Rethinking Islam with Sultan Shahin

War on Terror

21 May 2011, NewAgeIslam.Com

Pakistan: Defeating the Enemy in the Shadows
	Bitter wrangling will not solve very much. What we need is a plan. The militants in the north have to be pursued; they have to be chased after with full force and vigour. The nexus between security agencies and the militants needs to be dismantled. This task is tied in with many other factors which involve regional realities. These too will need to be tackled on an urgent basis. Without doing this, nothing can be solved. -- Kamila Hyat

Pakistan: Defeating the Enemy in the Shadows

By Kamila Hyat May 19, 2011 As the first major revenge attack following the death of Osama bin Laden killed at least 82 young paramilitary recruits in Charsadda district, it is easy to see that Pakistan faces a mammoth task. It must somehow go after the militants in the north, before they decimate still more lives. The bomb blast that killed six people near the town of Kharian, which is a large cantonment area, may be a sign that such attacks are very deliberately targeted and executed. Conjecture holds that the explosive went off prematurely, before a security building could be reached. It is easy to demand that extra security measures be taken. This though is easier said than done. How is every training centre, every military check-post and every police station to be guarded anyway? The last two weeks, culminating in a rare briefing to parliamentarians by the director general of the ISI and the deputy air chief have done nothing to build faith in our security apparatus, with Lt-Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha telling galvanised legislators that his elite agency had no idea Bin Laden had been hiding in Abbottabad. The agency and the others that operate in the country, apparently do not know where Al-Qaeda’s key leader Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri or former Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar are either. This is most peculiar given that the fears that they were likely to be hiding in North Waziristan and Quetta respectively have been expressed in media reports for years. It is possible these are inaccurate, but the question arises then as to whether the actual locations of these men have been figured out. This raises a far more ominous question. If premier agencies were unable to catch even a whiff of the goings on in that now familiar house a kilometre or so away from Kakul, how are they going to detect other militants who lurk in unexpected places? In some ways these persons pose a bigger threat than even the Taliban forces and their supporters gathered in the north, insidiously spreading the message of hate among peers, and creating the mindset that allows extremism to flourish. The capture last week of young Maaz Ali, a student of the Applied Physics department at the University of Karachi, along with three other men in possession of heavy arms and plans to attack government installations in the city, has shocked many on campus. But it is really no surprise that not every member of the Taliban is an exploited, impoverished youth brain-washed into believing in a violent crusade. A significant number are well-educated, relatively privileged individuals, often with a background in science. This was true of the 9/11 bombers, of individuals such as Aafia Siddiqui and, according to the European Journal of Sociology in a study last year, it is also true of at least one-fifth of 404 members of violent Islamist groups included in the research. We wonder how many such individuals are based in our campuses; it seems unlikely that our agencies know very much about them given the track record of these outfits. The fact that, in the past, doctors, computer analysts and others have been found working in liaison with extremists indicates the presence of a sturdy support base for groups like the Taliban in the country. We really have no way of knowing how broad this is – but the existence of Taliban sympathisers within the media, among school and college teachers and within the mainstream clergy means that the influence of such thinking continues to grow, seeping deeper and deeper into the conscience. The cocktail created by blending these ideas with the distrust of the United States that exists in so many parts of our society makes it easier for many to digest and accept these radical ideas. In the aftermath of the Osama bin Laden killing, it is natural that we should have heated debate and discussion of the kind we have seen over the last few weeks. The sense of confusion and the growing friction between the civilian and military leadership as well as between political parties adds to the strains we face as new demands come in for the relationship with the US to be redefined. What we should be focusing on is the issue of militancy in our country and how it is to be defeated. The government and the armed forces, as well as all the political entities which claim to oppose extremism, need to work together for this. Bitter wrangling will not solve very much. What we need is a plan. The militants in the north have to be pursued; they have to be chased after with full force and vigour. The nexus between security agencies and the militants needs to be dismantled. This task is tied in with many other factors which involve regional realities. These too will need to be tackled on an urgent basis. Without doing this, nothing can be solved. But at home we should also be looking beyond the north. The wider spectrum of views that work in favour of militancy need also to be dealt with. Both long-term and short-term measures are required in this regard. Both in our country and elsewhere, it has been possible to persuade – or bribe – mosque imams into taking up campaigns favouring giving polio drops to children, championing family planning, or other such controversial issues. It should be possible to do the same in the case of militancy – with many Islamic scholars having already spoken out against suicide bombing. We also need to address broader issues of intolerance, including the kind of narratives taught in our schools. The issue right now is not just about sovereignty, though this plays some part in the crisis we face. The question of how we are to take on militancy needs to be taken on most urgently; we need intelligent discussion in parliament on all the facets involved. Other forums must also be used to build public opinion – so we have harmony and a consensus on rooting out the terrorist threat which, right now, threatens to create still more chaos in cities and towns everywhere, with the killing of Osama bin Laden apparently allowing groups to unite behind a common cause, rather than become scattered and demoralised as many had hoped would happen. Source: The News, Pakistan URL: http://newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamWarOnTerror_1.aspx?ArticleID=4674