Peace or appeasement in Pakistan?

The recent deal between religious leaders in tribal Pakistan and the government legitimates the Taliban insurgency

The timing could not have been more emblematic of the mess engulfing Pakistan. Barely a day after the new United States envoy for the region, Richard Holbrooke, completed his preliminary consultations with Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders about confronting the Taliban, the same leadership endorsed a deal with religious leaders sympathetic to the jihadi movement in the country’s northern tribal district of Malakand.

The agreement negotiated last Monday with a local group called Tehreek-e-Nifaaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi, or Movement for the Establishment of Islamic Law, did not directly involve the Taliban. But TNSM has many ideological similarities with the Taliban and its leader, Maulana Sufi Mohammad, is the father-in-law of a key Taliban leader in the region, Maulana Fazlullah.

The Taliban issued a 10-day ceasefire in Malakand in honour of the agreement.

Under the “Nizam-i-Adl Regulation” reached between TSNM and the North Western Frontier Province government, sharia, or Islamic law, is to supersede “all un-Islamic laws” – meaning the secular laws of the local, state and, potentially, federal governments of Pakistan. President Asif Ali Zardari said the new legal regime would not supplant “the writ of the state” but that leaves open the question: whose state? The Taliban or the TSNM could argue that because Pakistan is an Islamic state, actions aimed at enforcing Islamic law and tradition, even by force of arms, are consistent with the writ of the state.

The Pakistani government could contest these claims, but people in Malakand think little of the politicians in Islamabad whose lifestyle and language is a world away from their own. The views of local conservatives like Maulana Sufi and the Taliban’s Fazlullah resonate more easily even if people do not accept all their pronouncements.

The government has made two main calculations in concluding the agreement, one tactical the other political. It has gambled that acquiescing to the implementation of Islamic law removes much of the oxygen upon which the fire of Taliban descent is fuelled.

Ordinary citizens in the urban centres where most of Pakistan’s population live have been deeply troubled by a conflict pitting Pakistani against Pakistani that has killed many hundreds and displaced up to 200,000 more in Malakand alone. As one army captain who had just returned from Malakand told me in Islamabad last month: “Fighting your own people is the most painful thing you can do [as a soldier].”

As a result of the agreement, the government – whose political opponents accuse it of killing its own people for the sake of its western allies – can claim it is seeking to stem the carnage.

Last week a bomb believed to have been planted by the Taliban killed a secular Pashtun leader in Peshawar, capital of the North Western Frontier Province. The same day, the Taliban claimed responsibility for a bloody attack on central Kabul, Afghanistan just a block away from the presidential palace.

Internationally there are fears that this latest arrangement – like previous peace agreements between pro-Taliban groups and the Pakistani government – will give the Taliban time to recoup losses until they are ready to fight again.

Britain’s ambassador to Pakistan warned that the agreement could “create space for further violence”, a view echoed by Nato officials in Brussels. India’s minister for external affairs said his country was monitoring the situation and called the Taliban a “danger to humanity and civilisation”.

The Australian government did, however, give qualified support to the arrangement, with foreign minister Stephen Smith, currently on an official visit to Pakistan, calling it “a positive development”.

The specifics of the peace agreement are yet to be ironed out, but there are some preliminary indications. It relates to the Swat valley region of Pakistan’s northwest, a predominantly mountainous, tribal sector of the country that has been gripped by a resilient Taliban insurgency since October 2007. Maulana Fazlullah is the public face of that insurgency, although few have actually seen him.

“I haven’t had personal contact with Fazlullah, but he is my commander and I always obey him,” explained one Taliban commander I met in the lower Swat valley late last year. “Ultimately, we want Sharia over all of Pakistan, but, first of all, here [in Malakand],” he continued.

A young cleric who emerged from the madrasas of these mountainous parts preaching a return to the sharia, Fazlullah is popularly known as Maulana FM for his clandestine radio broadcasts which, since 2006, have promoted a harsh, conservative brand of Islam similar to that practised by the Taliban when they ruled Afghanistan. Fazlullah has also made threats against a wide range of people over the airwaves, from policemen merely seeking to enforce the law to schoolgirls whom he threatens with brutal attacks for daring to seek an education.

Maulana Sufi rejects Fazlullah’s resort to violence and has appealed to the young cleric to end his militancy. That may have something to do with Sufi’s imprisonment by Pervez Musharraf in 2002 for helping to organise young men to support the Taliban against Nato and the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. A chastened Maulana Sufi was released last year after he renounced violence and publicly stated that he supported education for women and immunisation for children. The Taliban has destroyed hundreds of schools in Malakand since 2007 and vehemently opposes immunisation programmes which they believe are part of a global western-Zionist plot to sterilise the population.

Following this latest agreement, however, the line between violent and nonviolent Islamist has become dangerously blurred. The decision to implement sharia is a significant victory for the Taliban because it implicitly legitimates their cause by acknowledging that Pakistan’s tribal areas need the stamp of approval that only an Islamic political movement can provide.

The Taliban’s ideological battle, in Malakand at least, will now shift away from promoting the sharia to arguing it is best placed to administer it. That debate is unlikely to be nonviolent.

Civilians suffer as Pakistan army targets Taliban

01 Oct 2008 15:55:00 GMT

Written by: Mustafa Qadri

Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author’s alone.

Photo by Mustafa Qadri

The Taliban insurgency along Pakistan’s tribal border with Afghanistan has fast turned into the key security concern for the United States.

The Taliban stands accused of committing several atrocities. In the former resort area of Swat, the Taliban has destroyed over a hundred girls schools this year alone.

Suicide attacks on major Pakistani cities have become a weekly occurrence, most recently during a gun battle at a hideout in Karachi last week.

The Sept. 20 Islamabad Marriot bombing, timed to coincide with President Asif Ali Zardari’s inaugural speech to parliament, killed up to 70 and injured hundreds more. It was perhaps the most ferocious Taliban attack to date.

Strict applications of sharia – or Islamic law – in areas controlled by the Taliban such as Waziristan have resulted in further casualties; several people found guilty of committing crimes have been executed, flogged or have had limbs amputated.

Less widely reported, however, is the increasing number of civilian casualties caused by Pakistan army operations.

Precise figures are difficult to obtain. Independent observers, mostly based on media reports, believe around 300 civilians have been killed by military operations in 2008.

Jamaat-e-Islami, a religious political party that provides humanitarian assistance to civilians in the conflict-ridden tribal agencies, estimates that around 1,500 civilians have been killed.

According to the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), around 310,000 people have been displaced from regions with a Taliban presence.

Analysts cite the inability to distinguish friend from foe as a key reason for the high civilian death toll.

“There are three main groups of fighters,” said Farrukh Saleem from the Centre for Research and Security Studies.

“First are the Taliban from Afghanistan. They, along with Al Qaeda, are using Pakistan as a sanctuary. Then there are the local, Pakistani Taliban who want to create their own Islamic state in Pakistan. The third are tribal militias who, due to local politics and considerations, have decided to support the Taliban.”

This third category of tribal militias changes its allegiances often depending upon the situation on the ground. Sometimes they fight alongside the Pakistan army. At other times they remain neutral.

Confusion over whom particular tribes support may have contributed to some of the civilian casualties caused by Pakistan army operations.

Yet some believe the Pakistan army deliberately targets civilians perceived to be sympathetic to the Taliban or local political groups.

That is certainly the sentiment among displaced people in camps throughout the North-West Frontier Province.

In the hamlet of Timagara, at the foothills of conflict-ridden Bajaur, displaced villagers live in basic camps without electricity or running water and limited access to food. They recount shocking stories of civilians being attacked by the Pakistan Army.

“On the second day of Ramadan (3 September) the bombardment started again,” recalled Haji Mohammad Noor Khan, a community elder from the Baramamond near Kunar province Afghanistan district of Bajaur.

At the beginning of the fasting month of Ramadan, on 2 September, Pakistan Adviser on Interior Rehman Malik announced a ceasefire of hostilities between the army and militants. Bajauri civilians fleeing the conflict were told it was safe to return to their homes.

But many who decided to make the journey back to their villages said they found themselves the target of Pakistan army mortars and helicopter gunships.

“It was very clear. They would bomb the civilians (and) not the suspected Taliban hideouts,” said Misael Khan, another village elder. “The Taliban have (clearly identifiable) utility vehicles, yet the army always targets our civilian buses. They cut our electricity but not the Taliban’s… Actually I think they are afraid of (attacking) them.”

Another man in the camp, who declined to be identified, said: “The bombardment left huge craters, each around 20 feet wide. People talk about (the violence in) Afghanistan and India, but what about us? We are being targeted like foreign invaders. We fear the Taliban too (but) not even they target civilians in this way.”

Displaced villagers in Peshawar cite Pakistan army attacks on civilians as the primary reason for their decision to leave.

“We were buying sweets for Eid when a helicopter came and fired at a car,” said Nasir Khan from Bajaur. “It was totally destroyed. I think (the blast) killed people in the market too… I didn’t wait to find out. I left yesterday evening with my family.”

The allegations have been corroborated by former Pakistan soldiers. One such soldier is 22 year old Farooq, who fought with the paramilitary Swat Scouts.

“We were ordered to fire mortars on unarmed civilians… I don’t know how many (civilians) I might have killed. It is still happening now,” he recalled, visibly shaken.

“They are killing men, women, children, everyone… I said, enough, I won’t kill anymore.”

The Pakistan army vehemently denies these allegations.

“Of course, such allegations are false,” said Pakistan Army spokesperson Lt-Col. Baseer Haider at the Pakistan Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi. “We do not target civilians. Our writ is to remove the extremists… and bring order.”

Yet the claims come at a time when Pakistan authorities are boasting they have killed 1,000 militants in September in one offensive alone near the Afghan border at Bajaur. It is unclear whether the figure includes civilians suspected of supporting pro-Taliban militias.

But even if civilians have not been deliberately targeted, authorities are struggling to cope with the humanitarian repercussions of the conflict. On 23 September, UNHCR announced that it needed $17 million to help those displaced by war and flooding in Pakistan’s conflict-ridden northwest.

On the same day as the UNCHR announcement, five people were killed by police in the Swat district of North-West Frontier Province during a series of protests against the lack of basic necessities like electricity and the inability of authorities to protect civilians and property from army and Taliban attacks.

The deaths prompted the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan to issue a press release demanding that authorities do more to safeguard civilians.

Those demands may be falling on deaf years. This weekend, local media carried reports that Swat was on the verge of complete civil disorder. Other tribal agencies may soon follow.

If that occurs, Pakistan, and the world, will have more than just religious extremists to

Who would do such a thing?

On Saturday 20 September twin suicide attacks turned a luxury hotel in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad into a desolate, black hulk liable to collapse at any moment. A giant crater, measuring around 20 feet deep and 40 feet across, replaced what once was an entrance lined with cars and fences.

Sixty to seventy people are believed to have been killed and many hundreds more injured, mostly Pakistanis – drivers, security guards, attendants, and many others gathering to break the day’s Ramadan fast. The blast also claimed the lives of at least five foreigners, including the Czech Ambassador and two US Defence Department workers.

An immediate question asked by many among the suburbs and cities of Pakistan and the world is how anyone could ever commit such an atrocity, let alone conceive of it.

The villagers of Pakistan’s Dir Agency, between the conflict-ridden tribal agencies of Bajaur and Swat, may have the answer to that.

“We were ordered to fire 130 kg mortars on unarmed civilians… I don’t know how many civilians I might have killed. It is still happening now,” says 22 year old Dir villager Farooq as he recalls his days fighting the Taliban in Swat with the Pakistan Army. “They are killing men, women, children, everyone.”

“I said, enough, I won’t kill anymore.”

Farooq has returned to the family farm, but he is effectively unemployed. He was visibly shaken as he recounted his experiences.

According to Farooq and others interviewed in Dir Agency, the Pakistan Army deliberately uses predominantly Shia soldiers against the Taliban and civilians in Swat, both of whom are Sunni, to stoke sectarian conflict. The Shia soldiers come from Khurram Agency, another tribal area which is itself experiencing sectarian clashes between Shia and Sunni communities.

“Of course, such allegations are false. It doesn’t matter whether our troops are Shia or not we do not target civilians,” says Pakistan Army spokesperson Lt-Col. Baseer Haider at the Pakistan Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi.

Whether or not the allegations are true there is now a strong anti-Shia sentiment in the region, even in areas like Dir where there is no Shia population. The streets in the village of Butkhela, for instance, are littered with graffiti declaring the apostasy of the Shia.

“When Shia die in Khurram [in tribal clashes] or Swat [when fighting with the Pakistan Army] we celebrate,” says Kashif, another Dir resident, “they are not our brothers.”

It is difficult to know who is friend or foe in the conflicts now engulfing Pakistan’s tribal border regions with Afghanistan.

The uncertainty has left ordinary people wary of all the antagonists from the Taliban and the Pakistan Army to local militias and bandits. Yet it may surprise outsiders to know that most of the local antipathy is reserved for the Pakistan Army because it has been implicated in several atrocities involving civilians.

In the town of Timagara, at the foothills of the mountainous region of Bajaur, people live in basic camps without electricity or running water and limited access to food. At displaced person camps such as this people recount shocking stories of wanton targeting of civilians by the Pakistan Army.

“On the second day of Ramadan [3 September] the bombardment started again,” recalls Haji Mohammad Noor Khan, a community elder from the Waremond district of Bajaur.

At the beginning of the fasting month of Ramadan, on 2 September, Pakistan Adviser on Interior Rehman Malik announced a ceasefire of hostilities between the Army and militants. Bajauri civilians fleeing the conflict, around 300,000 according to the Red Cross and the Pakistan Government, were told it was safe to return to their homes.

But many who decided to take the journey back to their villages found themselves the target of Pakistan Army mortars and helicopter gunships.

“It was very clear. They would bomb the civilians [and] not the suspected Taliban hideouts. The Taliban have [clearly identifiable] utility vehicles, yet the Army always targets our civilian buses. They cut our electricity but not the Taliban’s… actually I think they are afraid of [attacking] them,” said Misael Khan, another village elder.

“The bombardment left huge craters, each around 20 feet wide. People talk about [the violence in] Afghanistan and India, but what about us? We are being targeted like foreign invaders. We fear the Taliban too [but] not even they target civilians in this way,” said another man in the camp who refused to be identified.

In Timagara the displaced villagers may be safe, but life remains difficult. People are forced to live outside empty rooms that remain locked because the Pakistan Government insists that it is safe for them to return home. The conditions are so poor that, despite their poverty, many have now left the camp in search of a new life in other parts of Pakistan.

“Our people have fought and died for Pakistan in all of its wars. But not anymore,” decries Noor Khan. “If ever there is another war with India, don’t expect us to fight.”

The Marriott bombers may have mostly killed fellow Muslims in Islamabad last Saturday, but for many fleeing the violence in Swat and Bajaur, that makes them no worse than the Pakistan Army.

The only experience of foreigners in these remote areas, likewise, comes from reports of civilian casualties following US and NATO strikes on their fellow Pashtuns in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It’s then no wonder that the Taliban and Al Qaeda manage to recruit people to commit more suicide attacks on their own countrymen and women?

Some of the names in this report have been changed to protect their identity.