Journalist defends PhD thesis

PESHAWAR: Journalist Rahmanullah successfully defended his PhD thesis at the Department of Political Science, University of Peshawar and has been qualified for the award of PhD degree.

He did his thesis on ‘Militias as a counterinsurgency strategy in Pakistan’. His study was supervised by Dr Sami Raza, Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science. Professor Dr Irum Khalid, Department of Political Science at the Punjab University, served as external examiner.

Rahmanullah is a working journalist and has been affiliated with BBC for 10 years. He has done his master’s in Journalism, Political Science and English literature. His study evaluates the use of the anti-Taliban militias as a counterinsurgency strategy in Khyber, Mohmand and Bajaur agencies of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and some districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa like Dir, Swat and suburbs of Peshawar. 

The study highlights that the excessive use of militias to cope with insurgency created further problems, especially in the way of restoring peace. The strategy of involving the local tribal people to form militias and take part in the fight against insurgency exposes them to dangers of long-term problems like enmities and feuds, and revenge and intra-tribal strife.

If the state does not monitor militias they can become militants in future and can become potential threat to spark a civil commotion. The dissertation questions government’s strategy that prima facie looks like a community-led bottom-up approach, but that it has put the lives and culture of the tribal people at risk.

The study analyses the formation of the anti-Taliban militias strategy in the light of the bottom-up approach. The dissertation concludes that militias become counterproductive when government fails to deploy a comprehensive strategy, which explains the purpose, scope and accountability of militias.