Challenges of Terrorism in South Asia

By: Husain Haqqani

(Ambassador Husain Haqqani is a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington D.C. He has served as adviser to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto and as Pakistan’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka)

Intersection of concerns:

South Asia is home to over one billion people, almost one-fifth of the world’s population. The region is also the intersection of several key global security concerns. Its major players, India and Pakistan, have both tested nuclear weapons. There are insurgencies challenging the established order in several regional states. And terrorists with global reach have operated in and from South Asia over at least the last decade. For these, and other, reasons South Asia remains a region of critical importance for U.S. security policy.

Terrorism has challenged South Asia in several forms over the last two decades. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka, for example, have pursued their objective of a separate Tamil homeland with violent tactics that can be described as a model for terrorists elsewhere. Suicide bombing, for example, was an LTTE innovation that has been replicated elsewhere, notably the Middle East. But, among terrorist groups, it is the LTTE that seems to have grasped the significance of 9/11 earlier than others.

The LTTE’s ability to orchestrate terrorist attacks against Sri Lankan civilians and officials, as well as its capacity to inflict damage over regular armed forces, depended largely on the widespread sympathy with its objectives among Sri Lankan Tamils living all over the world. The Tamil Diaspora contributed money, which was channeled to the LTTE through a covert, and not so covert, network of humanitarian agencies. With the United States decisively clamping down on all terrorist financing networks, the LTTE’s leaders saw that their ability to continue to fund their operations will now be limited. They decided to cash in their current status of relative strength and accepted participation in a peace process that is currently underway.

The India-Pakistan conundrum:

In the context of the global war against terrorism, Pakistan and its complex relationship with India, presents a particularly difficult conundrum. For over a decade, Pakistan has been accused of supporting terrorism, primarily due to its support for Islamic militants opposing Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan territory of Jammu & Kashmir. Until September 11 last year, Islamabad was also the principal backer of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Although Pakistan has now become a key US ally in the war against terrorism, it is still seen both as a target and staging ground for terrorism.

General Pervez Musharraf’s military regime abandoned its alliance with the Taliban immediately after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. The US had succeeded in persuading Musharraf that refusal to support a US military operation against the Taliban would pitch against US might. US forces were allowed the use of Pakistani air bases for operations in Afghanistan. Pakistani intelligence services provided, and continue to provide, valuable information in hunting down Taliban and Al-Qaeda escapees. Almost every major al-Qaeda figure currently in U.S. hands was arrested and turned over to the Americans by Pakistani intelligence, including Al-Qaeda operations chief Abu Zubaydah, and chief 9/11 planner Khalid Shaikh Muhammad. The Pakistani military is currently working with US law enforcement officials in tracking down terrorists in the lawless tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. This cooperation has earned Pakistan much gratitude from U.S. officials including President Bush. General Musharraf has been praised as an important ally in the war against terrorism, giving the impression that he and his government share the U.S. perception about terrorism being a shared threat.

Pakistan’s post-9/11 U-Turn:

In a major policy speech on January 12, 2002, Gen. Musharraf announced measures to limit the influence of Islamic militants at home, including those previously described by him as ‘Kashmiri freedom fighters’. “No organizations will be able to carry out terrorism on the pretext of Kashmir,” he declared. “Whoever is involved with such acts in the future will be dealt with strongly whether they come from inside or outside the country”.

Musharraf’s supporters declared his speech as revolutionary. He echoed the sentiment of most Pakistanis when he said, “Violence and terrorism have been going on for years and we are weary and sick of this klashnikov culture…The day of reckoning has come”.

After the speech, the Musharraf regime clamped down on domestic terrorist groups responsible for sectarian killings. But there is still considerable ambivalence in Pakistan’s attitude towards the Kashmiri militants. Officially, Pakistan denies that it provides military support or training to terrorists. But in an interview published in the Washington Post on June 23, Musharraf repeated the argument for making a distinction between terrorists and freedom fighters, leaving the possibility open for supporting the latter. Several Islamic militant leaders arrested in the aftermath of the January 12, 2002 speech have since been released and Musharraf has indicated that he makes a distinction between Al-Qaeda, which he considers a terrorist organization, and the anti-India militants.

General Musharraf’s switching of support from the Taliban and Islamic militants to the United States initially infuriated Pakistan’s Islamists. They threatened his life as well as targets in Pakistan with increasing ferocity. There was at least one major terrorist act in Pakistan almost every month during 2002.

Terrorist attacks in Indian-controlled Kashmir have also continued unabated, though it would be unfair to blame Pakistan for each one of them. An attack on the Indian parliament in December, 2001 brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war, as did the May 14,2002 massacre of Indian soldiers’ families at a military camp. It was apparent that the terrorist groups were defying General Musharraf’s policy of cooperating with the West against terrorism and may even have been trying to provoke war between India and Pakistan. The government, on the other hand, was engaged in a balancing act between fighting terror and keeping Kashmiri resistance alive.

Mosque-Military Alliance:

It appears now that some kind of modus vivendi has been worked out between Pakistan’s Islamists and the military. These Islamists have publicly distanced themselves from Al-Qaeda and other outright anti-American groups in return for circumscribed freedom of action. Pakistani authorities will not take action against anyone for operations aimed solely at India, while the Islamic groups know that their cadres will suffer punishment if they get caught for involvement in anti-U.S. operations

The complex relationship between the state and the Islamists in Pakistan makes it difficult for the government to fulfil its promise of eliminating terrorism even if it had the will to stop all groups. India, in particular, argues that General Musharraf is willing to fight anti-US terrorists affiliated with Al-Qaeda only to the extent of securing US assistance. From New Delhi’s point of view, Pakistan is still unwilling to clamp down on Jihadi groups that it sees as allies in its longstanding conflict with India.

Pakistan became a center for Islamic militants when it served as the staging ground for the West’s war against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan beginning in 1979.

During the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance, militants from all over the Muslim world passed through Pakistan to participate in the Afghan Jihad. They were, at the time, supported by the intelligence services of the west as well as Islamic nations. Some of them created covert networks within Pakistan, taking advantage of poor law enforcement and the state's sympathetic attitude towards pan-Islamic militancy.

Now that al-Qaeda and the Taliban have been uprooted from Afghanistan, they are using their former transit station as a temporary staging ground for terrorist operations. Domestic terrorist groups remain active and at least some of them have developed tactical or strategic alliances with each other as well as with foreign groups.

Pakistan has paid a price for not confronting the terrorists in the past. They brought their battles to Pakistan, while holding out the promise of helping in Pakistan’s conflict with India. Even before the recent wave of terrorist attacks in Pakistan, Al Qaeda’s ally, Egyptian Jihad, bombed and destroyed the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad on November 19, 1995. A few months earlier, on March 8, 1995, two employees of the US Consulate in Karachi, Gary Durell and Jacqueline Van Landingham were killed in a terrorist attack on a consulate van.

On April 22, 1996 explosive devices were hurled on the US Information Service building in Lahore. Four Americans and two Pakistanis working with the Union Texas Oil Company were killed on November 12, 1997, again in Karachi. On November 12, 1999 rocket attacks targeted offices of the United States government as well as the United Nations in Islamabad.

The Kashmir connection:

At the heart of Pakistan’s past support for Islamists is its conflict with India arising out of the dispute over Kashmir. Pakistan seeks implementation of UN resolutions for an internationally supervised plebiscite to determine the future of Muslim majority Jammu and Kashmir, which India claims as its integral part. India and Pakistan have fought twice over the territory since their independence in 1947.

Even while announcing what was billed as a break from the past, Musharraf’s January 12, 2002 speech highlighted Pakistan’s pre-occupation with Kashmir. “Kashmir runs in our blood,” Musharraf said. “No Pakistani can afford to sever links with Kashmir……We will continue to extend our moral, political and diplomatic support to Kashmiris. We will never budge from our principled stand on Kashmir”.

India’s refusal to discuss Kashmir’s future with Pakistan has been accompanied by international indifference over the issue. This in turn has led to the belief in Islamabad that militancy and violence may be the only means of internationalizing the core issue in the India-Pakistan dispute.

The United States has been concerned by Pakistan’s involvement with the Kashmir insurgency since its earliest days. In May 1992, the Bush Sr. administration threatened to designate Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism. The focus of US concerns was the activities of Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISID), which had been the CIA’s counterpart in providing weapons and training to the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance. The U.S. did not carry out its threat, settling instead for patient engagement with Islamabad, which has borne some fruit in form of cooperation against Al-Qaeda. US demands about discontinuing support to militants fighting India are always linked by Pakistan to its grievances with India over Kashmir. Pakistan continues to demand an active US role in resolving that dispute.

Despite Pakistan’s high profile supportive role in dealing with Al-Qaeda, little has changed in Pakistan’s basic stance over Kashmiri militants since 1992. The government denies direct involvement in supporting the militants, emphasizes the indigenous character of the Kashmiri resistance and holds private citizens and groups responsible for any support mobilized in Pakistan for the Kashmiris. Musharraf links the end of Kashmiri militancy to the resolution of the Kashmir question even after the changed circumstances since September 11, 2001.

Implications for U.S. Policy:

Pakistan tolerance for Kashmiri militancy has serious implications for U.S. policy, if not immediately then certainly down the road. Over the years, the connection with Kashmir has provided social respectability to the Jihadi movement, which has ambitions beyond Kashmir and Pakistan. The state apparatus, particularly the Pakistani military, looked upon the Jihadis as low cost foot soldiers who could tie down large numbers of Indian troops in Kashmir. In the process, the Jihadis have managed to lay the foundations of a vast infrastructure that includes newspapers and magazines, Islamic charitable trusts, and religious schools (madrasas). Tolerance and covert support of extremist groups has allowed them to spread their tentacles throughout Pakistani society and to mobilize large sums of money for their operations.

Ideologically motivated religious extremists have also developed links with organized crime, especially in the city of Karachi. At times, this underworld alliance appears to command greater means than the country’s police or intelligence services.

It is also difficult for some members of the law enforcement machinery to look upon Islamists as enemies of the state, after almost two decades of treating them as national heroes. One of the accused in the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl was an employee of the Special Branch of Karachi police. A member of the paramilitary Rangers has been charged with plotting to murder Musharraf in concert with the group responsible for the car bomb attack at the US Consulate in Karachi.

Even if General Musharraf decides finally to root out Islamic militancy, it will be years before the terrorist networks are completely eliminated. Resources of the police and intelligence-gathering agencies are over-stretched as the military government uses them to stay in power and not just to keep crime and terrorism in check. The terrorists know that and take advantage of the state’s weakness.

General Musharraf has clamped down on groups directly linked with Al-Qaeda and his government has helped the US in apprehending foreign fighters, including high-ranking Al-Qaeda figures. But Pakistan will have to completely abandon using Islamic militants as an instrument of policy if terrorism is to be rolled back effectively.

India mistrusts Pakistani intentions, while Pakistan demands guarantees of dialogue over Kashmir before completely closing the chapter on Kashmiri militancy. When India threatened retaliation by mobilizing massive military force on the Pakistan border, after the terrorist attack on its parliament in December 2001, its over-whelming superiority in conventional weapons was cited in Pakistan as an argument against reversal of policy over Islamic militancy. Supporters of the insurgents within Islamabad’s policy-making circles said that Islamic militants would serve as an important fifth column for Pakistani soldiers, sabotaging the much larger and better-equipped Indian army, in case of war.

Musharraf’s Dilemma:

The halfway approach to tackling terrorism has left Pakistan vulnerable to pressure from both the Islamists and the International community. General Musharraf's continuing war against domestic political rivals and the on- going confrontation with India gives the terrorists an advantage. They have nothing to protect only targets to destroy. Musharraf, by contrast, must safeguard Pakistan's interests in addition to keeping him, and the military, in power.

Recent clashes between Pakistani forces with Al Qaeda fighters in the country’s remote tribal areas indicate that there may be no turning back from General Pervez Musharraf’s decision to join the international coalition against terrorism. Even if Pakistan wanted to nuance its position on the issue, making distinctions between terrorists targeting the United States and Pakistan and terrorists opposed to India, neither the U.S. nor the terrorists would allow such distinctions.

Pakistan must now bravely complete its U-turn and end its reputation as a militant-infested nation. The United States must help its erstwhile ally to achieve that end. This can be accomplished if three conditions are met:

First, Pakistan’s relations with India must move towards normalization. The tactical deployment of Islamic militancy as a means of combating Indian military advantage was the starting point of Pakistan’s involvement with the Jihadis. In the absence of peaceful relations with India, it is unlikely that Pakistan will be able to completely close the option of calling upon Islamists in case of a confrontation with its traditional rival.

From Pakistan’s point of view, normalization of ties with India would involve the beginning of a process of dialogue over the future status of Jammu and Kashmir. The United States needs to encourage such a process, even without an immediate resolution of the dispute. So far, India has tried to translate its support for the global war against terrorism into regional advantage, painting itself as the reliable U.S. partner while denigrating Pakistan as a potential target for U.S. punitive action. While Pakistan remains a troubled state, it would become a greater source of instability if Indian proposals for punishing it are adopted as U.S. policy.

Second, Decision-making in Pakistan must revert to elected civilian leaders rather than being vested in the military. Over the last ten years, the intelligence-military complex in Pakistan has retained control of key decision-making over matters relating to national security. As a result, conduct of diplomacy by civilians has been hampered by covert operations run by the military. Civilian leaders have often been vilified or undermined for seeking to change the course of the country’s Afghan and Kashmir policies.

Since 1999, direct military rule has also subordinated Pakistani decision-making to military biases. Given the history of the last thirty years, in particular, it is clear that Pakistan’s military looks upon the Islamic militants as its allies against India. Mainstream civilian politicians, on the other hand, are generally secular and less strident about confrontation with India. Political and economic factors have weighed more in the calculations of civilians than the strategic doctrines propounded by the military.

The close identification of the United States with General Musharraf and his domestic and foreign policies means that the U.S. loses public support each time the general’s popularity dips and vice versa. Public support in Pakistan for the United States is at an all-time low. The U.S. thus is dealing with a situation where it has half-hearted support from officials and virtually none from the public. Ironically, there was far greater support for the U.S. when the war in Afghanistan started.

Pakistan’s Islamists had never been able to do well in electoral politics, until the legislative elections of October 10, 2002 when they won significant number of seats in parliament and control of the NWFP provincial assembly with only 11 percent of the popular vote. Their strength in recent years has been the direct result of covert state patronage and the military’s decision to assign them a role in its regional strategy. Even their recent election success resulted from the military’s efforts to weaken mainstream political parties. In the long run, however, a democratic political process is likely to contain Islamist influence, making it easier to isolate and eliminate extremist groups.

Third, Pakistan must disarm all militias and dismantle the Jihadi infrastructure. The U.S. must ensure that this is done with broad national consensus within Pakistan.

So far, the military regime has not sought the cooperation of legitimate Islamic groups or mainstream political parties. Instead, it has antagonized traditional religious and political parties and allowed the war against terrorism to be cast as a U.S. war being fought with Pakistan’s help. Domestic political disputes have prevented any scheme of disarming local militias. For terrorism to be defeated, Pakistan would have to make a serious effort in re-orienting its national priorities from military power and militancy towards modernity and development. The United States would have to nudge Pakistan’s ruling elite in that direction, instead of allowing their traditional worldview to prevail as the price for short-term support against Al-Qaeda.

Pakistan needs to roll back terrorism to secure its own future. But that objective cannot be attained through half-hearted measures or without a paradigm shift in the Pakistani military’s worldview. In the absence of a constitutional democratic government, Pakistan’s ruling elite seeks acceptance through Islamic rhetoric and confrontation with India. Until that change, terrorists will continue to feel emboldened to challenge the inefficient state apparatus that lacks both legitimacy and broad public support.

Conclusion:

Pakistan alone, among South Asian nations, presents a serious challenge in establishing the principle that terrorism is a shared threat and that it cannot be justified or tolerated under any and all circumstances. At the same time, Pakistan remains a crucial partner in dealing with the fall out of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. It has been helpful in rounding up Al-Qaeda remnants, including their leadership.

Official support for U.S. policies in Pakistan is conditional to the economic, military and political benefits accruing from cooperation. Public opinion, however, is increasingly hostile partly because of the close identification of the U.S. with an unpopular authoritarian regime

The U.S. policy of considering General Musharraf as its ally limits its ability to reach out to Pakistan’s political parties and different sections of society. The natural U.S. allies in a country like Pakistan are supporters of secular democracy, most of who have been cast by the politically dominant military as its rivals for power. The perceived alliance between the military regime and the U.S. precludes public support for U.S. policies.

In India and Sri Lanka, and to a lesser extent in Bangladesh, there is less public opposition to U.S. policies. Significant players in the military and government of these countries recognize the benefit to their nations from cooperation with the U.S. in the global war against terrorism.

Pakistan’s difficult balancing act between being an Islamic state and a western ally will retain its conflicted status and make it a difficult partner for the U.S. in counter-terrorism. India, though a full partner in counter-terrorism strategy, may have reservations about aspects of the NSS that suggest U.S. global pre-eminence.

The doctrine of preemption could be used by India to threaten Pakistan in seeking compliance with its demands over dealing with Kashmiri militancy.

The U.S. will have to engage actively in promoting a peace process between India and Pakistan to deal with the root causes of terrorism in the region. It may also have to pressure Pakistan’s military into relinquishing its control over political power to pave the way for a credible peace process.