Pakistani internal security (catch all)

[davidbfpo]

The Tehreek-e-Taliban's (TTP) murderous attack on an Army Public School @ Peshawar, is being widely reported - with 132 children and 9 staff killed. For details:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-30507836

SWC has followed events in Pakistan for a long time now, sometimes angry, often frustrated and frequently puzzled at the actions of an 'ally'. I suspect some will say nothing will change, so embedded is tolerance of some non-state violent actors within the Pakistani state.

In my reading I found these commentaries useful. First Zoha Waseem, a Pakistani @ KIngs War Studies:http://strifeblog.org/2014/12/16/ove...shawar-attack/

It includes the TTP explanation for the attack:

Our suicide bombers have entered the school. They have instructions not to harm the children, but to target the army personnel. We targeted the school because the army targets our families. We want them to feel out pain. It’s a revenge attack for the army offensive in North Waziristan.

Shashank Joshi, of RUSI, provides the wider, public context based on Pew's opinion polling earlier this year:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...CC=3009934309&

....8% of surveyed Pakistanis held a favourable view of the TTP. This is a small proportion, and belies the notion of widespread popularity. Nonetheless, on a crude extrapolation, it would amount to a staggering 14 million Pakistanis. Although a much larger slice of the population holds negative views of the Taliban (59%), this disapproval rate has fallen steadily from a high of 70% in 2009....

Finally Imran Awan, a British academic, calmly points aout the difference between Islam and terror:http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/imra...?utm_hp_ref=tw

Personally I cannot see the stance of the whole Pakistani state changing, it may change the attitude of the Army to being far harder. The Pakistani public simply see India as the threat, regardless of how many Pakistanis die.

[Ray]

Is the indignation in Pakistan genuine and will it last?

Sharif has said that there is no good Taliban.

But has he acted?

Hafeez Saeed the mastermind of the Mumbai carnage roams free even though he has been declared by the UN and the US as a terrorist. US has put a bounty on his head.

Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, accused of planning the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai in which 166 people were killed six years ago has been granted bail.

These are all cosmetic stuff. Nothing will change.

Salmaan Taseer, 26th governor of the province of Punjab from 2008 was assassinated in early 2011 by his own security guard Mumtaz Qadri, who disagreed with Taseer's opposition to Pakistan's blasphemy law.

The Jamaat Ahle Sunnat, an Islamic religious organisation representing the Barelvi movement, issued an advisory against mourning his death. They also declared Qadri a "hero of the Muslim world."

Pakistan A Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan commander in South Waziristan said that Taseer would have been assassinated anyway "very soon" even if he had not been killed by Qadri.

Politicians of Pakistan 'mourned' his death, but the Govt remained impotent and scared.

Those who understand the Pakistan psyche will know that a leopard can't change its spots.

Hilary Clinton has warned Pakistan by stating "It's like that old story - you can't keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbours. Eventually those snakes are going to turn on whoever has them in the backyard",

Clinton said this during a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar.

Pak Army and the ISI has spawned the Taliban for strategic reasons.

But these depraved people the Taliban has bitten the hand that feeds by killing children of the Army that sponsors them.

Will the Army forgive?

Maybe since they have strategic reasons to foist a 'strategic weapon' of their creation even if it is a Frankenstein.

***************

Is there a difference between Islam and Terror?

Must be, but the whole image is blurring since the Islamic countries and people themselves are doing sweet nothing to rein in these elements or make strident campaigns against those, who they claim is giving Islam a 'bad name'.

The passivity translates as unsaid unequivocal support.

They have even taken on Australia. It is cute to call it a 'lone wolf' attack. Lone Wolf? What made him join the wolf pack is what is the million dollar question that requires to be nipped in the bud and not get into political correctness of calling it a 'lone wolf' issues.

Too many 'lone wolves' seem to be howling at the Moon of Islam world ascendancy.

It is time for the world to smell the coffee and be serious about this scourge.

Islam has it place and it must be given its space. But it cannot transcend on others' space either.

The fundamentalist Islam is spawning neo Nazis around the world and that too is dangerous.

Germany recently had a Neo Nazi march that was well attended by even those who were not sympathisers. People around the world are getting radicalised because of the Islam aggressive advent and activities.

It is time to make the world an area of peace and not of strife on stupid reasons.

*****************

Imran Awan, a British academic is the typical fraud cloaking his thoughts with fraudulent ideas claiming Killed for Simply Going to School, Don't Blame Religion - Blame Terror

Good man, who sponsored Terror in the first place. Let's go back to that Machiavellian bloke Zia, who pampered Islamists to give legitimacy to his illegitimate government?

And why has religion not fought back against those who terrorise in the name of religion, if that is false in Islam?

His contention is the stupidity that is perpetrated by this so called 'intellectuals' to divert from the crux of the issue. Islam is a religion of Peace! If so, do something and go after them and annihilate them, so that there is Peace. Sticks and Stones can alone harm them, woolly woolly esoteric talk wont.

[omarali50]

Short Answer: No.

Long answer: http://brownpundits.blogspot.com/201...mes-again.html

Excerpts:

There has been an explosion of outrage in Pakistan. Even Imran Khan managed to condemn the TTP by name (though PTI's offical account still tweeted that "Whoever" did this, did something awful). The Pakistani state has reportedly stuck back already at Taliban targets. The PM and the army chief have promised action (and are likely sincere, as far as that goes). The media has condemned the attack. Social media has been on fire. So far so good.
But within hours, the narrative has already started to fracture. First the media groups managed to invite people like Hamid Gul, Hafiz Saeed and Maulana Abdul Aziz (of Red mosque fame) to comment on this terrorist attack. And they managed to muddle the issue with references to the Indian hand and the eternal enemies of Pakistan (Afghanistan, Jews, America, that sort of thing). And on ARY (the most pro-army of Pakistan's many pro-army channels) the anchors themselves have been leading the charge. Mubasher Lucman, for example, angrily demanded that the first step needed at this time was to ban Indian overflights to Afghanistan! Top Military propagandist Ahmed Qureshi and loonies like Zaid Hamid have been busy blustering about how India will be made to pay for this latest atrocity.
The more things change. .

I wrote a piece three and a half years ago about the Pakistani anti-terror narrative and it's confusions and it is depressing to find that little or nothing needs to be changed in that article. The entire piece, unedited, is pasted at the end of this post.

There is a lot of talk about how this particular horrendous event is SO horrendous that now things really HAVE to change. Maybe. But do keep in mind that this is not the first mass casualty attack. There have been attacks on the Marriot hotel, an Ahmedi mosque, a volleyball match, a meena bazar, a church, even a mosque near GHQ (where the son of a corps commander was among the civilian victims killed in cold blood). And of course there have been countless massacres of Hazara and other Shias. Literally thousands of people have died in these attacks. But until now, there is no evidence that the army has changed it's basic "good terrorist/bad terrorist" policy. Terrorists who kill schoolchildren and shoot up railway stations in Kabul and Mumbai are good. Terrorists who kill children in Pakistan are bad. That policy has not worked for 13 years. It is not going to start working now.

How can we tell that GHQ is really changing policy:

1. Ahmed Qureshi and Zaid Hamid are suddenly out of a job and publicly disowned by the army.
2. Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was sentenced to death years ago for the killing of Daniel Pearl (a terrorist act he may not have committed, though he has surely committed many others). He has not been hanged. In fact there are intermittent reports of him living it up in prison. If he is hanged, that will be a sign of change. Especially since his handler was the famous brigadier Ejaz Shah (a close associate of the father of the double game, Pervez Musharraf himself).
3. Mumbai attackers rapid trial and punishment. Outside of Pakistan, everybody and their aunt knows that a group of ten terrorists from Pakistan landed in Mumbai in 2008 and cold bloodedly killed a 168 innocent people. In a famous picture, one of the attackes is calmly walking down the platform at Mumbai Railway station, shooting random civilians sitting on the platform.

Because of international pressure, the FIA (federal investigation agency) in Pakistan actually carried out a very thorough inquiry in Pakistan and identified several people who arranged things for the killers, who trained them, who sent them on their way. The FIA may not have reached all the way to the top, but they certainly made a case against some of the lower level people involved. But 6 years have passed and the trial of these terrorists has not moved forward. The prosecutor has been shot dead. And the supposed military mastermind (Zaki ur Rahman Lakhvi of the JUD/LET) is living it up in prison, and reportedly even got married and conceived a child in prison. If the army has changed it's mind about terrorism, then the trial of these terrorists has to move forward.

Unless you see some of these happenings, things will go back to "normal" ....

A dissenting note about the double game from a friend on facebook:
no, not a double game any more. they are being played by the taliban now, manipulating the internecine fault-lines inside the ISI and the army. they don't mind a few casualties in the mountains, if that is the price (in fact their foot-soldiers welcome the chance for martyrdom). they have the indomitable resolution of a madman doing god's work, while the army has the emptied ideology of a failed religious state being devoured by corruption. by day the generals pay hollow homage to the motherland and at night send tithes to their new fathers in the mountains, hoping to buy personal protection from the next suicide attack for themselves and their families.

A more sober take from the redoubtable Ahsan Butt on Five Rupees.

POSTSCRIPT: it is not looking good for those who thought some great sea change is coming. The script on the media has changed on PTV and to some extent on GEO, but remains the same on other channels and especially on the army's favorite channels like ARY and Dunya..... Blame India, CIA and the Jews. Invite Hafiz Saeed, Hamid Gul and other similar jokers to fog everything up. Bomb someone in the tribal areas and generate suspiciously exact body counts.
Until the next bombing.
Unfortunately it does look like the song remains the same...

Postscript2: Got some feedback from people focused on the role of Islam in these outrages. I would like to emphasize that while various forms of Islamism are causing problems in many parts of the world, Islam is NOT the proximate cause of the choices made by the Pakistani establishment. Hard Paknationalism is the primary driver. Someone like Musharraf (father of the infamous double-game) was not too bothered about Islam. What caused him to maintain the Taliban and other Jihadist groups was Paknationalism; specifically the "hard paknationalist" belief that we have to defeat India and to do that we need certain force multipliers/strategic-assets/deniable-non-state-actors and the Jihadis are the only people who will do that job. It is this belief that drives the "good-taliban/bad-Taliban" policy and the double games it entails. Commitment to fundamentalist Islam has little or nothing to do with it. (though of course, no Islam, no partition in the first place, so there are other turtles below the first one)...

Btw, Zaki ur Rahman Lakhvi's bail was approved today. Talk about timing and messaging. The message is clear. We have Uncle Sam over a barrel. Nothing is going to change.

[Ray]

A very analytical post by omarali50.

worth note.

[davidbfpo]

The BBC's Owen Bennett-Jones comments:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-30520596

Shashank Joshi has an article in the FT (behind a registration wall) and this paragraph, which alas illustrates all too well the problem in Pakistan:

When General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s former military dictator, argued on Wednesday that India should be held responsible for the previous day’s massacre, he was only echoing a wave of similar delusion on social media. From there, it is a short step to the view that the solution is more LeT, more Haqqanis and more Afghan Taliban — whatever the price to innocent civilians.

Link:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9fc7bb30-8...#axzz3MIFBDs9R

Twitter reports that the death warrants for six Pakistani convicted terrorists have been signed by the Army Chief of Staff; they were convicted in military courts and security is being increaded @ Karachi Jail, where they are held - prior to execution.

[davidbfpo]

On Twitter based on a Pakistan MoD Tweet:

TTP commander Fazal Ullah was killed in an airstrike carried out by PAF jets inside Afghanistan......The SSG operators have now responded with the visual confirmation of the dead body of TTP commander Fazal Ullah.

[davidbfpo]

Also from a Pakistani MoD Tweet and this will make the pakistani people think:

PM Sharif signs death penalty for 122 terrorists who were awaiting death sentences due to Moratorium.

(Earlier) 8 more terrorists to be hanged anytime soon. Death warrants received by Jail Superintendents.

BBC background on the then possible hangings:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-30556260