Bibhu Prasad Routray
Al Arabiya News, 6 July 2011
Its time yet again for an over hyped anti-militant operation in Pakistan. On 3 July, the Pakistani army and the para-military forces launched full-scale operations in the Kurram Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) area, along the Afghanistan border. Named after the famous mountain range Spin Ghar, Operation Koh-i-Sofaid (White Mountain), intends getting rid of this tribal Agency of the presence of militants affiliated with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or the Pakistani Taliban. However, by all means, the operation is doomed to fail in its key objectives.
TTP cadres have used Kurram as a transit route between North Waziristan and Orakzai Agency and the Tirah Valley. It lies opposite Afghanistan’s Paktia, Nangarhar and Khost provinces and its central mountainous region provides enough safety to the militants, fleeing to escape military operations or drone attacks from other parts of the country. At least since 2007, parts of Kurram have virtually had no contact with the rest of Pakistan. The only land route– the Peshawar-Thall-Parachinar Road – has been blocked by the militants.
Effectively for the Pakistani state, claiming Kurram is a project that ideally involves settling questions of sovereignty and making the civilians inhabiting this area Pakistani citizens, in the true sense of the term.
However, the planned operations suffer from a range of weaknesses- some tactical and the rest deliberate.
Firstly, the operations presumably have a skewed objective- to go after the anti-state Pakistan Taliban and to spare the Good (Afghan) Taliban and its affiliates like the Haqqani network who have extended their influence into the Kurram agency. The Haqqani network has an agreement with the local TTP militants to use the area as transit point to launch attacks against NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan. This tactic of “pick and chose” makes the operation thoroughly weak from the very beginning. Its not clear whether the intended enemy can be identified and neutralised, while coexisting with the ones to be protected.
Secondly, the focus area of the operations appears to be wrong. In spite of being inspired by the name of a mountain, the operations are taking place mostly in the plains of lower and upper Kurram. It is rather curious as most of the militants are known to have their facilities or presence in the Central Kurram region, which is remote and is marked by high-altitude mountains. News reports do present us narratives of continuing operations in central Kurram and of soldiers being air dropped into the mountains. But the fact remains that much of the operation is actually happening in the plains and not in the mountains. Operations in central Kurram, if any, will be limited to securing the road that connects lower with upper Kurram.
Lower and upper Kurram have already seen sectarian violence between the Shias and Sunnis, which along with militant activities has displaced people from the settled areas. None of them have significant and permanent militant presence. This explains the rather smooth and resistance-free operations while clearing areas like Manato, Domeki and Gawaki.
The Pakistan military blames scarce resources for not going to Central Kurram, the same reason it cites to avoid operations targeting the Good (Afghan) Taliban and the Al Qaeda bases in North Waziristan. The use of tanks and artillery in operation Koh-i-Sofaid so far explains the mindset of the troops, who have no project of venturing into the mountainous zones.
Thirdly, the end result of such huge sweep operations is generally found to be minimal in its impact. Unlike a war, large military operations against insurgents/ militants are mostly demonstrative of the state’s weakness rather than its strength. It merely acknowledges the fact of a historical state retreat from militant infested areas. A large military operation is only a poor attempt to apply a quick fix remedy to a chronic problem.
With so much preparation and hype built around the operation, it must have provided the militants adequate fleeing time. Pakistani authorities gave the militants about 15 days do so, as it notified 80 square kilometre area in the region as a conflict zone.
Fourthly, even if we are to assume that the forces will be able to clear the Agency off militant presence, dangers of the area lapsing into militancy again can not be ruled out. Since the forces lack the capacity and intention to stay put in those areas and oversee the establishment of permanent security and governing structures, a militant re-takeover will always be a possibility, as soon as the forces retreat. The experience is quite similar with all the previous anti-militancy operations the Pakistani state has launched, except perhaps Balochistan.
Fifthly, anti-militant operations need to take into the concerns of the civilian population into account, to the extent possible. Notwithstanding the absence of accurate data, preliminary reports have suggested that almost 28000 people have already been displaced. Apparently, little effort has gone into preparing for the human tragedy.
The FATA Disaster Management Authority (FDMA), the sole agency responsible for dealing with the problem, is apparently starved of resources as well as ideas. Considering that it had at least 15 days (since the day of notification of the conflict zone) to prepare for these incidents, it appears to have done little. The 1000 tents it put up with help from the UNHCR have all been filled up and there is need for lot more. No other facility like emergency medical kits has been made available to the displaced people. As the operations unfold, more such stories of organisational ill-preparedness are likely to emerge.
Operation Koh-i-Sofaid, for sure, has an overwhelming component of failure attached to it. The skewed fight against terrorism in Pakistan will neither help this fragile state nor the world.
http://english.alarabiya.net/views/2011/07/06/156379.html
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