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Pak Under Terror Attack From Two Souths

Author : Yogendra Bali | .

Posted on : Thursday, December 31, 2009

The terrorists attacks on the Pak establishment, specially the sensitive military headquarters are increasing day by day. The rulers of Pakistan are not under attack from South Waziristan alone but also from South Punjab, the Seraiki region which has brought homebread terrorists right to Bahawalpur, Multan, Jhang and Khanewal to threaten Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Many in Pakistan admit that the fight in not just between the Pak Army and the Mehsud followers of late Baituallah Mehsud but between the Pak establishment and the Al Qaeda which wants to do to Pakistan what Pakistan did to some parts of Kashmir through forcible occupation. The Al Qaeda seek to occupy Pakistan. India need not gloat over Pakistan’s self-made distress. Time might come that it may have to help Pakistan survive.

Noted Pak commentator, Khalid Ahmed underlines that the national consensus focuses on South Waziristan as the dangerous hinterland of terror which must be targeted. There is no national consensus on South Punjab being the home of terrorist planning and manpower supply

After the success of the Army operation in Malakand and the not-insignificant pacification of Bajaur, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) took time to regroup. The new leader Hakimullah, it seems, has unleashed a new surge of terrorism in Pakistan. Although some have noted that the surge was not directly traceable to Hakimullah who may not have known the plans when he was finally ‘chosen’, it has been attributed to the more flamboyant new TTP leader.

Excluding South Punjab From ‘Threat Areas’

The plotting of the surge has been traced to South Waziristan and South Punjab. In the first ‘south’ there are warlords who announce the ownership of acts of terrorism; in the second south, increasingly, the terrorist act is itself planned and executed. The national consensus focuses on South Waziristan as the dangerous hinterland of terror which must be targeted. There is no national consensus on South Punjab being the home of terrorist planning and manpower supply.

The Punjab government says South Punjab is not the stronghold of the TTP. It denies that there is such a thing as Tehreek-e-Taliban Punjab. Significantly, the Punjab governor too has asserted that South Punjab is not home to the Taliban and is not the area Pakistan should target. This points to the development of a consensus in Islamabad that while South Waziristan is being targeted with a military operation, South Punjab should not be highlighted in a strategy of attacking both at the same time.

The Evidence In South Punjab

A Pakistani scholar who works for the FATA Secretariat in Peshawar says: “Southern Punjab comprises…13 districts having a total population of approximately 27 million. These districts include Bahawalnagar, Bahawalpur, Bhakker, Dera Ghazi Khan, Jhang, Khanewal, Layyah, Lodhran, Multan, Muzaffargarh, Rahim Yar Khan, Rajanpur, and Vehari. While the insurgency situation in NWFP and FATA is well documented, it is Southern Punjab that is emerging as an insurgency hub. In all, 304 persons, including 257 Security Forces personnel and 34 civilians, were killed in 78 terrorism-related incidents in Punjab in 2008”.

In 2009, two incidents concentrated the Punjabi mind further on the south. A terrorist named Junaid was arrested in Lahore as one of those involved in the attack on the Sri Lankan team. The terrorist confessed to being a member of the Punjab Taliban, affiliated with the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi with links to Al Qaeda. In June, the police arrested Riaz Kamboh in Mian Channun recovering massive quantities of weapons, suicide jackets and rocket launchers. It is only after his arrest that the local population was willing to testify that he was a member of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and a terrorist.

Building ‘Defensive’ Consensus On South Punjab

Much like Swat, the people of Mian Channun were intimidated into accepting Kamboh as the local strongman who could actually tutor their children as a local teacher too. The FATA Secretariat study warned: “There is a clear indication that the Taliban-Al Qaeda network is securing the upper hand in Southern Punjab and that the extremists are bringing conflict to Pakistan’s most populated and economically vibrant province. The presence of many militant groups in the province is alarming”.

The NWFP government, which has welcomed the military operation in South Waziristan, equally recommends tough measures against the terrorists helping the Taliban from their strongholds in South Punjab. It seems that it has yet to join the consensus in Islamabad over whether or not South Punjab is to be targeted. Interior Minister Rehman Malik used to agonise over South Punjab; he no longer does that. It is possible that Peshawar too will fall in line in the coming days.

The Two Strategic ‘Souths’

For British India, Waziristan was always a buffer against Afghanistan. Out of this buffer South Waziristan was the secondary buffer, since North Waziristan had more area abutting on Afghanistan and would be overwhelmed sooner if an attack came. Today, it is not the Durand Line that defines the two types of Taliban but the line that divides North and South Waziristan. When Al Qaeda and its allies fled Afghanistan in 2001, South Waziristan was their destination, the North being too ‘frontline’ and exposed.

It is, however, amazing that some of continue harping on the ‘India factor’ and suggesting that there should not be two-front campaign Pak against the terrorists from two souths as South Punjab bordered in Indian territory of Rajasthan and India might chose to attack Pakistan which was stuck with terrorist attacks at him Nothing could be more preposterous then suggesting that India would want to see Pakistan destroyed and hand it over to Al Qaeda and Taliban. Time everyone in Pakistan got rid of the cultivated Indophobia and devoted himself to saving Pakistan from the fundamentalist terrorists it bread itself to use as weapons against India.

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