Pakistan: Military offensive in North Waziristan

The long-awaited military offensive in Pakistan's North Waziristan region, which began in mid-December, has raised questions about the overall objectives and intentions of the nation's army in fighting terrorism.

Analysis

The long-awaited military offensive in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region, which began in mid-December, has raised questions about the overall objectives and intentions of the nation’s army in fighting terrorism.

For the last few years, the army has been planning, or at least talking about, a military offensive against the Taliban elements, who have been attacking the country, causing mayhem and challenging the authority of the State as well. The past efforts to either defeat the terrorist group militarily or engage them in a dialogue have not been successful.

In fact, such efforts have often backfired. Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a conglomeration of over 40 militant groups allied to the Afghan Taliban and the al-Qaeda, had been targeting the military and intelligence personnel and infrastructure ever since the army launched an offensive against a pro-Taliban mosque in the heart of Islamabad in July 2007.

Though the previous government with Asif Ali Zardari as President had tried to stem the tide of violence, serious differences over the nature of the Stte’s response between the army and the civilian leadership paralysed any real action on the ground. This allowed the TTP to grow in strength and in reach, enabling the terrorist group to target some of the highly-protected military installations in Punjab and Sindh provinces.

Then army chief, Gen Ashfaq Kayani, too was not keen on launching any military operation in the tribal areas without the civilian leadership taking the onus. The Zardari government was more interested in passing the buck to the army.

When Nawaz Sharif took over as the Prime Minister in June last, he made it clear that his government would go all out to stem the terrorist violence. He declared a no-tolerance policy towards terrorism. But his subsequent actions were more accommodative towards the TTP. He sought a dialogue with the TTP and was not really keen on a military offensive.

After Gen Kayani’s departure in November last, his handpicked successor, Gen Raheel Sharif, was more inclined to take the middle ground and work with the civilian leadership. So when TTP killed two senior army officers and targeted troops in the tribal areas last year, the army decided to launch a limited military-strike against select targets in and around Mir Ali, the headquarters of TTP. The last such major offensive took place in June 2009.

By then some of the top leadership of TTP had been killed in Drone attacks carried out with the help of intelligence shared by Pakistan. The killing of Hakimullah Mehsud helped the army firm up its resolve in dividing and subsequently dismantling the terrorist group. The plan is to soften the terrorists holed up in Mir Ali and surrounding areas even as the civilian leadership extended the dialogue offer.

Retaliatory attacks

With a suicide-bomb attack on a checkpoint in North Waziristan on December 18, 2013, killing five soldiers and injuring 34, there has been a series of retaliatory attacks between the military and the militants. Following this, on 21 January, military helicopters pounded several militant hideouts in Mir Ali. It is the first time that Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has resorted to aerial strikes in the region since the ceasefire agreement with local Taliban chiefs in 2007. Aerial strikes also took place in the nearby tribal region of Kurram.

The military-strikes focused primarily on the stronghold of Hafiz Gul Bahadar, a senior Taliban leader in North Waziristan who has sheltered leaders and fighters from the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, al Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and a number of other Pakistani jihadist groups. One of the targets of the air-strikes is said to be Adnan Rasheed, the amir of the Ansar al Aseer Khorasan ("Helpers of the Prisoners"), a group that includes members from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Taliban and was founded to free jihadists from Pakistani prisons.

The Ansar al Aseer has been involved in a series of prison breaks in Pakistan, and is suspected to be behind the Jan. 10 killing of Karachi police chief Chaudhry Aslam Khan. Rasheed, who was freed in a prison-break, has created a "death squad" that has vowed to kill former President Pervez Musharraf in March last when the latter was returning after spending five years in self-imposed exile outside the country.

The total number of local militant groups operating in North Waziristan, according to government reports, is 43. Dattakhel-based Hafiz Gul Bahadar has the highest number of groups affiliated with him —15, followed by 10 independent groups. There are six TTP-affiliated groups. The Punjabi Taliban has four groups. In addition, there are 12 foreign militant groups, including Al Qaeda. With a combined strength of roughly 11,000 fighting men, the Pakistani and foreign militant groups represent a dreadful challenge to the security of the region.

The moot question is how far the army, in tandem with the civilian leadership, will go in rooting out the TTP and other terrorist groups in the tribal areas. Will it still follow the cherry-picking policy of targeting only select groups, while letting the others remain, as in the past? It is too early to make such a judgment. But all available indications show no significant break from the past.

(The writer is a Research Intern at Observer Research Foundation, Delhi)

Sri Lanka : Step-by-step solution to fishers’ issue?

N Sathiya Moorthy

Tamil Nadu’s hosting of the much-publicised and even more needed but delayed talks between the State’s fisher representatives and their Sri Lankan counterparts on 27 January, followed by the local fishers commitment not to deploy vessels, gears and fishing methods banned in Sri Lanka for 30 days to prove their sincerity and seriousness has set the tone for taking the gains of the Chennai negotiations forward. Independent of the talks and also each other, the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) first, and the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) later, began arresting fishers from the other country in the days that followed, making the latter’s release a condition-precedent of sorts for taking forward the negotiations, as promised, at Colombo in March.

Yet, teething troubles of the kind, almost from the commencement of the idea of a fishers’ talks blessed by the Governments concerned, did not dampen their spirits in particular. It has only been enhanced, since. Interestingly, most fisher representatives on either side were new compared to an NGO-driven round of negotiations in 2010-11. Though the present batch of negotiators did not sign any relatively detailed agreement of the kind as in 2010, the general mood on either side of the ’fisher-divide’ was one of bonhomie and mutual accommodation, as in the past.

The Chennai meeting should be noted for the specifics, of what it achieved and what it did not – rather, what it did not actually aim to achieve. First and foremost, Governments across the Palk Strait, namely those of Sri Lanka, India and Tamil Nadu, ’quasi-official status’ on the talks with the participation of their officials. Tamil Nadu was also represented by the Fisheries Minister, though he and his team, were there only as ’observers’. So did officials of the Governments of India and Sri Lanka.

The 2010 Chennai talks, facilitated by the ’Alliance for Release of Innocent Fishermen’ (ARIF), preceded by an extensive tour of the southern Tamil Nadu coast by the Sri Lankan fisher representatives, and the follow-up review meeting at Colombo in March 2011, did not have any official representative of the Tamil Nadu Government. At Chennai-2010, two Sri Lankan Fisheries officials were present as observers. At Colombo months later, an official of the Indian High Commission was also present as an observer. An all-round presence of officials at Chennai-2014, representing various stake-holders, would make a difference to future processes and prospects.

Two, even though ’political considerations’ may have played a part in the choice of fisher representatives in either country, the fact that ’new faces’ have joined the negotiations, compared to the ARIF-driven process of 2010, may have in fact helped expand the level of participation and representation, too, before any final decision is arrived at. Considering however the ground realities, any future solution, to be effective and implementable, should be flowing from what otherwise is the comprehensive 2010 agreement, c