Pakistan has battled against militancy and violent extremism for over two decades now. Although all regions of the world have suffered varied degrees of terrorism in recent decades, none has suffered more than Pakistan. Pakistan has faced decades of vicious terrorist attacks on civilians, military and law enforcement agencies both by indigenous rouge outfits and terrorist organizations with safe havens abroad. Unfortunately, despite our whole hearted efforts to completely root out terrorism, the curse of terrorism has once resurfaced threatening not only the socio-economic development of Pakistan but also negatively affecting our national security.
In addition to the externally motivated terrorist attacks, Pakistan also faces an existential challenge from domestic forces of sectarian and ethnic militancy and terrorism. Domestic instability and inefficiency only adds to breeding discontent and extremism and hampers efforts for effective implementation of counter terrorism strategies. To effectively counter terrorism, it is important to ensure there is no safe haven provided by sympathizers in the country.
According to experts, 2009 was the worst year ever in Pakistan in terms of terrorist attacks in a year. There was a consistent and significant decline in the number of terrorist attacks over 2009-2020. Terrorism peaked again when terrorists attacked innocent children of Army Public School Peshawar (APS) in 2014 killing 150 young souls that shocked and united the nation in grief, demanding effective and comprehensive operation against the ruthless perpetrators of these heinous crimes. The APS tragedy became a symbol of determination of the nation to say no to terrorism and its determination to eradicate this menace through effective counter terrorism measures.
Although Pakistan is situated at the nexus of the four dynamic sub-regions of Asia that include China, South and South-East Asia, the Middle East and Central Asia, but its immediate neighbourhood has been troubled and hostile. Afghan Jihad followed by the political, economic and institutional collapse in Afghanistan and the presence of a large number of Afghan refugees in our country, particularly the Jihadis and their sympathizers in the former FATA area, remain some of the most significant factors that fanned terrorism in Pakistan.
The devastating events of 9/11 further aggravated the situation with the War on Terror initiated by the USA and NATO forces. Taking advantage of the unrest in Afghanistan, India used the Afghan territory to perpetrate state sponsored terrorism in Pakistan, particularly in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The arrest of Kulbhushan Jadhav, a serving Indian Naval Officer, from Balochistan is a glaring example of Indian direct involvement in terrorism in Pakistan.
Over the years, Pakistan has used varied approaches to tackle terrorism. As a leader in the fight against terrorism, Pakistan adopted comprehensive national strategies, taking all stakeholders onboard, with the aim of balancing hard-end security measures with social, economic, and community-driven policies that are grounded in the rule of law. Establishment of National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) was an important step in this direction.
However, without the will and determination of the general populace, it is impossible to effectively implement a counterterrorism strategy. It requires that the government make use of the instruments of national power to neutralize terrorists, their organizations, and their networks in order to render them incapable of using violence to instil fear and to coerce the government and citizens to react in accordance with the terrorists’ goals.
Pakistan resolutely launched massive military operations Zarb-e-Azb and then Radd-ul-Fasaad to root out the terrorists who had taken refuge in urban centres thus making it extremely difficult for the military and law enforcement agencies to find them. In the process Pakistan sacrificed over a 100,000 souls including civilians, military and law enforcing agencies personnel. Not to forget the over Dollars 120 billion losses in trade. The sectarian differences were also fanned during this period adding to an already precarious security situation and the extremist and Jihadi mindset that gradually pervaded certain sections of society providing a dedicated network of terrorist support and financing.
In 2021, Pakistan witnessed a reversal in this trend. For the first time in ten years, the terrorist attacks in 2021 were more than the terrorist attacks in the preceding year, i.e. 2020. A cause for further concern was that during 2022 this trend continued and the realization has dawned that this was not a short-term development, but a more sustained trend.
In the face of resurgent terrorism perpetrated by TTP and its affiliates following the Taliban takeover, Pakistan cannot afford complacency regarding its growing terrorism threat. It is quite evident that TTP’s operational capacity has grown significantly following the takeover of the Afghan Taliban. Along with this, peer militant groups and externally motivated terrorism, especially from India, also present an existential threat to Pakistan’s security and the stability of its neighbourhood.
Terrorism experts in Pakistan cite two reasons for this reversal. One that counter strategy achieved its short-term objectives but was not effective in formulating long-term policies and responses to the terrorist threat. Despite initial successes in the short term, this effectiveness could not be sustained. For the long-term solution to succeed, the civilian institutions must play a pivotal role but this remained a weak point in Pakistan’s initial response to controlling terrorism.
, while the focus of military operations was on kinetic actions, the civilian institutions could not focus in equal measure on the non-dynamic part, the ideological part. So while the TTP, the main terrorist organization in Pakistan, was eliminated from the former FATA region, its ideology continued to resonate with segments of our society, because we had ignored addressing the non-kinetic dimension.
Once again Pakistan is facing deep economic and financial challenges combined with political and societal turmoil. Unless the government is completely focused on dealing with terrorism the terrorists may survive for long. They take economic and political chaos in Pakistan as an opportunity. We need to act comprehensively against them, focusing equally on kinetic and non-kinetic measures, to defeat them in the long term. We have to drain the swamp that breeds them.
Effective implementation of Counter Terrorism strategies is always daunting and requires patience, intelligence coordination and, above all, preparing the people to support the counter terrorism strategies carefully conceived to root out the scourge of terrorism: securing borders, tightening financial controls, strengthening the role of the police, improving criminal justice system and providing mutual legal assistance to other countries trying to convict terrorists in their courts. It is clear that the government alone cannot deal with this challenge. No counter terrorism strategy can be successful when all the federating units and the centre do not work in unison. Provinces working in silos without any involvement of the federal government cannot deliver the requisite results where intelligence sharing and coordinated efforts are prerequisites to success.
Several initiatives to win the hearts and minds of the youth are being taken in Balochistan and other parts of Pakistan. Some encouraging results are manifesting themselves, but for resounding success far more focused efforts are required by all. Governance should be strengthened with better coordination, promoting meritocracy and accountability if Pakistan is ever to cut free from the clutches of poverty and achieve the desired objective of completely eradicating terrorism from Pakistan. Terrorism is a common enemy of all and must be rooted out completely if Pakistan is to reach its political, economic and development objectives.
The writer is former Ambassador, based in Islamabad.
