Sacred Games Pakistan: Operation Azm-e-Istehkam
Pakistan has announced a new national campaign against terrorism and extremism after a surge in violence. But unfortunately, it may not have the intended results.
The Pakistan Taliban.
Pakistan’s government, or rather the establishment, has finally announced a large-scale operation against terrorism and extremism in the country. It’s apparently not only going to be military action, but also focusing on improving socioeconomic conditions as a deterrent.
Where is this coming from?
A massive surge in terrorism in Pakistan since the Afghan Taliban became their neighbors. Pakistan’s rulers are slowly realizing that their policies of fostering hardline proxies has serious consequences.
Multiple instances of barbaric mob violence. In one case, a tourist from Punjab, who was visiting Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was tortured and burned alive by a mob largely belonging to a hardline extremist socio-political group. There’s been a lot of outrage (rightly so) that doesn’t bode well for the political elite and military (rightly so).
Increasing pressure from China to tackle insurgent groups who continue to target the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
You can see the Global Terrorism Index 2024 report here.
This is not the first time that Pakistan has initiated large-scale anti-terror operations; it has done multiple in the 2000s/2010s.
The above screenshot, from the GTI 2024 report, is Pakistan’s position in countries most affected by terrorism from 2011-2023. That coincided with the below graph, of deaths from terrorism in Pakistan.
The decrease in terrorism was due to large-scale military operations against the Pakistani Taliban. The military operations were looked at as successful, but they also resulted in a lot of displacements, violence, extrajudicial killings, torture, profiling, et cetera - all things that have resulted in many people today being opposed to Azm-e-Istehkam. But, terrorism decreased.
Today, however, the conditions are very different from what they were during past operations. And this is why Azm-e-Istehkam will face challenges.
In 2014, the Pakistan Taliban fractured due to leadership struggles and splinters came out of it; some of these splinters became major terror groups in the proceeding years. Today, the Pakistan Taliban is much stronger than it has been in the last decade, has the Afghan Taliban backing it, is kitted with the US fits and drip that the Americans left when they fled Kabul, and operates openly in areas of Pakistan. Meanwhile, the Baloch groups have also been getting stronger and more brazen (and also kitted with US gear in some cases)
The Global War on Terror and the US invasion of Afghanistan was still on during the past operations - which meant that Pakistan was getting counter-terrorism support and intelligence from the coalition forces and Afghan government, and money from the US to fight terrorism. None of that is there now.
The Afghan Taliban are not the “Good Taliban” that Pakistan can control to curb the “Bad Taliban” aka the Pakistani Taliban. Both Talibans are brethren. They do not recognize the British-created border. They have gone to the same madrassas Pakistan’s spy agency ISI ran, during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; the ISI is largely responsible for the monsters Afghanistan and Pakistan are facing, as well as being behind some heinous terror attacks in India, and other places. The ISI also took the US dollars during the GWOT, to support the Haqqani Network. (More on that another time if you are interested - let me know!)
The Afghan Taliban has clashed with Pakistani forces on border disputes since 2021, and relations have taken a turn for the worse due to Pakistani strikes within Afghanistan. Pakistan’s expulsion of thousands of Afghan (refugees and working people with families) to Afghanistan was not well received in Kabul.
Pakistan’s economy is in tatters, it cannot afford to hold large-scale operations. It needs bailouts, lots of them. How will it improve the socio-economic situation to deter extremism?
The current government does not have the people’s mandate; no one believes the results of the rigged elections earlier this year. The military has fallen off the pedestal in a lot of people’s eyes too.
How can authorities tackle terrorism if some of the authorities continue to create and foster extremist groups, which then go out of control? How will Pakistan eradicate the extremism that has taken root in Punjab province, where the killer of Punjab’s former governor is celebrated? Not only celebrated, but the killer’s execution motivated a whole movement of hardline extremism (that the military fostered to wrest control away from the civilian government). And how do you tackle decades worth of extremism that has permeated and been ingrained in society? What a %#&@(*! mess.
Where does all this leave Pakistan?
Campaigns against the Pakistani Taliban will have limited success, given that the unfriendly Afghan Taliban is next door. Campaigns against hardline sociopolitical extremist groups will also have limited success, given that some authorities support them and nearly all authorities are scared of them. There is a lesson here, about religion as the state identity, something India does not seem to comprehend.
And in all of this, its the Pakistani people who will suffer, because of the greed, selfishness, and arrogance of the generals.
Christine Fair I think once said something along the lines of: most countries have an army; in Pakistan, the army has a country.
Pakistan’s a beautiful country and people and it deserves better than the establishment and elite.
Many in India wish bad for Pakistan (not I), but those Indians do not realize that an unstable Pakistan is bad for India. An unstable Pakistan is bad for the world. I’ll end on this bitter note, with an unfinished story, just like Partition.
“Hindustan had become free. Pakistan had become independent soon after its inception but man was still slave in both these countries - slave of prejudice…slave of religious fanaticism…slave of barbarity and inhumanity.” - Saadat Hasan Manto.
Pakistan Taliban images source.
As always, let me know what you think, leave comments, questions, arguments, criticism, anything else you are interested in, et cetera. Thanks for taking the time to be here. Appreciate it.
The ISI have so much to answer for