On 30 July, a suicide attack was launched at Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) gathering in the village of Khar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bajaur district. The attack took the lives of several attendees. The regional leader of JUI-F, Maulana Ziaullah, was also killed in the attack. It is believed, this attack was a second assassination attempt on Ziaullah. On 31 July, ISIS (Central) claimed the responsibility for the Khar attack. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) condemned the attack and denied any involvement.
According to Pakistan’s bomb disposal teams, 100kg of explosives were utilized to carry the attack in Khar. Due to the large number of casualties, the Pakistani authorities declared a health emergency at the local district hospital. Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif condemning the attack, stated “The terrorists are enemies of Pakistan, we will eliminate them from the face of this earth.” Grandiloquent statement sans any teeth.
The target, JUI-F is a Deobandi Sunni political party. It is a part of the ruling coalition in Pakistan, which is believed to have strong ties with the Afghan Taliban, as well. Like other religious parties, JUI-F, too, has undeniably tried to take advantage of the economic crisis in Pakistan and the arrest of the former Pakistani prime minister, Imran Khan. As a result, the JUI-F political rally held on 30 July in Khar was aimed to garner the electoral support ahead of the upcoming elections in Pakistan.
The area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has seen several attacks in the recent months, and most were claimed by TTP. Bajaur, specifically, has been a hotbed of such attacks and was also controlled by Taliban in the past. During the leadership of Imran Khan, large number of TTP fighters were brought back from Afghanistan into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This was as part of a failed programme for rehabilitation of TTP fighters. Imran Khan claimed that upon assuming power in Kabul, the Afghan Taliban, had ordered their Pakistani fighters to return to Pakistan. He stated that the Pakistani government was left with limited choices; the government could “either line up those 40,000 people, including fighters and their families, and shoot them, or we could rehabilitate them.”
In an effort to alleviate the TTP issue in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), such a plan was actually proposed. Despite the political consensus to “rehabilitate” the terrorists, the program was never implemented. The incoming Taliban fighters were not rehabilitated or employed. Having no options to return to Afghanistan, most fighters were seen rallying for ISIS recruitment or Al Qaeda, with the hope of getting paid. The former Pakistani prime minister, foreseeing the need to nip the TTP issue in the bud, had suggested such a program. He had claimed his government had wanted to resettle TTP fighters in Pakistan’s FATA region, but the efforts were unsuccessful as the provinces had failed to make provision for the necessary resources to counter the elements rejecting the merger of the tribal areas with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
There has been a sharp increment in number of TTP fighters in the region, followed by a series of persistent attacks on military and police posts. There is a strong consensus that FATA had provided sanctuary to several regional and foreign jihadist fighters belonging to Taliban, al-Qaida’s central Leadership, and the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU). Safe havens provide the insurgents and terrorists the time to plan attacks, generate critical support for Infrastructure by raising funds, imbibing ideologies and providing technical assistance to associated groups and cells. Known in Pakistan as ilaqa-e-ghair (lawless lands), the Pashtun tribal areas that are around the Peshawar Valley have, without a doubt, been a sanctuary for various groups.
Waziristan is a stronghold of the TTP. The movement commanded by Baitullah Mehsud had been a safe haven for core elements of al-Qaida and the IJU. Despite the advantages that FATA provides for the militants, the area suffers a severe disadvantage due to the financial vulnerability of their protectors – the TTP and the Afghan Taliban to maintain their scale of militancy. The other important factor, which caters to Pakistan’s worries in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, is the ongoing insurgency in the area. This is also known as the War in North-West Pakistan. It is an ongoing armed conflict involving Pakistan and various Islamist jihadist outfit such as the TTP, Jundallah, Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI), Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), al-Qaeda, and their Central Asian allies, amongst which are the ISIL, ISIL–Khorasan (ISK), Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, East Turkistan Movement, Emirate of Caucasus, and elements of organized crime.
Also, ever since Taliban’s exit from the war theatre, ISK has consistently tried to exert it’s monopoly on Jihad in the South Asian region. Treating each other as rivals, ISK and Taliban have consistently launched attacks on their individual leaders, commanders or assets. Recently, Taliban claimed the assassination of an ISK recruiter/ commander, Aijaz Ahmad Ahangar alias Abu Usman Al-Kashmiri, a Srinagar-born ISHP leader recently based in Afghanistan, in a Taliban raid in Kabul. Evidently due to the growing rivalry amongst the two, the attack in Khar on the pro-Taliban JUI-F came as no surprise.
ISIS has in the past, also claimed the responsibility for the assassination of a Pakistani political party official in Inayat Killi. It has recently issued claims in the name of “Khorasan Province” branch (ISKP), which remains predominant in Afghanistan and north-west Pakistan. The group also claims attacks in Pakistan in the name of its “Pakistan Province” or “Wilayat-e-Pakistan” branch. In 2019, ISK declared the province of “Wilayat-e-Hind” (Province of Hind) on 12 May, followed by Wilayat-e-Pakistan on 14 May. It is vital to mention that ISIS does not recognize the sovereign borders as decided by the nations but functions as pan-Islamic entity.
In the early years from the conception of the two wilayats, ISK continued to target Taliban and its allies or exploit the local tribal or regional conflicts by planting itself amidst the issues. In India, IS managed a response in Islamist-insurgency-ridden Kashmir, and there was some level of organized support in the form of ISJK.
In Pakistan, ISK conducted large-scale terrorist attacks resulting in mass casualties. The jihadist landscape of Pakistan offers greater opportunities to IS and limits the risks of factional issues which may hinder in making it a part of a larger wilayat consisting of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asian States. While the growing TTP threat has over-shadowed the activities of ISK in Pakistan due to their frequent attacks, it must be noted that the Islamic State has also been responsible for one of the deadliest bombings in Pakistani history, which killed 149 people in Balochistan in 2018.
Post the Khar attack on 30 July, the response of the Pakistani government was rather underwhelming in regards to their failing security capabilities and counter-terrorism response. Pakistan failed to negotiate peace with the TTP last year. Its military forces have been incapable of sustaining or even launching operations near the Afghan border and have been unable to mount a formal offensive due to its economic crisis and political polarization. The recent attacks have also fuelled tensions between Pakistani officials and the Taliban administration in Afghanistan. The Pakistani government has accused the Taliban of providing safe haven to some terror outfits. Taliban officials, of course, have denied that claim.
With the break-down in the Pakistan-Afghan Taliban bilateral relations, there is little chance of any cooperation in counter-terrorism operations between these two states. It is highly unlikely that the current prime minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif, will be able to show any game-changing progress on this front any time soon. The same is the case with the newly appointed chief of army staff (COAS), General Asim Munir, too.
At any rate, the Pakistani military will need to be seen as doing something. This may require the Pakistani government to pursue its threat and carry out counter-terrorism measures beyond its borders. The Pakistan army will, however, be very reluctant to do this. Due to Pakistan ISI’s deep involvement with state sponsored terrorism and defence against India and the current deterioration of bilateral relations with Kabul, Pakistan will be forced to re-calibrate its move in regard to its army’s counter-terrorism operations.
