Pakistan is paying the price of soft-peddling on terror. Arming and funding terror outfits against India in the past may have played dividends at one time, but today it is bleeding Pakistan.

The expansion of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) clout is entirely Pakistan’s fault because it hosted, armed, and supported Taliban leaders and cadres on its land, while turning a blind eye to its misdeeds. In Kabul, a few of these leaders now have ministerial roles.

With the Taliban’s presence in Kabul, Pakistan had previously justified its backing for the Taliban by asserting that it provided greater “strategic depth” against India. The Taliban and ISI had worked together to hijack IC 814 flight to Kabul in 1999. Although New Delhi has not legally recognised the Taliban, it has developed a working relationship with the Taliban leadership in order to provide medical care and other forms of support to the Afghan people as well as to keep a presence in Kabul.

Islamic terror groups across the region were reinvigorated after the Afghan Taliban’s victory over the US. The fact that the Taliban could win against the world’s most powerful army was a morale booster. The TTP now felt that it was only a matter of time before the Pakistan forces could also be overrun.

Background

The Pakistani Taliban share a common ideology with the Afghan Taliban and have assisted them in the ––2001-2021 war, but the two groups have separate operation and command structures.

The TTP’s aim is to overthrow the government of Pakistan by waging a terrorist campaign against the Pakistan armed forces and the state. The TTP depends on the tribal belt along the Afghanistan–Pakistan border, from which it draws its recruits. The TTP receives ideological guidance from and maintains ties with al-Qaeda.

After the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, Pakistan was unable to persuade the Afghan Taliban to crack down on the TTP.

Ever since a ceasefire with TTP expired on 10 December 2021, it has increased attacks on Pakistani security forces from sanctuaries inside Afghanistan.

Apparently with US encouragement and cooperation, Pakistan is now threatening to attack TTP militants residing in its Pashtun-dominated tribal regions as well as across the border in Afghanistan. As a result, Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line might band together to fight the Pakistani army. While Pakistani attacks against TTP and Taliban bases may be welcomed by the US, the Taliban will not remain silent if its people are attacked.

The rise of the TTP could potentially trigger a conflict within the organisation itself with the international terrorist organisation ISIS, which is also vying for control of the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

Rising Casualties

Pakistan’s security forces, including troops, ISI personnel, police, and regular civilians, have become targets of the TTP militants’ increasingly violent attacks.

282 personnel of the security forces were killed in terrorist and insurgent attacks in Pakistan in 2022, according to statistics released by the non-governmental Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), which has its headquarters in Islamabad. According to the Institute for Conflict Management (ICM), situated in Delhi, this nuamber is six times more than the number of Indian security officers (47).

In 2022, the TTP perpetrated 376 terrorist incidents, resulting in 533 fatalities and 832 injuries. Among them, 374 Pakistani security officers and 365 TTP fighters are thought to have perished in fighting in the previous year.

The deadliest month in more than ten years – December 2022 – saw 56 fatalities as a result of the deteriorating ISI-TTP relationship.

Since the middle of November, there have been over 100 attacks. The TTP’s 18 December attack on the Counter Terrorism Department in Bannu was the most notable of these events

TTP’s Demands

Delegitimization of Pakistan’s claim to a region bordering Afghanistan is one of the TTP’s demands. This entails restoring FATA’s status as a semi-governed region.

The Afghan Taliban also wholeheartedly supports the removal of border fencing and barriers. The only long-term, but currently improbable, option is to foster goodwill, give up using force, and manage boundaries.

The TTP wants to impose Afghan-style Sharia in FATA before extending the system across Pakistan. This include ending female education, instituting limb-chopping justice, replacing democracy with a shura system run by an amirul momineen, and sealing Pakistan off from the outside world. This is grotesque to non-Muslims, Shi’ites, (Sunni) Barelvis, and modern-minded Muslims. On the other hand, backward regions and radicalised segments of urban Pakistani society favour this interpretation of Sharia.

TTP vehemently rejects both disarming and adhering to Pakistan’s Constitution. Instead, it is adding new demands that no sovereign state could ever agree to.

Pakistan’s readiness to negotiate with TTP militants and caving in to their demands has considerably boosted their confidence. Top TTP members, like Muslim Khan and Ehsanullah Ehsan before him, were surreptitiously released, as an example.

Pakistan in a Cleft Stick

The government is under pressure to take strong action against the TTP. Similar to a patron-client relationship gone sour, the confrontation between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban is getting worse. Pakistan is currently going through a complex crisis that may be its worst since 1971, when it split up as a result of the Bangladesh conflict. The crisis in Pakistan is overwhelming, and there is a pervasive sense of being lost among the political and military elite.

The TTP and the Afghan Taliban have crossed across to Pakistan on the northern front. The Taliban’s win in Afghanistan was seen by the ISI as a chance to rule Kabul, giving Pakistan a substantial amount of “strategic depth.” Once the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021, Islamabad might have thought that by setting up an allied force in Kabul, it had achieved its planned strategic objectives. Pakistan anticipated that it would be better able to manage the TTP situation. Yet, it appears that the Taliban started to object to Pakistan interfering with its internal affairs. Now that the client is openly biting its patron, Islamabad has no choice except to combat the TTP.

Dangers for India

The establishment of fidayeen (suicide) camps in Gilgit-Baltistan regions of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) and TTP’s declaration of a shadow government in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the neighbouring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region could have an impact on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).

The TTP has between 12,000 and 14,000 fighters and suicide bombers stationed in POK. To solidify their authority in the area, the Pakistani security forces are planning a significant operation that will include airstrikes. This might potentially trigger a humanitarian crisis that would affect India, notably in J&K.

Pakistani Army Proxies

With the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) and other anti-State jihadists on the rise, Pakistan is once more grooming the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM0 as devoted proxies. Evidence of the Lashkar’s infrastructure continuing to function and the group’s ability to mobilise resources and cadre has been seen for months.

Ever since General Pervez Musharraf’s split from the jihadist movement in 2001, which led thousands of people to join anti-regime groups like the TTP and al-Qaeda, the need for obedient, submissive proxies like the Jaish and Lashkar has gotten even stronger.

The TTP has decided to strike the Pakistani Army as well as State-Patronized Terrorist (SPT) organisations including the JeM) and LeT. Both The leader of the JeM, Maulana Masood Azhar, has been ill for a while and is unable to take on the TTP’s challenge.

The LeT and the JeM have taken a direct part in terrorist activities in J&K and the hinterland of India.

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Imran Khan, who was elected as the 22nd prime minister of the country, on 18 August 2018, lost a no-confidence vote in the parliament and, on 11 April 2022, Shehbaz Sharif took oath as Pakistan’s new prime minister. Pakistan’s general elections are due in 2023. Hence, Sharif has just a year in office.

Since its formation 75 years ago, the country has had democratically elected governments for only 53 years. In these 53 years, 19 men and one woman have been prime minister, two of them more than once, and not a single one has ever completed a five-year term. The first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, lasted the longest—four years and 63 days—before he was assassinated.

In his first speech at the national assembly as prime minister, Sharif brought up Kashmir. Claiming that the valley was red with the blood of the Kashmiri people since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, he said that Pakistan would continue to “raise its voice for Kashmiri brothers and sisters at every forum…they will be provided diplomatic support, we will give them moral support”.

This is as per formula. No Pakistani prime minister can start off without making some belligerent noises about Kashmir. He cannot afford to be seen as being moderate on this issue.

No matter how hard Pakistan’s politicians try to equate India and Pakistan, India is light years ahead of Pakistan economically, technologically, and on every sociological parameter. If the world ever thinks of Pakistan, it is as a hub of Islamist terrorism.

Pakistan’s army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, who allegedly played a big part in Khan’s removal, also seems pragmatic, if one goes by his public utterances. “Pakistan will benefit if we improve ties with India,” he said recently. In February last year, he agreed to a ceasefire on the Line of Control and the ceasefire has held. He perhaps realizes that a military engagement with India makes no sense for Pakistan, given the many other problems the country faces.

Pakistan’s powerful military has traditionally controlled foreign and defence policy, thereby limiting the impact of political instability. India is aware of the dynamic of civil-military imbalance in Pakistan and the risk of blowback from the military establishment against India whenever there is momentum for bilateral cooperation.

Pakistan’s Economy

Pakistan’s current account deficit is around 4 per cent of GDP. Pakistan owes $122 billion—a third of its GDP—to various multilateral organisations and nations like China and Saudi Arabia. Foreign currency reserves, already depleted, seem to be now in free fall—in March, they dropped 30 percent from $16.2 billion to $11.3 billion. Interest rates are 12.25 per cent.

Terrorism

The number of terror attacks—and attacks on security forces—by the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP), the Pakistani Taliban, has actually increased since Imran Khan, the army and the ISI celebrated the (original) Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August last year.

The TTP has strong links with the Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State and has the tacit support of the Afghan Taliban.

Pakistan remains on the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global money-laundering and terrorist-financing watchdog, precariously perched above the black list. After the 2+2 meeting between the defence and external affairs ministers of India and the US, on 12 April, the two countries issued a joint statement asking Pakistan to take “immediate, sustained, and irreversible action” to ensure that no territory under its control is used for terrorist attacks and called for the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai attack and the 2016 Pathankot attack to be brought to justice.

Afghanistan

Ties between Pakistan’s ISI and the Afghan Taliban have loosened in recent years. The Taliban government is facing an economic and humanitarian crisis due to a lack of money and international isolation.

Tensions have risen between the Taliban and Pakistan’s military, which has lost several soldiers in attacks close to their mutual border. Pakistan wants the Taliban to do more to crack down on extremist groups and worries they will spread violence into Pakistan. That has begun to happen already.

Imran Khan, who was less critical of the Taliban over human rights than most foreign leaders, is no longer there to support the Taliban.

China-Pakistan

The only piece of good news for them seems to be that China has reiterated that it considers Pakistan an “all-weather strategic cooperation partner” and “iron-clad brother” and praised Sharif’s commitment to the $60-billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor project.

The CPEC was actually conceptualised and launched under Pakistan’s two established political parties, both against Khan. Shehbaz Sharif struck deals with China directly as leader of the eastern province of Punjab. Sharif will defend and push the corridor.

United States-Pakistan

Pakistan is not a priority for President Joe Biden, who is grappling with the war in Ukraine, unless it led to mass unrest or rising tensions with India. Since the military calls the shots on the policies that the U.S. really cares about, i.e. Afghanistan, India and nuclear weapons, internal Pakistani political developments are largely irrelevant for the U.S. Khan had blamed the United States for the current political crisis, saying that Washington wanted him removed because of his Moscow trip.

India-Pakistan

Imran Khan’s ambition was to normalise relations with India and play cricket. Army Chief Gen Qamar Bajwa also spoke about burying the past and focusing on geo-economy. Kashmir is a core issue in its National Security Policy, though Pakistan has tied itself in knots over it, especially after India annulled Article 370. In August 2019, following the approval of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill in Parliament, which revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, further tension resulted between the two countries, with Pakistan downgrading diplomatic ties, closing its airspace, and suspending bilateral trade with India.

Pakistan, today, is desperate to begin a formal dialogue with India which ceased in January 2013 after the beheading of an Indian soldier in J&K. Islamabad is also pressing New Delhi to participate even virtually in the SAARC summit, in abeyance since 2016. India is not budging. India is inflexible and has taken the position “no talks till cross-border terrorism stops.”

When Khan became the prime minister, while speaking at the United States Institute of Peace, he admitted to Pakistan having 40-50,000 terrorists who had fought in Kashmir and Afghanistan. In 2021, after Khan had called the Modi government ‘fascist, unleashing Islamophobia’, India rebutted: ‘The neighbour is an arsonist disguised as a fire-fighter…’

The current cease-fire on LoC — which does not preclude a two-front situation — is the result of one of the many effective back channels.

On Siachen, speaking at the Army Day 2022 media conference, Army Chief Gen Naravane said that demilitarisation of Siachen was possible once Pakistan agreed to marking the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) on the map. In 1988, 1992 and 2006, the two countries came within a whisker of demilitarisation.

Past Attempts at Normalisation

After inaugurating the new Afghan parliament building in Kabul on 25 December 2015, prime minister Narendra Modi, on the way back, unexpectedly landed in Lahore—the political bastion of prime minister Nawaz Sharif – for Sharif’s granddaughter’s wedding. The symbolism of an Indian leader setting foot in Pakistan for the first time in 11 years, was unmissable. It riled the military establishment.

India, under Modi, has vigorously pursued a ‘neighbourhood first’ foreign policy. Modi’s vision is to integrate South Asia into a cooperative common space. The deep state in Pakistan pushed back against the attempted normalization of relations with India. Sharif had been ousted once before in a military coup in 1999 for being a ‘traitor’ who came under Indian pressure to withdraw Pakistani troops during the Kargil War. It was clear that the military-intelligence complex in Pakistan calls the shots and reins in politicians who try to cooperate with India.

Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had also undertaken a bus journey from Amritsar in India to Lahore in February 1999 and was welcomed with open arms by prime minister Sharif. Vajpayee had hailed it as ‘a defining moment in South Asian history,’ but soon thereafter, the Pakistani military infiltrated into Kargil without Sharif’s knowledge and in the two-and-half-month war that followed, India lost 500 of its troops to throw out the infiiltrators.

By 2020, Sharif was in self-imposed exile. He blamed it on the deep state in Pakistan

The Pakistani jihadi attack on the IAF base at Pathankot, on 1 Januray 2016, was undertaken to derail the nascent Modi–Sharif peace process.

Future Prospects

India and Pakistan announced, in February 2022, an agreement to renew the 2003 ceasefire. India’s escalating military confrontation with China provided reason to try and stabilise the Pakistan frontier. But the continuation depends on Islamabad addressing Delhi’s core concerns on cross-border terrorism.

While Kashmir remains at the top of Pakistan’s agenda, it seems open to reviving commercial ties. It announced an intent to import sugar and cotton from India, but the Commerce Ministry’s decision was ostentatiously reversed by Imran Khan by declaring that “Pakistan can’t trade with India when Kashmir was bleeding”.

Islamabad is stuck with preconditions — reversing India’s constitutional changes in Kashmir — it has set for a renewed dialogue with Delhi.

Not talking to Pakistan has few domestic political costs to Delhi. Pakistan will have to lift the preconditions for engagement with India. Gen. Bajwa’s second term as army chief ends in November 2022 amidst sharpening civil-military differences. A lot will depend upon his successor.

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