“Talibanization of Pakistan: From 9/11 to 26/11” is a comprehensive and equally authoritative handbook on the rise and growth of the Islamic militant groups in Pakistan which are threatening not only the neighbouring countries but also the very society that sustains them. The 422-page book, which is both insightful and frightening, is a depressing account of the present state of affairs in the post 26/11 Pakistan. The author maintains that Pakistan might be a frontline state in the war against terror but jehadi groups continue to thrive there with the tacit support of sections of the military and intelligence establishments.
Published by the New Delhi-based Pentagon Security International, an imprint of the Pentagon Press, the newly published book is a in fact combination of information and analyses of the post-9/11 state of the militant Islam and the jehadi organisations in Pakistan, particularly in the aftermath of the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks. The book, dedicated to the former Pakistani Prime Minister Late Benazir Bhutto, takes stock of the present-day Pakistan; eight years after the 9/11 attacks that shook the entire world. It notes that Pakistan, despite being a key American ally in the war against terror for years, continues to be plagued with the peril of the growing Talibanisation.
The book portrays a dangerous and tragic picture of Pakistan, which had been founded by Mohammad Ali Jinnah, a secular and moderate leader, stating that Pakistan has to be part of globalization or you end up with the Talibanization. “Talibanization of Pakistan: From 9/11 to 26/11” is the story of a monster created by the Frankenstein state which is now out to devour its own master. The book is packed with events and anecdotes which, when juxtaposed give a clear view of how individuals as well as institutions have, in their own ways and for their own self-seeking agendas, watched the creation of a jehadi culture. The writer states that Talibanization of Pakistan is in fact the blowback of the country’s powerful establishment’s flawed policy of using jehadi indoctrination to advance its geo-strategic agenda in the region.
However, with the so-called strategic depth no longer in sight, Pakistan’s own social fabric is at risk since al-Qaeda and Taliban currently pose an existential threat to Pakistan itself. As the menace of the Islamic militancy spreads like a jungle fire across the country, the Taliban militia and the al-Qaeda network continues to thrive by evolving a modus operandi that exploits its local affiliates – the Pakistani militant organisations active in neighbouring India, Jammu Kashmir and Afghanistan – to pursue their global jehadi agenda. The writer has attempted to put together the published and unpublished facts about the Pakistani militant groups and their leaders, as well as their links with al-Qaeda and Taliban and the role of the Pakistani intelligence agencies. The book can well be described as a mosaic of information on the past and present of the Pakistani militant groups, their historical roots, and a background of their leaders, in such a way that it creates a narrative to help the reader analyse the situation in present-day Pakistan.
The writer maintains that the swelling forces of extremism along the troubled Pak-Afghan border not only pose a grave threat to the US-led Allied Forces in Afghanistan but also to India and Pakistan. Despite the deployment of 80,000 Pakistani troops along the Pak-Afghan border to counter terrorism, the situation remains unstable in the rugged tribal region which is crucial to four key world capitals – Islamabad, New Delhi, Washington and Kabul. The extent of the threat can be gauged from the spreading influence of the militancy from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) to the settled urban areas of Pakistan like Peshawar, Quetta, Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi or Islamabad.
With Islamic militancy and the extremist jehadi groups literally marching on the state; the Taliban forces are nowhere near defeated either in Pakistan or in Afghanistan. Senior Obama administration officials and the commanders of the NATO and the ISAF troops stationed in Afghanistan have accused the Pakistani intelligence establishment of pursuing a policy of running with the hare and hunting with the hound. With the assumption of the White House by Democrats, the Obama administration has intensified pressure on Islamabad to do more in the war on terror, saying if there is one country that matters most to the future of al-Qaeda; it is none other than Pakistan.
Amidst all these developments, Pakistan today faces a complex security situation which can have adverse spill-over effects for its neighbouring India and Afghanistan as well. The book takes off with the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, stating that the Indo-Pak relations, which appeared to be on course towards normalisation after return of civilian rule in Islamabad in the wake of the 2008 general elections, have touched rock bottom after the Mumbai mayhem, believed to be carried out by a group of ten Lashkar-e-Toiba operatives. The gory incident, which killed 175 people, came as a devastating blow to the Indo-Pak peace process. This attack has drawn international rage against the Pakistan-based pro-Kashmir jehadi organizations.
Besides profiling the lethal Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and its founding ameer Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the book brings to life the sketches of Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi the chief operational commander of the LeT and the prime suspect in the 26/11 attacks and Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving Mumbai attacker. The motto jehad against India has been a defining feature in the life of Zaki Lakhvi, who is now being tried by a Pakistani anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi. While profiling Hafiz Saeed, the book states that for the LeT founder, ‘killing infidels is a pious man’s obligation and it is his duty to destroy the forces of evil and disbelief.’ The book claims that the LeT infrastructure as well as its leadership continues to survive and morph into something that threatens both India and Pakistan.
The book then moves ahead to profile almost all the important militant groups in Pakistan which are either active in Jammu & Kashmir or in Afghanistan, besides exploring their clandestine links with the Pakistani intelligence agencies and the fugitive leadership of Taliban and al-Qaeda. It states that long before the 9/11, which had prompted the US to launch its war on terror; India had been the only country accusing the ISI of fomenting terror in its neighbourhood. When the Pakistani establishment would dismiss these allegations, the international community would mostly accept this logic with the problem being confined to the Indo-Pak subcontinent. This perception, however, has changed drastically, considering the flood of charges from around the world against the ISI since the 26/11 attacks.
The book states that while the Pakistani establishment under President General (retd) Pervez Musharraf had been making overt noises about clamping down on the terrorist outfits, they had implemented only half-hearted measures against them. These outfits were still considered by many in the Pakistan intelligence establishment as the civilian face of the Army. The book then dwells upon why the decision-makers in the White House keep questioning Pakistan’s role in the war against terror, adding that seven years after the 9/11 attacks, Islamabad’s cooperation on terrorism continues to be under suspicion by the international community. He says that the root of the problem seems to be the ambivalence of the Pakistani establishment vis-à-vis Islamic militants, and its failure to stop using terrorism as an instrument of state policy.
The book states that the religious and sectarian wars are not only being exported to other countries from the Pakistani soil, but they are being fought on the local turf as well, thus threatening the society that maintains them. Consequentially, highly-disciplined and motivated jehadi groups continue to operate in almost every neighbourhood of Pakistan, creating new models of terror such as suicide bombers. With the aim of purging ‘the land of the pure’ of all those elements who are siding with the forces of the infidel, this new breed of human bombs strike not only Western and American targets, but also the civil and military society of Pakistan.
The book then takes stock of the tragic assassination of the PPP chairperson and the former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and raises the key question of ‘who’ actually orchestrated her murder and ‘why.’ The book claims that Ms. Benazir herself was convinced that the most recent attempt on her life (carried out on 18 October 2007 on her welcome rally in Karachi) could not have been possible without the consent of General Pervez Musharraf. On 13 November 2007, hardly a few weeks before her murder, she told the author of the book in a one-on-one meeting in Lahore that Musharraf should be named for her murder if she is assassinated.
The book states that despite having been tagged by the Musharraf regime as the mastermind of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in Rawalpindi, the involvement of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) ameer Baitullah Mehsud in the murder remains dubious, keeping in view the TTP chief’s own denials as well as Benazir Bhutto’s declaration shortly before her death. While Benazir Bhutto had named in her posthumous book – “Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West” the Harkatul Jehadul Islami (HUJI) chief Qari Saifullah Akhtar as a key suspect in the bid to kill her in Karachi, upon her return home from exile, she had desired in her 20 October 2007 email to Wolf Blitzer of the CNN that General Musharraf should be named as her assassin in the event of her murder.
The book points out that in the aftermath of the July 2007 military operation against the fanatic clerics of the Lal Masjid in the heart of Islamabad, Pakistan has literally been turned into the suicide bombing capital of the world, with the security forces repeatedly being targeted in almost every nook and corner of Pakistan. It states that the Pakistani religious seminaries or madrassas have been at the centre of the debate on extremism and radicalisation of society, which has intensified after Musharraf had joined the US-led war on terror following the 9/11. However, it was only seven years later that the Operation Silence reinforced the Western notion about the Pakistani religious schools still being used as breeding grounds for Islamic militants and suicide bombers.
The last part of the book deals with the Pakistan government’s ongoing efforts to nip the evil of Talibanisation through a massive military operation in the picturesque Swat valley of the NWFP. The book describes Pakistan as the new battleground for the US-led war on al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked terrorists, a majority of whom are still hiding in the Pak-Afghan tribal belt, thus making the Waziristan region a prime target of the US-drone attacks. The book states that the Pakistani security forces appear to have achieved their main objective in Swat with the capture of its capital – Mingora. The army now seems to be preparing itself for a new front as clashes erupt across the tribal region of Waziristan.
Pakistani Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Kayani had declared on 4 June 2009 that the tide in Swat had decisively been turned against the Taliban with the Army’s resolve to defeat the terrorists. Even independent analysts have admitted that the Army seems to be winning the battle for Swat this time around. The reason stated has been simple: the 2009 military operation against the forces of fanaticism and extremism was wholeheartedly supported by the masses. While Pakistani public opinion has largely turned against the al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked militants groups active in the NWFP and FATA regions, there are still large pockets of support in the country’s powerful military and intelligence establishment for the pro-Kashmir jehadi organisations.
The book states that although the Pakistani authorities had initiated military action against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), which had dared to target the security and intelligence agencies, militant outfits which are active in Jammu & Kashmir simply escaped a concrete state action. Despite the involvement of the Lashkar-e-Toiba in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the ensuing international pressure on Islamabad to proceed against the culprits, only cosmetic measures were taken to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure of the pro-Kashmir jehadi organisations in Pakistan. This is due to the fact that the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment remains deeply embroiled with most of these jehadi proxies which are seen by many as the civilian face of the Pakistan Army.
Therefore, the writer maintains, neither Islamabad nor the wider region can hope for any possibilities of peace unless the Pakistani establishment decides to abandon employing terrorism as an instrument of state policy to advance its so-called geo-strategic agenda. A decisive action to dismantle the Pakistan-based militant organisations active in Jammu Kashmir, India and Afghanistan is a pre-requisite to rehabilitate the writ of the state of Pakistan. It is even more important to restore the confidence of the Pakistani masses in the ability and determination of their elected civilian government as well as the military leadership to curb the growing Talibanisation of Pakistan.
This is not a book for anyone who is looking for easy solutions; it will definitely not interest those who want to play the blame game. The author offers no quick fixes. Instead, he addresses the larger issue of Islamic fundamentalism by tracing the socio-political circumstances due to which Pakistan, as a nation state, got into this quagmire. Staying clear of cliché, he chronicles, defines, and places before his reader the various pieces of the jigsaw that, in conjunction with one another, helped create and nurture an Islamic worldview. His extraordinary first hand and second hand reportage takes the reader into mountains and plains, to shanty towns and capitals to know the guerrilla fighters, militant religious leaders, and terrorists.
What makes Amir Mir’s book worth reading is the way he treats his subject without sensationalizing or patronizing it. He has managed, against all odds, to get a fix on a phenomenon that is complex, elusive and kaleidoscopic. Moreover, his style of writing is so vivid that the book reads like a novel. Most impressive, however, is his ability to assess the situation with a clear eye, objective attitude and enormous intelligence. The book is essential reading for those interested in understanding contemporary Pakistan because this is a volume written not by someone from the safety of a foreign home but by a Pakistani living there and who has come under repeated pressure and threat for his bold writings. The author does not hesitate to call a spade a spade and therein lies the value of his insights.