Remains of the day

Sitting in his office, Bani Amim Khan, Inspector General, Islamabad Police, recounts the story of Muhammad Qari, one of the terrorists responsible for the Marriot Hotel blast four years ago. A worker at a local tandoor shop in Punjab, he was picked by the Taliban some years ago to work as a cook. He did not have much choice in the matter and followed them to Afghanistan. Years later, in a raid at his place, several Talibans were killed. The security forces arrested all the auxiliary staff, including cooks, washermen and drivers, and subjected them to what is called “sustained interrogation”. In Qari's case, this meant pushing dry ice rods up his bottom. After it was established that he had nothing important to reveal about the Taliban's strategy, he was put in a container to be shipped to a point from where he was to be taken to the Guantanamo Bay detainment centre. Sharing the container with a dozen others, Qari would have died of suffocation like others had a mid-way attack by Taliban on the container not made holes in it for fresh air to come in. Guantanamo Bay was not much better. When he was released, he joined Taliban, this time as a commander.

“When I used to interrogate him, he would put both his legs on the table facing me. He just had one thing to say. Release me and I will do it again. I have nothing to lose but me,” recounts Khan. “The next time you people in India write about us, do keep in mind the kind of enemy we are fighting. I am fighting your war too.”

The Pakistan of 2012 has seen quite a few changes compared to the last time I was here. There has been a definite and considerable decrease in the number of suicide bombings in the urban areas. The attacks are now mostly restricted to the tribal areas and Peshawar. And the primary reason behind this is the way the police has changed its style of working.

When the suicide bombings started in 2006, the police in Pakistan did not know what hit them. Structured on the skeleton of a British legacy, the police was trained for law enforcement and petty crimes. Terrorism was a different ballgame. It took some time before special forces from within the police, which was trained to tackle such attacks, were drawn. A completely different strategy to tackle suicide bombings was adopted where the focus was shifted to breaking the chain between the planner and the bomber. And it indeed has borne results.

“Suicide bombing is a multistage top-down pyramid process where at least seven people are involved at seven stages.  In our modus oparandi, we try to arrest at least one of them. Even if you arrest one, the plan is foiled. And in most of the cases, the arrested person leads to the arrest of a couple of others too,” explains Khan.

Having said that, the most troubling factor for the police is the continued supply of suicide bombers. The police has managed to collect and analyse the data gathered in the last few years. It has drawn some interesting conclusions. For example, the median age of an average suicide bomber is 21 years. In most cases, the perpetrator's age is as low as 15 to 16 years. It is generally believed that if a person is past 23 years, it is almost impossible for Taliban to brainwash him to turn into a suicide bomber.

“There are several factors why they agree to turn into suicide bombers. The primary reason is revenge followed by a sense of religious victimisation. While the second factor is exploited by Taliban to lure, the the first factor, that is revenge, has been propped up by the continued drone attacks,” says Iqbal Khan, Deputy Commandant of the elite force in Peshawar.

In fact, during my visit to the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, two trends were pretty noticeable. First, in spite of severe losses in terms of dead and injured in the police forces, the overall morale of the force has not taken a beating. In fact, contrary to my impressions in the region in the year 2010, the police force appeared more enthusiastic and coherent in its hatred for Taliban. Also, since they have substantially reduced the bombings in the urban areas and life is returning to normal in several of the Agencies in Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) and Swat, the police has gained a new confidence. It has boosted recruitment too.

However, there is another trend that is not being reported in the international press. The opposition against the drone attacks is total and complete. Police officials admit it both on and off the record that drone attacks are not only counter-productive but hamper the confidence building measures started by the police forces. In Peshawar alone, they managed to apprehend half a dozen very young would-be suicide bombers who admitted that they wanted revenge for the drone attacks that killed members of their families. In one particular case, a 15-year-old would-be bomber was apprehended seconds before he could press the detonator. The lone son of a dry fruit trader, his parents were killed in one such attack.

“Revenge is not the only issue. The people get so afraid that they start emigrating to Peshawar and further East. It leads to several other administrative problems,”  says Quraish Khan, Deputy Inspector General, Administration of Frontier Police.

Although there have been less Drone strikes following the Malala incident, it has continued unabated. It has also changed the tactic to a “double-trap” strategy where after striking a target, they wait for the rescuers to come to target it again. This has not only increased civilian causality but has struck fear among the locals as well. Consequently, rescuers often wait for hours before daring to visit the attack site.

Says Mirza Shahzad Akbar, a Pakistani lawyer who represents victims of drone strikes, “These strikes are becoming much more common. In the past it used to be a one-off event. Now almost every other attack is a double trap. There is no justification for it.”

This tactic, along with others, were soundly criticised by a report by legal experts at Stanford and New York University only a month ago. The report is based on eyewitness accounts and as many as 120 interviews. The report's conclusion is very unambiguous. It has condemned these attacks for their ineffectiveness and has ripped apart the “surgical claim”. The report suggests that only 2 per cent of the victims of these attacks are known militants and that “the idea that the strikes make the world a safer place for the US is ambiguous at best.”

There are other elements too. Several senior police officials rue that even after they provided live coordinates about the whereabouts of  the commanders of  Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the drone failed to take them out. Many suggest that this tactic is fishy. While the drone operators are eager to target elements of Afghanistani Taliban, they have failed to do so in the case of TTP.

As far as the Pakistani society is concerned, there is a growing realisation that the Taliban is a menace and there is a need to do away with it. A couple of years ago, there was an evident ambiguity in this thought process. Now no more.

And one of the factors that has helped achieve this is the clergy itself. Raghib Naeemi heads the Lahore chapter of Jamia Naeemia, one of Pakistan's biggest Barelvi seminaries. His father, Dr Sarfaraz Naeemi, an outspoken opponent of Taliban was killed in a suicide attack on June 12, 2009, while he was in his office. Dr Naeemi had issued a fatwa against suicide attacks, one of the first in Pakistan to do so. Raghib Naeemi now heads the seminary.     

Naeemi along with other maulanas is involved in counselling programmes where he talks and tries to convince people to denounce the path taken by Taliban. He has found success in the last couple of years and has continued the programme with new zeal. He appears very positive.

“During my interaction with soldiers, I have seen a change emerging. A couple of years ago, there were many who used to pose questions like why should they kill Taliban as they were brothers in religion. Thankfully, no one does that now. Every soldier now knows that if they don't kill Talibs, Talibs will kill them. Thankfully that ambiguity is gone,” says Naeemi.

He also points to the Malala incident and considers unequivocal condemnation from the masses as an opportunity for the government to build on this initiative. “We are passing through a phase now when the common man is fed up of the acts of terror. The resentment against Taliban is on the rise. We will never get an opportunity like this. We need to grab it,” he adds. However, this change in ambiguity has also meant that people who have acted as fence-sitters will have to come to terms with the changing realities. And no one is going to get hurt more badly than the messiah of the yuppie crowd and cricket legend Imran Khan.

Imran Khan has played with the ideological ambiguity of the urban yuppie crowd and has indeed made a constituency out of them. But this is under severe stress now. His extremely discouraging views on Taliban and lack of a solid policy framework in his manifesto have started taking its toll. Accepting the corrupt old guard from other parties who jumped on to bandwagon in search of greener pastures is also hurting Imran's chances. And then, if political journalists are to be believed, Imran also lacks basic understanding of politics.

Take for example the Malala incident. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf, Imran's party, was a good 24 hours late to condemn the incident. And even after the condemnation was released, people did miss the “but you should also understand...” explanation that followed. Analysts believe that although Imran's unequivocal condemnation of the drone attacks is finding resonance among the masses, his not so unequivocal condemnation of Taliban is hurting him among the liberal voters. Under the circumstances, it should not come as a surprise if his party fails to break the minimum threshold limit to win a fair number of seats in the upcoming elections. That is why, even after a pan-Pakistan presence, Imran is not going to get solid numbers.

Contrary to this, the party that has shown guts in openly condemning Taliban and taking it head-on has been the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). Although the party works like a thuggish group, it is very clear in its ideology. Also, this appears to be the only political party that has logistics to take on Talibs. This has opened a window for them to make inroads into other communities other than the Urdu-speaking community from where they draw their life and blood. In fact, based on my extensive interactions with people from several institutions, I can stick my neck out and say that MQM remains the only party that has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to Taliban as well as sectarian militant groups.

And that spells good news for President Zardari. If Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) manages to wrest more seats than any other party in the next elections, MQM will have no option but to support PPP in a coalition government. It will be easier for them to work with a party that is ideologically similar when it comes to extremism than say Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) or Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf  (PTI) that appear to appease fundamentalists.

PPP can be rest assured that MQM will bring in its quintessential twenty-odd seats from Karachi, Hyderabad and other cities from Sindh to realise PPP's chance of returning to power. In the larger interest of Pakistan and its people, this appears to be the logical choice.

saurabh.shahi@thesundayindian.com