Way out of the Terrorism Quagmire
By Air Marshal (Retd.) Ayaz Ahmed Khan
Los Angeles, CA
For more than one week the Pakistan Parliament discussed ways to contain terrorism emanating from FATA. As the debate continued terrorists stepped up their ambushes, attacks and suicide bombings.
While the government with the help of the Parliament is trying to find a solution to the terrorist menace, the US and NATO commanders have continued drone bombings. They are trying their best to kill veteran Afghan Mujahideenn leader Jalal-ud-Din Haqqani and his son Mullah Mansoor the Afghan Taliban leader, by launching repeated missile bombings at his hujras, houses and madrassas near Miranshah the main city in North Waziristan.
On September 8, 2008, his family house near Miranshah was bombed by three Predator drones. The Hellfire missiles achieved direct hits, killing 23 people, including family members of Jalal-ud-din Haqqani and Mullah Mansoor. NATO claimed that there were foreign Al-Qaeda terrorists in the targeted houses. This claim should have been discussed in the parliament. It must be challenged, because photo and electronic intelligence cannot determine the nationality of people, nor plans, and secrets of the heart.
On October 23, 2008, two USAF Predator drones bombed a school near Miranshah with Hellfire missiles. Eleven people died and twenty were seriously injured. The drone bombing of Pakistan territory was ignored by the Parliament, though it was in session and engaged in a discussion on the subject. A security official told AFP that the school was set up in 1980 by Jalaluldin Haqqani to train Mujahidin fighting the Red Army in Afghanistan. The school was funded by concerned intelligence agencies. Presently, it was being run by Jalaludin Haqqani’s commanders and was being used as a guest house by Mullah Mansoor.
Haqqani was one of the most prominent commanders who fought the Red Army between 1978 -1981. Subsequently, he came under the wings of Mullah Omar, and was one of his trusted commanders. Since the fall of the Taliban, Haqqani has become one of the most active Taliban commanders and has been launching attacks on international forces in Afghanistan from safe havens in Miranshah in Pakistan. Were such activities known to ISI or military intelligence is a moot question, which ISPR needs to clarify.
According to the latest report USAF, NATO and CIA are busy flying unmanned drones over the Pak-Afghan border and FATA for intelligence gathering and bombing, as required. It is astonishing that drone bombings of Pakistan territory continued while the Pakistani Parliament was debating a strategy to contain terrorism in the tribal belt. US Deputy Secretary of State Negroponte was in Islamabad and had met the Prime Minister, when the USAF was engaged in missile attacks deep into the tribal belt.
The PPP designed military policy was a carrot and stick policy in the beginning, but has changed into a full-scale defense policy to solve the problem militarily. Air-land operations in Swat and Bajaur are successful and the Taliban are on the run and have asked for a ceasefire and an end to the military operations. The Government is sensing victory and has asked TTP - Tehrik Taliban Pakistan - and other insurgents to surrender and lay down arms. The sensed victory is like a mirage, and is not on the horizon. It will need many years of fighting and bloodshed, and public anger and frustration could turn against the government, which must address the vital issues of the shattered economy, steep inflation, power outages, loss of value of the Rupee, sky high inflation, and the poor law and order situation.
The peace offers of Tehrik-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan must not be spurned. If second, third and fourth track dialogue can be held with India, what is wrong in initiating second track diplomacy with the disenchanted Pushtun elements in FATA? To ceasefire immediately as demanded by Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Maulana Fazal-ur–Rehman will be counter productive. Pakistan military is gaining ground, and must not give respite to the terrorists to regroup. But these respected leaders should initiate second track diplomacy with the Pakistani Taliban groups and act as peace makers. Merely giving press statements for political mileage is not enough. It amounts to mischief to mislead the public.
After suffering so much at the hands of the terrorists, an un-conditional handshake with the murderers will be rejected by the nation. The terrorists and the insurgents will have to lay down their arms, hand over to the government hundreds of tons of explosives and ordnance that they have collected to blow up Pakistan. They must declare all automatic weapons in their armories, and destroy the ordnance in the presence of officials.
The Taliban must apprehend and hand over to the government the assassins who killed Benazir Bhutto, bombed Marriot Hotel, and carried out hundreds of suicide bombing attacks in which over seven thousand Pakistani citizens including army men, para-military troops, air force personnel and policemen, were killed. Such killers must be brought to justice.
President Zardari has vowed to eradicate the cancer of terrorism from Pakistan. The Parliament must get serious and must not disappoint the people who want to live in peace. They want terrorists and terrorism to be wiped out. The friends of the Taliban and the terrorists are out of step with the national thinking. People rejected them at the polls, and their cheek in tongue criticism of the government must be rejected. They need to do their home work, come out with details of the harm done to Pakistan by the terrorists, and should talk directly to Bailullah Mehsud, Maulvi Fazalullh, Maulvi Soofi Mohammad, Jala-udin Haqqani and other rebels and insurgents in a sustained second track diplomacy to find a way out of the terrorist quagmire.
