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Zahid Hussain
IT was a well-coordinated wave of terrorist attacks across the troubled province that shook the country. The militants not only targeted security installations but also massacred bus passengers after checking their identity. It was one of bloodiest days in insurgency-hit Balochistan, leaving scores of people, including several security personnel, dead.
An outlawed Baloch separatist group has claimed responsibility. While the latest surge in violence demonstrates the growing capacity of the separatist groups to carry out high-profile terrorist attacks, it also raises questions about the state’s failure to deal with the serious security challenge extending from KP to Balochistan.
Both strategically located provinces have become battlegrounds for diverse militant groups challenging the writ of the state. While the security forces are fighting the group that seeks to enforce retrogressive Taliban rule in parts of KP, the Baloch separatist organisations have expanded their operations in restive Balochistan. The latest surge in violence has exposed the vulnerability of an increasingly fragmented state. The large toll of casualties suffered by the security forces underscores the gravity of the situation.
It is apparent that the Baloch militants are now better organised and seem to have a stronger support base that allows them to operate effectively. Unsurprisingly, all the attacks have taken place in a region that has long been the epicentre of political discontent. The low-intensity insurgency that has gripped the province for the past two decades is fast turning into a full-blown insurrection with the growing alienation of the local population. The latest high-profile militant attacks took place after weeks-long mass protests in southern Balochistan.
There is a need to look at the roots of the political unrest that is feeding into the rising insurgency.
There were not only targeted terrorist attacks, the militants reportedly also clashed with the security forces and blocked the highways connecting the province with other parts of the country. Some unconfirmed footage showed gunmen roaming the streets of Turbat, the second-largest town of the province. Government officials were also targeted. There was complete mayhem with the administration’s collapse in the troubled districts.
Most worrisome is the report of passengers being offloaded from buses on the main highway linking the province with Punjab and being shot in cold blood. This was not the first time; but it was the most heinous incident. The militants are increasingly targeting non-locals, most of them workers. Such incidents have given a horrific turn to the separatist militancy.
Indeed, no state can tolerate such acts of violence and challenge to its writ. There can be no two views about the state’s right to the use of force to fight off the menace of terrorism. But there is also a need to look at the roots of the political unrest that is feeding into the rising insurgency in the province. Despite its resort to kinetic measures, the state has failed to contain the insurgency. In fact, it has gained ground with the increasing alienation of the population that has been deprived of its democratic and economic rights.
The use of force to suppress protests and growing incidents of enforced disappearances has fuelled anger, particularly among the youth, providing the separatist groups with an increasing supply of recruits. What happened this week must not be seen in isolation. The responsibility of the tragic incident also lies with the state’s failure to address the genuine demands of the people.
The latest wave of terrorist attacks also marked the death anniversary of Nawab Akbar Bugti, a former governor and chief minister of Balochistan, and one of the most powerful tribal chieftains. He was killed in a military operation on Aug 26, 2006. His death contributed to what is described as the third (and longest) insurgency in the province.
Unlike the previous two, the nucleus of the current insurgency is not the region dominated by tribal chiefs. Most of the leaders of the separatist groups come from a middle-class, educated background rather than a tribal one. Writing in this space on Balochistan recently, Tariq Khosa described how state atrocities turned Dr Allah Nazar, a gold medallist from Bolan Medical College, into a dissident.
The leader of the Baloch Liberation Front, Allah Nazar had earlier been picked up by intelligence agencies in 2005. His brother was killed in illegal custody. The story of other dissidents is not very different. The continuing enforced disappearances and the dumping of tortured dead bodies are pushing many of the victims’ family members towards militancy. Even those who have been peacefully protesting against the state excesses are branded traitors.
It is the flawed approach of the security apparatus that has largely been responsible for the present state of affairs in the province. I remember being at a media briefing given by a top security official in Quetta in January 2017. He described “sub-nationalism” as a major problem. According to him, the main task before the security agencies was to turn it into nationalism. There was no answer when I asked why it was wrong to be a Baloch nationalist and how it clashed with one being a Pakistani at the same time.
This colonial mindset has also been the reason for the growing alienation of the Baloch nationalist leaders who chose to participate in mainstream politics. Every effort is made to keep the nationalist leaders out of power. The way political parties are created and installed in power in the province has made a mockery of the democratic process. The Feb 8 election was perhaps the worst example of the way the system is being manipulated in the province.
But the government, with its questionable legitimacy, is now being challenged by people’s power, as demonstrated by the recent protest marches in Gwadar and Turbat. The protesters are not separatist or terrorists but are being pushed to the wall by the state’s actions. No country can fight terrorism by alienating its population. There is no denying that some external forces are involved in supporting separatist groups in carrying out terrorist attacks. But outside forces can only fish in troubled waters.
The writer is an author and journalist.
zhussain100@yahoo.com
X: @hidhussain
Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2024
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DAWN Editorial
AFTER the shocking cycle of violence that began on Sunday night in Balochistan, the state is trying to formulate a response to the beleaguered province’s militancy problem.
Addressing a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the prime minister vowed to crack down on terrorism, insisting there was “no room for weakness”. In a related development, the interior minister dashed to Quetta, and while reiterating his support for the Balochistan chief minister, he observed that the entire national leadership was “working towards a solution” to address the province’s issues.
Past administrations have made similar resolves, using both carrots and sticks to ‘fix’ Balochistan. Yet, as the recent attacks have shown, the separatist threat has grown in lethality and reach, and a fresh approach is needed to bring peace to this tortured land.
The state’s prime responsibility is to stop further violence in Balochistan and ensure that the lives of its people are secure. While the security forces pursue terrorists, it must be ensured that no innocent people are hauled up in the dragnet, and that there are no human rights violations during counterterrorism operations. If innocent people are penalised, the terrorists’ narrative will only be strengthened.
Furthermore, the recent violence indicates an intelligence failure of significant proportions. Terrorists massacred bus passengers based on their ethnicity, while also attacking installations of security forces. And, this was not an assault in a limited area; the insurgents struck at multiple locations in the province. In fact, the sophistication of the attacks point to a high level of coordination and planning, possibly aided by hostile foreign forces. A full investigation, therefore, is required to unearth how terrorists were able to go on the rampage, causing such high loss of life.
As this paper has pointed out, the state’s response must go beyond kinetic measures. The prime minister said on Tuesday that talks could be held with those who “acknowledged Pakistan’s Constitution and flag”, but there could be no dialogue with terrorists.
Perhaps the administration can start with promising to ensure that the people of Balochistan have the protections guaranteed by the Constitution. Much of what ails the province is the result of denial of fundamental rights to Balochistan’s people, and lack of holistic development — health, education, economic opportunities — reaching its people. Correcting course would require engagement with the province’s genuine representatives, who are often crowded out by pro-establishment ‘influentials’ on the province’s political stage.
On the other hand, Baloch nationalist leaders should also condemn killings based on ethnicity, as such barbaric behaviour cannot be condoned. Ultimately, the rulers should realise that if people are not allowed to secure their rights — in Balochistan and other areas — through the peaceful democratic process, then the doors for rebellion and violence will be flung wide open.
Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2024
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Mahir Ali
THE inspired but abortive effort a century ago by a king and his feminist queen to thrust Afghanistan into their vision of modernity offers a stark contrast with the proclivities of that nation’s present rulers, whose mediaeval inclinations are crudely reflected in last week’s codification of an ostensibly faith-based but effectively barbaric ‘moral code’.
Amir Amanullah — whose ascent to the Kabul throne in 1919 was followed by strategic success in the third Anglo-Afghan war (the Rawalpindi peace treaty in August that year removed British influence over the conduct of Afghanistan’s foreign affairs, and established the Durand Line) — and Queen Soraya embarked on a reform programme that focused, among other things, on education (the literacy rate was about two per cent at the time), not least for girls, land reform, lifting the veil, and shaving off beards.
The Taliban last week formalised the denial of education to girls, reinforcing the invisibility of women — who can neither be seen nor heard (their voices apparently trigger irresistible impulses among the Taliban fraternity) without attracting penalties — and specifying the size of beards that men are obliged to sprout. With the partial exception of Iran, given its absurd and occasionally lethal obsession with the nitty-gritty of hijabs, hardly any other Muslim nation goes to the kind of lengths that the Taliban aspire to.
That, too, doesn’t escape their notice. Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid lately advised fellow components of the ummah to “take inspiration” from the Taliban’s “Sharia-based systems”. Perhaps the only Muslim nation at risk of doing so is Pakistan. After all, the Taliban in their original incarnation were spawned some 30 years go by a grotesque ménage-à-trois emerging from Saudi-funded and US-approved madressahs along Pakistan’s north-western periphery some 30 years ago, and their initial conquest of an Afghanistan further torn apart following the Soviet withdrawal by the internecine tussles for power among the mujahideen — who had chiefly been backed by the same three nations — was aided and abetted by what are nowadays euphemistically referred to as ‘the agencies’ and guided to some extent by the fanatical former ISI chief Hamid Gul.
Pakistan is attracting blame for the Afghan predicament.
Small wonder, then, that many Afghan exiles blame Pakistan for the resurgence and second coming of the Taliban. But even supporters of the present dispensation are ill-disposed towards their neighbour. A New York Times report about the celebrations marking the third anniversary of the 2021 takeover quoted a young man keen “to continue the jihad” as saying, “I want to go to Palestine”, but he is contradicted by an even younger Talib who proclaims: ‘No, it’s Pakistan’s turn. Our first enemy is Pakistan. …”
The blowback has, of course, already been occurring for a couple of decades — and direct Taliban intervention might not be required if the likes of extremists in Pakistan have their way.
Shock and horror, rather than surprise, have been common reactions to Afghanistan’s newly codified morality laws, which give vast leeway in terms of implementation to the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Who, though, would have dared to go as far as the supreme leader of the Taliban, Hibatullah Akhundzada, in proclaiming earlier this year, “You may call it a violation of women’s rights when we publicly stone or flog them for committing adultery … [but] you represent Satan”?
There’s no mention, of course, of the male offenders. Likewise, the latest injunctions against singing, reciting or speaking loudly in public is restricted to women. The sheer obscenity of such rules has inevitably riled the various agencies that were still engaged with Afghanistan to some degree. Interestingly, though, an aid worker anonymously contributed an article to The Guardian this month, arguing that aid must keep flowing so that she and her colleagues can keep aiding women who are desperately in need of assistance amid a veritable epidemic of mental health challenges.
Amanullah’s broadly well-intentioned but ill-designed reforms in the early 20th century faced a backlash in Khost in 1924, and steady rural resistance that led to his abdication and exile five years later. Subsequent attempts at transcending the status quo, from the Saur ‘revolution’ in 1978 to the misguided Soviet and American occupations, failed to shift the dial — with Pakistan playing a retrograde role, in alliance with the US in the 1980s and, later, on the strength of its own aspirations to ‘strategic depth’.
The consequences cannot be disguised. Afghan women bear the brunt of the retrogressive revival, tragically, but men unaligned with the Taliban are not spared either. Pakistan, meanwhile, has been reaping the whirlwind for many years, yet there could be worse to come.
mahir.dawn@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2024
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