essay on terrorism in pakistan for 2nd year

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War Against Terrorism Essay

The systematic approach adopts here while writing War Against Terrorism Essay. We have the idea that it is the need of those students who want higher studies rooted in violence and perceived injustices. The lead goes with the psychological determinants of the terrorist act. The Western media put light on terrorism and war specifically after 9/11. Violent radicalization is the result of such a mindset. Terror thinking finds a way to search Pakistan’s history, even the current geopolitical situation, and social scenario. It is the core issue reflected in the best way.

Table of Contents

Every government has its own interpretation and struggle to define terrorism. There is no standard definition indeed. United Nations did not ponder to articulate a full-fledged definition that can make the standard for all countries. The event of 9/11 has impacted the Muslim community specifically.

Essay On Corruption

Event of 9/11:

The incident directly creates the feeling In Muslims that terrorism has a direct impact on the so-called Muslim extremist groups. In simple words, it can say that terrorism is what these groups are doing. The same mindset makes the wrong interpretation of Islamic Jihad as well. Social, economic, and human costs due to terrorism heavily affect the Pakistani stand at an international level. The purpose of the narrative is to show the same in this War Against Terrorism Essay. Pakistan is the first country made with the name of Islam on the world map and obviously, it faces the same mindset on the frontline.

Soviet-Afghan War 1979:

The Western media never missed a chance to mention the first step of Pakistan toward terrorism in the region. A fundamental change was witnessed that altered the very character of the existing Pakistani society. The withdrawal of the Soviets revealed a Pakistani society that had been forced into havoc. There are many direct and indirect events in terrorism linked to the War Against Terrorism Essay. It assures that how every event including the event of 9/11 and the first step of the Soviet-Afghan War in 1979 are some facets of the Essay On War Against Terrorism.

Pakistan Stock Exchange Attack

In 2020, some terrorists attacked the Pakistan Stock Exchange which is located in Karachi. When work hours started then some of the people who are completely loaded with the latest guns and bombs attacked the main branch then some of the Pakistan arm forces soldiers were taken action against them and shot all the terrorists.

Now, you can get the War Against Terrorism Essay in English because some people do not understand Urdu literature so all information about terrorism is mentioned on this page. Students can read the War Against Terrorism Essay with Quotes.

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63 Comments

this essay iz better for grade8

Nice essay for standard class8

is this essay is not good for grade 9 please reply me i m waiting for your answer

This essay is very best eassy

Niceee essssssay i like this essssssay. …..

A veryyy good eassy

This essay is very nice and I really like this essay

It is short essay for getting 13 marks out of 15…..

Extremely good !

Really nice essay man

Nice essay.

its a good essay for geting good marks

i like it. its ok.

Good effort

nice essay 🙂

eassy bht acha ha

Nice essay Keep it up! God bless you!

Nice but useless for me

good job !! very well done

perfect essay bro (Y)

i like this essay this is really a great search

easy sassy & very nice words

very nice beautiful wording

Very helpful essay …

good essay points are beautiful

goooooooooooood effort

this is arrgant essey

its not what i wanted….:(

very helpful essay on terrorism on pakistan

fantastic essay

it helps me in my intermediate exams 2013

nice essayssss

very good essayyy thanks…..

Very go0d c0llecti0n 0f p0ints… 🙂

marvellous essay and also dabang

Very go0d c0llecti0n 0f p0ints ….. 🙂

I HAVE TO WRITE AN ESSAY UPONE “WAR AGAINST TERRORISOM” AND I FOUND IT “THANKS”……..

good essay..!!!:)

yah essay bilkul thek hai pakostan ke lihayas se vveeeeerrrrrryyyyyyyy goooooooooood

good essay..!!!

really good essay..!!!

it’s very good eassy on terrorim in pakistan

niceee nd good eassy i think the date of incident of lal masid on may be 2005 in musharafs period

Nice’essay.

really a gooood essay.,,.,!!

Lal masjid incident happened in July-2007 while the suicide attacks start from Airstricke on a Madrassa at Bajaur Agency, the tribal area of Pakistan. It results 82 Madrassa students.

this is really nice essay

i dont think the incident of lal masjid brings terrorism in pakistan

i wanna say that incident of lal masjid was not in late 1999s

hey plz if u know than reply me the actual date of this incident………

@batool right

Post Comment Cancel reply

Terrorism in Pakistan: Causes, Impacts, and Way Forwards

• Usama Nawaz Dothar
• December 17, 2022
• CSS , CSS Essays , CSS Solved Essays , PMS , PMS Essays
• 42544 Views

What are the causes, impacts, and way forwards of Terrorism in Pakistan? | Terrorism in Pakistan: Causes, Impacts, and Way Forwards | CSS Essays | PMS Essays | Essays by Sir Syed Kazim Ali

Usama Nawaz Dothar has attempted this essay on the given pattern, which Sir  Syed Kazim Ali  teaches his students, who have consistently been qualifying their CSS and PMS essays. The essay is uploaded to help other competitive aspirants learn and practice how to write a comprehensive outline; how to write bullets in an outline; how to write the introductory paragraph; how to connect sentences and paragraphs; how to write a topic sentence; how to put evidence within the paragraphs.

1- INTRODUCTION

• ✓  Terrorism, a global evil threatening the world’s peace
• ✓  Wreaking havoc in Pakistan
• ✓  Affecting the socio-political and economic fabric of the country
• ✓  Raising a diverse range of issues for the country
• ✓  The miserable state of affairs urging for a viable solution

2- CURRENT SITUATION

• ✓  At present, Pakistan, along with other problems, is still struggling with the issue. 
• ✓  According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, Pakistan witnessed 319 terrorism-related incidents in 2022 and 169 associated deaths of civilians.
• ✓  After the withdrawal of the USA, the new Taliban regime in Afghanistan further escalated the situation along the Pak-Afghan border.
• ✓  According to the Pak Institute of Peace Studies, a local think tank, as many as 433 people were killed and 179 injured in 250 attacks in Pakistan between August 15, 2021, and August 14, 2022 

3- WHAT ARE THE MAJOR CAUSES BEHIND THE MENACE?

• ✓  Burgeoning national-provincial and provincial-provincial rift
• ✓  Halting socioeconomic growth that leads to a lack of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)
• ✓  Overpowering all other concerns state resources under constant pressure, as a significant chunk of the budget goes for security buildup
• ✓  An increasing number of unemployed youngsters is an impetus for radicalization.
• ✓  Governing and relocating problems of Internally displaced persons, issues of refugees, and infrastructure rebuilding
• ✓  Sparking a concern to move to a safe place in the country or abroad 

5- HOW SOME PRAGMATIC MEASURES CAN HELP PAKISTAN TO OVERCOME THE MENACE

• ✓  To educate and register madarises
• ✓  To create jobs and a business-friendly environment
• ✓  To eradicate religious and ethnic differences.  
• ✓  To develop consensus among all stakeholders.
• ✓  To provide awareness to the masses through campaigns and the media’s active role.
• ✓  To expand state writ.

6- CRITICAL ANALYSIS 7- CONCLUSION

Terrorism is a global evil, threatening the world’s peace that humankind has struggled to achieve for centuries. Terrorism, the calculated use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population, is an organized warfare to achieve a diverse range of goals, particularly political objectives. In pursuance, terrorists, in particular, target innocent citizens and infrastructure worth millions to put immense pressure on the state authorities to kneel before their irrational demands. This heinous crime against humanity has halted many countries’ progress and jeopardized their peace, prosperity, and stability. For instance, events like the Twin Towers 2001, Mumbai Attacks 2008, and Army Public School 2016 jolted states’ security apparatus and psychologically made the public suffer. Unfortunately, the world has witnessed the brunt of terrorism, and Pakistan is the only country still reeling to combat the menace. As a result, the country has seen unprecedented bloodshed in the past two decades. According to Inter-Services Press Release (ISPR), more than 75000 lives have been claimed by terrorism, of which 65000 were civilians and 10000 were armed personnel. Undoubtedly, it has affected every socio-political and economic fabric of the country; however, the root of the problems lies in the state and society: lousy governance, racial and ethnic disparities, religious schism and intolerance. In fact, the ongoing dismal affairs have ignited a diverse range of issues, such as widening engulf among masses, convulsing conducive business environment, increasing unemployment and, above all, the issue of Afghan refugees. In fact, despite its complex nature, it is not impossible to be eradicated. A sincere and ambitious effort to root out terrorism is a need of the hour. Without any second thought, there is a need to review the education system as a whole, introduce structural changes, and make a compatible parallel system of madaris and private schools with the public sector. Further, accommodating youth, easing the doing of business for locals and foreigners, working to ensure parity among masses, developing a micro to macro-level consensus, and empowering state machinery to ensure state reach further are some immediate measures to curb the menace.

At present, terrorism is again around the corner. Despite a crackdown previously by security agencies, the terrorists who flee to Afghan soil are once again started pursuing their anti-state agenda in Pakistan. With empathy, the country has been up against several issues, such as political turmoil, economic slope, and the resurging terrorist activities tearing the country apart.  According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, Pakistan witnessed 319 terrorism-related incidents in 2022 and 169 associated deaths of civilians. Undoubtedly, except for 2020, the average attacks in the country scored 160. Further, a holistic look at the year 2022 provides a speedy rise in terrorist attacks.  In fact, the much-celebrated victory of the Taliban government in its western neighbour, Afghanistan, proved more lethal for Pakistan, evident from recent cross-border firing incidents. Furthermore, after the US withdrawal, the Afghan front’s situation has worsened, and terrorists manoeuvre along the border more freely; as a result, the country has started facing another blow of terrorism.  According to the Pak Institute of Peace Studies, a local think tank, as many as 433 people were killed and 179 injured in 250 attacks in Pakistan between August 15, 2021, and August 14, 2022. Meticulously, the burgeoning bulk of the crisis might engulf Pakistan.  The country has been fighting on many fronts, including environmental, security, and socio-political issues. Every problem has its solution; the state can nip it in the bud by mobilizing its resources, as it did after the Army Public School attack in 2016. But, keeping in mind that the previous mistakes would not repeat. 

The genesis of the problem lies in socio-political and economic fault lines, which widen the aperture. There are a number of causes. In Pakistan, since its inception, the unequal distribution of wealth, racial discrimination, and unequal opportunities has widened the gap between rich and poor. Due to such inadequate treatment, poverty has multiplied tens of times after independence.  In a recent report published by the World Bank, the country, for the fiscal year 2020-21, is 78.4%, using an upper-middle poverty rate of US$ 5.5 per day.  Poverty deeply affects a person’s thinking capability, and he becomes unidirectional. In addition, the growing bomb population has started putting pressure on state resources. As a result, more than half of the youth are unemployed, and these demoralized young souls are more prone to terrorist ideologies. Next, the evil political and religious leaders corrupt practices are also one of the main factors behind increasing poverty and lack of jobs.  As Nelson Mandela rightly said: “Poverty is not an accident, like slavery and apartheid. It is manufactured and can be removed by the actions of human beings.”  In short, poverty knows no religion or humanity, so the poor and unemployed become more radicalized and know no right and wrong to earn their livelihood. For them, the only good is how to have a meal, so they start spreading terror to fulfil their wishes.

Preceding one of the appealing causes behind terrorism is a misinterpretation of religion. Not just a misunderstanding but also a rigid interpretation that has marred the universality of Islam. They are provoking inter-religion and intra-religion divides, which gives an impetus for terrorism. This makes society more vulnerable, and terrorists find it favourable. Indeed, they easily manipulate people by offering different perks to a person’s family and ensuring him of Paradise hereafter by reminding God’s promise. Nevertheless, with fewer ulemas and more mullahs, Mullah’s emphasis on struggle with the sword nurtures violent behaviour; also, they connote the sole reason behind Muslims’ miserable condition of the American People. After brainwashing, an individual’s tolerance level and sense of perceiving things drastically change. As a result, he considers people other than in-group enemies to him, society, and Islam. Therefore, he does not hesitate to kill himself, such as in suicide bombings. To understand fully, the Sunni-Shia riots in Pakistan are good to consider; in the 1980s, there was a norm to kill one another. In a critical diagnosis, the Muslim nations have waged war against each other based on religious differences and Saudi-Iran rivalry. On the contrary, Islam talks about universality and pluralist society. Conclusively, one of the strides behind terrorists’ sways is rigid and misinterpreting religion.

Going down the ladder, one of the striking causes behind terrorism is sectarian and ethnic differences. The divide between Balochi, Punjabi, Sindhi, and Mohajir has further aggravated the situation, and stunted the country’s growth. In short, minority and majority anathema and these differences ultimately provide ground for terrorism nurturing.  For instance, the Mutahida Quami Movement activities in Karachi, terrorist groups in Swat, and the Federal Administrative Tribal Area (FATA0, now part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), are pertinent to mention here . Indeed, ethnically motivated terrorism has its reasons. On the contrary, the sectarian division also unwelcomed dissent opinions, imbibing feelings of hate. Nonetheless, the ethnic and sectarian splits have radicalized society and started nurturing terrorist ideology. As of this, terrorist groups are growing in size and quantity. 

Further, to talk about any issue in South Asia and the Middle East, the role of international and regional players is of great concern. In devoid of it, one cannot fully comprehend the reasons behind the problem.  The United States (US) and its ally’s invasion of Iraq to carry its nefarious attacks resulted in Muslim hatred towards the West.  Geographical compulsion was the reason Pakistan became a forefront ally of the US War on Terror after 9/11. Reluctantly, the country’s leadership found itself helpless in front of the United States’ immense pressure. Moreover, the war in the western neighbour provided momentum for different proxies. Rationally, the terrorism was a reaction against western proxies, which cost Pakistan more than the devil itself. Despite bearing many losses, the populous opinion in the US always censures the country’s efforts. The role of international players is not confined to the US role only but also the role of India, Israel, and other Eurasian Nations, which tried to destabilize Pakistan internally and isolate it internationally. In fact, the state and non-state actors started funding internal insurgent groups, eroding statehood sinews. One of the prime objects behind these fundings and proxies was Pakistan’s nuclear disarmament. In furtherance of their prime object, India and Israel started campaigning to stigmatize, prohibit, and eliminate nuclear weapons in Pakistan by creating propaganda they might end up in the hands of non-state actors, terrorists or Islamic radicals. Hence, the countries having vested interest promote terrorism in the country.

Last but not least, the other culprits behind terrorism are the executive’s role and Afghan refugees. The executive has failed to maintain the law. In comparison, the judicial system also has near to collapse. The erroneous irregularities in procedure and corruption have allowed law-breakers to flee, bypassing the system. The criminals know how to manage the police or judiciary.  As Adam Smith rightly said, “The mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.”  Therefore, when people lost hope, they decided to take the law into their hands. On the contrary, the state has failed to accommodate Afghan refugees. The burden of internally displaced persons (IDPs) was not enough that the government opened its borders to Afghan refugees on humanitarian grounds. The IDPs left their homes, business, and belongings but are now at the state’s mercy. The drone attacks were counter-productive and killed many civilians. The relatives of those families stand against the state, and some join terrorists. Injudicious and unpopular decisions of the government have raised some issues. In short, the above causes contributed to fanning the flames of terrorism, raising some challenges for Pakistan.

First, the rising rift between national-provincial and provincial-provincial is of great concern. The burgeoning issue has waged a war of mudslinging on one another.  For instance, the Karabagh dam issue, a much-advocated project to meet water and energy viability, is a result of the split . The national-provincial dissent on a number of losses and inadequate compensation has divided the house so that separation voices are now heard from different sections and parts of the country. However, Pakistan has not forgotten the secession of East Pakistan. Indeed, a house divided against itself cannot stand. Therefore, the country must develop a consensus by putting aside its trivial issue to eliminate terrorism from its soil. Otherwise, the dingy state of affairs annihilates the country. Nevertheless, the gap between person to person has started widening. Political polarization is also an outcome of growing differences. Second, a death blow to the economy.  According to official estimates, Pakistan has lost precious lives and infrastructure and suffered a loss of around $ 35-40 billion since 2001. Due to the ongoing war on terror, the country’s economy still suffers $6 billion in export losses annually.  The clouds of fear and uncertainty have devastated the country’s business outlook. Owing to such far reaching impacts and future implications, the business sector is on the verge of collapse, and foreign direct investment has touched a record low, thus, further breaking the back of the poor and deprived masses. If the division and fear kept increasing, it would be more feasible for terrorists to carry on their agenda.                        

                 Third, the issue of security has overpowered all other concerns of the state. The major chunk of the budget goes for security build-up, which has made Pakistan lag behind other nations in terms of social indicators. Specifically,  the country has repaired particular walls of official buildings and installed fences around them. Further, the government has increased security in different public places.  In short, the government has to spend public money on bullets and tanks, which, thus, shifted the state’s focus from other works of public welfare, such as human capital development. Conclusively, security-related issues have overshadowed the country’s other concerns today. On similar lines, fourth, the unfettered growth of the population has further aggrandized the state’s agony. In particular, the youth, forming the majority of the population, is left on its own.  As a World Bank report suggests, Pakistan’s youth unemployment rate for 2021 was 9.42%, a 0.2% increase from the preceding year.  As a result, the demoralized youth without any purpose has become prey to terrorist ideals. Further, if the state would not accommodate youth and streamline their potential, they might become a weapon of terrorism, such as suicide bombers. Critically, if Pakistan wants to cherish its dream of becoming the tiger of South Asia, it needs to employ more than half the population, which is constituted by its youth. In short, these issues have hampered the state’s socio-economic growth and provided a stimulus for terrorism.

                Next to it, fifth is the issue of relocating Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and Afghan refugees. Retrospectively, many people vacated their homes to facilitate law enforcement agencies.  In this regard, Pakistan’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) report unveils the number of total displaced persons. IDMC’s report shows around 70,000 displacements were recorded in 2021, mainly triggered by terrorism and disasters. Ostensibly, the government has sat on the fence to seek the issue, and people who came as frontline solider to sacrifice their hard-earned money, in particular homes, are struck by thunder that government is unable to alleviate their miseries. Certainly, the issue calls for an early solution. Otherwise, like terrorists, these people may follow the path of insurgents. Similarly, the issue of Afghan refugees, a looming sword of threat on our necks, has always stabbed in our back. In a joint report, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Government of Pakistan verified that 1.3 million Afghan refugees live today in Pakistan.  Morally, giving them a piece of land to reside on humanitarian grounds was idealistic, without thinking of future liability. However, they have become such a liability that the state wants to drive them out. On the contrary, the refugees blame Pakistani that they are the sole reason behind the turmoil. Therefore, due to international pressure, the country has tried to alleviate IDPs and Afghan refugees to achieve perpetual peace for generations. Indeed, both issues have stunted the country’s socio-political and economic growth.

          Last but not least, the people started moving towards safe places and even started residing abroad in quest of peace. When people’s basic rights, such as life, liberty, and property, are under constant attack, no one finds the country a place to abode. So, Pakistan’s intellectual and skillful labor has left the country, further distancing the country’s dream of achieving prosperity. Brain drain has become a grave issue for Pakistan.  In a recent Gallop Survey, 7,50,000 people left the country for better life and opportunities abroad.  Brain drain harms sending regions, such as reduced human capital, limited capacity to innovate, reduced economic growth, demographic shifts, and a higher cost of public goods. The issues, mainly, are knitted with terrorism. Precisely, terrorism has penetrated fear in all sectors of the country, instigated significant unrest, hampered social mobility, and robbed the future of million. Pakistan is up to several challenges because of terrorism. 

           After the diagnosis, one calls for an effective treatment. The cancerous disease of terrorism has jeopardized the state’s health, but, for sure, it is a curable disease. To cure, the state needs to adopt some pragmatic measures in the right direction at the right time. Some of the measures are following, which can eradicate the disease. First, improvement in the education sector can root out the problem of terrorism. The government should mitigate the gap between private-public schools, missionary schools, and madrassas.  As per assertions of a recent report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Pakistan has the world’s second-highest number of out-of-school children, counting 22.8 million children between the ages of 5 and 16, representing 44 per cent of children not attending schools.  For sure, it is a dreadful situation. Illiterate ones can easily be exploited. Hence, an outdated syllabus and effective policy to enroll the maximum number of kids in school should be the state’s priority. Then, an ambitious effort, teachers must pursue to teach tolerance, patience, and hate against violence to root out the problem permanently.

           Second, there is a need to create a conducive business environment. A much-needed effort to uplift local industry by introducing structural adjustments via a public-private partnership. Meanwhile, measures should be adopted to gain foreign enterprises’ confidence so that they can pour FDI. By creating such a feasible environment, the unemployed millions can have jobs and help eradicate poverty. If the measures are taken judiciously, it will help the country to portray itself as an emerging economy. Next to it fourth, the country needs to galvanize society and weave it into a single entity by rooting out all ethnic and sectarian conflicts. To do so, the country must ban hate material, register religious and local bodies, enact new laws, and provide equal opportunities to all, ensuring their growth and popularity. Anti-Terrorism in this regard was also a great achievement, but the vague interpretation of it further fueled the fire of sectarian conflicts. So, a commitment by state, province, local bodies, and religious schools to adopt tolerance and accept dissent can help eradicate the monster of terrorism, as a myopic mindset often promotes violence.

            On the same footing, five pragmatic and far-sighted policies by the government can extirpate terrorism from Pakistan. First, Pakistan is bleeding because of ill-advised policies. Therefore, a road map adopted with the consent of all stakeholders can be a step forward to combat the menace. Further, a campaign to reach people regarding the evils of terrorism and take them in confidence can help implement policies and provide public support as the state has not had enough resources, so public involvement is a need of the hour. In this regard, Media can help promote anti-terrorist agenda to vitiate them from our soil. Media can highlight the dangers of terrorism and provide public pain-relieving news in time without sensitizing other propaganda. Meticulously, these steps help counter terrorist ideologies prevailing in society. Finally, the state needs to implement rule of law and other anti-terrorism laws, so culprits should be punished within due time. Even the speedy trials and separate courts for terrorists help root out terrorism. The Anti-Terrorism Courts (ATC) was a great development. However, the lack of security to judge derailed the process. So, the state needs to enforce its writ to far-flung areas and provide security to the functionaries, which helps punish criminals in time, resulting in deterrence. Conclusively, deterrence can help people fear the wrath of the state and a strong state writ. After that, terrorists find no place to hide and no mercy. As a result, peace will be ensured.

             In a critical diagnosis, the issue of terrorism has overshadowed all other concerns Pakistan faces today. The devil has engulfed the country’s peace and prosperity, leaving it in a swamp of destruction. However, the state has the potential to close the devil in the bottle. Terrorism has created innumerable losses and fright that people still fear taking a breath in the fresh air. Indeed, things take time to settle; the state has once achieved victory against the devil. But, lack of farsightedness and too early celebrations have brought it back. Now, it is time to learn from past mistakes and monitor the cross-border flow of people. Moreover, Pakistan has neglected the costs of its porous borders on both the eastern and western borders. If the state needs to immune itself from terrorism, the state and global leaders must take a hard stance against the countries providing a safe haven to terrorists. Otherwise, the elusive dream of the world to achieve perpetual peace and peaceful co-existence with diverse nations can never be achieved. 

            To encapsulate the whole debate, terrorism has wreaked havoc in every sphere of life. The right to freely move, live and have a family is under constant threat because of terrorism. Pakistan has paid the price and still paying for it. Many factors have promoted terrorism in Pakistan, such as poverty, unemployment, racial and religious split, and misinterpretation of Islam. The far-reaching impacts are visible in the country’s social, political, and economic domains. According to official estimates, Pakistan has lost precious lives and infrastructure and suffered a loss of around $ 35-40 billion since 2001. Due to the ongoing war on terror, the country’s economy still suffers $6 billion in export losses annually. In addition, the figures, painting a gloomy picture of the state outlook, are appealing in every sphere, such as social indicators have touched the lowest of all time. Nevertheless, if taken timely, pragmatic measures can help Pakistan not only expatriate terrorism but also achieve unsurpassable growth. Judicious and prudent analysis highlights that Pakistan alone cannot combat the global menace single-handedly. A much-contested and collective effort is needed at regional and global levels to get rid of the devil for now and for times to come. 

About the essay writer

Usama Nawaz  is a student of Sir  Syed Kazim Ali . He is a young writer and legal advisor. He writes on a diverse range of issues: contemporary social, political, economic, and environmental, with which the world has struggled. Further, he has done Llb (Hons) from the University of Punjab, Pakistan. Moreover, he has worked as an Associate in different firms such as Asma Jahangir Law Firm. Moreover, he writes to raise his voice against human rights abuses and pens his thoughts on various topics: opinions, blogs, and issues. Besides, he has done different internships, volunteered in different organisations, and unconditionally helped others. Now, he is learning writing communication skills to give his thoughts words under Mr Kazim’s mentorship. Lastly, he is a thorough gentleman preparing for competitive exams to pursue his dream of serving the Nation.

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Extremism and Terrorism Trends in Pakistan: Changing Dynamics and New Challenges

February 2021, volume 14, issue 2.

Hassan Abbas

Categories:

• Afghanistan
• Cooperation, Competition, & Fissures
• Counterterrorism
• Strategy, History, & Goals
• Islamic State Khorasan
• Jaish-e-Muhammad
• Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
• Tehrik-i-Taliban

Abstract: Even as Pakistan has made progress in reducing the threat from terrorist sanctuaries in the Pakistan-Afghanistan tribal areas, an increased crime-terror nexus in urban centers and a new terrorist recruitment drive by Islamic State Khorasan province, or ISK, in Baluchistan has raised alarms. Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is trying to stage a comeback, and sectarianism is also rising, creating a congenial environment for terrorist and extremist organizations, including some Kashmir-focused groups that have evaded counterterrorism scrutiny. Pakistan’s poor investment in developing a much-needed countering violent extremism strategy makes it ill-equipped to respond to these challenges.

Terrorism in Pakistan is down, but by no means out. The number of terror attacks and the number of resulting fatalities have started to tick up again; sectarianism is growing and the causes feeding into radicalization of the population not only continue to exist but, in some instances, are aggravating the problem. The revival of the Afghan Taliban since its nadir in the fall of 2001 coupled with the striking emergence and resilient footprint of the Islamic State Khorasan province, or ISK, in adjacent Afghanistan, in parallel with the rise of Hindu nationalism in neighboring India, indicate worsening extremism trends in South Asia overall. The fact that various groups continue to enjoy immunity from state clampdowns adds a further layer of complexity to the challenge. South Asia has recorded more deaths from terrorism than any other region of the world for two consecutive years now—2018 and 2019. 1 Granted, this is partly due to a noteworthy decline in fatalities in the Syria and Iraq conflict theaters, yet it shows that terrorism in South Asia remains a very serious challenge. In terms of measuring the impact of terrorism, the 2020 Global Terrorism Index prepared by Australia’s Institute for Economics and Peace ranks Pakistan seventh (for greatest impact), right after Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen (in that order) and followed by India, Congo, and the Philippines. To have Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan continue to hold a position in the top 10 in this category is not an encouraging sign for regional counterterrorism efforts. 2 The complicated relationships between these three countries are also factors at play.

In comparative terms, according to data from the Global Terrorism Index, terrorism attacks have declined since 2018 in Pakistan, as the total number of terrorist incidents dropped from 369 (causing 543 deaths) in 2018 to 279 (causing 300 deaths) in 2019, bringing the number of deaths from terrorism in Pakistan to its lowest annual number since 2006. 3 The Global Terrorism Index has not made data available yet for Pakistan in 2020. According to the South Asia Terrorism portal (SATP), there were 319 terrorism related incidents in Pakistan in 2020. 4 According to Pakistan’s National Counterterrorism Authority (NACTA), terrorism attacks caused 357 deaths in Pakistan in 2020 (through December 21), a clear increase in the number of victims of terrorism from the previous year. 5

While terrorism incident data reflects a generally positive counterterrorism trend, the underlying radicalization trends and lack of evidence that elements active in terrorist organizations (such as Kashmir-focused Jaish-e-Mohammad) have been brought to justice in some shape or form continue to raise legitimate concerns. Measuring extremism is harder as it requires a broader set of data ranging from hate crimes, health of minorities’ rights, youth radicalization trends, and sectarian tendencies. Local security analysts, independent Pakistan watchers, and those with access to relevant data are mostly worried about Pakistan’s direction. The survival of ISK in Afghanistan and Pakistan, despite enhanced counterterrorism operations, is one example of the persistence of the terrorism problem in the region. As Amira Jadoon and Andrew Mines insightfully conclude, this is a result of ISK’s “wide network of operational alliances in directly enhancing its lethality and geographical reach” as well as “access to a steady supply of experienced militants on both sides of the border.” 6 A new generation of extremist recruits today is enhancing this capacity.

This article looks specifically at terrorism and extremism trends in Pakistan with a focus on relatively new developments that are deemed worthy of deeper analysis and attention. This article examines five dimensions of the terrorism threat faced by Pakistan. It first look at TTP’s efforts to stage a comeback in Pakistan. It then looks at ISK’s new recruitment strategy. Then it examines the upsurge in targeted killings in Karachi. The next section focuses on the evolving threat posed by Kashmiri-focused militant groups. The final section outlines the challenges posed by rising violent sectarianism inside Pakistan. This study benefits from interviews and conversations the author conducted in October-December 2020 with many security and law enforcement officials in Karachi, Kabul, Lahore, and Peshawar.

Pakistani Taliban Regaining Foothold in the Pakistan-Afghanistan Border Areas First, credit is due to Pakistan’s security forces for terminating the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) reign of terror (roughly 2007-2015) through its effective Operation Zarb-e-Azb launched in June 2014. The U.S. drone campaign’s success in decapitating TTP leadership facilitated it in no small way. 7 TTP splintered thereafter, and its surviving leaders escaped to Afghanistan. 8 Some of its splinter factions either merged into ISK or pledged allegiance to it. 9 The TTP’s most lethal splinter Jamaat ul Ahrar (JuA), in collaboration with TTP’s Tariq Gidar Group, was responsible for major terrorist attacks, including on Army Public School in Peshawar in December 2014. a It survived energized Pakistani counterterrorism operations and has continued its terror operations from its new base in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar area. 10

Many of these splinter groups, including JuA and Hizb ul- Ahrar (HuA), decided to come together again in August 2020 and renewed their pledge of allegiance to current TTP leader Noor Wali Mehsud, alias Abu Mansour Asim. 11 HuA, especially, has an agile terror network in and around the Peshawar region. 12 The return of a Mehsud as the TTP leader also persuaded many disgruntled Mehsud tribesmen (such as members of the Hakimullah Mehsud group, led by Mukhlis Yar) to return to the TTP fold. 13 Even Punjabi Taliban’s Amjad Farouqi group, closely aligned with al-Qa`ida, and the Usman Saifullah group, a Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) splinter, also returned to the TTP platform. 14 The latest to rejoin this notorious gang of terrorists in late November 2020 was influential Ustad Aleem Khan (from the Gul Bahadur TTP faction) and Umar Azzam. 15 TTP is proudly marketing the video of this allegiance through its media outlet Umar Media. 16

According to a May 2020 UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team report, the number of Pakistani militants of all stripes operating in Afghanistan may be as high as 6,000 to 6,500. 17 A great majority of them will likely drift back into Pakistan if TTP regains control in parts of the Pashtun tribal belt sandwiched between Pakistan and Afghanistan. This area was known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan (FATA), but has been legally incorporated into Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (KPK) province since 2018. A U.N. report published in February 2021 maintains that TTP was responsible for more than 100 cross-border attacks from Afghanistan into Pakistan between July and October 2020. 18

A significant increase in targeted killings in the Pakistani tribal areas during 2020 carried out by terrorist groups indicates that something is amiss. Those targeted lately are tribal elders (senior leaders), reminiscent of times when TTP emerged in 2007 and eliminated hundreds of them. 19 Analyst Daud Khattak maintains that increased targeted killings in Waziristan and Bajaur tribal districts are caused by TTP’s “involvement in resolving local disputes, forcing people to pay protection money, and targeting those believed to be their opponents.” 20 This was how they gained space in the tribal belt more than a decade ago. 21 Al-Qa`ida in Iraq (AQI) did the same in Iraq over a decade and a half ago, showing how terrorist organizations may be learning from each other and why timely comparative analysis of such campaigns can help counterterrorism efforts. According to Pakistani security analyst Amir Rana, by mid-December 2020, about 11 splinter groups had joined this reconfigured TTP, and attacks on security forces in South and North Waziristan, and in Bajaur and Mohmand areas—an old stronghold of TTP—have increased. 22 Pakistan’s speedy effort to complete fencing work on the border with Afghanistan, with a goal to discourage militant movement, smuggling, and illegal crossings, has possibly convinced some TTP elements to return to Pakistan from Afghanistan while they can. 23 Rustam Shah Mohmand argues that prospects of a negotiated deal in Afghanistan between Kabul and the Afghan Taliban may mean restricted space for TTP types in Afghanistan, and hence, they have started returning to Pakistan. 24

One of the major reasons behind TTP’s resurgence as a serious threat, however, is Islamabad’s lackluster effort toward bringing the FATA into the mainstream as envisioned by the 2018 FATA Reforms Bill, a major constitutional initiative. 25 The FATA was merged into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province through this belated but commendable legal initiative, on paper abolishing the draconian colonial-era regulations governing the frontier area. The legal, administrative, and financial measures needed to facilitate this process, however, are absent, or seriously lacking, in turn provoking a rise in public frustrations. 26 A pertinent example is the recent rise of the Pashtun Tahafuz (Protection) Movement (PTM) led by Manzoor Pashteen, a revolutionary but non-violent protest movement demanding an end to extrajudicial killings in the area by security forces and the elimination of military check posts that restrict the free movement of people. PTM pleads for Pashtun rights, maintaining that the lives of ordinary Pashtuns have been disrupted over the last two decades on a massive scale and that they are victims of both the Taliban and the security forces. 27 TTP also used similar criticism of security forces to gain public sympathy, but PTM emphasizes a non-violent approach, distinguishing it from militant organizations.

PTM’s genuine but provocative slogans condemning the role of the Pakistan Army, however, resulted in Pakistani governing authorities publicly presenting it as a threat. To the contrary, it could be argued that PTM should have been welcomed by Islamabad as an ally against the extremist and radical ideologies propagated in the tribal areas, but short-sightedness served as an obstacle to such an understanding. PTM’s popularity across Pashtun communities from Peshawar to Karachi appears to be rising despite the military’s effort to contain the group’s reach. 28 A few of the PTM’s leading lights made it into the parliament but that did not prevent them from being depicted as ‘Indian agents’ or ‘enemies of the state,’ charges that are unfortunate and unfounded. 29 In fact, Pakistani security forces hired criminal elements and extremist elements to confront PTM on the ground, as explained by Ali Wazir, currently an elected member of Pakistan’s National Assembly and one of the co-founders of the movement:

It is ironic that the institutions responsible for protecting Pakistan’s territorial integrity and protecting it from dangerous threats are bankrolling thugs to launch a Pakistan Zindabad Movement (Urdu for Long Live Pakistan Movement) … It is telling that former Taliban commanders have addressed their gatherings. We also have indications that efforts are underway to mobilize sectarian terrorists and other fanatics to ‘counter’ our peaceful campaign. 30

Popular Pakistani columnist Nadeem Paracha calls PTM “a contemporary version of classical Pashtun nationalism” that was “overshadowed by the rise of political Islam and then militancy among various Pashtun tribes.” 31 There are indeed elements of nationalist fervor in PTM’s narrative, but its primary focus is on human rights and rule of law and their leaders insist: “We have created a golden opportunity for Islamabad to shun its past as a security state and function as a normal country concerned with the welfare of its citizens.” 32 But arrests, kidnapping, and intimidation of PTM supporters and followers at the hands of state agencies continue. 33 TTP and other extremists in tribal areas must be relieved to see intelligence services and their proxies getting embroiled into confrontation with PTM rather than confronting TTP ideology and activities.

ISK Expanded Recruitment Drive Targeting Baluchistan’s Brahui Ethnic Group ISK, which had emerged around 2015 in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region as an extension of the Iraq- and Syria-based Islamic State, in its early days had greatly benefitted from a stream of defections from many regional militant organizations. 34 That process has run its course, it appears. Today, ISK is under stress due to regular elimination of its top leadership at the hands of Afghan and U.S. forces, and it is now experimenting with a model that includes a broader recruitment focus as well as the appointment of a foreigner, Shahab al-Muhajir, as its top leader. 35 b Some changes in this direction were visible in early 2020, as evident by the recruitment of militants from the Indian state of Kerala who were then used to target a Sikh place of worship in Kabul. 36 The more terrorist groups are able to recruit from a particular area, the easier it becomes for them to recruit there because of their deepening local ties, but expanding recruitment to different ethnicities requires wider network and training needs (given linguistic and cultural factors).

As part of its broader recruitment focus, ISK is now likely looking to expand its recruitment efforts in the Brahui (or Brohi) ethnic community in the Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. 37 While only a small fraction of Brahuis have any sympathy for ISK, a number have been recruited into its terror campaign. For instance, the masterminds of terrorist attacks targeting a popular Sufi Shrine in Sehwan, Sindh province (2017), a police training center in Quetta, Baluchistan, and many Islamic centers associated with Shi`a communities in the Sindh province turned out to be Brahui militants by the name of Hafeez Pandrani Brohi and Abdullah Brohi, both killed in police encounters in 2019. 38 In the case of the Sehwan attack, one of the two suicide bombers was also from Brahui background, namely Barar Brohi. 39

Pakistani officials believe that ISK cells are “predominantly present in the border areas of Baluchistan,” and the group keeps the size of these cells small as a strategy for securing their communications and target planning. 40

The primary local partner of ISK in Pakistan remains Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami (LeJA), an offshoot of the terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) known widely for its targeting of Shi`a communities across the country. 41 While LeJ terrorist operations have been focused internally in Pakistan, the LeJA has aspired to operate regionally as its extended title al-Alami, meaning ‘international,’ suggests. More specifically, LeJA has attracted the most notorious of the LeJ cadre who were also more aggressive in their approach. Their parent ideological organization, defunct Sipah-e-Sahaba—now operating as Ahle Sunnat Wal Jammat (ASWJ)—is also operating in Baluchistan, and there are strong allegations of its involvement in terrorist attacks targeting the Shi`a Hazara community in Quetta. Ramzan Mengal (ethnically Brahui), the top leader of ASWJ in Baluchistan, openly campaigned for the killing of Shi`a in the past but remains free and was even permitted to contest national elections in 2018. 42

The Brahui factor needs further explanation to get across some important nuances. c The Brahui are distinct from Baluch in the anthropological sense, but they mutually share Baluch political identity and also support the cause of Baluch nationalism. 43 Brahui tribes, however, are more conservative and tribal in terms of their network and outlook as compared to other ethnicities and are generally lagging behind in the economic and educational domains. 44 They are in the majority in Khuzdar, Kalat, and Mastung districts but also have a significant presence in the Quetta, Noshki, and Kharan districts of Baluchistan as well as in some Sindh districts including Shikarpur, Jacobabad, and Qambar Shahdatkot. An important distinguishing feature of Brahui identity is their religious inclinations. Brahui areas host most of the madrassas (Islamic seminaries), and most prayer leaders in the province consequently are from Brahui background. That in itself is not worthy of security concern, but the fact remains that extremist groups have had opportunities to recruit through madrassas in this area.

Since its inception in 2010, 45 LeJA has made strategic inroads into Brahui-dominant areas in Baluchistan as well as Sindh province. One leading indicator of this was the trajectory of the terrorist leader Hafeez Pandrani Brohi (mentioned above), hailing originally from Baluchistan’s Mastung district and trained initially by LeJ. 46 Pakistani intelligence services, or some sectarian elements within it, possibly facilitated LeJ’s move to Baluchistan to confront the Baluch nationalists, especially Baluch Liberation Army (BLA), around the 2007-2010 timeframe. Scholar Stephen Tankel in his 2013 paper on militant infrastructure in Pakistan maintained that, “Rumors persist about Pakistani military support for LeJ militants in Balochistan to degrade the separatist insurgency in that province. There is no evidence of an institutionalized policy, however, and the military has denied these charges vociferously. It is possible some officers overlook or abet LeJ activities because they are seen as targeting enemies of the state.” 47

Rahimullah Yusufzai, a Pakistani journalist known for his in-depth stories about the Taliban and other extremist groups, aptly argues, “Call it infiltration, or what you will, but the LeJ has succeeded in recruiting Baloch, once considered quite secular.” 48 According to reliable media accounts in Pakistan, LeJ training camps were run in the second half of the 2000s from Mastung and Khuzdar in Pakistan. 49

The fact that many LeJ (and LeJA) militants have been able to escape from police and even military custody in Baluchistan has reinforced the view that there is an ongoing LeJ-security forces linkage. 50 The recurrence of such escapes (and from high security zone detention facilities) has further entrenched the view that official support was involved.

Shafiq Mengal (ethnically Brahui), an LeJ militant known as a “pawn set by the intelligence agencies to counter Baloch militants in the province,” is an example of a religious extremist turned national asset of Pakistani intelligence. 51 Tariq Khosa, former Inspector General of Police of Baluchistan and a brave writer, laments state backing for private militias and aptly argues that “the decision to use Shafiq as a proxy against certain Baloch separatist organizations allowed proscribed sectarian groups to regroup in and around Quetta.” 52 Rafique Mengal, another LeJ terrorist who was found involved in many killings of Hazara Shi`a in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, received state protection, at least in the early 2010s, for his political work against Baluch nationalists. 53 Such state blunders continue to empower groups that widen sectarian rifts and open the doors for groups such as ISK to expand their terror networks in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s law enforcement agencies are very concerned about the recruitment drive of ISK-LeJA targeting the Brahui-dominated areas, and as discussed, this trend is also visible from publicly available data. 54 This indicates at the least that the ISK-LeJA tandem is looking for opportunities to exploit. LeJ used to get most of its recruits from south Punjab—a critical hub for many extremist organizations in Pakistan—so its move via its LeJA offshoot to Baluchistan (in alliance with ISK) is a development worth taking note of and probing further.

A likely motivating factor for ISK’s enhanced recruitment drive in Baluchistan is the high number of clashes between the Afghan Taliban (mostly Pashtun) and ISK occurring in Afghanistan’s Kunar and Nangahar provinces bordering Pakistan. This area is important for ISK as it hosts its central operational base. Given Pakistan’s past practice and presumed support for the Afghan Taliban in these campaigns, ISK’s retaliation through terror acts in Pakistan is highly probable. To pull off such a terror campaign, it is possible ISK will seek to step up the deployment of Brahui violent extremists as one way to both leverage and aggravate Baluch-Brahui versus Pashtun rivalries in the area.

The evolving nature of the Afghan Taliban-ISK war is evident from the October 27, 2020, ISK terror attack in Peshawar targeting a seminary led by Shaikh Rahim ullah Haqqani, a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, who had publicly declared followers of ISK as enemies of Islam. 55 Haqqani’s lecture was being livestreamed when the attack occurred, leading to the death of eight students while 136 were wounded. 56 Another Afghan Taliban commander, Abdul Samad Mullah Toor, was assassinated by unknown assailants in the outskirts of Peshawar, on January 24, 2021. 57

Targeted Killings in Karachi Pakistani security experts believe that a new generation of religious militants is coming of age in Pakistan, and these tech-savvy individuals are mostly based in urban centers such as Karachi and Lahore. 58 In ideological terms, this pool of individuals harbors salafi-takfiri leanings, ever ready to excommunicate Muslims who are different from them, and they have relatively little baggage in terms of inter-group rivalries as was the case with those who participated in the ‘Afghan Jihad’ of the 1980s. 59 These individuals are more global in their outlook and ambitions, and are largely radicalized through online sources. 60 d

A rise in targeted killings by extremists in Karachi during 2020 raised serious concerns within Pakistani security agencies about the increased activities of some local extremist groups, some with transnational connections, that they were not tracking closely. 61 A senior counterterrorism department officer in Islamabad shared with the author that based on data from Karachi police, they have concluded that four terrorist groups allied with local criminal gangs are quite active in Karachi and Sindh province lately: ‘Lyari gang,’ a Karachi-based criminal network; 62 elements of Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA), a designated terrorist outfit with its base in Baluchistan province; 63 Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army, a relatively new, shadowy group; 64 and criminal elements from the Altaf-led faction Muttihada Qaumi Movement (MQM-A), a political party that has splintered into many factions since its London-based leadership were declared personae non gratae by many leaders of the party as well as Pakistani security agencies for their involvement in criminal activities and alleged ties with Indian intelligence. 65 Many criminal elements from MQM-A escaped Pakistan and now reportedly hide in South Africa. 66 It is important to clarify that some of the four Karachi groups specified above have been in existence for many years, but lately they have been more active than usual according to local police assessments. The author’s conversations with police officials in Karachi indicate that many of the underground jihadis are found involved in narcotics smuggling activity and Sindh and Punjab police forces are closely monitoring this trend. 67

Cracking down on these Karachi groups will in some cases need to be an international endeavor. The United Arab Emirates remains a destination for many criminals from the Karachi area and other parts of Pakistan. 68 For instance, the prime suspect in the attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi in November 2018, named Rashid Brohi and belonging to BLA, was arrested in July 2019 in UAE by Interpol. 69

The Evolving Threat Posed by Kashmiri-focused Groups The activities of Kashmir-focused militant groups and other organizations that aspire to be active in Indian-controlled Kashmir remain a concern. There are no indications that groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) led by the notorious Masood Azhar have been decommissioned. 70

In early 2020, a Urdu-language magazine managed by al-Qa`ida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), titled Nawa-e-Ghazwa-e-Hind (roughly Voice of the Battlefield of India), started campaigning for focus on Kashmir, raising alarm bells in India. 71 The latest edition (January 2021) of this magazine not only carries articles on Kashmir but its language and content clearly indicates that it is published by ‘battle hardened’ militants with experience in Kashmir and Afghanistan. e

While Kashmir-focused militant groups are generally keeping a low profile within Pakistan (likely due to the hanging sword of ‘Financial Action Task Force’ on Islamabad’s head), f there is a real danger that some elements that differ with this quietism strategy may join AQIS. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan warned his countrymen against any effort to “wage Jihad in Kashmir” and cautioned them by saying: “Anyone, who thinks that he will cross the border to join the Kashmiris, is a big enemy of them and Pakistan.” 72 This indicates resolve on the part of political leadership at least. There is no credible evidence that AQIS is operating in Kashmir at this time, but its publications clearly show intent and motivation to do so.

Many of these Kashmir-focused Pakistani militants, as is known from their track record, jump between groups depending on geopolitics and security vulnerabilities. The mood of intelligence agencies is also kept in view.

Deepening Sectarianism Sunni-Shi`a sectarianism, mostly anti-Shi`a platforms, has long been exploited by violent extremist groups in Pakistan, and as outlined below, it is once again on the rise. Lately, Pakistan’s Ahmadi community has also been on the receiving end as there has been a recent spike in targeted killing against them. 73 The intra-Sunni Barelvi-Deobandi rivalry also continues to simmer hazardously in the background, as Tehrike-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a radical Barelvi group, has energized its base by insisting on the strict implementation of Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws. In the process, it is regaining the political ground it had lost to the Deobandis “since the rise of jihadism in the 1980s.” 74

Disturbingly, recent months have seen heightened anti-Shi`a rhetoric expressed through major street protests, involving ultra conservative political forces, in Karachi and Islamabad. 75 Sectarian and extremist ASWJ played an active role in this campaign. 76 These street protests could lead to even more sectarianism, which has proved in the past to have empowered terrorists of all stripes in Pakistan besides widening the door for Saudi-versus-Iran games to be played in the country. 77 Islamic State-like organizations also thrive where sectarian tensions are high. An editorial of Pakistan’s leading newspaper Dawn captured the gist of this development well:

The embers of hate are once again being stoked. To prevent history from being repeated and innocent blood spilled in the name of religion, the government must act urgently and decisively. The state’s silence is indeed inexplicable. It appears to have willfully chosen to close its eyes to this sinister development. 78

Pakistan’s Shi`a Hazara, located mostly in Quetta, continue to pay a heavy price. 2021 began for them with the brutal murder of 11 Hazara coal miners who were kidnapped and their throats slit. Gruesome images of the victims were distributed through the Islamic State’s Amaq news service. 79 The Pakistani security analyst Amir Rana, in making security projections for Pakistan for 2021, aptly observes that “incidents of communal violence and religious and sectarian hatred have become a regular feature of Pakistan’s security and political landscape” and “sectarian discord and the groups promoting it continue to persist.” 80

Conclusion As this article has outlined, Pakistan’s counterterrorism challenges are evolving. While there is relative stability in the Pakistan-Afghanistan tribal belt and the overall violence levels have dropped since 2018, the TTP in particular are assertively trying to regroup and stage a comeback. While their infrastructure has been degraded earlier, nothing tangible was done to challenge the extremists’ ideology of hate. Countering violent extremism efforts have remained limited in focus and poorly resourced. 81 Economic failings and disparities in Pakistan have also offered opportunities for ISK terrorists to target vulnerable communities for recruitment, such as the Brahui in Baluchistan. ISK is a serious danger for South Asia, and its potential to grow further should not be underestimated. ISK’s creation of two subdivisions, namely Islamic State-Hind and Islamic State-Pakistan, in 2019 reflect its ambitions in the region. 82 Islamabad’s policy of looking for proxies to fight insurgents and extremists has backfired. 83 And the Kashmir-focused militants, though quieter and keeping a low profile since 2017, could also come out of their hibernation—on the state’s behalf or possibly on their own out of frustration—redirecting their energies toward India, which could lead to India-Pakistan military conflict. Heightened sectarianism also complicates Pakistan’s security scene. As Tariq Parvez, a seasoned Pakistani counterterrorism expert and former head of NACTA, argues:

The current resurgence of violent sectarianism in Pakistan is much more dangerous than the sectarianism in earlier decades, due to 3 factors, i.e. Barelvis joining them, Shia/Sunni returnees from Syria, and TTP/ISK/LeJ combo to attack each other. Government must react promptly and firmly. 84

The economic burden of dealing with COVID-19 is only going to make Pakistan’s counterterrorism challenges harder. While threats of suicide bombings in urban centers and terrorist attacks targeting progressive political leaders have receded relatively speaking, religious intolerance and threats to minority groups continue as serious problems. In the author’s assessment based on his field research, Pakistan’s criminal justice system, and especially its police, lacks the capacity and resources to serve as the first line of defense against terrorism. 85 The present government of Pakistan under Prime Minister Imran Khan, despite its promises, 86 has failed to introduce police reforms. Afzal Shigri, a former inspector general of the police and an advocate for rule of law, warns that this will have “horrendous impact on the future governance and politics of Pakistan.” 87 The five dimensions to the terrorist threat discussed in this article will only grow in magnitude and lethality if they remain untreated.

Pakistani officials appear to be more prone to dismissing these challenges as externally induced efforts g to disrupt the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). h While regional rivalries and tensions are a reality, the hard truth is that the state of Pakistan has invested very little in its countering violent extremism campaigns and deradicalization programs. One potentially beneficial initiative recently introduced pertains to intelligence coordination, bringing all civilian and military intelligence agencies under one umbrella. 88 However, equally crucial is coordination—and in some cases, mutual trust—between the country’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and that remains a weak link in Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts. 89

Terrorists with a regional and global mission are constantly looking for opportunities to exploit, and Pakistan, having paid dearly in the past for its mistakes, needs to take these challenges very seriously. The infrastructure development projects under CPEC, as well as economic growth prospects, are at stake. Pakistan simply cannot afford to return to the old days when terrorism bogged it down almost completely, arresting its potential and progress.      CTC

Hassan Abbas is Distinguished Professor of International Relations at Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA) at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. He is the author of the forthcoming The Prophet’s Heir: The Life of Ali ibn Abi Talib (Yale University Press, March 2021). Twitter: @watandost

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Defense University or the Department of Defense.

® 2021 Hassan Abbas

Substantive Notes [a] According to the ISIL and Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee of the United Nations Security Council, the attack was conducted by Tariq Gidar Group (TGG) in association with al-Qa`ida and in conjunction with or on behalf of JuA, TTP, and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). See “Tariq Gidar Group (TGG),” United Nations Security Council.

[b] There is still some speculation that Shahab al-Muhajir is a Pakistani, Afghan, or even a Tajik per some sources and that the name (with the addition of al-Muhajir, meaning immigrant/refugee) is an attempt to hide his local roots. See “Andrabi claims new Daesh leader is a Haqqani member,” Ariana News, August 4, 2020.

[c] The author is grateful to Baluch-American journalist Siraj Akbar for helping him understand these nuances. The framing, however, is the author’s. Author interview, Siraj Akbar, December 2020.

[d] It is important to note, however, that many established and older extremist groups continue to recruit and expand their network through physical contact and through extremist religious gatherings and printed publications.

[e] The magazine Nawa-e-Ghazwa-e-Hind was earlier titled Nawai Afghan Jihad (The Voice of Afghan Jihad) and has been printed continuously for the last 14 years, as claimed on its contents page.

[f] The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog. FATF added Pakistan to its grey list in June 2018, indicating “strategic weaknesses” in Pakistan’s countering money laundering and terror financing efforts. To avoid moving onto the FATF black list, Pakistan was asked to take a series of measures (27 actions to be specific). By October 2020, Pakistan was deemed to have taken action on 21 out of 27 specified areas, and its progress is still being reviewed by FATF. For details, see “Explained: FATF, Pakistan and the ‘Grey List,’” WIRE, October 24, 2020. For Pakistan’s progress, see “Mutual Evaluation of Pakistan,” Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering, September 2020.

[g] In November 2020, Pakistan claimed it had “irrefutable evidence” that India was behind some terrorist activity in Pakistan. India has refuted this claim. Naveed Siddiqui, “Irrefutable evidence: Dossier on India’s sponsorship of state terrorism in Pakistan presented,” Dawn , November 14, 2020; Avinash Paliwal, “The strategic value of a dead dossier,” Observer Research Foundation, November 27, 2020.

[h] The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, benefiting from a multi-billion dollar Chinese investment, extends the land and maritime routes that connect the two countries through Gwadar port and a network of approximately 2,000 miles of railways, roads, and pipelines. For original plan details, see Khurram Husain, “Exclusive: CPEC master plan revealed,” Dawn , June 21, 2017; Andrew Small, “Returning to the Shadows: China. Pakistan and the Fate of CPEC,” German Marshall Fund of the United States, September 23, 2020.

Citations [1] “Global Terrorism Index 2020: Measuring the Impact of Terrorism,” Institute for Economics and Peace, Sydney, November 2020, p. 2.

[2] Ibid., p. 8.

[3] Ibid., p. 50.

[4] “Number of Terrorism Related Incidents Year Wise, Datasheet – Pakistan,” South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), accessed February 11, 2021.

[5] Amir Wasim, “Fazl among 20 politicians facing ‘serious threats to life’: minister,” Dawn , December 22, 2020.

[6] Amira Jadoon and Andrew Mines, Broken but Not defeated: An Examination of State-led Operations against Islamic State Khorasan in Afghanistan and Pakistan (2015-2018) (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2020), p. VI.

[7] For a discussion about the broader impact of the U.S. drone campaign, see Hassan Abbas, “Are Drone Strikes Killing Terrorists or Creating Them?” Atlantic , March 31, 2013.

[8] Asad Hashim “Exclusive: Pakistani Taliban down but not out, says ex-spokesman,” Al Jazeera, April 3, 2020. See also Umair Jamal, “Are US Forces Striking Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Members in Afghanistan for Islamabad?” Diplomat, February 14, 2020.

[9] For details, see Amira Jadoon, Allied and Lethal: Islamic State Khorasan’s Network and Organizational Capacity in Afghanistan and Pakistan (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2018), pp. 35-36, 54-58.

[10] See “Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA),” United Nations Security Council.

[11] Daud Khattak, “Whither the Pakistani Taliban: An Assessment of Recent Trends,” New America, August 31, 2020.

[12] Author interview, senior police officer in Peshawar, October 2020.

[13] Khattak.

[14] “Twenty-fifth report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team submitted pursuant to resolution 2368 (2017) concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated individuals and entities,” United Nations, January 20, 2020.

[15] “Shamali Waziristan se Taaluk rakhne wale do Taliban groupon ka TTP se Ittehad Ka Elaan,” Tribal News , November 28, 2020.

[16] “Allegiance of two popular North Waziristan’s Jihadi organizations’ leaders, Maulvi Aleem Khan and Commander Ghazi Omar Azzam, to TTP leader Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud,” Umar Media video, November 27, 2020. For a detailed assessment of this development, see Abdul Sayed, “Waziristan Militant Leader Aleem Khan Ustad Joins Tehreek-e-Taliban,” Militant Leadership Monitor 11:12 (2021).

[17] “Eleventh report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team submitted pursuant to resolution 2501 (2019) concerning the Taliban and other associated individuals and entities constituting a threat to the peace, stability and security of Afghanistan,” United Nations Security Council, May 19, 2020, p. 20.

[18] “Twenty-fifth report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring.”

[19] “Four tribal elders shot dead in North Waziristan,” The News , December 1, 2020. See also “Two More Tribal Elders Shot Dead In Northwestern Pakistan; Six Total Killed This Week,” Gandhara, December 2, 2020.

[20] Khattak.

[21] For background, see Hassan Abbas, “A Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan,” CTC Sentinel 1:2 (2008) and Hassan Abbas, “From FATA to the NWFP,” CTC Sentinel 1:10 (2008).

[22] “Kya Qabaeli Azlaa main dahshatgard phir saar Utha rahee hain [Are terrorists again raising their heads in Tribal districts],” Urdu interview with Amir Rana, Rifatullah Orakzai YouTube Channel, December 15, 2020.

[23] For details about border fencing, see Ayaz Gul, “Pakistan says Afghan Border Fence Nearly Complete,” Voice of America, December 4, 2020.

[24] Rustam Shah Mohmand, “Why attacks surge in northwest Pakistan,” Arab News , September 24, 2020.

[25] For details, see “Shaping a New Peace in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas,” ICG Report No. 150 , August 20, 2018.

[26] Author interview, Imtiaz Ali, December 2020. For detail about change in FATA legal status in merger into KPK province, see Imtiaz Ali, “Mainstreaming Pakistan’s Federally Administrative Tribal Areas: Reform Initiatives and Roadblocks,” USIP Special Report 421 , March 2018, and Wajeeha Malik and Shakeeb Asrar, “Post-Merger Inaction in FATA: Expectations Vs. Reality,” South Asian Voices, July 10, 2019.

[27] For instance, see Abubakar Siddiqui, “Leader’s Arrest Galvanizes Pashtun Rights Movement in Pakistan,” Gandhara, January 30, 2020.

[28] See Madiha Afzal, “Why is Pakistan’s military repressing a huge, non-violent Pashtun protest movement?” Brookings, February 7, 2020.

[29] “Radio Pak claims MNAs Dawar, Wazir ‘fulfilling vested Indian agenda through Afghanistan,’” Dawn , March 10, 2020. See also Hasib Danish Alikozai, “Pakistani Activist Rejects Charges Foreign Spying Agencies Funding His Group,” Voice of America, May 7, 2019.

[30] Quoted in Ali Wazir, “What Does the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement Want?” Diplomat, April 27, 2018.

[31] Nadeem F. Paracha, “Smoker’s Corner: How Should the State Deal with PTM?” Dawn , February 3, 2020.

[32] Ibid. See also Mohsin Dawar, “Opinion: We are peacefully demanding change in Pakistan. The military says we’re ‘traitors,’” Washington Post , February 14, 2020.

[33] For instance, see “Peshawar police arrest MNA Ali Wazir,” The News , December 16, 2020. See also Mohsin Dawar, “Pashtuns’ struggle for rights cannot be silenced through violence,” Al Jazeera, June 20, 2020.

[34] For details, see Amira Jadoon, Nakissa Jahanbani, and Charmaine Willis, “Challenging the ISK Brand in Afghanistan-Pakistan: Rivalries and Divided Loyalties,” CTC Sentinel 11:4 (2018).

[35] Abdul Sayed, “Who is the New Leader of Islamic State – Khorasan Province?” Lawfare, September 2, 2020.

[36] For details, see Animesh Roul, “Islamic State-Khorasan Remains Potent Force in Afghan Jihad,” Terrorism Monitor 8:11 (2020).

[37] Assessment based on multiple author interviews with security (counterterrorism) officials serving in Quetta and Karachi, October 2020.

[38] “Mastermind of several major terror attacks killed in encounter,” Dawn , March 1, 2019. See also Hafeez Tunio, “Two high-profile Daesh terrorists killed in encounter,” Express Tribune , March 1, 2019.

[39] Naeem Sahoutara, “Two ‘IS militants’ get death on 70 counts in Qalandar shrine suicide blast case,” Dawn , May 19, 2020.

[40] Kunwar Khuldune Shahid, “ISIS schemes with jihadist groups in Pakistan,” Asia Times , November 27, 2019.

[41] For background, see Farhan Zahid, “Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami: A Pakistani partner for Islamic State,” Terrorism Monitor 15:2 (2017). See also Jadoon, Allied and Lethal , pp. 40-41, 50-51.

[42] Gul Yousafzai, “Minority Hazaras in Pakistan protest for third day after Quetta attack,” Reuters, April 14, 2019; See also Asad Hashim, “Quetta Hazaras despair as religious supremacists contest elections,” Al Jazeera, July 15, 2018.

[43] See Haris Gazdar, Sobia Ahmad Kaker, and Irfan Khan, “Buffer Zone, Colonial Enclave or Urban Hub? Quetta: Between Four Regions and Two Wars,” Working Paper no. 69, Development Studies Institute, London School of Economics, February 2010.

[44] Author interview, Malik Siraj Akbar, December 2020.

[45] See “Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al Alami,” Mapping Militant Organizations, Stanford University. For a detailed profile of LeJ, see “Lashkar-e-Jhangvi,” Mapping Militant Organizations, Stanford University.

[46] See Syed Arfeen, “The Hunt for Hafeez Brohi,” Friday Times , February 24, 2017. See also Zia Ur Rehman, “Militant North of the Country’s South,” News on Sunday , December 9, 2018.

[47] Stephen Tankel, “Domestic Barriers to Dismantling the Militant Infrastructure in Pakistan,” United States Institute of Peace, September 2013.

[48] Zofeen T. Ebrahim, “Hazara Killers – supported from Punjab to the Middle East,” Dawn , February 13, 2013.

[50] For instance, see “Usman Kurd, the man who caused fall of Raisani govt,” The News , January 15, 2013.

[51] Saher Baloch, “Herald Exclusive: Mangled Facts,” Herald , March 20, 2014.

[52] Quoted in Maqbool Ahmed, “How death stalks policemen in Quetta,” Herald , April 25, 2018.

[53] Author interview, police officer in Quetta, January 2021. For Rafique Men­gal’s LeJ connection, see Arif Rafiq, “How Pakistan Protects Itself from Regional Sectarian War,” National Interest , September 15, 2015. See also Mohammad Taqi, “Murder and Mayhem in Balochistan,” Daily Times , June 10, 2015.

[54] Author interviews, police officers in Karachi and Quetta, November 2020.

[55] See Shaikh Rahimullah Haqqani declaring ISIS/ISK followers as  khawarij , meaning rejectionists, who left the fold of Islam, in “Who are Khawarij here: Full Details,” YouTube video, February 4, 2020. See also “IS ‘prime suspect’ for Peshawar seminary bombing,” Dawn , October 30, 2020.

[56] For details, see Riaz Khan, “Bomb at seminary in Pakistan kills 8 students, wounds 136,” Associated Press, October 27, 2020.

[57] See Tahir Khan, “Senior Afghan Taliban commander shot dead near Peshawar,” Daily Times , January 25, 2021.

[58] Abdul Basit, “Threat of Urban Jihadism in South Asia,” Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses 10:3 (2018): pp. 3-4. See also Huma Yusuf, “University Radicalization: Pakistan’s Next Counterterrorism Challenge,” CTC Sentinel 9:2 (2016).

[59] On a new generation of salafi-thinking radicals in Pakistan, see Jasmin Lorch, “Trajectories of Political Salafism: Insights from the Ahle Hadith Movement in Pakistan and Bangladesh,” Middle East Institute, October 30, 2018.

[60] Author interview, police officers in Karachi and Lahore, December 2019.

[61] For instance, see Zia Ur Rahman, “Recent attacks show resurgence of Sindhi separatists and TTP in Karachi: CRSS report,” The News , October 8, 2020.

[62] See Imtiaz Ali, “Police see new underground group behind recent targeted killings in Karachi,” Dawn , January 31, 2019.

[63] See Animesh Roul, “Pakistan Confronts Resurgent Baluch Ethno-Separatist Militancy,” Terrorism Monitor 18:15 (2020).

[64] See Syed Raza Hassan, “Coordinated blasts kill four in Pakistan, including soldiers,” Reuters, June 19, 2020.

[65] For background, see Owen Bennet-Jones, “Altaf Hussain, the notorious MQM leader who swapped Pakistan for London,” Guardian , July 29, 2013. See also S. Akbar Zaidi, “The rise and fall of Altaf Hussain,” The Hindu , September 8, 2016.

[66] See “Rangers arrest MQM-South Africa activists, recover ‘biggest ever cache of weapons,” The News , December 12, 2018. See also “Shehla Raza, Saeed Ghani receive life threats from MQM-South Africa,” ARY News, May 4, 2019.

[67] Author interviews, police officers in Lahore and Karachi, November 2020.

[68] Author interview, police officer in Karachi, November 2020. See also “Pakistanis pose a threat to Gulf communities, says Dubai security chief,” Dawn , January 2, 2020. UAE is also used as a transit point for human trafficking from Pakistan. For details, see “Recent trends of human trafficking and migrant smuggling to and from Pakistan,” United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, July 2013. For sex trafficking in and through UAE, see “Trafficking in Persons Report 2019,” U.S. Department of State, June 2019.

[69] Aamir Latif, “Pakistan: ‘Mastermind’ of Chinese consulate attack held,” AA Agency News, July 3, 2019.

[70] For a profile of Masood Azhar, see Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, “The Terrorist Who Got Away,” New York Times , March 19, 2020.

[71] See Rezaul H Laskar and Aadil Mir, “Al-Qaeda’s India affiliate hints at shifting focus to Kashmir,” Hindustan Times , March 22, 2020.

[72] Shahid Hamid, “PM Imran warns against crossing LoC for Kashmir Jihad,” Express Tribune , September 19, 2019.

[73] “Pakistan: Surge in Targeted Killings of Ahmedis,” Human Rights Watch, November 26, 2020.

[74] For background, see Mohammad Taqi, “What Does the Death of Barelvi Firebrand Khadim Rizvi Mean for Sectarian Politics,” WIRE, November 28, 2020.

[75] For details, see Shah Meer Baloch and Hannah Ellis-Petersen, “Pakistani Shias live in terror as sectarian violence increases,” Guardian , October 21, 2020.

[76] Jaffer A. Mirza, “The Changing Landscape of Anti-Shia Politics in Pakistan,” Diplomat, September 28, 2020.

[77] For background and details, see Hassan Abbas, Shiism and Sectarian Conflict in Pakistan: Identity Politics, Iranian Influence and Tit-for-Tat Violence, Occasional Paper Series (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2010).

[78] “Sectarian Tensions,” Dawn Editorial , September 21, 2020.

[79] See Asad Hashim and Saadullah Akhter, “Pakistani Hazara families refuse to bury dead after attack,” Al Jazeera, January 4, 2021.

[80] Muhammad Amir Rana, “Security projections for 2021,” Dawn , January 24, 2021.

[81] For details, see Rashad Bukhari and Qamar-ul Huda, “A Critique of Countering Violent Extremism Programs in Pakistan,” Center for Global Policy, July 2020.

[82] For details, see Ayaz Gul, “Islamic State Announces ‘Pakistan Province,’” Voice of America, May 15, 2019.

[83] For comparable examples, see Hassan Abbas and Nadia Gerspacher, “The Irregulars,” Foreign Policy , March 30, 2015.

[84] See Tariq Parvez, “TTP militancy was by one sunni sub sect ie deobandies and was anti state as …,” Twitter, September 19, 2020. Parvez reiterated what he stated in his tweet in a phone communication with the author in December 2020.

[85] For details, see Hassan Abbas ed., Stabilizing Pakistan Through Police Reforms (New York: Asia Society, 2012). See also Robert Perito and Tariq Pervez, “A Counterterrorism Role for Pakistan’s Police Stations,” USIP Special Report 351 , August 2014.

[86] See Ansar Abbasi, “Police reforms – the govt’s forgotten agenda,” The News , July 17, 2019.

[87] Afzal Shigri, “Politics of Police Reform,” Dawn , December 19, 2020.

[88] Baqir Sajjad Syed, “PM okays creation of liaison body for spy agencies,” Dawn , November 24, 2020.

[89] Author interview, Tariq Khosa, former Inspector General of Police in Baluchistan, Dubai, UAE, December 2019.

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The Deep Roots of Pakistan’s Terrorism Crisis

Considering some militants as instruments of regional influence while fighting others has had disastrous consequences.

After 101 worshippers, most of them policemen, were killed in a suicide bombing at a mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Jan. 30, experts  speculated  that Pakistan’s leaders might be on high alert. But several weeks later, it is business as usual in Islamabad.

Instead of treating increasing terrorist attacks as a national emergency, politicians are posturing for the  next election . The military leadership is busy dealing with the challenge of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who has galvanized support while criticizing the generals. To make matters worse, Pakistan is mired in an  economic crisis : Its foreign reserves are at a nine-year low, inflation is at a 48-year high, and the Pakistani rupee  lost  22 percent of its value last year. To avoid a default, Islamabad hopes to unlock another $1.1 billion in loans from the International Monetary Fund.

Pakistan’s political and economic troubles are intertwined with its inconsistent treatment of terrorists. For decades, Pakistan has  allowed  some terrorist groups to operate freely while cracking down on others. Militancy, and foreign sanctions resulting from terrorist financing, have in turn made it difficult for Pakistan to attract investment.  Sympathy for jihadis  among the public and within law enforcement and intelligence, along with inaction by members of the political class, has allowed domestic militant groups to operate with some impunity. Islamabad must change its tack if it hopes to prevent a full-blown insurgency and recover its global standing.

Islamist and sectarian groups first launched attacks inside Pakistan in the early 1990s, following the end of the Soviet-Afghan War. After the success of the Afghan mujahideen in driving out the Soviets—with U.S. support—Pakistan’s security services  mobilized  similar ideologically motivated groups to try to force India out of long-disputed Kashmir. Pakistani jihadists fought in the civil war in Afghanistan that followed the collapse of the Soviet-backed regime from 1992 to 1996, and later alongside the Taliban beginning in 2001. (Pakistan supported the Afghan Taliban regime in the 1990s.)

Islamist groups recruiting in Pakistan cited hadith—traditions and sayings attributed to the prophet Mohammed—that  prophesied  a great battle in the Indian subcontinent. Pakistan’s security services expected that  radicalization  through religion could help break the deadlock over Kashmir and empower Pakistan’s allies in Afghanistan. The strategy instead made Pakistan a battleground of competing interpretations of radical Islamist ideas. In the last 30 years, Pakistan has supported some jihadi groups and  tolerated  others, while also participating in the United States-led war against terrorism.

This juggling act has eroded Pakistan’s international standing and led some jihadi factions to target Pakistan’s military and security forces, occasionally inviting retaliation. When the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, Islamabad  saw  Kabul’s new regime as a potential close ally. After 2001, Pakistan continued to cultivate the Taliban as a counterweight to more liberal United States-backed factions; these were seen as too closely aligned with India. But during its second round in power the Afghan Taliban has proven to be  less friendly  than Islamabad expected, clashing with Pakistani border guards and publicly criticizing Pakistani policies toward Afghan refugees.

At the same time, Pakistan is facing violence from Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an offshoot of the Afghan Taliban movement that is ideologically aligned with the Afghan branch but draws its leaders from within Pakistan. The TTP has claimed responsibility for many attacks in the latest spate of terrorism in Pakistan; a TTP splinter group said it had  carried out  the January mosque attack. The group seeks to overthrow Pakistan’s government and create an Islamic emirate. For years now it has waged war on the state, describing the conflict as the  Ghazwa-e-Hind  (Battle of India)—forecasted as a precursor to the end times by the Prophet Mohammed.

Pakistan’s security services and some politicians, including Khan, have  advocated  a nuanced approach to the TTP and other militant groups, suggesting the groups reflect Islamic aspirations that need not be seen as inimical to Pakistan. But events have repeatedly proven that compromise with armed and violent radical Islamist groups is impossible. Just as Afghanistan’s Taliban hard-liners explain their  failure  to moderate as a function of their faith, the TTP justifies its actions in the name of Islam and sharia. Factional competition over which group is more  faithful  to radical interpretations of Islam also plays a role in the militants’ intransigence.

Years of contradictory policies have undermined Pakistan’s ability to tackle the challenges posed by Islamist militancy. Former President Pervez Musharraf, who led Pakistan’s military government from 1999 to 2008, publicly admitted to  cultivating  and  training  Kashmiri militants and  supporting  armed proxies in Afghanistan. He also  said  terrorists such as Osama bin Laden were seen as heroes in Pakistan. Meanwhile, his government selectively  cracked down  on some militant groups, only to  back off  later.

Considering some militants as instruments of regional influence while fighting others has disastrous consequences: More than 8,000 members of Pakistan’s security forces have  lost  their lives in terrorist incidents since 2000. In 2014, the TTP  attacked  Peshawar’s Army Public School, killing 141 people, including 132 children of military officers and soldiers. The Jan. 30 attack targeted policemen. Both attacks appeared intended to demoralize the Pakistani military and law enforcement and to dissuade Pakistan’s leaders from going to battle with the TTP.

Meanwhile, domestic terrorism has adversely affected the country’s economy, which is now mired in crisis. Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance  estimates  the country has lost $123 billion in direct and indirect costs due to terrorism. Many foreigners no longer want to travel to Pakistan, which directly effects tourism and exports. Pakistan’s large troop presence along the Afghan border with Afghanistan, occasional military operations, and intelligence operations have all added to the defense budget. Falling foreign direct investment and foreign sanctions over terrorist financing and money laundering have also taken an economic toll.

Periodic negotiations between the Pakistani government and militant groups in recent years have only convinced the militants that the authorities lack the resolve for a sustained fight. Several peace deals and cease-fire agreements between Islamabad and the TTP have broken down. Last November, the TTP terminated the latest  cease-fire , negotiated last June, and threatened new attacks across Pakistan in retaliation for the security service’s actions.

Pakistan would do better to abandon its “two steps forward, one step back” approach to domestic terrorism. Defining some jihadi groups as Pakistan’s allies in regional conflicts—against India’s control of Jammu and Kashmir, for example—has generated sympathy for militants, which helps even more extreme groups evade scrutiny even as they launch attacks against Pakistani citizens. This sympathy also aids the militant groups in recruitment, interferes with intelligence gathering, and forces the government to make more concessions during peace talks with the groups.

It is time that Pakistan’s leaders recognize that violent, radical Islamists are not just disgruntled individuals who can be placated with a negotiated settlement. They hold strong beliefs and a sense of destiny, and believe in using violence to shape the world according to their outlook. Before Pakistan’s militants take advantage of ongoing political chaos and economic adversity to orchestrate a full-blown insurgency, leaders in Islamabad must end years of uncertainty about their policy on terrorism. And before they can do that, the country needs a national consensus with the full support of its generals. Unfortunately, there is currently no sign that the country is moving in that direction.

Read in  Foreign Policy.

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Terrorism in Pakistan: the psychosocial context and why it matters

Asad tamizuddin nizami.

1 Assistant Professor, Institute of Psychiatry, World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Mental Health, Benazir Bhutto Hospital, Rawalpindi Medical College, Rawalpindi, Pakistan; email moc.liamg@imazindasard

Tariq Mahmood Hassan

2 Assistant Professor, Providence Care Mental Health Services, Kingston, Canada

Sadia Yasir

3 Consultant Psychiatrist, Shifa International Hospital, Shifa College of Medicine, Islamabad, Pakistan

Mowaddat Hussain Rana

4 Director General, Centre for Trauma Research and Psychosocial Interventions, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan

Fareed Aslam Minhas

5 Head Institute of Psychiatry, World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Mental Health, Benazir Bhutto Hospital, Rawalpindi Medical College, Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Terrorism is often construed as a well-thought-out, extreme form of violence to perceived injustices. The after effects of terrorism are usually reported without understanding the underlying psychological and social determinants of the terrorist act. Since ‘9/11’ Pakistan has been at the epicentre of both terrorism and the war against it. This special paper helps to explain the psychosocial perspective of terrorism in Pakistan that leads to violent radicalisation. It identifies the terrorist acts in the background of Pakistan's history, current geopolitical and social scenario. The findings may also act as a guide on addressing this core issue.

Most nations are unable to reach a consensus on a legally binding definition of ‘terrorism.’ The term seems emotionally charged and, as such, governments have been devising their own definitions. So far the United Nations has been unable to devise an internationally agreed-upon definition of terrorism. Terrorism is suggested to be ‘the use of intimidation or fear for advancement of political objectives’ (Kruglanski & Fishman, 2006 ). Since the ‘9/11’ incident, Muslim countries in particular feel emotionally threatened with the word terrorism and perceive it as synonymous with the acts of terror carried out by so-called Muslim extremist groups. This is further complemented in the media by the unjust linking of such horrendous terror attacks to Islamic Jihad.

Terrorism has brought an enormous burden on South Asian countries through the adverse impacts on their social, economic, political and physical infrastructure. Pakistan has suffered particularly excessively from the social, economic and human costs due to terrorism (Daraz et al , 2012 ). Surprisingly, Pakistan is portrayed as being on the front line in the international war against terrorism and at the same time has been wrongly labelled as a sponsor of international terrorism. Terrorism in Pakistan is a multidimensional phenomenon and, among many precipitating factors, the psychosocial factors play an important role. This paper attempts to address what we believe are significant psychosocial determinants to terrorism in Pakistan.

Historical developments

Pakistan is a Muslim majority nation in South East Asia with India to its east, Iran and Afghanistan to its west, China and the landlocked Asian countries to its north and the Arabian Sea to its south. Pakistan gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947 and is the only Muslim country with nuclear weapons – a nuclear device was detonated in 1998 – and is thus part of the informally named ‘nuclear club.’ Pakistan is a federation of four provinces (Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Balochistan), a capital territory (Islamabad) and a group of federally administered tribal areas in the north west, along with the disputed area of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan is the world's sixth most populous country with an average population density of 229 people per km 2 (World Bank indicators; http://www.tradingeconomics.com/pakistan/urban-population-growth-annual-percent-wb-data.html ). Since independence in 1947, Pakistan has been challenged not only by the trauma inflicted by its colonial occupiers but also by the mass murder of people migrating to the ‘new’ country. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, looted, raped or burnt alive. At the same time, the stability of this fledgling country was significantly hampered by the lack of resources. Just a few years later, due to political instability and separatist movements and terrorism, the east wing of the country was separated from Pakistan; this paved the way to the creation of a new country, Bangladesh, in 1971 (Wadhwani, 2011 ).

The Soviet–Afghan war, which began in 1979, provided a breeding ground for terrorism in the region. A fundamental change was witnessed that altered the very character of the existing Pakistani society. Withdrawal of the Soviets revealed a Pakistani society that had been forced into one of violence and weaponisation, plaguing Pakistan with so-called ‘Kalashnikov culture’ and ‘Talibanisation’ (Wadhwani, 2011 ).

Pakistan's social landscape has for the most part been plagued with illiteracy, disease, insecurity and injustice. Since the 9/11 incident, Pakistan has been intricately linked with the many facets of the ‘war on terrorism.’ Some argue that Pakistan is a breeding ground for terrorist outfits, but it is certain that all of this havoc has resulted in the significant loss of innocent lives as well as loss of economic revenue. These fragile conditions provide a fertile ground for terrorism to grow.

Psychological influence

The act of carrying out terrorist activity does not come from a single moment of inspiration but rather from a complex process of cognitive accommodation and assimilation over accumulating steps. It is wrongly reductionist to label the terrorists as mad or psychopaths (Atran, 2003 ; Horgan, 2008 ). Terrorists’ motivation may involve a deep, underlying quest for personal meaning and significance. Several analyses of such motives have appeared in recent years. There are differences in these analyses regarding the type and variety of motivational factors identified as critical to terrorism. Some authors identified a singular motivation as crucial; others listed a ‘cocktail’ of motives (Sageman, 2004 ; Bloom, 2005 ).

The socioeconomic adversity combined with political challenges were bound to have a detrimental impact on the psyche of the average Pakistani. A terrorist adopts a dichotomous way of identifying their victims, the black-and-white thought that ‘I am good’ and ‘you are evil,’ with no intermediary shades of grey. This thinking leaves no doubt in their minds and they find it easier to kill their opponents with little or no sense of remorse or guilt.

The unmanned army drone strikes killed and maimed thousands of innocent civilians in poor and difficult to access regions of Pakistan. This infuriated people, leading them to take up arms against the perceived aggressors. This triggering of the relatives of the deceased to engage in such activity is the culture of revenge in Pakistan, which unfortunately can last for generations.

Self-sacrifice and martyrdom has been explicitly used in almost all religions and is aggressively exploited by terrorist outfits who groom suicide bombers using the ideology of Islamist martyrdom (Atran, 2003 ). Some have argued that suicide bombers may actually be clinically suicidal and attempting to escape personal impasse (Lankford, 2013 ). In grooming young impressionable adolescents, extremist organisations brainwash these adolescents into believing that the ultimate self-sacrifice by suicide bombing will elevate their stature in the eyes of God and send them straight to heaven. This is associated with massive financial compensations to the deceased family. Terrorist organisations in Pakistan, through this process of brainwashing, have been able to convert young impressionable Muslim adolescents into a ‘suicide bomber in six weeks’ (Nizami et al , 2014 ). In the current scenario of the existing war on terror, this complex process of recruiting young adolescents as suicide bombers seems irreversible.

The contribution of the religious schools

In the West, Madrassas (Islamic religious schools) have gained a reputation of being a sinister influence on young impressionable Muslims. These institutions are not completely regulated and can vary from a single room to large institutions offering schooling and boarding to hundreds of students at a time. A survey of just over 50 000 households in Pakistan found that children in Urdu-medium government schools and madrassas were from poorer households than those in English-medium private schools. The primary reason for parents to send their children to madrassas as opposed to mainstream schools was that these institutions provided a good Islamic education. The second most common reason was that the madrassa provided education that is low in cost along with the provision of food and clothing (Cockcroft et al , 2009 ).

Another survey indicated that in Pakistan only a minority of the religious schools promoted an extremist view of Islam (Bano, 2007 ). An interrogation of 79 terrorists involved in anti-Western attacks found that very few had attended a madrassa. This suggests that terrorist groups may selectively recruit better qualified people for technically demanding tasks (Bergen & Pandey, 2006 ). However, the religious seminaries have been implicated as playing the role of recruitment centres for the suicide bombers (Nizami et al , 2014 ).

In an effort to break this incorrect perception the Darul Uloom Deoband, the largest Islamic seminary in the world, hosted an anti-terrorist conference in 2008. This was attended by 6000 Imams declaring that ‘Islam is a religion of mercy for all humanity. Islam sternly condemns all kinds of oppression, violence and terrorism. It has regarded oppression, mischief, rioting and murder among sins and crimes’ (Press Trust of India, 2008 ). However, it is yet to be ascertained how many religious schools in Pakistan adopted this school of thought. With the revolution in the world of information technology, experts agree that the internet played an important role in the radicalisation and self-recruitment process into terrorist groups. Messages and videos on jihadi websites target the ‘soft spots’ of potential recruits and inflame their imagination (Kruglanski & Fishman, 2009 ).

The link between terrorism and mental disorder

With both mental disorder and terrorism in Pakistan being highly prevalent, it would be a fair assumption that the two may have a causal relationship. Walter Laqueur wrote that ‘all terrorists believe in conspiracies by the powerful, hostile forces and suffer from some form of delusion and persecution mania… The element of… madness plays an important role in terrorism’ (Silke, 2003 ).

However, apart from certain pathological cases, a causal connection between an individual's mental disorder and engagement in terrorist activity could not be established (Daraz et al , 2012 ). However, there can be a connection between an individual engaging in terrorist activity and developing a mental disorder as mental disorders worsen in stress, anxiety and depression.

The adverse impacts of terrorism lead the masses towards anomie and create the tendency towards suicide and mental illnesses (Daraz et al , 2012 ). Poor health, depressive symptoms, risky behaviours in young adults, personality variables, social inequalities, criminality, social networks and international foreign policy have all been proposed to be influential drivers for grievances that lead to radicalisation and terrorism (La Free & Ackerman, 2009 ).

It may well be that individuals with mild depression would be a better target for gradual psychological moulding. Female suicide bombers who are predominantly motivated by revenge as opposed to their male counterparts may have some degree of clinical depression (Jacques & Taylor, 2008 ). Personality traits are useless as predictors for understanding why people become terrorists. However, personality traits and environmental conditions are the contributing factors for terrorism (Horgan, 2008 ). There are protective and modifiable risk factors early on the path towards radicalisation. The benefits of early intervention have far reaching implications for preventing significant depressive symptoms, promoting wellbeing and perhaps social capital (Bhui et al , 2014 ).

By understanding, appreciating and addressing the psychosocial factors contributing to terrorism in Pakistan, one may find long-lasting solutions to the fall out on Pakistan's war against terror. This war has led to a loss of innocent human lives, compounded by the deep psychological scars for survivors which will undoubtedly persist for generations to come. An ongoing, concerted effort to gain peace and security in the region is essential and is the only way to counteract the revenge attacks and further brainwashing of young impressionable youths. These psychological determinants, however, are markedly different than terrorist activities in Western countries, where it seems that a different set of psychological rules apply.

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Terrorism in Pakistan has declined, but the underlying roots of extremism remain

Subscribe to the center for middle east policy newsletter, madiha afzal madiha afzal fellow - foreign policy , center for middle east policy , strobe talbott center for security, strategy, and technology , center for asia policy studies.

January 15, 2021

This piece is part of a series titled “ Nonstate armed actors and illicit economies: What the Biden administration needs to know ,” from Brookings’s  Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors .

According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, Pakistan saw 319 terrorism-related incidents in 2020, and 169 associated deaths of civilians. That represents a decline, from a high of nearly 4,000 such incidents in 2013, with over 2,700 civilian deaths (see figure below).

This fall is largely due to the Pakistani army’s kinetic operations against the Pakistani Taliban — also known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — which had been responsible for the majority of deaths of civilians and security forces since 2007, the year it formed officially as an umbrella organization of various militant groups. Over the years, American drone strikes targeted and killed successive TTP leaders, including Baitullah Mehsud in 2009, Hakimullah Mehsud in 2013, and Mullah Fazlullah in 2018. The Pakistani military’s Zarb-e-Azb operation (named for the sword of the Prophet Muhammad) began in 2014 — after a TTP attack on the Karachi airport that June — and increased in intensity after the Peshawar Army Public School attack of December that year, which killed more than 130 schoolchildren. Since 2017, having largely routed the TTP (because of limited information access to the area, there are questions about how many terrorists were killed, versus simply displaced across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border), the military’s operation entered a new phase of “elimination” of militant groups. The operation is called Radd-ul-Fasaad, which literally means elimination of all strife.

Figure: Terrorism-related fatalities in Pakistan

While this top-line picture in terms of number of attacks and casualties is clearly a positive one, the TTP has been regrouping since last summer. Various breakaway factions pledged allegiance to the group last July, and there are reports of it making a comeback in at least six districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa “ with the intimidation of locals, targeted killings, and attacks on security forces .” The TTP is reported to have killed at least 40 security forces between March and September 2020. Official Pakistani sources blamed India as “behind” the revival. On the other end, the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement, an ethnic protest movement that claims human rights violations against civilians by the Pakistani military during its operations against the Taliban, has alleged (without systematic proof) that “the Taliban are being allowed to return” to the tribal areas in a “secret deal with the military.”

The TTP, of course, maintains ties with the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida. Some have speculated that the TTP comeback may be linked with the Afghan peace process and Pakistan’s fencing of the border with Afghanistan, both of which threaten the group’s sanctuary in Afghanistan. (A U.N. report from July 2020 stated there were 6,000 Pakistani fighters in Afghanistan, most affiliated with the TTP.) There has also been some speculation that the Afghan peace process might include, at some point, a separate Afghan-Pakistan deal, with Afghanistan denying safe haven to the TTP potentially in return for Pakistan denying sanctuary to the Haqqanis (though it is unclear whether that will be possible, or acceptable to Pakistan). Pakistan has already raised questions about Afghanistan’s sanctuary for the TTP.

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The Islamic State in Khorasan (ISIS-K), which operates in Afghanistan and is the Afghan Taliban’s rival, has been responsible for recent attacks in Baluchistan, including of 11 Shia Hazara coal miners this January — complicating Pakistan’s already violent sectarian landscape. In discussing this attack, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan again blamed India for “backing ISIS” to “spread unrest” in Pakistan. (Pakistan has also long claimed that India uses Afghan soil — on which ISIS-K is based — to destabilize Pakistan.)

Anti-India militant groups continue to have a foothold in Pakistan, but Pakistan has begun taking action against the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in recent years, especially in the wake of its enhanced monitoring by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in 2018 for terrorism financing; it is a key goal of Khan’s government to have Pakistan removed from this “grey list,” because it hurts the country’s image and causes it financial harm. Most notably, Pakistan has sentenced Hafiz Saeed, the leader of the LeT, to 11 years in prison for terrorism financing. Another LeT leader, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, was also recently sentenced to five years for terrorism financing. The United States has acknowledged these steps, but has argued that Pakistan needs to hold these LeT leaders accountable for more than terrorism financing. Pakistan has taken less action against Jaish-e-Mohammad, the terrorist group responsible for the Pulwama attack of February 2019; its leader, Masood Azhar, is at large. Notably, Pakistan-based militant groups have not been responsible for any violence in Kashmir since the Pulwama attack; in an interview later in 2019, Khan asked Pakistanis not to engage in any violence or “jihad” in India, because it would be blamed on Pakistan and would harm it. That signal seems to have worked.

Placing the blame on India for terrorism in Pakistan is something the country has long done, although not always in as direct a manner as in 2020. Beyond linking the recent ISIS-K attack with India, Pakistan also linked the Baluch Liberation Army’s June 2020 attack on the Karachi Stock Exchange with its eastern neighbor (Pakistan has longed argued India supports the Baluch insurgency). In November, the Pakistani foreign minister, in a splashy press conference, released details of the “ dossier ” Pakistan has compiled linking India to funding, arming, and training terrorists (including the TTP) against Pakistan. Only the summary — not the full dossier — discussed in that meeting has been made public. It found a receptive audience in a Pakistani population already wary of the Narendra Modi government for its actions in Kashmir and the alarming rise in intolerance toward Muslims in India. The Pakistani government says it has shared the dossier with the U.N. and various governments, but those parties have not publicly acknowledged it.

Pakistan’s strategy toward militant groups has long been two-pronged, as it were: to take overt (and successful) action against groups targeting the Pakistani state and citizenry — the TTP — without taking action against the groups it has considered “strategic assets,” including the Afghan Taliban that have sought sanctuary on its soil and anti-India militants that its intelligence agencies have covertly supported. Underlying this approach has been an effort to hedge bets: regarding the Taliban’s possible influence in Afghanistan after an international withdrawal, and regarding militant proxies who may give Pakistan parity on an otherwise lopsided conventional military footing with India. There are signs some of this is changing. For instance, Pakistan has developed a good relationship with Kabul, especially in recent months, but it also knows its leverage over the Taliban keeps it relevant to the Afghan peace process. The FATF listing has induced Pakistan to take its strictest action to date on militant groups, especially LeT. It also helps that Pakistan is keen to shed an image associated with terrorism. Yet the long-term sustainability of actions Pakistan has taken in response to pressure from FATF remains to be seen; will they be reversed when the FATF grey-listing is lifted? And what happens after the international withdrawal from Afghanistan is complete?

The central issue is not one of state capacity, but an unwillingness of the Pakistani state to paint all jihadist groups with the same brush, to recognize the linkages in ideology that connect them all — and to acknowledge how those ideologies find fodder in Pakistan’s laws, educational curricula, politics, and indeed the very nature of how Pakistan has defined itself, as I detailed in my book . This issue holds for Pakistan’s military, and also across its spectrum of major political parties, as has been demonstrated over the last 12 years with all three of them successively holding power. That lack of recognition of how terrorism and extremism are connected, and of the very roots of extremism, is the crux of the problem: Militant groups can always find recruits, from other groups or from the general population. Non-armed right-wing fundamentalist groups, notably the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), share these ideologies, glorify violence (the TLP, after all, celebrated the murder of Salmaan Taseer for daring to propose reform in Pakistan’s blasphemy laws), and enjoy growing support and sympathy.

For a brief time after the Peshawar school attack of 2014, there was some clarity in recognizing the homegrown nature of the Pakistan Taliban, and the country devised a National Action Plan to tackle extremism and terrorism. While it was incomplete and never acknowledged the deeper roots of extremism, it was a start. But it has gone by the wayside as the Pakistani state has turned back once again to blaming India for terrorism in the country. Meanwhile, the underlying roots of extremism — the country’s curricula, the way its politics works, and its laws, which have all primed its citizenry to buy into and sympathize with the propaganda of extremist groups — remain intact. Pakistan’s claims about India deserve to be heard and investigated, as the international community ignoring them only worsens Pakistan’s sense of victimhood, but that does not absolve the state of its own policies that have fostered extremism and allowed terror groups to proliferate on its soil.

As the Biden administration takes office, it is worth recognizing the effectiveness of the FATF tool, and the limited leverage of the United States to effect real change on security matters in Pakistan, at least initially. Ultimately, Pakistan must be the one to connect the dots linking all the terrorist groups on its soil and their ideologies, acknowledge how it has contributed to extremism within its borders, and decide on addressing the roots of that extremism. I would argue that the best way to encourage it to do so is for America to develop a relationship with the country that is separate from Afghanistan, and separate from India: to deal with Pakistan on its own terms. Meanwhile, security concerns in Pakistan are more or less contained, with the FATF listing and the Pakistani state’s action against the TTP being the primary mechanisms for that control, and the Biden administration need not make them the center of its Pakistan policy.

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The Resurgence of Terrorism in Pakistan

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Without revisiting its myopic Afghan policy, a new counterterrorism campaign alone will not fix Pakistan’s mounting challenges with terrorism.

Security officials guard a blocked road leading to a counter-terrorism center after security forces started to clear the compound seized earlier by Pakistani Taliban militants in Bannu, a northern district in the Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2022.

Pakistan has witnessed a renewed spate of terrorism in recent months, particularly after the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) called off its ceasefire and asked its fighters to resume countrywide attacks. Since the Afghan Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021, there has been a 55 percent increase in terrorist attacks in Pakistan. Terrorism’s resurgence has brought into sharp focus the fragility of Pakistan’s counterterrorism gains.

While Pakistan will have to adopt a more proactive counterterrorism policy, an analysis of factors underlying the resurgence of terrorism is important, as a comprehensive understanding of the problem will pave the way for informed policymaking.

The foremost among the factors contributing to resurgent terrorism in Pakistan is its myopic Afghan policy of supporting the Taliban, which enabled the group to claw its way back to power. Pakistan backed the Taliban against the U.S.-supported regimes in Kabul, seeking to corner India and rein in the TTP with the former’s help.

However, the Taliban’s return to power had a rejuvenating effect on the TTP. The group celebrated the Taliban’s victory as its own. The TTP and the Taliban have longstanding battlefield, political, ethnic, and ideological linkages . Hence, instead of offering any help to Pakistan, the Taliban regime termed the TTP as Pakistan’s internal matter . The Taliban only offered to help facilitate negotiations to reach a political settlement, provided both Pakistan and the TTP agreed to resolve their differences.

Another reason for the resurgence of terrorism is Pakistan’s engagement in talks with the TTP from a position of weakness. This served to give the militant group much-needed time and space to recuperate and spread its network in Pakistan. The first attempt to reach a peace deal was made in 2021, which ended with the TTP scrapping the one-month truce in December and resuming attacks.

The second attempt was made in May 2022. It led to an indefinite ceasefire in June and a formal peace process between the two sides. However, peace talks soon hit a dead end as both sides did not budge from their stated positions relating to the reversal of the ex-FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) region’s merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, among other things. The TTP wanted a reversal of the merger while Pakistan refused to accept this demand.

At any rate, the second attempt to reach a political settlement collapsed on November 28 when the TTP called off the ceasefire and directed its fighters to resume attacks across Pakistan.

A report by Pakistan’s premier counterterrorism agency, the National Counter Terrorism Authority, has noted that peace talks contributed to the TTP’s rising attacks in Pakistan. If history is anything to go by, that result was predictable: Around six peace deals with the TTP and other local militant factions in the past have failed to achieve peace and contributed to the rise of violent incidents.

The abeyance of violence due to the weakening of terrorist networks in the 2015-2020 period and the fencing of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border created a misplaced notion of victory and a false sense of security. Pakistan confused the absence of violence with the restoration of peace without realizing the fragility and reversibility of its counterterrorism gains. Similarly, the fencing of Pakistan’s 2,640-kilometer-long border with Afghanistan was seen as a means to minimize the blow back of insecurity and spillover of violence from Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal and the Taliban’s return to power.

However, as time progressed, it has become evident that the border fencing could not stop the TTP’s cross-border attacks and infiltration from Afghanistan into Pakistan.

In the context of insurgency and asymmetric warfare, inter-group mergers and alliances are key components to non-state violent actors’ lethality and longevity. The more a militant group is allied, the more lethal and resilient it becomes. Since 2020, the TTP under its new chief Nur Wali Mehsud has paid close attention to reuniting various splinter factions. In the last two years, more than 22 militant factions have merged with the TTP, enhancing its operational strength and expanding its geographical outreach in Pakistan. These mergers and reunifications have also played a key role in the resurgence of militant violence in Pakistan.

Furthermore, the complacency emanating from an unfounded sense of victory against the TTP and inadequate counterterrorism infrastructure also contributed to the resurgence of militant violence. A report submitted to the parliament in December has highlighted serious capacity issues and law enforcement gaps in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Counter Terrorism Department (CTD). Since the Taliban’s takeover, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s police have borne the brunt of the TTP’s attacks, losing more than 120 personnel in 83 assaults. Yet the report pointed out that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa CTD’s manpower is poorly trained, under-resourced, and ill-equipped. For instance, it spends less than 4 percent of its budget on operations, with zero allocations for procurement. Likewise, its budget of $9.48 million or 2.18 billion Pakistani rupees , including salaries and allowances, is half of Punjab CTD’s $2.08 million budget.

Lately, Pakistan-Taliban relations have deteriorated , resulting in frequent border flare-ups and closures. The Taliban have accused Pakistan of providing its airspace to the United States for the drone strike in Kabul that killed al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri. At the same time, Pakistan-U.S. counterterrorism cooperation against the residual threat of transnational militancy in Afghanistan is progressively improving . Recently, the U.S. included the TTP’s deputy head, Qari Amjad, as well as al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent chief Osama Mahmood and his deputy Atif Yahya Ghori in its designated list of global terrorists.

Going forward, an improvement in Pakistan-U.S. ties will negatively impact the already abysmal Taliban-Pakistan relations, to the detriment of Pakistan’s volatile security situation.

Pakistan’s contradictions in Afghanistan have come full circle. While Pakistan has been seeking strategic depth in Afghanistan against India, the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan has provided the TTP with reverse strategic depth against Pakistan.

Without revisiting Pakistan’s myopic Afghan policy, a new counterterrorism campaign alone will not fix Pakistan’s terrorism dilemma. Furthermore, Pakistan will have to take a long view of the terrorism challenge because terrorism is likely to persist. Irrespective of the Pakistani response, any improvement or deterioration of the terrorism threat in Pakistan will depend on the evolving situation in Afghanistan.

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National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA)

Pakistan’s National Narrative against Terrorism and Extremism

• Laws & Policies

Background:

1-    Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a federal parliamentary democracy under Constitution of Pakistan 1973. Elected representatives of people form governments at national and provincial levels. All citizens have been granted fundamental rights in the Constitution.

2-    Pakistan has been facing scourge of terrorism for last more than 20 years. From 2001 to 2022, Pakistan lost 83 thousand lives and incurred financial loss of more than 35 trillion rupees. Consequently, violence, extremism and intolerance have increased in society. Hence, holistic policy and comprehensive strategy are needed to meet this challenge on permanent basis. For attaining sustainable success, formation and propagation of a national narrative against terrorism and extremism is of vital importance in this age of digital communication. It needs to become foundation of counter terrorist and counter extremist measures.

National Narrative:

3-    National narrative against terrorism and extremism contains salient features of Paigham-i-Pakistan. The Paigham-i-Pakistan is a consensus decree (fatwa) issued in 2018 and signed by more than 1800 religious scholars belonging to all Muslim sects in Pakistan. At international level, it has been endorsed by Imam-i-Kaaba and Al Azhar University of Cairo. It reflects teachings of Quran and Sunnah, precepts of Constitution of Pakistan and collective thought of the people of Pakistan.

4-    Armed resistance, called with whatever name including Jihad, against the State of Pakistan, any of its provinces or units, is strictly forbidden (haram). No individual or group can declare war (Jihad) against the State of Pakistan. No one can declare functionaries of the Government of Pakistan, personnel of armed forces and Law Enforcement Agencies as non-Muslims and hence liable to be killed. There is no justification of attacks on such persons and institutions. Such attacks are heinous crimes in Islamic Sharia too. Use of force, armed resistance against the State, spreading violence, committing terrorism, promoting extremism in the name of enforcing Sharia are strictly forbidden and fall in category of mischief on earth.

Such acts are crimes against the State and it is duty of the Law Enforcement Agencies to bring such offenders to justice. Those who fight against Pakistan are outlaws, rebels and terrorists who are liable to be punished in accordance with law.

5-    Whole of Pakistani nation firmly stands with its Armed Forces, Police and other Law Enforcement Agencies in their lawful duties to curb terrorism and extremism. These institutions are integral parts of the Pakistani nation. No decree or fatwa can be issued against them for their role & duties which include protecting life and property of the people of Pakistan.

6-    Suicide bombing is strictly forbidden (haram) in Islam. It is a heinous crime according to law of the land and Shariah. Suicide bombers go to hell according to teachings of Quran and Sunnah. Those who prepare young people to become suicide bombers also go to hell. Killing of one innocent human being is tantamount to killing the whole of humanity, according to Quran. Suicide bombing does not become justified even when named as fidai attack. Change of name does not change its nature and consequences.

7-    All public and private educational and training institutions are strictly forbidden from promoting militancy, hatred, violence, extremism, or terrorism. These acts are crimes according to law of the land. If any institute or individual associated with such institute, religious or non-religious, is found involved, he will be punished in accordance with law.

8-    As the Muslim majority population has religious freedom, the non-Muslim minorities too have religious freedom in Pakistan granted in the Constitution. State gives importance to religious minorities and their religious and cultural rights. Constitutionally guaranteed religious rights are available to all without any discrimination. Religious and non-religious extremism is condemned by the State in all its manifestations. No sect is allowed to impose its views on other sects using force and violence. No sect or religion is allowed to abuse sacred personalities of any other sect or religion. No sect can declare any other sect as non-believer (kafir). Takfeer (declaring other Muslims as non-Muslims) is strictly prohibited. Any violations are punishable under relevant laws. No individual or group is allowed take law into their own hands to inflict punishment on any person accused of a religious offence including offence of blasphemy. Only courts shall punish such accused after due process of law. Strict legal action will be taken against such lawlessness and violence.

9-    Armed resistance and terrorism committed by non-religious armed organizations, based on sub-nationalism, language, color, creed, ethnicity, regionalism, etc, are totally unlawful and hence strictly forbidden. Armed resistance against the State, any province or unit, in any name or ideology, fall in categories of rebellion and insurgency. Such crimes shall be punished according to law. Territorial integrity of Pakistan shall be protected at all costs and rebels and insurgents will be punished for treason and other serious crimes.

10-    Operations shall be conducted against religiously motivated and non-religious terrorist groups and their facilitators without discrimination to bring them to justice. The National Action Plan shall be implemented in letter and spirit by all stakeholders. To achieve this objective, the LEAs will be strengthened with provision of all necessary resources. The LEAs will be provided training in latest intelligence collection and counter terrorism techniques. They will be equipped to defeat terrorism this time on sustainable and permanent basis. Investment in peace and security is in fact indirectly an investment in economy of the country. Peace will bring dividends is shape of economic progress and prosperity.

11-    All necessary steps shall be taken to prevent and counter extremism in society. Extremist propaganda will be suppressed through use of modern technology. Extremist elements active in physical and cyber domain, including Social Media and internet, to spread extremism will be stopped and brought to justice. Extremist ideologies and online hate will be suppressed and countered effectively. Space in cyber and physical domains will be denied to all kinds of extremism including religious, linguistic, ethnic, separatist or regional. Propaganda to malign national institutions will be countered and punished in accordance with law. Battle of narratives will be fought and won by the State using all means possible. Pakistan’s national narrative shall be promoted and propagated in physical and cyber domain. A comprehensive strategy will be made and implemented in this regard by relevant national institutions dealing with counter extremism. All necessary resources will be provided to achieve the above objectives.

12-    Misuse of loud speaker and sound systems will be effectively monitored and checked. Hate speech and other violations will be prosecuted in court of law. All types of religious competitions (manaazra) are strictly prohibited under law of the land. Robust prosecutions will be ensured to punish the offenders who spread hate and intolerance.

13-    Above mentioned national narrative against terrorism and extremism is now the permanent national policy in this domain. Under this policy, all kinds of terrorism and extremism shall be routed out from society. Pakistan will be made a fully peaceful country wherein its citizens lead their lives peacefully and without fear of any kind.

14-    Pakistani way of life shall be protected and promoted as it is based on Pakistani values of hard work, hospitality, charity, tolerance, pluralism and pursuit of happiness. Pakistani people are God-fearing. They are known for their generosity and large-heartedness. Father of the nation, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, had advised the nation to work, work and work. Laborer is a friend of Allah, according to Islamic teachings. In the light of above, the Pakistani nation shall work hard to make a living in pursuit of happiness. Poverty, illiteracy, violence, terrorism and extremism shall be defeated with concerted efforts of all segments of society. Nation will focus on education for all to produce useful citizens. At international level, peace, tolerance, education and progress are aimed to become symbols of Pakistani identity. In Shaa Allah.

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Quotations For Essay Terrorism

“Terrorism”  is a burning issue and is considered a hot topic for essay writing. Students are asked to share their thoughts about terrorism. The topic can be different in the words, but the main intent remains the same which is to elaborate on terrorism.

Not only for students but for people of every walk and talk of life, the following are the best quotes on terrorism.

You can add these quotes not only to your essay on terrorism but also can display these whenever you intend to condemn terrorism.

For the essay purpose, write these quotes word for word in different shades of blue so that these can be highlighted.

Take great care of punctuation marks while writing these quotes.

Quotations on Terrorism Essay in Pakistan For 12th Class

Here are the best quotations on terrorism essay in English. You can use these quotes about essay terrorism in your test or paper with confidence.

What is hell, Let me tell, When man fell, From its shell, To make his done, Evil demands, By use of gun, Terrorism was born, What more to mourn? Calym Nush

The brutal acts, To vanish the facts, When take place, On the face, Of humanity, Is the vanity, Of terrorist, He is the worst. Calym Nush

Also, Check: Quotations For Essay Corruption

In many kinds of curses, There is no versus, Among those, Who kill the rose, What they consists, Terror and terrorists. Calym Nush

There is no heavenly verse, Without the curse, On the devils, Who are biased, Create chaos, On the earth, Of humanity, They break the wrists, They are terrorists. Calym Nush

Let me say, Before doomsday, Those who play, With bloodshed of innocents, Hundred percent, Curse with open fists, On those terrorists. Calym Nush

In their own state of mind, When they find, Their ill wills, Can’t be fulfilled, By force when they enforce, They find the course, Of terrorism, Thus they are outcasted, From humanism. Calym Nush

Terrorism is the stain, On forehead of humanity, That causes the pain, Which lasts, which is infinity. Calym Nush

In earth, what is worst, First poverty, then terrorism, Both are man-made, Making earth forbade, For living, By giving, The everlasting pain, Thus all goes in vain. Calym Nush

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Essay On Terrorism In Pakistan With Outline In Easy Words

Essay On Terrorism In Pakistan With Outline In Easy Words:   A major hitch in Pakistan that is overcoming the peace and prosperity of this Islamic country is Terrorism. It has been fenced the independence of our lives and we are always in a fright that can never be let us live freely and happily. So this problem must be uprooted with fits and starts and we have to be aware of the causes and preventions of this social issue. Terrorism means the use of aggression to fright the noble nation. Those who are spreading the terrorism are called a terrorist. Terrorist are everywhere and these are those peoples who are not a patriot and they have no mercy in their hearts for others. There are many ways of brutality that are causing terrorism like bomb blasting, target killing, use of hush money and much more. All these ways enhance the fright in our hearts and deadly disturb our lives and when in any country these things raise their heads the peace is gone and the fear makes it place with firm steps. So it can be stated that terrorism is the mother of all the social evils and we should take up the call against this giant who will destroy the abilities of the upcoming generation.

In this page we are written the Terrorism In Pakistan Essay In Simple Words With Outlines For Matric, Intermediate, and Even and Graduation Students Can Also Prepare This Essay For Their Exams. You Can Also Add Your Content In It Because There Are Different Online Readers Can Copy It. Related Articles 14 August Speech in English for Pakistan Independence Day August 18, 2023 The Potential of Social Media Marketing for Business Growth in Islamabad July 12, 2023 AIOU Tutor Search By Roll No 2024 June 4, 2023 Biotechnology Scope In Pakistan April 6, 2023

Reasons of  Terrorism in Pakistan Essay:

There are many reasons which are causing terrorism but the main reasons are written below

• Illiteracy is always the main reason for all the social evils as well as terrorism because one who is educated can never be acclaim for killing others
• Poverty is also another reason for it because when the new generation will find it hard to meet the expenses of daily lives he will choose the wrong way and will become a terrorist
• There are many outer agencies which are also working in Pakistan to high up the terrorism
• The condition of Peoples are pathetic and they are not fully aware of the seriousness of terrorism and they are not coordinating with the government in order to prevent the terrorism
• The role of concerned authorities is also not up to the mark

Prevention Of Terrorism In Pakistan Essay:

We can prevent the terrorism in Pakistan by taking some special steps against this evil with the great coordination of our Government

• People should admission their child to school for education instead of job anywhere in the age of their school and government should make the education free for such peoples who cannot afford for it
• Pakistan Army has taken special steps with the collaboration of the Government of Pakistan with the name of National Action Plan of Pakistan against terrorism
• Peoples and government should join hands together and make a master plan that can be fade away terrorists from Pakistan
• The special investigation departments and our rangers should be honest with their work and government should give them special training to caught such agencies which are spreading the terrorism in Pakistan

Impact Of Terrorism In Pakistan:

The impacts of terrorism in Pakistan is affecting the different phases of life. It impacts on society, economy, agriculture, and there are lots of international impacts leaving their impact on life on a national basis. Whenever, any terrorist attack held in bomb blasting, hijacking a school, or any other type of terrorism it left a big impact for a long time even the upcoming generation is in getting involved in a big issue that is overcoming their happiness, peace, and of course the ways of success.

While if we talk about the psychological impacts then there are no words to elaborate it because of the terrorist attack in Army Public school Peshawar on 14th December 2014 is yet alive in our minds and of course the child studying there. But we should show the unity so that we can overcome all these evils from our society.

So here I have written the essay on terrorism in Pakistan with outline in easy words where I have written the reasons and causes along with the impact of Terrorism on society, economy, and education as well as the psychological effects of this evil on the land of Pakistan and all over the world.

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Pakistan army and terrorism; an unholy alliance.

Pakistan has been known for its perennial support of the Taliban in Afghanistan and other terrorist organizations in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir. The dramatic events of the terrorist attacks on the twin towers in the United States (US) on the 11 th  of September 2001 also referred to as 9/11, shook the tectonic plates of world politics, pushing Pakistan into being a focal point of global politics. Pakistan became the key strategic partner of United States’ War on Terror; post the terrorist attacks, taking a complete U-turn in her traditional foreign policies towards Afghanistan and Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir, albeit temporarily under international pressure for heavy monetary gains. The country, in which sectarian groups targeting minority communities (Shias, Sufis, Ahmadis etc.) and Kashmir-focused groups confined their operations to Indian Administered Kashmir and the rest of India, has become a victim of its own holy war as a consequence of the  ‘unholy alliance’  between the Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency, military and self-styled religious scholars. This historic alliance has resulted in colossal rise of radical Islam being a factor in the country’s proclivity to Islamic fundamentalism.

Jihadi Groups

There are several kind of militant groups operating in and from Pakistan that can be distinguished by their sectarian background (Ahl-e-Hadith, Deobandi, Jamaat-e-Islami etc.), and their areas of operation (Afghanistan, India, Pakistan). Their objectives may vary from overthrowing the Pakistani government, seizure of Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir or support of Afghan Taliban. It typically takes eighteen months for  ‘Mujahideen’  to become fully functional.

“There are six stages to jihad training before a mujahid is deployed. The first stage, Tasis, is the indoctrination period, during which no military skills are taught. This is a period in which religious and sectarian fervour is instilled in the trainee, and the phase generally lasts one month. For example, Lashkar-e-Taiba will use this stage to convert recruits to Alh-e-Hadith teachings. Next is Al Ra’ad, a three-month period that continues the indoctrination period but also includes the trainees’ introduction to military training. At the beginning of this stage, some groups like to take stock of their recruits and administer mental and physical tests to make sure the recruit is fit for a life of jihad. After these four months of spiritual conditioning and an introduction to light military activities, a six-month period of guerrilla training begins. Upon completion of this phase, Mujahideen can technically be put in the field, but only after writing their will and giving it over to the Ameer (a title of respect or nobility, usually meaning “commander”) of the camp. However, should the trainee require more specialized instruction, he will be sent on to Doshka and Jandla. The seven to ten-day Doshka training teaches the recruit to use handheld weapons. Not all Mujahideen go through the nine-month Jandla phase, which is considered the most difficult. During this training, the mujahid learns how to use automatic arms and to craft explosives. Thus far, only the facilities linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, and Harkat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami have the resources to conduct this training, but other groups often use these facilities to train their own Mujahideen. The final two stages often depend on resources and the necessity of certain operations. For example, only the leadership of a jihadi group engages in Domela training, which teaches the handling of shoulder-fired weapons. Zakazak is also a rare form of training, because it involves familiarization with tanks, canons, and other heavy weaponry, to which many groups do not have access”.  - Amir Rana, Director of Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies, Authored A-Z of Jihadi Organizations in Pakistan.

Corresponding to these characteristics, the following clusters of Islamist terrorist groups have been discussed below:

Al Qaeda (Pakistan)

Al Qaeda operatives who are based in Pakistan are largely non-Pakistani. They operate through networks of supportive Pakistani militant groups having strongest ties with Deobandi groups such as the Pakistani Taliban, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JM), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Al Qaeda has facilitated attacks within Pakistan and has planned international attacks. The objective of this terrorist group is the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate. The Internet is Al Qaeda’s most dangerous weapon due to its global reach. They have killed more Americans than any other terrorist organization. In Afghanistan, they use Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and suicide IEDs, kidnappings, executions on video, Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPGs), mortars and rockets.

Taliban is an Islamist group that emerged in Pakistan’s Federally Administrative Tribal Areas (FATA) neighbouring Afghanistan and parts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province after 9/11.  Their objective initially was to wage a war in Afghanistan against NATO forces though subsequently adopted other agendas, such as Islamization in FATA and absorbed sectarian tendencies. The Afghan Taliban emerged from Deobandi school of thought. In the Soviet-Afghan war, the Afghan Mujahideen used the term  ‘Punjabi Mujahideen’  to refer to militants from mainland Pakistan. When Pakistani groups started contributing to the insurgency in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir they were referred to as  ‘Afghan Mujahideen’ , although most of the militants were from the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. In this context, it is not surprising that after the Taliban emerged in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, Pakistani groups there were tagged as Punjabi Taliban. Afghan and Pakistani tribal Taliban use the same term for them.

“There are several groups which proclaim to focus upon ‘Kashmir Valley’, that include, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JM) and Laskar-e-Taiba (LeT)”  - Christine Fair- Associate Professor at the Center for Peace and Security Studies, within Georgetown University’s Edmund A . Walsh School of Foreign Service.

 Jamaat-e-Islami (JI)

JI is an Islamic political party, founded by a Muslim theologian and socio-political philosopher Maulana Abul Ala Maududi in 1941 in Lahore (British India). In 1947, it moved its operations to West Pakistan. It began with the principle that the primary struggle in the world was between Islam which was superior to any other accepted political system and unbelievers. JI strongly opposes capitalism, liberalism, secularism as well as economic practices like offering bank interest. Its objective is to make Pakistan an Islamic state, to be governed by Sharia Law (Islamic Law). Jamaat-e-Islami enjoys the support of a diverse cross section of Pakistani society, including students, unions, and professional organizations. Jamaat-e-Islami has also been linked to militancy. Their  ‘Rajakar fighters’  participated in the genocide of Bengali people led by the Pakistan Army in the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh. During the Zia-ul-Haq regime, these Rajakar members were recognized as official members of the Pakistan army, provided arms training to Aghan Mujahideen and raised funds from wealthy Arabs and local patrons. After Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan, JI turned its attention to Jammu and Kashmir, with the continued support of the ISI. Jamaat-e-Islami, however, wanted to maintain its distance from direct militant activities, identifying itself as more of a political-ideological movement. To distance itself, JI established groups dedicated solely to Jihad, the most prominent of which is, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.

Hizbul Mujahideen (HM)

Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, was formed by a former Kashmiri school teacher Muhammad Ahsan Dar in 1989, committed to a campaign to unite Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan and Islamization of the socio-political and economic set-up, thereby establishing an Islamic Caliphate. HM follows the Jamaat-e-Islami ideology, the group that also funds its activities. The affiliation with JI allowed HM militants to receive weapons training in Afghan camps until the Taliban seized power. HM is currently led by Syed Salahuddin, mainly comprising ethnic Kashmiris and Pakistanis of non-Kashmiri origin, affiliated with Jamaat-e-Islami. It is headquartered in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan Administered Jammu and Kashmir, and its size has been estimated at anywhere from several hundred to tens of thousands of members. HM remains one of the most influential groups in the Kashmir Valley as it recruits many of its members from this region. HM has established a network with operations in Pakistan Administered, Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir and in Pakistan.

“Much of the group’s literature and teachings justify a nearly perpetual state of jihad and interpret all Muslim territory as subject to Muslim re-conquest in the broadest terms”  – ‘The Ideologies of South Asian Jihadi Groups’, by Husain Haqqani.

Pakistani officials believe that HM controls up to 60 percent of the Mujahideen operating in Kashmir and has been working alongside Lashkar-e-Taiba since 1997. As per reports, HM often works alongside other militant groups to provide local knowledge to the overwhelming Pakistani and foreign membership of other groups because of its ethnical Kashmiri cadres. Hizbul-Mujahideen is modelled after a highly structured army, very well organized militarily, with Indian security forces and politicians in Kashmir Valley being its primary target. It is one of the only militant groups to assassinate high-ranking Indian personnel, including three Major Generals and several hundred officers of other ranks. It uses the subgroups Islami Jamiat-e-Tulaba and Jamiat-e-Tulaba-e-Arabia to recruit students from universities and JI-affiliated  madrassas  (religious schools).

Despite its prominence, many splits have occurred over tactical disagreements and personal differences within HM. It is also believed that the ISI arranges the mergers and rifts in HM and in other groups as a divide-and-control strategy. Burhan Wani (now killed ) and Zakir Musa are some of the popular terrorists associated with HM in the Kashmir Valley who openly support Islamic Rule (Sharia Law) and refer to Kashmir issue as an Islamic Struggle rather than a political issue.

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)

LeT is the most prominent Ahl-e-Hadith group operating in Pakistan and the Kashmir Valley and was founded in the Kunar province of Afghanistan. It is the militant wing of a large religious organization, Markaz Dawa-ul-Irshad, which was formed in the mid-to late 1980s by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Zafar Iqbal, and Abdullah Azzam. LeT is made up of several thousand members from Pakistan, Pakistan-Administered and Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir and veterans of the Afghan war, and initiated militant activities in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir in the early 1990s. LeT claims the largest militant network in Pakistan by maintaining 2,200 offices nationwide and around two dozen camps to launch fighters across the Line of Control (LoC) into Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir.

“Jihad also includes the right to avenge the loss of any land once under Muslim rule, including countries such as Spain. Therefore, Hafiz Saeed not only wants to unite Kashmir with Pakistan, but he also wants to see Pakistan become part of a Global Islamic State”-  The True Face of Jihadis, by Amir Mir.

Lashkar-e-Taiba members have carried out major attacks against India with an objective to establish an Islamic Caliphate in South Asia and ‘liberating’ Muslims of Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir. Some Lashkar members have also been accused of carrying out attacks in Pakistan, particularly in Karachi, to mark its opposition to the policies of former President Pervez Musharraf. As of December 2008, U.S. intelligence officials believed that Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), provided intelligence assistance and protection to LeT. In November 2008, it was Lashkar-e-Taiba that launched the dreaded terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Ajmal Amir Kasab, the only surviving gunman, when captured by Indian authorities, admitted that the attacks were planned and executed by the LeT.

The group receives donations from the Pakistani diaspora community of the Gulf States and the United Kingdom. It also receives financial support from Muslim NGOs and businesspeople from Pakistan and Kashmir.

Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM)  

JeM was formed in January 2000 by Maulana Masood Azhar, formerly an influential leader of Hark at-ul-Mujahideen (HuM). JeM was an effort to refresh the Jihad, avoiding the rifts that had emerged in other groups. JeM advocates a pan-Islamic ideology that is anti-West, anti-Jew with a primary objective of uniting Indian Administered Kashmir with Pakistan. Members of the JeM were the suspected perpetrators of the attack on the Kashmir Legislative Assembly on 1 st  of October 2001, killing thirty-one people. JeM, along with LeT, has been implicated in the attack on the Indian Parliament on 13 th  of December 2001, which killed nine people. JeM was among the groups implicated in the assassination attempts on President Musharraf in late 2003 after officials traced the phone numbers on the mobile phone of one of the suicide bombers. The group has also been linked to attacks against Christian Churches.

Omar Saeed Sheikh, a JeM leader, was sentenced to death for the murder of the American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2001. Although JeM’s cadres are mainly Pakistanis and Kashmiris, Afghans and Arab veterans of the Afghan war are also in its echelons. The group’s size is estimated at several hundred armed supporters. It has been reported that Maulana Azhar received heavy funding from ISI, the Taliban, and several other Sunni groups in Pakistan to establish JeM.  Though JeM was outlawed by Pakistan in 2002, it splintered into Khuddam ul-Islam (KUI), headed by Azhar, and Jamaat ul-Furqan (JUF), led by Abdul Jabbar and continues to openly operate in Pakistan.

There are other smaller groups like Al-Umar, Al-Badr, Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen that follow the same ideology as HM, JeM and LeT.  They aim for the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan and follow hard-line ideas like not allowing women to work or study.

Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP)

SSP is a leading Sunni Deobandi group in Pakistan, founded in 1985 by Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, Maulana Zia-ur-Rehman Farooqi, Maulana Eesar-ul-Haq Qasmi, and Maulana Azam Tariq. It is a splinter group from the predominant Deobandi political party in Pakistan, Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam. This group was banned by President Pervez Musharraf in 2002 as a terrorist organization under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997. In March 2012, the government of Pakistan banned Sipah-e-Sahaba again. The Supreme Court of Pakistan removed this ban in November 2014. SSP aims to make Pakistan a Sunni State under a narrow interpretation of Hanafi Islam and establish an Islamic Caliphate. It aims to counter the Shia influence in Pakistan, which is supposed to have increased in the wake of the Iranian Revolution, urges government to officially declare the Shia a non-Muslim minority (much as it has done to the Ahmadi community since 1974). SSP also organizes anti-Shia rallies calling for the assassination of Shia leaders and for attacks on Shia worshippers. Between 3,000 and 6,000 activists are believed to be associated with this group, coordinated from close to 500 offices and branches throughout Punjab as well as from international offices in countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Bangladesh, and the United Kingdom. It is widely considered one of the most powerful and influential sectarian groups in Pakistan. SSP opposes Pakistan’s alliance with the United States since the 9/11 attacks. The Pakistani government made several attempts to repress sectarian violence by arresting SSP associates and threatening them to close the  madrassas  (religious schools) from which the group draws maximum members. However, since SSP  madrassas  were used by the government to train and support Mujahideen in Afghanistan and Kashmir, the government had no choice but to turn a blind eye to the subversive activities conducted by the SSP members. SSP benefitted as a result of being a hub of training for Pakistan’s Kashmir campaign.

  Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ)

LeJ is the radical militant offshoot of the Sunni Deobandi sectarian group Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) formed in 1996 by Riaz Basra, along with Akram Lahori and Malik Ishaque. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is based primarily in Punjab and Karachi and seeks to further the SSP goals of marginalizing Shias and turning Pakistan into a Sunni State. Pakistani authorities have implicated LeJ in the July 2003 bombing of a Shiite mosque in Karachi, as well as bombings at two other Shiite mosques in Karachi in May and June 2004. It has been implicated in attacks on Christian and Western targets throughout Pakistan and in the January 1999 assassination attempt on former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The SSP and LeJ are reported to have very close links with the Taliban, as they fought alongside the Taliban militias in Afghanistan against the Northern Alliance. All three groups are closely linked in their fight against the Shias, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. A considerable portion of LeJ’s funding is reportedly derived from wealthy benefactors in Karachi, Pakistan.

Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM)

HuM was formed in 1985 by Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil as a splinter faction of Harakat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami (HuJI). HuM broke with its parent organization due to internecine fighting, but it retained many of the goals of HuJI. These primarily include assisting the Afghan Jihad and expelling Soviet forces. The group reunited with HuJI in early 1993 for the sake of a consolidated effort on the Kashmir front. The merger lasted only four years, but under the leadership of Maulana Saadatullah Khan, attacks in Kashmir increased dramatically. This connection began to forge a pan-Islamic ideology that included the violent annexation of Kashmir to Pakistan, and armed struggle against non-believers, secular Muslim governments, and the West. Harkat-ul-Mujahideen is primarily focused on the conflict in Kashmir and is politically linked to the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Fazlur Rehman (JUI-F) faction, a Deobandi religious organization. It is based primarily in Muzaffarabad and Rawalpindi and conducts trainings in Pakistan. Until late 2001, it also trained fighters in the eastern provinces of Afghanistan. The two most prominent training camps for HuM are located in Mansehra in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan Administered Jammu and Kashmir respectively. HUM conducts insurgent and terrorist operations primarily in the Kashmir Valley, but members have also been found operating in Afghanistan. Over the years there has been a shift in demographics of recruits within HuM from  Madrassa  educated to young boys from public schools, that by 1995, members who did not have a  madrassa  education outnumbered those who received religious training. The strength of HuM is reported at several thousand-armed supporters throughout Pakistan and the Kashmir Valley. Besides calls for donations through advertising and pamphleteering, it receives donations from wealthy patrons in the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, as well as from local donors in Pakistan and Kashmir.

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)

TTP is the Pakistani Taliban vis-á-vis the Afghan Taliban, which was formed in early 2004 in Waziristan, Pakistan by South Waziristan based Baitullah Mehsud who was killed in a U.S drone strike in August 2009. Baitullah Mehsud was succeeded by the fervently sectarian Hakimullah Mehsud. While the TTP is widely seen as a Pashtun insurgency, the Punjab-based groups like SSP/LeJ and other Deobandi groups are important components of this organization that provide suicide bombers and logistical support to TTP, thereby allowing it to conduct attacks throughout Pakistan, far beyond its territorial remit. Its stated goal is to overthrow the secular Pakistani government and establish a Taliban regime and the Islamic Emirate of Pakistan. There are reports stating that most of their support comes from many high-ranking (retired) officers in the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). TTP is specialized in Improvised Explosive Device (IEDs), suicide attacks, mass casualty bombings, mortars, rockets, assassinations, kidnappings, executions, raids, assaults and Internet operations.

United Jihad Council (UJC)

The United Jihad Council, also known as the Muttahida Jihad Council (MJC), is an umbrella organization of close to 13 jihadi outfits formed by Pakistan, and engaged in terrorist activities in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir. In the early 1990s, many terrorist outfits mushroomed in the State with the active support of Pakistan’s ISI. In November 1994, in its efforts to ensure complete control on their Jihadi activities, Pakistan created an alliance of 13 leading Jihadi outfits called the Muttahida Jihad Council (MJC), currently headed by Syed Salahuddin, the leader of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.

This streamlined the distribution of resources like arms, ammunition, propaganda materials and communications. By 1999, three Pakistan-based outfits - Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Al Badr - were also moored in, taking the total number to 16. The Jihadi outfits which are the members of UJC are: Hizbul-Mujahideen (HM), Harkat-ul-Ansar, Tehrik-e-Jihad, Tehrik-ul-Mujahideen, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, Al Jihad, Al Umar Mujahideen, Jammu Kashmir Islamic Front, Muslim Janbaaz Force, Hizbullah, Al Fatah, Hizb-ul-Momineen, LeT, JeM and Al Badr Mujahideen. The sole objective of UJC in escalating Jihad in Kashmir is to incorporate it into Pakistan. The ISI is believed to be the major financer for UJC, albeit funds are also collected from donors in Punjab and Pakistan Administered Jammu and Kashmir. It is for this reason that it has retained considerable support from official State machinery.

“All Kashmir militant organizations have announced that Pakistan is their ideal end goal…..the freedom fighters will surrender (Kashmir) to the Pakistani military and government. Jihad has been getting stronger………the Mujahideens are getting organized now and attacking the Indian military strategically” - Manzur Shah, UJC Commander, 1994.

The UJC chairman, Syed Salahuddin, opines that it is in the interest of the Subcontinent that Kashmir goes to Pakistan as he feels that the majority of the people suggest this stance.

“The UJC also aims to bring unity among all the constituents of the conglomerate, plan a collective military strategy and formulate a common stand on national and international issues” - Syed Salahuddin, Chairman UJC- in an interview with Kashmiri Journalist Baba Umar of Tehelka.

Salahuddin has been regularly organizing conferences, media meets and issuing press releases, wherein he raises the issue of self-determination, asking India to vacate Kashmir and declaring,  “if India accepts the reality of the Kashmir issue there will be no need for an armed struggle, but if India continues to use its military against the people of Kashmir there will be no alternative to the gun” . The headquarters of the UJC are located in Muzaffarabad (Pakistan Administered Jammu and Kashmir) and its area of operation is mainly Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir.

The United States declared Syed Salahuddin a  ‘Global Terrorist’  on 26 th  of June 2017 in Washington. Salahuddin issued a video message calling for a week-long protest to mark the first death anniversary of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, who was killed by Indian security forces on 8 th  of July 2016, prompting the U.S. decision. The decision has been described by Pakistan as “ completely unjustified” . Salahuddin urged the UN to implement its resolutions and give the Kashmiri people the right to vote on independence or a merger with Pakistan and led a rally in Muzaffarabad while praising Pakistan for its continued support in Kashmir.

ISIS Influence in Pakistan

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Islamic State (IS) and Daesh in Arabic, is a terrorist group that follows a fundamentalist, Wahhabi doctrine of Sunni Islam. This group has been designated a terrorist organization by the United Nations.

ISIS originated as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in 1999, which pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda and participated in the Iraqi insurgency following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by Western forces. ISIS gained global prominence in early 2014 when it drove Iraqi government forces out of key cities in its Western Iraq offensive. The  group proclaims itself a worldwide Caliphate referring  to itself as Islamic State (IS) and claims religious, political, and military authority over all Muslims worldwide. ISIS is widely known for presenting execution videos of  both soldiers and civilians, including journalists and aid workers, and its destruction of cultural heritage sites. In Syria, the group conducted ground attacks on both government forces and opposition factions, and by December 2015 it held a large area in western Iraq and eastern Syria containing an estimated 2.8 to 8 million people, where it enforced its interpretation of Sharia Law. ISIS is now believed to be operational from 18 countries across the world, including Afghanistan and Pakistan.

ISIS has created an ideological space for itself in Pakistan by creating deep divisions between the existing militant Islamist groups, like the JuD, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, and TTP. ISIS has a number of followers, sympathizers, and links with many banned militant groups in the country. It has the capacity to disrupt and reconstitute local orders in potentially every Muslim-majority country by exploiting the idea of a transnational Caliphate. As per reports, ISIS has made its way into the religious segments of the Pakistani society and many Pakistanis have ostensibly travelled to Syria to join the group. It is rather convenient for ISIS to gain transaction in Pakistan as it shares the common objective of establishing the transnational Islamic Caliphate with many violent and non-violent Islamist organizations in the country. The Taliban, sectarian outfits, and ISIS also share a sectarian ideology, with all three declaring that the Shiite community is  kafir  (non-believer); these groups have been consistently anti-Shiite and have targeted them through terrorist attacks. Some special reports have unveiled that sectarian groups like Jundullah and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi have collaborated with ISIS in the country. In September 2014, three months after ISIS announced a global Islamic caliphate in Iraq and the Levant, their propaganda literature began to appear in Pakistan. A pro-ISIS booklet titled Fatah was distributed in Peshawar and North Waziristan, and graffiti in favour of the group was spotted in major Pakistani cities during ensuing months. It also makes widely use of social media in expanding its presence.  

In January 2015, ISIS announced the  ‘Islamic State of Khorasan’ , encompassing Afghanistan and Pakistan. There are more than 200 religious organizations operating on national and regional levels in Pakistan, with multiple agendas such as transformation of society according to their ideologies, enforcement of Shariah law, the establishment of a Caliphate, fulfilment of their sectarian objectives, and the achievement of Pakistan’s strategic and ideological objectives through militancy. Hence, the rise of ISIS plays a very dangerous role, contributing to an already deteriorating political health of the country. Because of ISIS’ rise in the world, their  “achievements”  are inspirational to religious extremist and militant organizations in Pakistan.

Afghan-Soviet War

The Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 to support the Communist government in its conflict with anti-communist Muslim guerrillas and remained in Afghanistan till February 1989. In the period between December 1979 and February 1989, over 100,000 Soviet troops occupied Afghanistan. The Soviet leadership in Moscow, sensing an opportunity to create an idyllic dummy State between themselves and the growing Islamism of nations along its southern borders, was eager to assist the government in Kabul.

After a coup in 1978, People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan took power, Nur Mohammad Taraki was installed as the President and initiated an array of radical modernization reforms throughout the country which were disdained particularly by the orthodox rural population of the country. The government forcefully suppressed any opposition and arrested thousands, executing as many as 27,000 political prisoners. In retaliation, people organized themselves as armed groups ( Mujahideen ) and began their anti-government campaign; by April 1979, large parts of the country had turned into battle grounds. In September 1979, Taraki was overthrown and replaced by Hafizullah Amin as the new President. The uprisings, along with internal fighting and coups within the government, impelled the Soviets to invade the country on the night of 24 th  of December 1979, sending in close to 30,000 troops and toppling the short-lived Presidency of People’s leader Hafizullah Amin who was killed and replaced by Barak Kamal, the Soviet loyalist.

Thereafter in January 1980, Foreign Ministers from 34 nations of the Islamic Conference adopted a resolution demanding  “the immediate, urgent and unconditional withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan”,  while the UN General Assembly passed a Resolution protesting the Soviet intervention by a vote of 104–18. Afghan insurgents began to receive massive amounts of aid and military training in neighbouring Pakistan and China; by 1982 a sizeable Afghan population took sanctuary  in neighbouring Iran and Pakistan.

In 1988 Afghanistan, Soviet Union, the US and Pakistan signed peace accords and the last Soviet soldier vacated Afghanistan in February 1989. The Afghan resistance would not have been as effective without Pakistani involvement which provided a conducive atmosphere that allowed the Afghan Mujahideen to organize military operations, with the Pakistan government becoming a channel for multinational arms deliveries to those fighting in Afghanistan. The geostrategic and domestic imperatives motivated Pakistan's leaders to pursue several objectives during the course of the war which witnessed Pakistan campaigning the Afghan resistance struggle and embrace its refugees. The possibility of facing a coordinated communist attack from Afghan and Soviet troops was a matter of concern for the Pakistani military planners, thereby making the removal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan an urgency. Their second objective was the early return of refugees to Afghanistan, since managing the burden of Afghan refugees left Pakistan dependent on more and more assistance of the international community. In many cases, the Afghan resistance groups and the community of refugees were held responsible for breakdowns of law and order in Pakistan thereby leaving an undesirable impact on their economy and society. The armed activities of the resident Afghans were carried out under the supervision and approval of the Pakistani authorities, who were also involved in the close monitoring of refugees and coordination of Afghan resistance groups based in Peshawar. The supply of arms was controlled by the ISI providing Pakistan a direct influence over the course of war.

Arms reached Pakistan by both ship and aircraft and were then trucked under military supervision to the border areas. The Mujahideen took delivery of weapons in Pakistan at small distribution centres under the control of individual Islamic Peshawar based groups which included Hizb-i Islami (Islamic Party led by Gulbuddin Hikmatyar), Hizb-i Islami (Islamic Party led by Yunis Khalis), Jamiat-i Islami (Islamic Society led by Burhanuddin Rabbani), and Ittihad-i-Islami (Islamic Union led by Abdul Sayyaf) and, the three parties considered traditionalist, Mahaz-i-Milli (National Islamic Front led by Sayyid Ahmad Gaylani), Jibh-i Nejat-i Milli (Afghanistan National Liberation Front led by Sibghatullah Mojadiddi), and Harakat-e-Inqilab-e-Islami (Islamic Revolutionary Movement led by Muhammad Nabi Muhammadi).

Despite of some of its own fears, Pakistan had the option of not getting involved in the Afghan war but the temptation to do so was enticing. Apart from the supply of weapons which elements of the Pakistani Army and refugee administration were conniving with members of the Peshawar organizations in the sale of weapons and relief supplies to parties outside the conflict, they received generous funds from the U.S making participation a lucrative business deal for the ISI and the Pakistani Army. The United States rewarded ISI handsomely as long as the resistance forces were able to put pressure on the Soviet military. Interestingly, the Pakistani President, General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, used the Afghanistan situation to help his military law regime subsist. As per observers, Zia's government would have not lasted so long without the war in Afghanistan and the international assistance that it attracted in the form of generous financial and diplomatic backing, especially from the United States. The total contribution for the decade from the U.S was roughly 2 billion USD and by early 1980’s the funding received from Saudi Arabia was nearly 300 million USD. Zia used the status quo to project Pakistan as the defender of Islam against Soviet-sponsored communism which further strengthened his regime.

He promoted a political system guided by religious principles and traditions and called for criminal punishments in keeping with Islamic Law. He also insisted upon banking practices and economic activity that followed Islamic experience. With the withdrawal of the last Soviet soldier from Afghanistan after a decade long war with US-Pakistan backed Afghan Mujahideen, the weapon training camps were transformed by the ISI into indoctrination centres for Islamists who were later transported to the Kashmir Valley to replicate their Afghan success.

Afghan Mujahideen and Kashmir

As soon as the Soviet troops vacated Afghanistan in 1989 and the Soviet backed Afghan Communist regime fell apart, the United States of America lost interest and funding dried up. They left everything to Pakistan vis-à-vis Afghanistan. The Afghan Mujahideen who were not more than a mere  “equipment” , became Pakistan’s inheritance. A section within the Pakistani establishment and ISI perceived this as an opportunity to support the political struggle that was taking roots at that time in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir. The recently unemployed Afghan Mujahideen were sent to Kashmir 1989 onwards where a political agitation (secular in nature) against India’s alleged rigging of 1987 polls had gained momentum. Pakistan, that was determined to give this political movement a religious purpose and convert it into Jihad (holy war) sent the Afghan Mujahideen to Kashmir along with Pakistani volunteers supplied by Islamist Groups like LeT, JeM and LeJ to convert the ongoing movement into a religious war eventually facilitating merger of Kashmir with the Islamic State of Pakistan.

Pakistan used the same tactics and indoctrination that produced Mujahideen for fighting against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan which resulted in strong religious trumping and anti-India sentiment in the Kashmir Valley. The new religious warriors received the training on the same lines that ISI had earlier imparted to Afghan Mujahideen. Thousands of Kashmiri militants exfiltrated to Pakistan and Afghanistan underwent training in arms and guerrilla warfare, some of them later fighting alongside Afghan Mujahideen with pan-Islamic ideology binding them together and lending new dimensions to the ongoing militancy, originally a struggle for greater political rights. The insurgency in Kashmir was taken over by Islamist radicals and foreign mercenaries as part of Pakistan’s strategy. Though the strategy of Pakistan did not yield her a clean victory in Kashmir but it was successful in injecting a communal ideology, converting a political issue into a religious one, tampering with the social fabric and destroying the political and social cohesion between diverse ethnic and religious subgroups that once existed in Jammu and Kashmir, leaving it politically troubled for years to come.

“Whether or not Pakistan won anything in the two Jihads of 1980’s and 1990’s, many Pakistani Generals certainly became extraordinarily rich and politically powerful”  – Excerpt from ‘Pakistan at Knife’s Edge’, by M.B. Naqvi.

The Soviet defeat in the Afghan-Soviet War created a surplus manpower (trained Afghan Mujhahideen) which was redeployed in the Kashmir Valley and status quo proved to be a quintessential launchpad for  ‘Operation Topac’  or  ‘Zia’s Plan’ , a three-phase action plan for covert support to armed insurgency in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir, planned long back in 1984 in Pakistan.

Pakistan Military – ISI – Terrorist nexus

Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been covertly running the military intelligence programs in Afghanistan before it was invaded by Soviet Union in 1979. In the early 1980’s, following United States Central Agency’s (CIA) Operation Cyclone, a program to arm and finance the Jihadi warriors in Afghanistan. Pakistan systematically coordinated the conduit and distribution of arms and financial means to terrorist groups often the most retrogressive and extremist of the Mujahedeen like the Hezb-e Islami (HeI) of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. It was one of the largest and most expensive covert operations engineered by CIA, leaning heavily towards supporting militant Islamic groups working from safe havens in Pakistan favoured by the regime of Zia-ul-Haq.

The ISI’s strategy at the time and with not much change, even in current date, can be summed up by what Pakistani dictator Zia ul-Haq told one of his Generals:  “Afghanistan must be made to boil at the right temperature” . The Afghan Taliban was itself a creation of the ISI, and a de facto proxy by the time it took over Kabul in 1996. In 1999, Benazir Bhutto’s Minister of Interior, Nasrullah Babar admitted it quite explicitly, pronouncing,  “We created the Taliban” . Today, the Taliban is an assortment of militant outfits, of which the central leadership (Afghan Taliban) is thought to be in Quetta, Pakistan.

Post-Soviet withdrawal in 1989 and the collapse of the communist Najibullah regime in 1992, all Afghan political parties  (except for Hikmatyar) agreed on a peace and power-sharing agreement, the Peshawar Accord, establishing the Islamic State of Afghanistan. Hikmatyar, who wanted to become the sole ruler of Afghanistan started a bombardment campaign against the capital city, Kabul, marking the beginning of a new phase in the war with the support of ISI and then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The ISI in conjunction with the Pakistan military provided financial, logistic, military and direct combat support to the Taliban until 9/11. It is widely acknowledged that the ISI has given the Afghan Taliban sanctuary  inside Pakistan and supported the Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan after 9/11, especially the Haqqani network, to carry out attacks inside Afghanistan, though Pakistan officials deny this accusation. The ISI used the Taliban to establish a regime in Afghanistan which would be favourable to Pakistan, as part of their  ‘strategic depth’  objectives. Since the creation of the Taliban, the ISI and the Pakistani military have given it financial, logistic and military, including direct combat support.

“The Haqqani Network is the most capable and dangerous insurgent organization in Afghanistan. The network’s current leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, effectively organizes the tribal and insurgent groups of the southern part of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas in ways consistent with the interests of the Pakistani government”.  - Institute for the Study of War, report of March 2012.

A 2012 NATO study based on 27,000 interrogations of 4,000 captured Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters concluded that the ISI provided safe havens to the Taliban, monitored their movements, manipulated their fighters, and arrested those thought to be uncooperative. Al Qaeda is widely believed to still maintain camps in western Pakistan where foreign extremists receive training in terrorist operations.

Former Pakistani Army Chief General Ziauddin Butt (a.k.a. General Ziauddin Khawaja) revealed at a conference on Pakistani–U.S relations in October 2011 that according to his knowledge the then former Director-General of Intelligence Bureau of Pakistan (2004–2008), Brigadier Ijaz Shah (retd.), had kept Osama bin Laden in an Intelligence Bureau safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan. General Ziauddin Butt said Bin Laden had been hidden in Abbottabad  ‘with the full knowledge’  of Pervez Musharraf. Later, Butt denied making any such statement. Post 9/11 attacks U.S commandos killed Osama bin Laden while he was living in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Pakistan has been a significant force behind the growth of Islamic radicalism and extremism in Jammu and Kashmir. The US State Department's report on Patterns of Global Terrorism, released in April 2001, specifically identified Islamabad as the chief sponsor of militant groups fighting in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir. The terrorist groups viz. HM, LeT, Al Badr, JeM, currently fighting in Kashmir, all of which benefit from Pakistani support. The ISI has specifically sought to replicate and transplant the success of the anti-Soviet Afghan campaign in Kashmir, exhorting young Mujahideen to participate in the conflict as part of the wider moral duty owed to Jihad (holy war). The assistance to the Mujahideen in Kashmir covers the ambit of training, logistics, financial and doctrinal support.

More than 100 insurgent weapon training camps have been identified in Pakistan Administered Jammu and Kashmir, majority of which lie contiguous to the districts of Kupwara, Baramulla, Poonch, Rajauri and Jammu (of Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir). According to sources, the responsibility for managing and conducting the training falls under the jurisdiction of two sub divisional branches of the ISI namely Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous (JIM) and Joint Intelligence North (JIN). The Islamist-oriented military officers work in close collusion with the ISI by paying regular visits to the training camps and conducting training sessions on the fundamentals of guerrilla warfare and other war related techniques.

“Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Pakistani media Wednesday that some members of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency have a long-standing relationship with the Haqqani militant network. Officials have for years suspected the ties, which Pakistan denies”. -  Excerpt from A Voice of America Article, dated 20 th  of April 2011.

Pakistan also plays a key role in funding these terrorist organizations. As per reports, the yearly expenditure of ISI towards the terrorist organizations runs between 125-250 million USD, covering salaries, cash incentives for high-risk operations and retainers for guides, porters and informers. Apart from training and funding the terrorist organizations, the ISI has fundamentally altered the dimensions of the conflict in Kashmir by transforming it to a movement being carried out by foreign militants on Pan-Islamic religious terms. Apart from the incessant involvement in terrorist activities in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir, ISI has been involved in running several military intelligence programs in India like supplying arms to insurgents in North-East India, supporting pro-Khalistan terrorist groups in Punjab and actively printing and supplying counterfeit Indian currency notes. They have allegedly been involved in terrorist attacks viz. 1993 Mumbai bombing, 2008 Mumbai attacks, known as 26/11 (LeT), attacks in Pathankot and Uri.

9/11- US War on Terror - Pakistan’s ‘double game’

On 11 th  of September 2001, 19 militants hijacked four airliners and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the twin towers, considered to be symbols of America's power and influence, of the World Trade Center in New York City. The third plane hit the Pentagon, the headquarters of the US Department of Defense just outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. The incident often referred to as 9/11 attacks resulted in mass death and devastation, killing over 3000 people, including more than 400 police officers and 343 firefighters. The attackers were Islamic terrorists allegedly financed by Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization Al Qaeda, in retaliation to United States support of Israel, involvement in the Gulf War and sustained military presence in the Middle East.

After the tragic events of 11 th  of September 2001, President George Bush launched an international military campaign declaring a worldwide  ‘War on Terror’  which would involve open and covert military operations, new security legislation and efforts to block the financing of terrorism.

“Every nation, in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorist”-  President George Bush, United States, 2001

Pakistan was declared as the ‘front-line’ State in America’s War on Terror, owing to its geostrategic position and diplomatic relations with the Taliban regime. United States aimed at breaking the Pakistan-Taliban alliance and thereby isolating Afghanistan. For Pakistan, this association meant substantial economic dividends, military support and intercepting all Indian allegations to postulate Pakistan as a sponsor of terrorism, eventually boosting up its reputation in the international community. Taliban, the terrorist group whose liaison with Pakistan dates back to the era of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, included Afghan Mujahideen and Pashtun Tribesmen who underwent training in Pakistani  madrassas  (religious schools) well supported by Pakistan’s ISI.

To support the cause of United States, Pakistan was instructed to intercept Al Qaeda operations in its territory and cut off all arms shipments and logistic support to Taliban. Pakistan was also asked intelligence sharing and immigration information and to eradicate all terrorist movements in Pakistan against US and its allies, provide harbours to the US aircrafts and territorial access for military and intelligence operations and blanket over-flight and landing rights for US planes. Consequently, the then President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf succumbed to all these demands, realizing that Pakistan would be incapable of sustaining an economic blockade, and decided to explore this new-fangled association with the U.S, which indisputably meant huge financial gains. Pakistan also feared that if they upset US, there was a remote possibility of India being chosen as an alternative option. President Musharraf’s decision was reported by American Statesman; Collin Powell during the National Security Council meeting and admired by Bush in these words , “It looks like you got it all”.

To a layman, it may appear that a weak nation ended up in a situation; accidently capitulating to the demands of the world’s most powerful nation called the United States, fearing a violent and aggressive reaction. On the contrary, this was a well-thought out plan which offered a promise of military and financial gains, all in the interest of Pakistan. In the National Security Strategy document, President Bush stated that “…. United States shall remain committed to fostering economic liberalization as a tool toward combating terrorism” , message intended for both Americans and its international audience. The document was indicative of the fact that political and moral support for the U.S’ War on Terror would result in greater financial gains therefore greater economic prosperity.

U.S offered numerous political and financial rewards to Pakistan’s regime after it joined U.S in its campaign against terrorism. On 23 rd  of September 2001, the US President Bush ordered the immediate lifting of sanctions against Pakistan that had been imposed for testing and acquiring its nuclear arsenal: the Symington Amendment (imposed in 1978), the Pressler Amendment (1990), and the Glenn Amendment (1998). Removing the Glen Amendment sanctions, as well as the other sanctions, allowed the Bush administration to reward Pakistan handsomely. A congressional bill proclaimed that,  “The President is authorized, for Pakistan and India, to provide assistance, enter into contracts, take actions in international financial institutions, sell, lease, or authorize the export of defense articles or defense services, authorize the export of dual-use items, or extend other financial assistance“ . This bill, made into law, allowed the President to continue dispensing a number of economic incentives to Pakistan.

“The United States promised Pakistan approximately $1.2 billion in U.S. foreign assistance for 2002-2003, including development aid administered by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and more than $600 million in cash transfers given directly to the Pakistani government to pay international debts. The United States also promised military and security aid for Pakistan to update and modernize its air force. This level of security and economic foreign assistance from the United States to Pakistan was the greatest amount of aid given since the end of the cold war. The United States agreed to reschedule a $379 million bilateral debt through the Paris Club and to examine initiatives to reschedule other outstanding bilateral debt. This initial rescheduling lifted the Brooke sanctions imposed on Pakistan by the United States for failing to make its principal and interest payments on outstanding U.S. loans. The United States also agreed to support rescheduling Pakistan's $12.5 billion bilateral debt with Paris Club members, of which $2.9 billion was owed to the United States and $5.3 billion was owed to Japan” . - Bessma Momani-Senior Fellow Centre for International Governance (CIGI).

Additionally, several trade concessions were granted to Pakistan with tariff and quota restrictions lowered on textile goods especially on cotton-yarn products imported from Pakistan. Other trade benefits given to Pakistan included allowing a considerable number of duty-free Pakistani goods to enter the United States under the General System of Preferences (GSP) program. The GSP applied to $13.5 million in trade.

The United States also offered a political reward to Musharraf by legitimizing his autocratic military rule. In November 2001, upon Musharraf’s visit, he was given a red-carpet treatment and the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a resolution stating,  “…..Musharraf had taken important steps in cooperation with the United States in combatting terrorism;…..  pursued the return of Pakistan to democracy and civil society;…. [and] shown great fortitude in confronting extremists in Pakistan" .

While Musharraf successfully gratified the United States, back home grievous criticism awaited him. There were demonstrations from extremists in favour of their Afghan brethren and Pakistan’s intelligence agency was also divided on his decision. To win the support of the ISI in his favour, President Musharraf took a dramatic step by dismissing his intelligence Chief General Mahmood, and several of his lieutenants, pleasing the U.S with this decision. On 16 th  of September 2001, a Pakistani delegation was sent to Afghanistan in order to convince the Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden to the U.S, though the mission failed in its task. In fact, it was informed that a delegation member, Mufti Shamzai, a renowned religious scholar of Pakistan encouraged Mullah Omar (Supreme Commander & Spiritual leader of Taliban) to wage Jihad against the U.S. Although Pakistan participated as a front-line State in the war on terror, initially in view of some national interests, it was reluctant to cut ties with the Taliban, which were nurtured, trained and supported by Islamabad in view of its Afghan specific policy. 

Islamabad’s ties to the Taliban were so strong and vital that throughout the initial phase of the ‘War on Terror’ campaign, General Musharraf and his cohort implored the United States to desist from decisively destroying Mullah Muhammad Omar’s regime in Afghanistan, an objective that couldn’t be secured. Pakistani leaders argued against all coalition military operations that would result in ejecting the Taliban’s foot soldiers from their traditional bases in the south-eastern provinces of the country. These entreaties were also disregarded by the United States, and many Al Qaeda operatives infiltrated porous Afghan-Pakistan border and took refuge in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Musharraf accomplished the task of suppressing certain terrorist groups, but the approach was rather selective. His government focused primarily on suppressing those Deobandi and Shia groups such as, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and its members Lashkar-e-Jhangvi & Shia Therik-e-Jafria Pakistan and its descendants Sipah-e-Muhammadi, which were involved in bloodshed within Pakistani territory and whose objectives were out of sync with the military’s perception of national interests.

Groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad and Harkatul-Mujahideen were treated differently for being groups that worked as a team with military and ISI units in their anti-India policies in Kashmir. These groups kept receiving financial support and training by the Pakistan army. In addition, the senior military officials had their own reservations about the Taliban as many members of the Taliban were Ghazali Pashtun, having profound linkages with the tribes of FATA. Pakistan military always avoided targeting the Taliban presence in FATA in order to avoid any kind of aggression at tribal level. Using the opportunities presented by the War on Terror, US- Pakistan security services systematically eliminated many sources of sectarian violence within two years of the campaign but its bias and selective approach towards some terrorist organizations led to the emergence of another Islamic militant group called, Pakistani Taliban, sympathetic and committed to Al Qaeda in its ideology and plans, and responsible for undermining government of Pakistan’s writ in FATA, particularly waging a holy war against liberal elements within Pakistan. Musharraf used the war on terror to perpetuate his rule but as a consequence of the long and prolonged war and its selective approach, Pakistan is engaged in the struggle to save itself from destruction. 

“Pakistan appears to be playing a double game of astonishing magnitude“ - Excerpt from the report presented by Matt Waldman, a fellow at Harvard University.

Despite being well compensated, Pakistan wilfully remained neglectful of its commitment to root out Al Qaeda and Taliban cadres that continued operating from its territory, because of which US never looked at Pakistan as a trusted ally. However, it is undeniable that Pakistan has lost many lives due to subversive activities of terrorism, in carpet bombings, military operations, U.S drone attacks and suicide attacks. 

Terrorism in Pakistan

Pakistan’s security situation has deteriorated post 9/11 attacks, despite its proclaimed commitment to the war on terror, and ongoing aid from United States. Paradoxically, Pakistan has become a sponsor of terrorism and an epicentre of terror, where unfortunately religion has a significant role to play. An array of terrorist groups in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir are supported by Pakistan; albeit myopically. The support is extended to these groups although they are allied with the very terrorist groups that fight the Pakistani State. In addition, many of the extremist groups sponsored by Pakistan are allied with Al Qaeda.

"Al Qaeda's old core is badly wounded but it still has powerful allies like the Pakistani Taliban that can serve as force multipliers”.  - Bruce Riedel, Former CIA Analyst

The Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) of Pakistan which is spread over 1,69,134 miles and runs in a narrow belt along the 1,454 miles border with Afghanistan, functions as a semi-autonomous region, under special laws designed and implemented by the British in 1901. The historical agreement in these areas was that in case of any kind of security issue, Pakistan government would approach the tribal leaders to allow them to handle it internally. No government has attempted to extend its constitution to FATA while failed governance in the region has contributed to Pakistan’s insecurity, it being a congenial locale for militant groups to acquire a safe haven. Post 9/11 attacks Pakistani troops were stationed in this region searching for Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders pushed out of Afghanistan by U.S. troops. This interference was unwelcomed by the local leaders and led to unrest and fear across the country.

At first, the Wazirs elected to fight the Pakistan army; followed by the Mehsuds, who had previously been faithful to the army. By 2007, Mullah Nazir (leading militant, Pakistan Taliban)  and Hafiz Gul Bahadur (leader, Pakistani Taliban)  led a new formation called the ‘Muqami Tehreek-e-Taliban’ (Local Taliban Movement). This group aimed to protect the interests of Wazirs in North and South Waziristan. Nazir and Bahadur formed this group  “to balance the power and influence of Baitullah Mehsud (leader, TTP) and his allies” . Conspicuously both Nazir and Gul Bahadur forged a pact with the Pakistan army whereby they would desist from attacking the Pakistan army and focus all their efforts upon ousting the U.S./NATO troops from Afghanistan and helping to restore the Afghan Taliban to power. Other tribal  Lashkars  (militias) also began forming to either challenge the Pakistan military or rivals. Some of the commanders began espousing the appellation of  ‘Pakistani Taliban’ .

Baitullah Mehsud’s got killed in a drone strike in 2008 and Hakimullah Mehsud took over the TTP.  It is believed that under Hakimullah, the TTP became more coherent intensifying its campaign of suicide bombings of Pakistani security and intelligence agencies. The campaigns against civilian targets became also more vicious. The people from Shia and Ahmedia community who are considered  ‘munafiqin’  (Muslims who spread discord in the community) became the primary target of terrorist bullets and many Sufi Shrines were attacked by the TTP terrorists. Lahore’s Datta Ganj Baksh was attacked in June 2010, followed by Abdullah Shah Ghaz Shrine in Karachi which was attacked in Oct 2010. In April 2011, suicide bombers assaulted a shrine dedicated to a Punjabi saint, Sakhi Sarvar, in Dera Ghazi Khan. In May of 2015, gunmen from a sectarian group operating under the name of Jandullah boarded a bus of Ismailis (a Shia sect) and gunned down close to 50 passengers. Jandullah was a confederate of the Pakistani Taliban and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in November 2014.

TTP remains an internal security threat to Pakistan, also implicated in the assassination of former Prime Minister,  Benazir Bhutto. Bin Laden and other senior Al Qaeda leaders were widely believed to be hiding in Pakistan which Pakistan staunchly denied till the time U.S troops found Bin Laden hiding in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan and killed him on 2 nd  of May 2011.  The Pakistani government’s own past policy of supporting extremist groups makes it difficult to immobilize them now.

“The continuing presence of its leaders in Pakistan indicates that Al Qaeda has a congenial place to relocate itself, close to its former bases in Afghanistan"-  Peter Bergen, Terrorism Expert, Washington Post.

Currently, the most prominent terrorist organizations supported by Pakistan are Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani Network; the Mullah Nazir Group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harakat-ul-Mujahideen, and Jaish-e-Mohammed. Pakistan perceives existential threat to its territory from India and this consideration has always influenced its foreign policy. Among the groups that are active in Kashmir, the most important and still supported by Pakistan, are Hizbul Mujaheedin, Harkat-ul-Mujaheedin, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba. Though Pakistan claims that most of the Jihadis who are active in Kashmir are Kashmiris, but in 2001, as per reports, out of the 2400 terrorists active in the Kashmir Valley alone, 1400 were Pakistanis or Afghans. The leader of Jaish-e-Mohammad, Maulana Masood Azhar, is from the Punjab province of Pakistan, while the leader of Harkat-ul-Mujahedin, Fazl-ur-Rehman Khalil, is a Pashtun from the KPK. According to some observers, as much as 80 percent of the membership of Lashkar-e-Taiba comes from Pakistan.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Pakistan, sceptical  that the United States would ally with India, agreed to assist the United States as it invaded Afghanistan. As it fought terrorism in Afghanistan, Pakistan continued to sponsor terrorism against India. It supports terrorist groups in Afghanistan in order to deny Indian influence in its backyard, as well as to allow the nation to serve as a fall back in case of an (perceived) Indian invasion. Pakistan used Afghanistan as both a training and a recruiting ground for a host of Jihadist groups to foment insurgency in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir. 

The Taliban’s Quetta Shura, or supreme decision-making council, is believed to be based in the Pakistani city of Quetta. The Taliban’s top leadership has been based inside Pakistan, according to some, with the knowledge and approval of the military and ISI. Mullah Omar, the Taliban’s founder and first Amir (Chief), died in a Pakistani hospital near Quetta in April 2013. The Haqqani Network (HQN), a Taliban-affiliate is listed by the U.S as a  Foreign Terrorist Organization  for its support to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, and thirteen senior HQN members are listed by the U.S as  Specially Designated Global Terrorists ; most of them including Sirajuddin, have been directly linked to Al Qaeda. Several top Al Qaeda leaders were killed in U.S counterterrorism operations while being sheltered by HQN. In Pakistan, the HQN is based in North Waziristan and has a presence in other Pakistani tribal agencies, such as Kurram. The Haqqanis run the notorious Manba Ulom madrassa in Miramshah, North Waziristan. Despite the HQN’s overt links to Al Qaeda, the group remains among the favourites of Pakistan’s military. When the Pakistani military conducts operations in FATA, it deliberately ignores the presence of HQN.

The Mullah Nazir Group is a Pakistani Taliban faction that operates in South Waziristan, listed as a  Specially Designated Global Terrorist Entity  in 2013 by the U.S government. It is said to be running training camps, dispatching suicide bombers, providing  safe havens for Al Qaeda fighters, and conduct cross-border operations in Afghanistan against the United States and its allies. The Pakistani military provided the Mullah Nazir Group with direct support when it clashed with rival members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Despite the Mullah Nazir Group’s direct ties to Al Qaeda, Pakistan has viewed it as an ally in the tribal areas, and left it untouched when the Pakistani military launched operations that targeted the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan.

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), also listed as a  Foreign Terrorist Organization  by the U.S, shares Al Qaeda’s goal of establishing an Islamic state in South Asia and beyond. LeT operates openly inside Pakistan and has offices throughout the country. Markaz-e-Taiba, its headquarters in Muridke near Lahore, is a sprawling complex that is used to indoctrinate future Jihadists before they are sent off for military training. This terrorist outfit is used by Pakistan to conduct attacks in India. The most prominent attack took place in Mumbai, India, when a suicide assault team fanned out across the city and targeted multiple locations, including a theatre, a train station, hotels and a Jewish center and killed 164 people in November 2008, because of which the attack is also referred to as 26/11. The Pakistani government refuses to crack down on this group, and not a single member of LeT, who has been implicated in the Mumbai attacks, has been prosecuted.

Harakat-ul-Mujahideen is yet another Pakistan-based Jihadist group that has been listed by the US as a  Foreign Terrorist Organization . It operates in Pakistan, and engages in terrorist activity in Kashmir. HuM also operates terrorist training camps in eastern Afghanistan.

Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), a U.S  Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization  is supported by Pakistan’s military because it is hostile to India. JeM was implicated along with the Lashkar-e-Taiba as being behind the 13 th  of December 2001, attack on the Indian Parliament building in New Delhi. Pakistan has not acted against the group, despite its growing terrorist activities.

Pakistan’s FATA is particularly worrisome, because its lawlessness has attracted militant groups in a countless variety. The hub of all terrorist activities emanates from the FATA regions that provide sanctuaries to the insurgents and terrorist groups operating against Afghanistan and coalition forces. The areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan are beset by terrorism and violent extremist activities. These areas have turned into a hub of terrorism where terrorists are recruited, trained and then used to weaken and destabilize regional governments. Post 9/11, new groups started to emerge, allegedly supported by various intelligence agencies and started destruction and annihilation of the youth, including the burning of schools in Pashtun areas.

The people fighting in tribal areas now are a mixed force of people from different countries and different nationalities like Chechens, Uzbeks, Uighurs from Xinjiang, Arabs, terrorists from the Central Asian Republics and the Punjabis. These foreign terrorists, that come from various countries, target diverse groups in the region and work against the governments while training the local Taliban. Uighurs are suspected of involvement in various explosions in which Chinese engineers have been killed. These groups are able to function in this region because on one hand the Taliban, during their rule, welcomed the entire foreign terrorist network to come and work for strengthening their government and on the other, Pakistan served as the safest route for foreign fighters to enter Afghanistan. Most of them come as tourists, businessmen and traders directly from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Algeria, Chechnya, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and even from Western countries.

Almost 80,000 troops have been deployed by the Pakistani government in the mountainous regions of the areas adjacent to the frontier line and various operations have been conducted in these areas, but till now, no significant improvements have been seen. Instead, terrorism has increased and militant militias have grown in the region. They are bringing more and more areas under their control and have strengthened their position. The Taliban, fundamentalists, extremists as well as their ally, Al Qaeda, that was thought once to be defeated in Afghanistan, are regaining more strength, reorganizing themselves and regrouping, are better equipped, tactically more sophisticated and better financed. In today’s world, they are more capable in creating obstacles and hindering the reconstruction and rehabilitation process in Afghanistan.

Religious extremism in Pakistan

Pakistan shall continue to be a hot bed of Islamic militancy as long as the operative terrorist organizations resort to violence in the name of Islam and the public keeps showcasing acceptance to this phenomenon. Even after Pakistan’s post-9/11 partnership with the United States, several Islamist groups continue to enjoy close ties with the State and popularity among certain sections of the public. Deobandi Ulema of the Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI) participates in electoral politics while also describing Jihad as a sacred right and obligation while it keeps encouraging students of madrassas towards militancy. The Afghan Taliban, drawing their ideology from Deobandi groups, held power in Afghanistan before 9/11 and have been a known ally of the Pakistani military and ISI.

The status quo is neither encouraging and nor does Pakistan seem to possess the capacity as well as the will to eradicate terrorism, as it is constrained by the overlapping of various terrorist groups and their memberships which have successfully operated within (and outside Pakistan), that too with the complicity of its Army and ISI; Pakistan cannot tackle the Pakistani Taliban and their sectarian collaborators while it still fosters the Afghan Taliban and other Deobandi groups, such as the Jaish-e-Mohammad, that operate in India. The terrorist groups, which draw inspiration from the religious groups in Pakistan have developed into  Frankenstein’s Monsters  for both people and the State, coupled with selective approach of security agencies towards counter-terrorism which makes  ‘Peace in Pakistan’  or mellowing down of  ‘Pakistan sponsored terrorism’  in its neighbourhood a distant dream. The more because according to many in the Pakistan Army and ISI, terrorism still has an external utility in Afghanistan, India and Indian Administered Jammu & Kashmir.

Pakistan has been home to terror outfits of various kinds, which can be divided into several categories based on their ideological orientation, socio-political and economic objectives. The tactical training is essentially similar across all terrorist groups due to kindred objectives and similar battle environments, taking about eighteen months for a  Mujahid  to become fully functional. According to a database, there are more than 200 militant groups in the South Asian region, out of which over 50 prominent groups are based in Pakistan alone. The terrorist groups operational in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir campaign to unite it with Islamic State of Pakistan, while other groups aim at marginalizing the Shia community. The objective of Taliban adopted agendas of Islamizing FATA and absorbing sectarian leanings. HuM initially involved in Afghan Jihad to expel Soviet forces, later reunited with Harakat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami (HuJI), endorsing a pan-Islamic ideology and annexation of Kashmir with Pakistan by engaging in violent means. TTP which receives its logistic support from better established terrorist organizations is involved in conducting violent attacks throughout Pakistan, aiming to overthrow the government and thereby establishing Islamic Emirate of Pakistan.

Paradoxically not only have these terrorist groups established their primary bases in Pakistan but they also receive active or passive assistance from the agencies entrenched within the security establishment of Pakistan. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in 2007, several such attempts at Musharraf in 2003, Peshawar attack (2016), where gunmen linked to the Pakistani Taliban killed 150 people (majority of them children), advocate that apart from radiating terrorism to the world, these terror outfits pose a serious challenge to the security of Pakistan. The selective approach of security agencies towards the terror groups compels analysts to conclude that the majority of the attacks are carried out with the connivance (if not complete support) of the security agencies, otherwise responsible for preserving peace within the State. With the continued support from ISI there has been a proliferation of madrassas and training camps inside Pakistan Administered Jammu and Kashmir to boost the number of trained and indoctrinated fighters who could be infiltrated into Indian-administered territory.

Pakistan was a front-line State against the Soviet expansion into Afghanistan, with major resistance parties headquartered in Peshawar and Quetta.  At all times Pakistan allowed itself to be the conduit between America and Afghanistan, facilitating the smooth supply of arms, with training camps set up in Pakistani territory against more than 600 million USD for humanitarian aid to Afghan refugees,3 billion USD towards covert aid to the Mujahideen and more than 5 billion USD as bilateral aid to Pakistan and diplomatic opposition to the Soviet presence in Afghanistan specifically from United States.

“The main beneficiary of US money, the Pakistani military, has never won a war, but, according to “Military Inc.”, it has done very well in its investments: hotels, real estate, shopping malls. Such entrepreneurship, however corrupt, fills a gap, as Pakistan’s economy is now almost entirely dependent on American taxpayers”.  -  Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa, Pakistani military scientist, political commentator, an author and research associate at the SOAS South Asia Institute

It received substantial financial aid from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries too. Pakistan’s active involvement in the war suited the United States as it allowed them to remain distant from the theatre of their own covert military operations.

Pakistan’s ISI and America’s CIA, had the joint responsibility of providing covert assistance to the Mujahideen throughout. During the course of the conflict, General Zia-ul-Haq exploited proximity with United States by promoting a political system along religious guidelines, strengthening his regime which would not have lasted without the war in Afghanistan and international assistance. After the withdrawal of Soviet troops, U.S lost interest in Afghanistan however Pakistan remained involved, as a consequence of which 1.3 million registered Afghan refugees still live in Pakistan who have driven up the crime rate. Afghan refugees are said to be involved in increased sectarian violence, drug trafficking, terrorism and organized crime.

Struggling with derisory resources to manage the refugees and the Afghan Mujahideen, Pakistan embarked on a strategy to convert the secular and multi-cultural Kashmiri society into a hardcore Islamic one, on the lines of Afghanistan, through the fear of the gun. With the war of Afghanistan slowing down in 1989, vast network of training camps set up for Afghan Mujahideen were used as indoctrination centres of weaponing and training the Kashmiri youth who were exfiltrated to Pakistan and Afghanistan. By 1990, Pakistan had floated several terrorist organizations to escalate Islamic Jihad. ISI supported terrorist groups allowing several catastrophic acts of terror to take place in the Kashmir Valley and India.

ISI specifically sought to replicate and transplant the success of the anti-Soviet Afghan campaign in Kashmir, urging foreign militants to participate in the conflict as part of the wider moral duty owed to Jihad. Apart from being a major source of military and financial aid, Pakistan has risen to be a nucleus of religious indoctrination for the Kashmir conflict, thereby altering its dimensions, which in essence was a traditionally pacifist struggle for greater political rights. Pakistan has relied upon non-state actors to orchestrate its foreign policy objectives in Kashmir since its inception in 1947 owing to its perceived existential threat from India, and continues to send militants across the Line of Control to keep them occupied in the neighbouring territory as there runs a continuous risk of these Kashmir specific terrorist groups finding their way back into the land of their sponsor.

“I heard stories from fellow mujahedeen who went to Kashmir for a stint. There was a feeling of pan-Islamism at the training camps and for many - including Afghans and Arabs fighting in Afghanistan - Kashmir was just another jihad around the corner"-  Wahid Muzhda, an Afghan political analyst and former Mujahid who fought the Soviets during the 1980s.

Pakistan’s relationship with the United States led ‘War on Terror’ has been highly ambivalent. On one hand Pakistan played a vital role in facilitating the U.S led intervention in Afghanistan shortly after 9/11 attacks; cooperated with the U.S. by providing access to its airspace, opening terrestrial routes into Afghanistan, providing harbours to the US aircrafts and territorial access for military and intelligence operations, though evidently against billions of dollars of aid from United States. Paradoxically, on the other hand Pakistan and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) continued to remain staunch supporters of militant organizations including the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Haqqani Network, and the Afghan Taliban. It remains an enigma how Osama bin Laden, who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, was living in a city with three Pakistani Army regiments, less than a mile from the military academy without the cognizance of the State.

The explanation for this Pakistani ambivalence is their selective counter terrorism efforts and their characteristic focus on contention with India. Pakistan has long supported radical Islamist groups that are primarily concerned with Kashmir and India, which makes it hard for Pakistan to explain the distinction amid a  ‘good Muslim’  extremist operative in Kashmir Valley and a  ‘bad Muslim Taliban’  in Afghanistan, especially when both are viewed positively from a public standpoint. Also, it practically means a war against the people and country who were helped by Pakistan for about 22 years before 11 th  of September 2001. In the aftermath of Soviet Union’s disintegration, Pakistan stood by the Afghan Taliban, because if it would decide to help its Pashtun brethren across the border in Pakistan, the Pakistani government would have found itself faced with its own very serious Islamist insurgency and lose control over radical religious groups. On the home ground, the Pakistan Army’s intervention in FATA exclusively inhabited by the Pashtun (having tribal links with the Pashtuns of Afghanistan) has alienated the indigenous population, leading to social disruptions that have taken a significant toll on counter terrorism operations. At the same time, it was never in the interest of Pakistan to alienate the United States which besides several trade concessions, heavy arsenal and military assistance pumped millions of dollars into Pakistan; contributing majorly to her economy.

In response to United States, ensuring uninterrupted inflow of hefty funds, Pakistan adopted a two-faced counter terrorism strategy which may be referred to as  Pakistan’s Double Game , by systematically suppressing domestic groups that engaged in internal sectarian violence and subverted critical State objectives. By contrast, terrorist outfits operational in the Kashmir Valley and rest of India were largely supported by Pakistan Army and their intelligence agencies. This duplicitous game has designated it as a conflicted ally in the War on Terror and caused Pakistan to emerge as the epicentre of global terror.

While Pakistan’s role in supporting terrorist organizations and militarizing Kashmir dispute by giving it a communal flavour is undeniable, the United States’ role in supporting the same in Afghanistan during Afghan-Soviet war (early 1980’s) cannot be overlooked either. The United States is accustomed to using economic inducements as a form of temporary statecraft. Indirectly United States is also responsible for terrorism in the Kashmir Valley, as it covertly worked from safer havens in Pakistan.

Terrorism endured hysterical conversion in the Indian subcontinent post disintegration of Soviet Union and more so after 9/11 attacks, Pakistan being no exception. One of the most ominous trends in Pakistan has been the growing influence of the Jihadi groups which feel obligated to wage  ‘holy war’ against everything that they perceive as non-Islamic. Their objective could be anything from ousting the government, instigating terror attacks against Muslim and non-Muslim minorities or the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate.

Pakistan faces a brutal insurgency within its own boundaries that has espoused the Taliban name but is in many ways far more rejectionist and antagonistic towards the governing civilian authorities. There are separate but interrelated insurgencies posing a threat to peace and security within Pakistan: the sectarian Sunni jihad against Pakistan’s Shia population, and the religious extremism which stands as a wall between Pakistan and development of any kind. Pakistan’s ISI and military provided the Taliban with moral and logistic support in their self-styled struggle to ensure a friendly government in Afghanistan while local sectarian and non-sectarian groups formed alliances with ISIS. Taliban chose to host unsavoury guests, including Al Qaeda which by the later 1990’s had been identified as a new-fangled threat to the United States’ security. Post 9/11 attacks followed by United States led invasion of Afghanistan, leaders of Al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban, convoyed by other terrorist groups, fled to Pakistan and made its Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) their new breeding ground.

Pakistan is a nuclear power which paradoxically is suffering tremendously from attacks of domestic extremists and stands politically troubled and economically prostrate. The counter terrorism measures that Pakistan policy has followed so far are neither fully attainable nor are they suitable for the overall socio-political, economic stability of this country and the region. It is the extreme ideologies, leading to violence that need more attention than ambiguously bombing selected terrorist camps.  Religion and radical Islam are major devices that bind these terror groups. They are driven by an idea that everyone is guilty for participating in  ungodly  (un-Islamic) practices; if innocents die during a terror attack, Allah (God) will bestow a rich compensation on them while the Mujahideen who die on the path of Allah become martyrs.

The fact that Pakistan still sees terrorist groups and terrorists differently is also one of the major bottlenecks. The Army along with the ISI still distinguishes between  ‘bad’  terrorists (those who target Pakistani Security Forces) and  ‘good’  terrorists (those who advance its strategic objectives vis-á-vis Afghanistan, India and Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir).

An alternative national narrative is required to fight terrorism at the ideological level as it seems to be entrenched in the national ethos of the country and large sections of its population. A narrative, that can only bolster if the country and its people realize that there is a risk of permanent state of instability and international isolation if Pakistan does not adopt a resolute policy towards all terror groups operating on its territory. The Pakistani society at large needs to realize the importance of the words of former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton when she said,  “You can't keep snakes in your backyard and expect them to only bite your neighbour” .

There is an urgent need that the people of Pakistan, its politicians and the powerful Army stand on the same side in the fight against terrorism and set clear priorities. The ceaseless undermining of civilian authority by the military and its affiliated intelligence agencies remains a major challenge for the country and prevents any meaningful step towards social reforms in the country.

A change in policy and comprehensive consensus on terrorism have become prerequisites for the integrity, future and survival of the country. A diametrical change in approach will prove to be beneficial to the people of Pakistan; the actual stakeholders in this country.

August 2017. © European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS), Amsterdam  

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Essay on terrorism in pakistan with quotations | kips notes.

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