Saving Pakistan's Heartland

While media attention has focused on the battle for control in its restive tribal areas, Pakistan needs to develop a strategy for thwarting the creeping Talibanization of its urban centers.

BY AHMED HUMAYUN | FEBRUARY 8, 2010

In recent weeks, Washington has strongly urged Islamabad to expand counterinsurgency in Pakistan's tribal areas. This encouragement is vital: Despite some military gains, a wide range of militant groups continue to enjoy sanctuary in northwestern Pakistan. At the same time, however, a spate of bloody attacks in major cities -- such as a recent assault on a Shiite religious procession in Karachi -- has underscored the Taliban's growing presence beyond the border regions. The United States should not underestimate the strategic importance of countering the Taliban advance into key urban centers. In particular, Washington should increase the attention paid to Islamabad's civilian counterterrorism efforts in the provinces of Punjab and Sindh.

The stability of Pakistan's critical regions of political and economic power -- cities such as Karachi in Sindh and Lahore in Punjab -- is not only pivotal to the short-term success of the counterinsurgency in the northwestern regions, but it is also essential to the survival of the fragile, nuclear-armed democracy in the long run.

For one thing, Taliban chapters in major centers of economic activity are a significant source of revenue for the insurgency. Pakistan's large urban areas are an ideal venue for criminal activity: Wealth is concentrated, while security and governance are weak. Last year, the Taliban's Karachi chapter raised millions of dollars through extortion, protection rackets, kidnappings, and even bank heists. In effect, militants are adroitly exploiting the civilian security vacuum in the south to fund their war against the state in the north.

Pakistan's major cities also connect jihadists to the world beyond Pakistan. Taliban leaders use poorly secured airports and ports to seek sanctuary abroad. In October, approximately 60 of the Swat Taliban's second-tier leadership escaped to the Middle East through Karachi. Currently, other militants from Pakistan are relocating to countries such as Yemen and Somalia.

Rampant insecurity in urban areas also provides the Pakistani Army with leverage in its long-running political tug of war with the democratic government. Jihadists have dramatically escalated their attacks on noncombatants in recent months, killing more than 600 Pakistanis since October alone. From the public's perspective, President Asif Ali Zardari's government has been hapless in the face of the Taliban's brazen aggression. By contrast, military spokesmen tout new figures of militants killed in the tribal areas on a daily basis, and retired generals on news channels routinely juxtapose the heroism of their soldiers with the inefficiency of the civilian regime. The more Pakistanis feel vulnerable, the more they will be willing to trade democracy for security.

In the long run, continued instability in the Pakistani heartland jeopardizes the state's very existence. If the Taliban assault on the cities remains unchecked, Pakistan's professional class, which is instrumental in delivering civil services and spurring economic growth, will seek opportunities abroad. The departure of the skilled middle class, the only people who can hold Pakistan together, may trigger state collapse.

Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images

 

Ahmed Humayun is a senior analyst on the Emerging Threats Project at Georgetown University's Imaging Science and Information Systems Center, which is funded by the DNI Open Source Center. He can be reached at humayun@isis.georgetown.edu.

 

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JAYDEE001

1:10 PM ET

February 9, 2010

This fight may already be lost...

"In the long run, continued instability in the Pakistani heartland jeopardizes the state's very existence."

Eight years into the conflict in Afghanistan, and now we are to be concerned about the possibility that militant Islamists may eventually rise to power in Pakistan? That train has already left the station!

The levels of governmental corruption are too isidious, the long history of outright collaboration with more militant elements of the Taliban is too great, and (as usual) our reaction is too little and too late. Like it or not, we may have to acknowledge eventually that Pakistan is lost. Remember, these were the people who were our collaborators when we supported the Taliban in their fight to expel the occupiers from the Soviet Union.

OBL and the Taliban leadership have been sheltered in the Pakistani tribal areas for years, probably with the knowledge if not the active assistance of the Pakistani intelligence service. We managed to drive the Taliban and al Qaeda leaders from Afghanistan but they had far too long to consolidate their base in Quetta, while their fighters still engage US and other occupying forces in that country. We, and our Pakistani 'allies' have, through ineptitiude and lack of focus, enabled them to use that base to begin the destabilisation and eventual takeover of the real prize - Pakistan and its nuclear weaponry.

I would not want to bet on the long-term survival of the Pakistani state. Once again, the US has put our money on the wrong horse, and we may have to accept an outcome that will not be satisfactory at all.

 

_YOURSTRULY_

4:47 PM ET

February 9, 2010

Pakistan's populace is responsible for their own fate...

From the morning after its coming into existence, the people of Pakistan have practised and encouraged religious bigotry. Against Shias, against Christians, against Ahmadees, against Hindus, and all others.
That's was like cuddling with a cobra pet for sixty plus years. A snake is a snake.
Now when their own nourished snake is biting them in the rear Pakistanis cannot stop blaming India or the USA or everyone else, except themselves.
For sixty years Pakistanis, illiterate and educated all alike, have cherished and sown the seeds of religious bigotry. Now, unfortunately the time has come to reap the harvest...
Sixty years of practising intolerance and bigotry has resulted Pakistan becoming a failing state. There is still time for Pakistani's to realize their mistakes and learn their lessons. STOP BLAMING OTHERS FOR YOUR OWN DECISIONS AND CHOICES. Time's running out. History tells us that failing states don't stay too long in the failing state before they are gone forever....

 

SURESH SHETH

3:24 PM ET

February 10, 2010

Saving Pakistan's heartland

Nobody forced Pakistani government to facilitate relocation of Osama bin Laden from Sudan to Afghanistan in 1996. Democratic government of Pakistan chose to do so of its own free will.

Ex-CIA official Bruce Riedel said in an interview on 1/29/2009 that ''In Pakistan, the jihadist Frankenstein monster that was created by the Pakistani army and the Pakistani intelligence service, is now increasingly turning on its creators. It's trying to take over the laboratory.'' Pakistani Army and Intelligence Service (ISI) chose to create this ‘jihadist Frankenstein monster’ with full blessings and financing by Pakistan’s democratic governments in 1990s.

Sandy Berger, Bill Clinton’s national security advisor told 9/11 Commission in March, 2004 that ’Pakistani Army was the midwife of Taliban’.

Declassified DIA Washington D.C., "IIR (intelligence Information Report) Pakistan Involvement in Afghanistan," dated November 7, 1996 states how "Pakistan's ISI is heavily involved in Afghanistan," and also details different roles various ISI officers play in Afghanistan. Stating that Pakistan uses sizable numbers of its Pashtun-based Frontier Corps in Taliban-run operations in Afghanistan, the document clarifies that, "these Frontier Corps elements are utilized in command and control; training; and when necessary combat“.

Declassified U.S. Department of State, Cable "Pakistan Support for Taliban" from Islamabad dated Sept. 26, 2000 states that "while Pakistani support for the Taliban has been long-standing, the magnitude of recent support is unprecedented." In response Washington orders the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad to immediately confront Pakistani officials on the issue and to advise Islamabad that the U.S. has "seen reports that Pakistan is providing the Taliban with materiel, fuel, funding, technical assistance and military advisors. [The Department] also understand[s] that large numbers of Pakistani nationals have recently moved into Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban, apparently with the tacit acquiescence of the Pakistani government." Additional reports indicate that direct Pakistani involvement in Taliban military operations has increased.

So Pakistan is suffering from these self-inflicted wounds and will continue to suffer as long as Pakistan’s - democratic as well as military - governments continue to create, shelter, nurture and support innumerable home-grown terrorist outfits.

 

_YOURSTRULY_

10:27 PM ET

February 10, 2010

Your blame on Pakistan is correct but not the full picture...

Yes. Pakistan did participate in making Afghanistan a problem for the whole world.
But it is not fair to present selective facts.
Pakistan did all of the above but at the behest of whom?
At the behest of the US and other Western countries, who then wanted to make Afghanistan a cemetery for the Soviets. To that end Pakistan was given all the needed money and resources to bring whomever the Pakistanis wanted to bring to Afghanistan. That included Osama and his lackeys, Uzbek terrorists, Pakistan's own home grown mullah terrorists, whom Pakistan had nurtured for fifty plus years. And any one else who wanted to get dollars in return for fighting the Russians.
It doesn't seem that you have seen the movie 'Charlie Wilson's War'. I recommend that you do. It will add immensely to your knowledge of the real history of what happened in Afghanistan and who did what, and will help you get a balanced perspective.

And then, as we all know, after the Russians were defeated, the US and the rest of the West packed up and departed, just like after a circus is over.
Afghanis were literally left abandoned and so were the hundreds of thousands of foreign merceneries who had been brought into Afghanistan. And because of how the West treated them they are now ready to do to the West what they were trained to do to the Russians. Then they were 'mujahideen', now they are 'terrorists'.

Inspite of this major blunder of a 'quick adventure' in Afghanistan against the Russians, the US did not learn a thing. They repeated the same mistake in Iraq. Mr. Bush opened up the pandoras box in Iraq for the benefit of a quick re-election victory and have left an enormous mess which will affect generations of Americans to come. The worst in Iraq is yet to come.

This brings me to a stark reality which stands out over and over in review of Vietnam, of Korea, of Afghanistan then, of Iraq and of Afghanistan now, that the Western democratic process of leadership is responsible for creating these quagmires, one after the other.
Western leaders in general, and those in US in particular, will start wars, kill nationals of other countries by the hundreds of thousands, get their own troops killed and maimed by the tens of thousands, and create enromous amount of carnage and suffering all over, just to meet their four-year agendas, and perhaps a re-election for another four years.
They don't give an iota of a hoot to what happens after them, or what the consequences might be long term for their own country, much less for the rest of the world.

Had Mr. McCain won, Iran would have been bombed by now. And I won't be surprised at all if Mr. Obama resorts to taking this ace away from the Republicans before he gets too close to the next elections. So it looks to me that the fate of the world is tied to which war monger gets elected where in the West next.
Each time war mongers are elected in the US and other western countries you can bet there will be more new wars and more suffering started before their four years are over.

Again, Charlie Wilson's War is a great example of this four-year cycle of war mongering.

I am not optimistic that there is any solution to this quick benefit war mongering....

 

ALEX1234

11:28 PM ET

March 9, 2010

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