Taking the fight to terror

There are no two opinions about the fact that terrorism and sectarianism are the biggest challenges which together pose an existentialist threat to the country. Unfortunately, they have both internal and external dimensions.

The external aspect pertains to support by the Afghan agencies and government to the TTP operatives based on Afghan soil for carrying out terrorist acts within Pakistan in connivance with RAW. Some countries are also reportedly promoting sectarian violence in the country. The involvement of Afghanistan, India and other countries in acts of terrorism and sectarian violence is the trickiest aspect of the problem. It is also felt that the presence of 3.2 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan over the last thirty plus years is the real cause of Afghanistan related terrorism in Pakistan.

Pakistan rightly feels that to deal with and eliminate the externally sponsored terrorism, it was imperative to improve relations with Afghanistan and India. The new narrative with regard to foreign policy has a major focus on having conflict-free relations with both the neighbours and building regional linkages for shared economic prosperity. Therefore it has made persistent and relentless efforts to promote the process of Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation in Afghanistan.

Pakistan was instrumental in the first ever meeting between the Taliban and Afghan government and has been part of all quadrilateral initiatives as well as the trilateral moot that recently took place to discuss ways and means of bringing peace to Afghanistan – an initiative that was welcomed by the Taliban as well as the US.

But regrettably, in spite of the foregoing efforts, the ambience of mistrust between the two countries continues to bedevil relations between them. The Afghan president invariably blames Pakistan whenever any act of terrorism is perpetrated in Afghanistan, particularly the alleged support to the Haqqani network. He is actually encouraged by the persistent rhetoric by the US administration which despite acknowledging Pakistan’s vital role in fighting terrorism and its indiscriminate actions against terrorist outfits based in North Waziristan, continues to put pressure on it by harping on the same tune. The Afghan president has also made a common cause with India to malign and isolate Pakistan.

Nevertheless, the civilian and military leadership in Pakistan is unanimous with regard to re-building bonhomie with Afghanistan and removing mistrust to deal with issues related to terrorism and sectarian violence in the country. Therefore, efforts to facilitate reconciliation must continue unabated with a renewed vigour and commitment. The role of the US in eliminating TTP leadership in Afghanistan is seen as a crucial factor besides helping Afghanistan and Pakistan sort out their differences with a view to forging collaboration between them to fight the common threat of terrorism.

Pakistan has also been taking positive steps to revive the suspended dialogue with India to resolve disputes between the two nations. However, there has been no encouraging response by the latter so far. The Modi government has instead upped the ante against Pakistan, and embarked on a sustained campaign to isolate Pakistan in the region and at the global level. Pakistan has rightly launched a diplomatic offensive to neutralise the Indian propaganda, exposing its real face before the international community and the UN. The UN and US can and must play their due roles to encourage both the countries to settle their disputes through peaceful means and must also put pressure on India to refrain from sponsoring acts of terrorism within Pakistan.

For dealing with terrorism and sectarian violence on the internal front, the National Action Plan is viewed both by the civilian and military leadership as a vital policy initiative, though sometimes critical voices have been heard with regards to the pace of its implementation. Progress on some elements of NAP may not have been as rapid as the success of Operation Zarb-e-Azb due to the sensitive nature of issues like dealing with sectarianism and the seminaries as well as lack of proper coordination between the federal and provincial governments, intelligence agencies of the federal and provincial governments and law-enforcement entities. But NAP surely has achieved considerable success and the details have often been shared with people through the media by concerned authorities.

In the backdrop of the Quetta attack, a national implementation committee was formed headed by the national security adviser. The committee has been tasked to review the progress of NAP, identify areas where further action was required and chalk out steps needed to achieve those objectives. Similar committees have been formed at the provincial level in Fata, AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan.

According to reliable sources, national implementation committee has deliberated on all the elements of NAP, reviewed progress on its implementation and has also come up with its recommendations on how to pursue its objectives and take the fight to the terrorists.

These recommendations include: better coordination between federal and provincial governments with the latter playing a more pro-active role in maintaining law and order, enhancement of capacity of the police in all provinces, an active role by the CTD, strict monitoring of inter-city check posts, security audit at all levels, creation of mechanism other than the traditional information sharing arrangement between Nacta, NSA, ISI and FIA and creation of compatible cells by the provinces – the model for which will be evolved by Nacta.

They also include, strict surveillance of sectarian outfits which are operating with changed names, efforts to promote religious harmony through seminars organised by the Ministry for Religious Affairs, constitution of a board of religious scholars, taking the Karachi operation to its logical end, empowering Balochistan government for political reconciliation in the province, prevention of hate speech and publication of extremist literature by provincial governments on the basis of policy guidelines to be formulated by the interior ministry and the provinces, regulation and registration of seminaries and drawing up of their curricula by the provincial government and building of a force by Nacta and reforms in Fata. The role of media in correcting the social fault lines like sectarianism with the help of Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and Pemra has also been envisaged.

These recommendations seem quite comprehensive and all the agencies, federal and provincial governments must make sure that they are implemented in letter and spirit. This needs to be done with a missionary zeal because strengthening of avenues for implementation of NAP can also help tackle the foreign sponsored terrorism in the country.

A counterterrorism narrative also needs to be evolved to deal with the problem on an ideological front. That may also be made part of school syllabi as a long-term measure to save the younger generation from the misleading narrative of terrorists.

 

The writer is a freelance contributor. Email: ashpak10@gmail.com