Political Commentator Rafia Zakaria in an article
published in Dawn on February 10, 2010, observed: “As Pakistan’s only mega city
Karachi’s demographics, history of communal conflict and dynamics of urban
governance all present a lethal mix. In addition, its status as a global city,
one with widespread (and largely unregulated) communication systems, present
unique opportunities to terrorist groups wishing to use the city as a hub for
monitoring and proliferating transnational networks. More al Qaeda planners and
leaders are believed to have been apprehended in Karachi than in any other
single city, pointing to the fact that Karachi is not simply a target for
terrorist attacks but a place which provides a cover to groups planning
them.”…
Karachi now provides an entire ‘infrastructure’ for terrorist
organisations to flourish. The TTP, Taliban and al Qaeda, facing some pressure
in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA, continue to pour into the port city, further
damaging an already dwindling Pakistani economy. The city is already a safe
haven for Islamist terrorists, and is evolving as a significant theatre of
violence. Unless extremist networks are uprooted now, the ‘descent into anarchy’
that has been noted across Pakistan’s other provinces may well come to afflict
the country’s commercial capital. -- Ajit Kumar Singh and Tushar Ranjan
Moahnty
By Ajit Kumar Singh and Tushar Ranjan
Moahnty
Karachi, Pakistan's commercial capital, has long been a theatre of
wide spectrum of violence, inspired, variously, by Islamist terrorism, ethnic
and sectarian rivalry or partisan politics. It has, moreover, emerged as a major
safe-haven for Islamist extremists linked to Al Qaeda and Taliban, as well as to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Capital to the Sindh province, Karachi has, since the 1980s, been a focal point
of tremendous sectarian strife between the majority Sunni and minority Shia
Muslims. The city has also seen recurring violence targeting western interests.
Violent political rivalries have also created an environment that has helped
terrorist groups of various hues entrench themselves in metropolitan
anonymity.
With a population of some 20 million and counting, the port-city, has
witnessed at least of 425 killings, including 360 civilians, 38 militants and 27
Security Force (SF) personnel, in some 213 incidents of violence since 2005.
While year 2007 saw an extraordinary spike, with 151 killed followed by a
decline at just 37 fatalities in 2008, violence has been escalating since. At
least 77 persons have already been killed in 2010. The city has also witnessed
at least seven suicide bombings since 2005.
KARACHI FATALITIES: 2005-2010
|
Year
|
Incidents
|
Civilians
|
SFs
|
Terrorists
|
Total
|
|
2010*
|
70
|
65
|
3
|
11
|
79
|
|
2009
|
45
|
51
|
3
|
11
|
65
|
|
2008
|
30
|
19
|
8
|
10
|
37
|
|
2007
|
11
|
150
|
0
|
1
|
151
|
|
2006
|
21
|
57
|
13
|
0
|
70
|
|
2005
|
34
|
18
|
0
|
5
|
23
|
|
Total
|
213
|
360
|
27
|
38
|
425
|
Source: South Asia Terrorism Portal, *Data till June 27,
2010
The most significant incidents recorded since 2005
include:
February 5, 2010: At least 33 persons were killed and over 100,
including women and children, were injured, in twin blasts in Karachi, targeting
Shias, as the city marked Hazrat Imam
Hussain's chehlum (40th Day after death)
ceremony.
December 28, 2009: A suicide bomber targeted Pakistan's largest
procession of Shiite Muslims in Karachi on their holiest day of Ashura,
killing at least 30 people and injuring more than 63. Interior Minister Rehman
Malik blamed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
(LeJ) for the attack.
October 18, 2007: A suicide bombing in a crowd welcoming former Prime
Minister Benazir Bhutto killed 143 persons and injured approximately 550 others
in Karachi. However, Bhutto escaped unhurt in this attack. [She eventually died
in an attack on December 27, 2007.]
April 11, 2006: At least 57 people, including prominent Sunni
religious leaders, were killed and more than 50 persons sustained injuries, in a
suicide bomb attack at Nishtar Park in Karachi.
May 31, 2005: Four employees of the US fast-food franchise Kentucky
Fried Chicken were burnt alive and two others froze to death in the outlet’s
refrigeration unit in Karachi during a riot that followed a suicide attack on a
Shia mosque in Karachi.
Significantly, SATP data excludes killings in political and organised
criminal violence which are rampant in Karachi. Thus, on May 12, 2007, Karachi
had exploded in orchestrated violence when the sacked Chief Justice, Iftikhar
Mohammad Chaudhry, arrived in the city to attend a rally organised by High Court
lawyers and opposition parties. Armed cadres, principally believed to be drawn
from the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) which heads the provincial Government in
Sindh, and is a partner in the ruling Federal Coalition, received tacit state
support as they went on a rampage across the city, attacking opposition party
workers and media organisations, leaving at least 42 dead and over 150 wounded.
All Parties Minorities Alliance Chairman, Shahbaz Bhatti, had, at that time,
declared that the "Government deliberately stoked the violence against political
parties."
Recently, on May 19, 2010, Karachi, witnessed shootings across the
city, in which at least 23 people, including a Policeman, were killed. According
to the data compiled by law enforcement agencies, at least 92 people affiliated
with political and banned religious outfits have been shot dead in various
incidents of targeted killing in 2010.
The city has also witnesses a continuous rash of abductions for
ransom, car-jackings, armed robberies and murders. Sources indicate that a
substantial section of such crime is attributed to groups with links to various
political parties and Islamist extremist groups. An elaborate underground
economy of organised crime and terror exists in Karachi, where everything is
said to be available for a price. Karachi is also flooded with illegal weapons,
and local media reports indicate that some 16 cases of unlicensed arms
possession are registered, on average, each day.
The city has, for long, been considered extremely difficult to
police. A November 23, 2009, report cited a study carried out by the
Police suggesting that the sanctioned strength of 34,155 law enforcers was well
below what was needed. "In Karachi, there is a single Policeman for the
protection of the lives, property and legitimate interests of 571 people" as
against a 1:287 ratio in Lahore. "If we follow the police-population ratio of
Lahore, the Karachi Police force should have more than 60,000 policemen for the
protection of more than 16 million people."
Nevertheless, enforcement agencies have chalked up some important
successes. Police, for instance, killed five suspects, believed to be linked to
the then TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud, in an encounter in Karachi on June 26,
2009. According partial data compiled in the SATP database, at least 75
militants, including 59 TTP, five al Qaeda and six Afghan Taliban cadres, were
arrested in 2009. Year 2010 has already seen at least 56, including 16 Taliban
and two al Qaeda militants, arrested. Significantly, US and Pakistani
intelligence services arrested the top military 'commander' of Taliban, Mullah
Abdul Ghani Baradar on February 16, 2010. 46 militants were arrested in the city
in 2005; 88 in 2006; 31 in 2007 and 44 in 2008.
Meanwhile, Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik said, on May 23,
2010, that terrorist elements from Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)
and Swat (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) were behind the recent wave of target killings in
Karachi. Karachi mayor Syed Mustafa Kamal separately stated that the city was
the TTP's "revenue engine".
Earlier reports indicated that hundreds of TTP cadres fleeing from
the country’s restive northwest frontier, had taken refuge in Karachi, where a
growing nexus with banned militant organisations was evident. A huge Pashtun
population, mostly in the city’s suburbs, provided shelter to these militants,
according to security officials. Senior Police investigator Raja Umer Khattab
thus disclosed, "Most of the Taliban coming to Karachi are 'B' and 'C'
category... They hide here, work here as labourers, and some of them are
probably waiting for the right time to go back to the tribal areas and fight
again." While in the city, they receive support from and establish linkages with
the various extremist groupings operating in the city. An unnamed official thus
explained, "The TTP and most of the jihadi outfits like LeJ
(Lashkar-e-Jhangvi), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Jundullah, share the same
ideology, and in Karachi we have established that they are working together.
They work in groups of 10-15 people, with one local amir (commander) and
at times with no direct link to the main TTP leaders like Hakimullah Mehsud, so
it makes it very difficult to trace their wider links. And these groups not only
have Pashtun militants, but also those from Punjab and Balochistan, and even
locals."
An October 18, 2009, report claimed that some 60 of the TTP’s
second-rung leaders – who fled Swat during the Army’s
Operation Rah-e-Rast (Path to Truth) – used Karachi as a transit route to
head out to the Middle East. Sources indicate that sleeper cells of the TTP in
Karachi facilitated the flight of these leaders. Some of those who travelled to
the Middle East were close to Taliban leaders Muslim Khan and Maulana Fazlullah,
and were part of the TTP’s decision-making structure. According to these
sources, the Karachi unit of TTP hosts Islamist militants from other provinces,
and provides logistics support, and also recruits new members. However, the
Karachi TTP has no operational wing, and does not have permission to carry out
attacks in the city.
Earlier, in an alarming disclosure, a March 1, 2009, report prepared
by the Karachi Criminal Investigation Department Special Branch indicated that
the Taliban network could strike the financial and shipping hub of Karachi and
"could take the city hostage at any point". A December 23, 2009, report, quoting
a Senior Police Official, stated that several militants of the LeJ, who were
earlier hiding and fighting in the tribal areas of the NWFP, had reached Karachi
to carry out terrorist activities.
Reports also indicated that Afghan Taliban were relocating from
Quetta (Balochisatn) to Karachi, making it more difficult to apprehend them.
According to a statement by Lt. Gen. John Paxton, director for operations at the
US Joint Chiefs of Staff, on February 23, 2010, "Elements of the Afghan Taliban
high command are beginning to relocate from Quetta to Karachi... And obviously
this makes it more difficult to locate and apprehend the senior Taliban
leadership, because Karachi is a major metropolitan city with over 3 million
Pashtuns."
Meanwhile, Political Commentator Rafia Zakaria in an article
published in Dawn on February 10, 2010, observed:
|
As Pakistan’s only mega city Karachi’s demographics, history of
communal conflict and dynamics of urban governance all present a lethal mix. In
addition, its status as a global city, one with widespread (and largely
unregulated) communication systems, present unique opportunities to terrorist
groups wishing to use the city as a hub for monitoring and proliferating
transnational networks. More al Qaeda planners and leaders are believed to have
been apprehended in Karachi than in any other single city, pointing to the fact
that Karachi is not simply a target for terrorist attacks but a place which
provides a cover to groups planning them. The arrests of Shawki Awad Balzuhair,
Aziz Ahmed Al Maythali, Hassan Bin Attash, Rahimullah and several others, all
took place in the city… In the political and structural opportunities it
presents for planning and execution, Karachi could well be Al Qaeda’s dream
city. Strategically, it holds an advantage over the tribal areas in that it is
unlikely to be the target of US drone attacks. Karachi represents an important
target for attacks because capitalising on political fissures in the city yields
enormous advantages in thwarting the NATO mission in Afghanistan. The city is
the entry point for NATO supplies to Afghanistan and its destabilisation would
translate into a massive blow to NATO efforts in the
region.
|
Karachi now provides an entire ‘infrastructure’ for terrorist
organisations to flourish. The TTP, Taliban and al Qaeda, facing some pressure
in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA, continue to pour into the port city, further
damaging an already dwindling Pakistani economy. The city is already a safe
haven for Islamist terrorists, and is evolving as a significant theatre of
violence. Unless extremist networks are uprooted now, the ‘descent into anarchy’
that has been noted across Pakistan’s other provinces may well come to afflict
the country’s commercial capital.
Ajit Kumar Singh is a Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management and
Tushar Ranjan Moahnty is a Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict
Management
Source: South Asia Intelligence Review
-[Sair]
URL:http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamWarWithinIslam_1.aspx?ArticleID=3067
9:27 PM
Sultan Shahin
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