Biting those hands that fed them: How TTP, ISKP are threatening Pakistan's national security

Pakistan’s security forces have come under increasing militant attacks over the last few days. The deadliest attack was in Gwadar, where fourteen troops were killed. Terrorists also launched an attack on a PAF base in Mianwali, where aircraft were also damaged. Though the extent of damage is a subject of intense speculation, the credibility of the Armed Forces in safeguarding their assets has been severely dented. Attacks also took place in Dera Ismail Khan and Lakki Marwat, in fact, Mianwali, where Imran Khan’s family comes from, lies just east of Lakki Marawat and is across the Indus River, which signifies the eastward pattern of these attacks. On 30 July, a suicide bomber killed at least 54 people and wounded nearly 200 others at a political rally in Pakistan’s Bajaur District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Malakand Division, which borders Afghanistan. The event was for Muslim cleric Fazlur Rehman of the hard-line Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam—Fazl (JUI-F), a religio-political party that is both a member of the government’s ruling coalition and a longtime supporter of the Afghan Taliban. The Islamic State-Khorasan, a regional affiliate of the main Islamic State organisation, claimed responsibility for the assault through its Amaq News Agency channel, saying the attack was part of the group’s ongoing war against the democratic system, which it believes contradicts Sharia law. Although it may seem odd for an Islamist extremist group to target a hard-line Islamist party that shares similar religious and political ideologies, the reality is that the Islamic State-Khorasan is even more fanatical in its religious and political outlook than the Afghan Taliban and their allies. The Islamic State-Khorasan has a history of political assassinations for not instilling what it considers to be a strict enough interpretation of Islamic rules. Pakistan’s then Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned those responsible as being terrorists who have “targeted those who speak for Islam, the Quran and Pakistan” and said “The terrorists are enemies of Pakistan, we will eliminate them from the face of existence”. Exactly a month later, a “motorcycle-borne suicide bomber exploded himself on a military convoy” in Bannu District of KP. Nine soldiers, including Naib Subedar Sanobar Ali, were killed, while five soldiers were injured. Prior to this, ten soldiers died in a “fire raid” in the Kech area of Balochistan in February 2022. On 6 September, in a large-scale cross-border incursion, a large band of TTP militants reportedly crossed over and attacked Pakistani positions in Torkham, in Chitral, before being pushed back into Afghanistan. Chitral lies in a strategically sensitive area, bordering Afghanistan, with only the Wakhan Corridor separating it from Tajikistan. China’s Xinjiang region is also in the vicinity. At the end of September, a series of attacks, including suicide bombings and a militant raid, killed at least 62 people and injured many more. Most of the casualties occurred in Mastung, a volatile district in Baluchistan, where a suicide bomber struck a religious procession marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. On 6 November, Lieutenant Colonel Muhammad Hassan Haider and three soldiers were killed in Tirah Valley of Khyber District during an intelligence-based operation that resulted in a heavy exchange of fire, as per the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) of the Pakistan Army. The list is only increasing. Islamic State – Khorasan Province IS-K’s overarching strategy includes local and global objectives. In a 2015 video series, IS-K’s media office declared, “There is no doubt that Allah the Almighty blessed us with jihad in the land of Khorasan since a long time ago, and it is from the grace of Allah that we fought any disbeliever who entered the land of Khorasan. All of this is for the sake of establishing the Shariah.” It went on to declare, “Know that the Islamic Caliphate is not limited to a particular country. These young men will fight against every disbeliever, whether in the West, East, South, or North.” The IS-K seeks to establish a ‘Caliphate’ beginning in South and Central Asia, governed by sharia law, which will expand as Muslims from across the region and world join. It disregards international borders and envisions its territory transcending nation-states like Afghanistan and Pakistan. Currently, the ISKP’s primary objective is to thwart the Taliban’s efforts to fulfil their promises to Islamist supporters and the Afghan people. To achieve this, the group has been targeting not only Taliban fighters but also international entities such as China, Russia, and Pakistan within Afghanistan. These attacks aim to create tensions between the Taliban and neighbouring countries and complicate their relations. Increasing Terror Attacks The sustained attacks, including suicide bombings, in Pakistan indicate that the Taliban-ISKP conflict has entered Pakistan, taking on a more intensified form. There is no doubt that the script of the Taliban taking over Afghanistan has not gone as intended. As per Touqir Hussein, “Pakistan and Afghanistan have always had a complex relationship that has been mishandled by both sides. Each has expected the other to make up for the failure of its own policies and has sought solutions that were worse than the problem.” Pakistan and Afghanistan have a shared but contentious history, overlapping identities, a disputed border, divided ethnicities, and bifurcated tribes. These ingredients provided each with an opportunity to interfere in the other’s affairs, as well as incentives for ambitious policies. In addition to the Islamic State-Khorasan, other militant groups, including the Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP), are also active in the area. Violence recently escalated after a cease-fire between the TTP and the Pakistani government broke down in November 2022. In January, 74 people were killed by a suicide bombing at a mosque in Peshawar. A similar incident occurred less than a month later, when 101 individuals were killed in another Peshawar Mosque bombing inside a high-security compound. TTP is ‘exploiting Pakistan’s vulnerabilities with regard to territory, resources, and support base’. The recent terrorist attacks, along with the large-scale intrusion into Chitral, are all components of a broader strategy. Al Qaeda apparently had an eye on the region that borders Chitral since long before establishing a new base for supporting terrorist movements in the region, including China. The fourteenth report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team of the UN Security Council’s 1988 Taliban Sanctions Committee, released in June, noted that the “range of terrorist groups has greater freedom of manoeuvre under the Taliban de facto authorities”. “There are indications that Al Qaeda is rebuilding operational capability, that TTP is launching attacks into Pakistan with support from the Taliban, that groups of foreign terrorist fighters are projecting threats across Afghanistan’s borders, and that the operations of ISIL-K are becoming more sophisticated and lethal (if not more numerous).” It is apparent that distinctions between members of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, including TTP and IS-K, are sometimes fuzzy and that there is a tendency for people to gravitate towards the dominant or ascending organisation. Terror Groups According to reports on social media, a little-known group calling itself Lashkar-i-Sufyan Karvan has claimed responsibility for the Bannu attack. Though this group may not be a known entity in the murky world of terrorism, it is said to be linked to the Hafiz Gul Bahadur outfit, which has a well-earned reputation for militant violence and is part of the TTP conglomerate. While the Tehreek-i-Jihad Pakistan (TJP) has claimed responsibility for Mianawali, the group was possibly founded in February this year and is headed by Maulana Abdul Yaghistani. It is not unusual for fighters to adopt new names for their groups. Success lies in going after key individuals and dismantling the terrorist infrastructure. There is no doubt that the militants have reportedly had access to sophisticated US equipment abandoned in Afghanistan. A report released in July by the think tank Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies said the first half of the current year witnessed a steady and alarming rise in terror and suicide attacks, claiming the lives of 389 people across the country. An analysis of these acts of violence reveals that the terrorists have a wide footprint across KP and Northern Balochistan and have demonstrated their freedom to act across an extensive geographic space. The recent attacks also point to intelligence failures, as terrorists were able to target security men in significant numbers, along with raiding the PAF base, which is regarded as a highly secure facility. There is also the possibility of insider information being passed on to terrorists, as there are precedents of this happening during past terrorist attacks. Conclusion History has revealed that the strategically significant frontier lands in Afghanistan and Pakistan have witnessed violence over the centuries. Today, yet another generation risks life and limb, and the region continues to remain in the spotlight. The fact remains that whether it is the ISKP, TTP, Al Qaeda, or the Taliban, they have all thrived in the jihadist ecosystem that the Pakistani Army has created and sustained. The perpetrators belong to differing ideological strands, indicating the complexity of the threat matrix confronting Pakistan. There can be no distinction between terrorists, and unless there’s a serious attempt to eliminate terrorism in all its manifestations, there can’t be a solution to such attacks. With Pakistan’s economy in dire straits and institutional cracks visible in both the political space and the Army, the challenges for Pakistan are significant and immense. Eager to see the Afghan Taliban take control of Afghanistan, Pakistan now grapples with unmet expectations. Two years on, issues like cross-border terrorism, which is a multi-headed hydra, pose significant security risks. On 7 November, the interim Prime Minister of Pakistan said, “Unfortunately, after the establishment of the interim Afghan government, there has been a 60 per cent increase in terror incidents and 500 per cent rise in suicide attacks in Pakistan.” He further said, “In the past two years, 2,267 innocent citizens’ lives have been lost to this tragic bloodshed, for which the terrorists of TTP are responsible who are conducting cowardly attacks on Pakistani using Afghan soil." What is also of concern are reports emanating from the UN regarding the large number of weapons left behind by the US in Afghanistan in the aftermath of their chaotic withdrawal. These weapons pose a “serious threat in conflict zones and neighbouring countries.” Pakistan is an unstable nuclear-armed state next to a country under the control of a terrorist organisation with deep linkages to various elements within Pakistan. While Pakistan has to control this menace, the ensuing instability can have an adverse effect on India in the event of a spillover. Hence, it is imperative to guard against this threat. The return of nearly two million Afghan refugees who have been living in Pakistan back to Afghanistan will only add to the volatility and resentment in the region. General McKenzie, the former Centcom Commander, said Al Qaeda has weakened since the August 2021 pullout, but he believes that ISIS, particularly in Afghanistan, is taking advantage of the vast ungoverned spaces that are there, and they are, in fact, gathering strength. He told Fox News on the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, “I believe history is going to view the decision to come out of Afghanistan in the way we did, and that the manner in which we were directed to come out, as a fatal flaw.” The surge in terror attacks points to reality as far as Pak-Afghan bilateral ties are concerned. It’s akin to biting the hand that has fed them. Pakistan has the reputation of being the world’s top exporter of terrorism. At the core of the terrorist problem lies Pakistan’s State and its Army’s willingness to promote terrorism as a tool of foreign policy. The jihadism they promoted for decades in neighbouring countries has come back to haunt them. It is time for Pakistan to go back and act on what Hilary Clinton had said in 2011: “You can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbours.” The author is a retired Major General of the Indian Army. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost_’s views._ Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.