have never mattered. However, things are looking up after the federal Cabinet approved steps in March 2017 to bring FATA into the mainstream, a precursor to its merger with the KPK province. The people of FATA can elect a representative to the KPK assembly, and the outdated and over 100-year-old Frontier Crimes Regulation will be replaced.34 I did run into some members of the Mehsud tribe who were staging a protest outside the Islamabad Press Club to demand facilities for their area. One of them, a lawyer, was pleased I was from India and insisted on me meeting members of a large circle which sat on the grassy meadow outside the club. I hung around for a few minutes and escaped, not sure what the Mehsuds were up to.
The Haqqani muddle
For some time, the US had been demanding that Pakistan act on the Haqqani Network and its training camps. The Haqqanis count as the ‘good’ Taliban, and are backed by the ISI, but this is, of course, strenuously denied. A little after Hakimullah’s killing in November 2013, the Haqqani Network’s financier, Nasiruddin Haqqani, was shot dead in the capital on a Sunday while returning from a mosque at Barakahu on the outskirts of Islamabad. Once again it was the TTP which was quick to confirm that Nasiruddin was killed, and his funeral took place at Miramshah in North Waziristan. Some from the media knew he was living in the capital and used to interact with him, and they were not surprised. The fact that terror network leaders live in Pakistan is an open secret, though the powers that be are in a state of denial, especially about the most famous one who was killed by the Americans in Abbottabad in 2011. Many Pakistanis feel it was not Osama bin Laden and the US was making it all up. Mullah Omar is another case in point: he died in Pakistan on 23 April 2013, but this was kept a secret till July 2015 due to ‘military’ reasons as that was the year when the NATO forces were pulling out. The Taliban’s new leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a May 2016 drone strike near the Pakistan–Afghanistan border in Balochistan, provoking fresh outrage. It is no secret that the Quetta shura (a council of top Taliban leaders who take decisions) is all-powerful and the Afghans have been protesting against the freedom of movement the Taliban has in Pakistan. The operations of these terror networks are tightly controlled and information leaks are made with a purpose. The deputy commander of the Afghan Taliban is Sirajuddin Haqqani who started running the Haqqani Network after his father and founder of the network, Jalaluddin Haqqani, suffered a stroke. In fact, the new head, Maulana Haibatullah Akhundzada, seems more of a prop.
Nasiruddin Haqqani, said to be in his thirties, was the eldest son of Jalaluddin. He was reportedly arrested in 2010 at the behest of the US and was kept in a safe house for interrogation. The TTP had alleged that security agencies were behind the killing. He was on the UN Security Council (UNSC) sanctions list of individuals whose assets were frozen and against whom there was a travel ban and an arms embargo as well. He was also a fundraiser for the outfit and travelled often to the Middle East.
The Afghan-led Haqqani Network, from the Zadran tribe, is based in North Waziristan, and the US maintains that the dreaded outfit was responsible for some major terrorist strikes in Afghanistan on the CIA and the siege of the US embassy. While the Pakistan government reacted furiously when the drone strike killing Hakimullah scuttled the peace talks with the TTP, there was no high drama and outrage after Haqqani’s death. In 2011, the then chairperson of the US Joint Chief of Staff Committee, Admiral Mike Mullen, had told the US Senate Armed Services Committee that the Haqqani Network acted as a ‘veritable arm’ of the ISI. While Pakistan denied it supported the Haqqani Network, the US persisted with its contention and demanded action against the Haqqanis, something reflected in the Consolidated Appropriations Bill which was signed by President Obama on 17 January 2014. It linked funding to Pakistan’s actions related to terrorism with the release of Dr Shakil Afridi who is in jail for helping the CIA track down Osama bin Laden in 2011. There are provisions to withhold $33 million unless Dr Afridi is released and cleared of all charges.
Pakistan reacted with disappointment over the withholding of funds till Dr Afridi was released. The other issues related to preventing cross-border terrorism are equally vital. The PTI’s then blockade of the NATO supply lines to protest against the drone strikes invited the ire of the US, and Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel, during his visit to Pakistan in December 2013, ‘requested’ the government to ensure that land routes were kept open. He reviewed ‘shared concerns’ regarding the activities of terrorist groups, including those of the Haqqani Network, on Pakistani territory.
Hubs of terror in the capital
Islamabad had a seamy side to it and there were hubs of terror being uncovered there. Terrorism was not confined to the remote regions of North or South Waziristan. Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in a tribal area, but Nasiruddin Haqqani was shot dead a week later in the capital in November 2013. A retired army officer said this was a huge embarrassment to the government. Comparisons were drawn to the US raid in Abbottabad which killed Osama bin Laden. Both the Bara Kahu and Tarnol areas are the developing parts of Islamabad, and do not have neat, well-tended sectors like the main city. The urban sprawl has spilled on to these outskirts, which are controlled by the land mafia and criminal elements. In August 2013, a Shia mosque was targeted by a suicide bomber who was killed by a guard, but after that a huge stash of arms and ammunition was found in a vehicle in the Bara Kahu area within the Islamabad Capital Territory. The owner of the vehicle was arrested and the police also raided the house of a Kashmiri family, the Gilanis, in Tarnol, and arrested the teenaged nephew of the Dukhtaraan-e-Millat founder-chairperson, Syed Asiya Andrabi.
Kashmiri family as terror suspects
It was in the district court complex that I saw young Mohammed Shoaib Andrabi who was arrested on 7 September 2013 after a raid in the Jammu and Kashmir Society in G-15 sector, twenty-two kilometres from the main city. On that day in court, his head covered with a scarf, the short, bespectacled and dishevelled Shoaib was produced in court, which had turned down the police request for five more days of physical custody of the teenaged suspect. He was charged with attempted murder, abetment and for possession of arms and explosives.
Ostensibly, he was caught with a cache of arms hidden in his house called Gilani Manzil. His brothers were missing, suspected to be in the custody of some security agency. There was a silence at House no. 563 on street 21 in the Khayaban-e-Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir Society in Tarnol. Except for two security guards, the place was desolate. Gilani Manzil looked prosperous and the big, light-brown one-storeyed house, with its flashy mirror windows and pretty blue floral awnings, was predictably locked. There were fields nearby, but nobody was around. Located in a developing colony, there was much rubble and half-constructed houses. On one side, the narrow strip of lawn had been dug up and that was where the police had found the drum with arms and explosives. Andrabi was being investigated for terror links and his brothers reportedly were with the al-Qaeda. Outside too, the lawn had been dug up, showing that the police were taking no risks.
I couldn’t get much out of the neighbours or security guards, and everyone was tight-lipped about what they saw or heard about the midnight raid on 7 September 2013. The entire street was jammed with police cars. According to the first information report,35 Inspector Mohammed Ajmal Khan rang the doorbell and Shoaib opened the door. Another person, later identified as Irtiyaz-un-Nabi Gilani, alias Sarfi, fired at the police as he escaped from the house. Shoaib showed the buried cache in the lawn—inside a plastic drum with sub-machine guns, pistols, detonators and ammunition. Some explosive devices were defused by the bomb disposal squad.
Shoaib was the first son of Asiya Andrabi’s brother, Zia-ul-Haq Andrabi. Irtiyaz, an aeronautical engineer, was Asiya Andrabi’s sister Rehana’s son. Irtiyaz and his younger brother, Mujahid Gilani, a paediatric surgeon, lived in the house. Dr Mujahid had a practice in the neighbourhoo
d market. Their elder brother, Zulqarnain Gilani, a captain in the Pakistan Army, was an occasional visitor at Gilani Manzil.
Shoaib was the one, says the FIR, who led the police to the drum buried in the lawn in front of the house. The police had already noticed the suspicious hump on the lawn as they entered the house. While only Shoaib was arrested and charged, Irtiyaz and Mujahid were missing. There was no information on their whereabouts.
A senior police official I spoke to said curtly that it was part of official record that the Gilani brothers were part of the al-Qaeda and they were testing spy planes. If the links are established and proved, it will be the first time that Kashmiris are involved in a terror plot in Pakistan, possibly involving the al-Qaeda. This was the first time a Kashmiri leader’s relative had been arrested. My colleague at that time in Srinagar, Ahmed Ali Fayyaz, helped me with information from Asiya Andrabi who was quite shaken by the events and who repeatedly sought information on the whereabouts of her nephews. I didn’t follow up on the case as there were too many events which had to be tracked. I wonder if they let off young Shoaib.
The curious case of Dr Shakil Afridi
In the bitter and rather humiliating aftermath of the US Navy Seals’ raid on Abbottabad in May 2011, there was fresh angst for Pakistan. Dr Shakil Afridi, a doctor who was part of a USAID immunization team, had allegedly helped the CIA in getting DNA samples from the bin Laden household to confirm his presence. There is a serious tussle between the US and Pakistan over Dr Afridi who continues to be jailed even though his thirty-three-year-old sentence was overturned by the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) commissioner in August 2013. His lawyer, Samiullah Afridi, a kind and helpful man with whom I used to have long phone conversations, was shot dead in March 2015 after repeated threats to stop defending his client. The Jamaat-ul-Ahrar which had split from the TTP and later rejoined it, claimed responsibility for killing the lawyer in Peshawar. Ehsanullah Ehsan tweeted that he was killed for helping the ‘crusaders’ in killing ‘our beloved Shykh Usama’ (bin Laden). Revenge and then to tweet proudly about murder comes naturally to the Taliban. They kill and boast about it in complete anonymity and with impunity.