Abstract/Executive Summary

Pakistan has been a victim of terrorism since the inception of theAl-Qaeda phenomenon in Afghanistan and the subsequent US occupation of the country. Dealing with the outfalls of terror upon the innocent people of Pakistan has been a colossal challenge for the Government and Security apparatus of the country. Though followed by many successes in eradicating this menace, several studies have come up that elucidate upon the underlying fault lines in the religious and ethnic construct of the country, that have been exploited and will be potential targets in the evolving 5^th Generation Hybrid Warfare. This study is an effort to bring out the wholesome picture of our ethno-religious construct, bringing together the local scenario with the geopolitical one, in order to be able to emphasize the need for precautionary and preemptive measure in Counter-Violent-Terrorism. The study also suggests the means for a complete, institutional preparation that will improvise our major institutions by bridging between the ideal, the virtual and the physical battlefields, that have been laid open in the wake of modern warfare.

Keywords: Ethnic Fault Lines, Religious Fault Lines, Pakistan, Counter Terrorism, CounterViolent Extremism & Terrorism

Introduction

Every society has divides, based on color, creed, language and belief – it is the ability of governance that makes for a homogeneity that overrides all differences – a governance comprising of benevolence, sagacity, forward vigilance and agility of action.

Pakistan being a young developing state, whose 71 years history is spread with the inflictions of unwanted wars and on-going economic strife, has been negligent of its social construct and the quandaries that could potentially engulf it in near future. In time, ethno-national and religious fractures have become an impending reality that will not go away with leisurely oblivion but only by facing their truth in the face.

Resultantly, the outfalls of terror have been unleashed upon the people of Pakistan, when they were barely aware of the evolving 4^th and 5^th Generation Hybrid Warfare phenomenon that was essentially adding to all the misery and strife. The successive governments of the country and our security apparatus have made enormous effort to curtail and subdue terrorism that has originated from our ethnic and religious fault lines, yet curbing the symptoms is not equivalent with curing the disease.

The aim of this work is to analyze the complete structure of the ethno-religious fault lines of Pakistan and how they have played with the fate of the nation. After a full sketch, an effort has been made to put forward suggested institutional measures for Counter Violent Extremism and Terrorism in future. The suggested institutional and structural developments are necessitated by the swiftly evolving compounded warfare that is threatening our ideological, psychological and sovereign boundaries, and that endanger our very existence as a nation.

Pakistan still surrounded by devious enemies, who are willing to use all and any means to disrupt our nation. It is not for us to take our matters lightly – if our adversaries are thinking two steps further, we will have to think four – for things are moving swifter than the thought in the globalization era we live in. We will have to act comprehensively, in the ideal, the virtual and the physical battlefields at the same time, for all are under attack.

Chapter 1

Historical Perspective of Ethnic Conflict in Pakistan

Ethnically, Pakistan is a diverse mix¹ of Punjabis, Pashtuns, Sindhis, Siddis², Saraikis³, Muhajirs, Baloch, Hindkowans⁴, Chitralis, Gujaratis and smaller groups like Kashmiris, Kalash, Khowar⁵, Hazara, Shina⁶, Balti and others, and an added 1.7 million Afghanis⁷. Though the state has been dealing with ethnic and religious issues from the onset, their spontaneous recurrence points to a low success-level on part of the state. Perhaps to view these events as spontaneous and not getting to the underlying patterns that bring them about is the reason of our failure.

In this chapter, a province-wise analysis will be made for an in-depth realization of how our fault lines emerged and how they were exploited.

Sindh

Starting from Sindh, dissent originated in the person of Late GM Syed, who was an advocate of separate Sindhi identity and statehood⁸ since the creation of Pakistan. He led the idea of a Sindhudesh⁹ and several of his followers created the Jeay Sindh Qaumi Movement¹⁰ (JSQM) at his demise in 1995. In 2000, the party splintered into JSMM¹¹ (Shafi Muhammad Burfat), JSQM (Abdul Wahid Aresar) and JST (Safdar Sarki). In 2012, the original JSQM (Bashir Khan Qureshi) organized a march denouncing and chanting slogans against the Pakistan Resolution¹². Later in 2010, Sindhudesh Liberation Army emerged under Shafi Burfat¹³, carrying out low intensity terrorist acts, the latest of which was an attack on a Chinese engineer working on CPEC, in 2017¹⁴. Burfat is also held responsible for the series of attacks on PPP leaders in 2012¹⁵. Another attack on a Rangers vehicle in Larkana was claimed by an unknown Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army, claim via pamphlets thrown on the site¹⁶. From this history it is clear that the current frailty of JSQM groups makes them potential weak points that can be activated with little resources and funding.

Another thread of dissent in Sindh evolved in the Urdu-speaking Muslim migrants of 1947 (6.3 million in 1951¹⁷) who settled in the metropolitan city of Karachi. Starting political activism against the Sindhi-tilted quota system, Altaf Hussein formed the Muhajir Student Movement in 1978, later evolving into the MQM in 1984¹⁸. Being an ethnic, language-based party, the MQM quickly swayed into violence, in the mid-1990s Amnesty International and others accused it and

its rival faction, MQM Haqiqi of summary killings, torture, and other abuses¹⁹. Rise of target killing and organized crimes of extortion, kidnapping for ransom and increased crime rate of the city forced the government to launch the current operation, started since 2013, under the paramilitary Rangers. Altaf Hussein’s self-exile to London since 1992 raises questions of foreign backing and funding of MQM in the average mind. Specially after his 2016, Pakistan is ‘a cancer for entire world’ speech²⁰, there is little doubt upon his noxious character.

• Baluchistan

Coming to Baluchistan, we find similar dissenting factors since partition, starting from the Khan of Kalat’s wish for an independent Kalat²¹. The Khan of Kalat had to subdue in March 1948, when most of the other khanates of Baluchistan had pledged allegiance to Pakistan. Later we see Jumma Khan Marri founding the Baluchistan Liberation Front in 1964 in Damascus²², playing havoc in the 1968-1980 insurgency in both Pakistani and Iranian Balochistan²³ – and in 1976 his father Mir Hazar Khan Ramkhani, a leader of the Marri Tribe, making the Baluch People’s Liberation Front, heavily supported by Afghan authorities²⁴, later penetrating in BSO-Awami.

While these initial groups were run from across borders, we see a different pattern arising after 2001, just after the US invasion of Afghanistan. We see the Baluchistan Liberation Army sprouting in 2000, with series of bomb attacks on Pakistani authorities²⁵. We see in 2002, Dr Allah Nazar created BSO–Azad struggling for an independent Balochistan²⁶, splintering out of the peaceful Baluch Student Organization (BSO) working since 1967. Then we see the Baloch Republican Army, a militant wing of the Baloch Republican Party²⁷, emerging in 2007; the Baluchistan Liberation United Front (BLUF) coming to prominence with the kidnapping of American UNHCR worker John Solecki from Quetta in 2009²⁸; the Lashkar-e-Baluchistan a front

for Baluchistan’s independence, becoming known in the in 2012 bombings²⁹. Most of these groups have kept hibernating, splintering, disappearing and reappearing with new names, and attacking spontaneously – most have been proscribed and banned by the Pakistan Government. Several top-rank officials from both the government and the military have been repeatedly accusing Indian elements, station along the Pak-Afghan border of harboring, funding and arming these factions and using them in a planned way.

• Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Just as troubling has been Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The province had been under Afghan influence in the time between the declining of the Mughal power (1738) and the Sikh invasion (1818), but after the British Raj implemented the Durand Line in 1919, the Afghans had no say in the matters of the province from then onwards. Yet, since the US invasion of Afghanistan, the Hamid Karzai authority has been denying the credibility of the Durand Line³⁰, creating an air of ill-will between the two nations.

Locally, the major dissident element had been the Late Bacha Khan³¹, who had been a proponent of an independent state of Pashtunistan and remained a staunch critic of the state till his death in 1988. Later his son Abdul Wali Khan remained a proponent of the same until he joined the National Awami Party in 1956. Wali Khan’s son Asfandyar Wali, is the current leader of NAP. The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement that originated in 2014, led by Manzoor Ahmad Pashteen, a victim of repeated displacements in during different Army Operations in Waziristan, has been alleged of being a foreign agent working for Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of India or the National Directorate of Security of Afghanistan³².

The truth is that even if dissident elements are genuine in their ambitions and are working for equality and justice for their groups, their being minute sections of the society, their vulnerability at the hands of the state authority and their thirst for funds makes them an easy target for external forces that are looking for fault lines to exploit. Especially in KP, where the influx of Afghan refugees; relations between the local and the Afghan tribes across the two sides of the border; and the vulnerable Internally Displaced have been fault lines that have effectively been breached in the past.

As in 1980, when the Afghan-Soviet War approaching its end, one of Osama bin Laden’s mentors, Abdullah Yousuf Azzam began teaching at International Islamic University, Islamabad. In 1984, he opened the Maktab al-Khidamat and AL Qaeda with OBL, in Peshawar³³. Soon this became the opening for foreign jihadist to land in Pakistan. Several pro-Pakistan Afghan groups fighting against the Soviets also had safe havens in KP, and when the US ousted the Taliban government from Afghanistan, they again found refuge in Pakistan³⁴. In 2007 several groups in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas united under Baitullah Mehsud to form the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan³⁵, splintering again in the coming years. TTP conducted several hundred terrorist attacks, killing thousands of innocent civilians³⁶, it was declared a terrorist org in

2010³⁷ and has been eradicated to a large extent now after the Army’s extensive operations. The Pakistani military and civilian leadership have repeatedly alleged Indian intelligence agency RAW’s funding and training of TTP members from a network of Indian consulates in Afghanistan along the Pakistani border and the Afghan intelligence agency NDS³⁸ – the group is also closely linked with Al Qaeda element in the country.

• Punjab

Coming to Punjab, we see the relatively mild Saraiki nationalist movement³⁹ and the Bahawalpur Province Movement⁴⁰. Compared to ethnic agitation, we find more religion and nationalists based groups in Punjab, like Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (1984, anti-Soviet, pro-Kashmir), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (1985, anti-Shia), Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (1985, anti-Shia), Lashkar-e-Taiba (1986, pro-Kashmir), Harkat ul Ansar (1993, pro-Kashmir), Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (1997, anti-Soviet, pro-Kashmir), Jundullah (1996, TTP subgroup), Jaish-e- Mohammed (2000, pro-Kashmir), etc. and Shia groups Tehrik Nifaz Fiqh-i Jafaria (TNFJ) Sipah Muhammed (SM) that emerged in retaliation of the anti-Shia groups.

A thorough study of all these groups in Punjab, that keep splintering, changing names, separating and reuniting, disappearing and reappearing, shows some elementary patterns. Firstly, the timeline shows their origination in the Soviet-Afghan War period. Though religious organizations with some extreme ideologies were there long before, they were not violent. But with the war, group broke off from previously existing orgs to form violent groups, funded and armed by foreign friends.

Secondly, we see that in the Soviet War era, these groups made the Kashmir Cause part of their manifestos along with being anti-Soviet, meaning that once the Soviet were gone, they would still have reason to fight – so for them the Kashmir Cause was both a cover and a future security.

Thirdly, in the era of the US Invasion of Afghanistan, the same groups re-evolved into Al Qaeda and TTP affiliated groups, and later when TTP was cleaned-off in Army operations, they even became ISIS allies. Like, in 2000, Jaish e Muhammad, an off-shoot of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, showed allegiance to Al Qaeda⁴¹ – in 2002, elements of Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and Jaish-e-Mohammed regrouped into Lashkar e Omer⁴², that was affiliated to Al Qaeda. And in 2016, Lashkar e Jhangvi al Aalmi claimed joint responsibility with ISIS for attack on police training college in Quetta that left at least 61 people dead and 170 others wounded⁴³.

Another interesting phenomenon is the entrance of Iranian proxies in the Syrian War after 2011 and the gathering of Shia Mujahideen from all around in the Iran-led militias in Syria. Thousands of Shia volunteers that went from Pakistan and got trained in the Iraqi and Syrian battlegrounds, created parallel groups in Pakistan, like Zainoboon Brigade⁴⁴ (2012), Mehdi Militia⁴⁵ and the Kurram Hizbullah⁴⁶ (app. 2010).

All this shows that militancy is not a normal behavior with sovereign boundaries of a functional state, rather it is a conditioned behavior.

Apart from all this nationalist and religious violence, Pakistan has also experienced strains of ethnic violence. Ethnic violence against the Shia Hazara community was a phenomenon that occurred only between 2001 and 2014.

In 2003, 12 Shia Hazara police cadets were gunned down in Quetta. In the same year, the main Hazara Mosque was attacked in Quetta, 53 worshippers were killed. In 2004, at least 60 Hazara were killed in a Muharram procession in Quetta. Another 73 Hazara Shiite were killed in a 2010 Quetta bombing. All these and several other target killings were claimed by Lashkar e Jhangvi and TTP⁴⁷. As Army clean-up operations increased so did the frequency of targeting the Hazara community, peaking in 2011 and 2012. Around the world and also in the country, these events were portrayed as Shia-Sunni intercommunal hatred and proof of Pakistan being at the precipice of state collapse – when the real connection was clearly with the terror groups that had been generated with the event of the two wars. Though other Shia killing were also perpetrated in this time, but the Hazara killings were especially good for resounding around the world media and a double religio-ethnic blow to sever the social fabric of an otherwise peace-loving people of the state.

The mob attacks on minority Hindus and Christians are indeed a question mark too, especially when no terror-outfit has claimed responsibility. Yet we see this pattern rising and falling between 2013 and 2016⁴⁸, when the TTP/Al-Qaida and their affiliates were facing maximum pressure to dissemble from the country. The almost isolated major attack on the Ahmadiyya community, was also a double attack on 28 May, 2010⁴⁹ in Lahore, wherein 86 Ahmadis were killed.

A specified above, Foreign Intervention has been the major force behind the ethno-religious chaos in the country. The Iranian Revolution and the Soviet-Afghan War both started in 1979. Funds were coming in from the US and Saudi Arabia, both of whom wanted to see a defeated Russia in Afghanistan, and a defeated Iran in the Iran-Iraq War that started in 1980. Their proxy war in Afghanistan had to pass through Pakistan, therefore, Pakistan would soon become the host of proxy-war dynamics. At that time pro-Soviet Indians also got the chance to ally in with the Soviets in Afghanistan. Circumstances made Iran, Russia and India partner in their hybrid warfare against the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. By the time of the US-Afghan War, however, India had become a US ally, hence its presence in the Afghan soil only increased.

General Mirza Aslam Baig⁵⁰ wrote in 2007, ‘Sarobi is the nerve centre headed by an Indian General officer, who also commands the Border Road Organisation (BRO). Dissidents from Pakistan are trained at Sarobi for missions inside NWFP. Kandahar has its forward bases at Lashkargah and Nawah. Their target area is our province of Balochistan. The dissidents from Balochistan are trained at Lashkargah for undertaking missions in Balochistan as well as in support of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA).

Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed said⁵¹ in an interview in 2006, ‘600 ferraris, or Baluchi tribal dissidents, are getting specialized training to handle explosives, engineer bomb blasts, and use sophisticated weapons in these camps.’

However, where ethnonational and sectarian violence does have a vital foreign hand, it also has local elements, that host them. The next chapter will examine the local and human dimension of these fault lines.

Chapter2

Understanding the Fault lines First

Though we have argued that ethnic and sectarian violence in Pakistan has been fueled by external factors, nevertheless the external factors did not fracture anything but already existing internal fault lines.

There is no country or society in the world today that is free of all divides. The human race identifies itself with race, color, faith, creed, language, dialects, nations, clans, economic classes and even gender orientations – each grouping has a history and a geography and a psychological periphery that always stands a chance of being obliterated by interests or intrusions of other such groups. Pakistan constitutes of a pluralistic society comprising of several major ethnic groups (Punjabis, Pashtuns, Sindhis, Saraikis, Muhajirs, Baloch, Hindkowans, Chitralis, Gujarati) and smaller groups (Kashmiris, Kalash, Khowar, Hazara, Shina, Balti, Siddis and others) and an added 1.7 million Afghanis. Six major languages, Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Saraiki, Urdu and Balochi are spoken, each with several local dialects.

The majority Sunni Muslims have a dominance over the Shia Muslims, while Hindus, Ahmadiyya, Buddhist and Parsis make less than 3% of the populations. This diversity calls for constant permutations and clash – making space for sectarianism

To give an example of how sectarian clashes fueled from across border is originally rooted in the locals, Suroosh Irfani compiles the example of Parachinar⁵²:

“Parachinar, a city of five hundred thousand inhabitants and capital of Kurram Agency bordering Afghanistan, was torn by sectarian clashes on 5 September 1996, following an incident of wall chalking by sectarian students. Confrontation between rival student groups escalated into nine days of sectarian war, in which some two hundred people were killed and many more injured. While the army moved in and took control of Parachinar, “free use of missiles, mortars, and rocket launchers forced residents of several villages to take shelter in nearby mountains.” There were also reports of missile attacks from the Paktia province of Afghanistan bordering the strife-torn area, hitting the Shia villages of Paiwar, Kharlachi, Burki and Bughday in the upper Parachinar. As the army recovered illegal weapons in Parachinar during a house-to house search after it clamped a curfew, Interior Minister General Naseerullah Babar publicly expressed his dismay in the national assembly for the government’s failure in protecting people because “two neighboring countries (Iran and Afghanistan) were fighting their war in Pakistan.” He also blamed the religious schools as “the main cause of bloodshed in Parachinar,” and regretted that the government had given land to the two countries for building their madrassas.”

The example displays the fact that Pakistani society, like every other society has some extremist elements, and in this case, the deprived and marginalized institution of the Madrassa (religious schools and seminaries) matched well with Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization program, the US patronage of Jihad against communist regimes and the Saudi-Wahabi funding that was looking for stakeholders that would further their war against Shia Islam, that they were fighting both in the Iraq-Iran War and in Afghan/Pakistan soil.

The major madrassas in question, the JI (Maududi), JUI (Deobandi, Wahabi) and JUP (Berlvi, Sufi) were sub-sectarian parties that got support and political power in Zia’s time. It cannot be said if Zia intended to make them loose cannons like they turned out to be later or not, but his shortsightedness did create the Frankenstein that would become an uncontrollable menace in near future. Soon the JUI bore militant sub-groups SSP and LeJ. The Deobandi appeal meshed well with the Pakhtuns strict tribal customs and living close to the war, it soon flourished as a war against communist infidels. As a result, some extremist seminaries became hubs of training the Afghan Mujahedeen and some of suicide-bombers. After 2001 and the emergence of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and its stationing in Peshawar, the local Jihad subjectively synthesized with the universal one and foreign jihadists came pouring in into the battle of faith.

It should be noted that this was in contrast to extremist groups mentioned in the earlier chapter – moderate religious parties like JI and its student body Islamic Jamiat Talba (IJT), have remained supra-sectarian and has been popular in the urban middle class and the educated youth. Yet, JI is the only religious party that has scored some seats in the 2018 Elections, whereas all other extremist parties have totally lost ground in the democratic process. This means that urban-dwellers though ideologically match with these religious groups are not ready to empower them politically.

Understanding fault lines, whether sectarian or ethnic, will therefore require the study of the people, their culture and their needs, unique to each affected region, and to understand the vulnerability they are prone to in the event of abnormal initiation or instigation into terror-modes. There is need to evaluate the mindset of the people who would rise up to radicalization; the mindset of the communities that immediately surround them and would therefore provide their safe haven; and of those who, being the majority population, have allowed this menace to brood in their midst without retaliation; and also, of the power-circle that has remained either negligent or oblivious.

It has to be assessed how the radical ‘idea’ that was transferred to a single individual (or a very small group), gained acceptance within the immediate group, how the idea changed shape with each successor of the group, and how several psychological, social and economic factors made the groups what they are today.

It has to be assessed if a terrorist outfit has a criminal mindset, which is already a radical, has masked itself with ethnic or ideological reasoning; or has an altruistic mindset, struggling for the betterment of a section of society, and has been hijacked by criminal inclinations in time.

And it has to be assessed that though the insurgent is always bad, insofar as it breaks the law of the country, breaches the writ of the government and therefore its sovereignty, and plays havoc with the lives and peace of the community – yet, at the same time, it has to be accepted that the difference between a criminal gang and an insurgency is the latter possessing a self-acclaimed legitimate basis, which if ‘just’ will not be curbed down with force alone but with real time deliverance of the issues they address. And only if their legitimacy is proven fake, can the majority of the population be brought to support the counter-insurgent’s point of view, and only then the use of limited warfare can be carried out without the fear of mass agitation from the general populace.

In this context, the example of Jhang, the birth place of Lashkar e Jhangvi (LeT) is of interest. Jhang constitutes of a sizable Shia population, some of which are influential landed elites. According to a study by Mohammad Waseem⁵³, the Sunnis of Jhang were of the accommodating Berelvi following that intermingled with Shia traditions and culture – making for a fair homogeneity. At the event of the Partition many Urdu-speaking migrants came to settle in Jhang. Being educated and sedentary they preferred to settle in the city areas. These migrants followed the more puritanical Deobandi thinking and despised the adulteries of the Shia faith. In the 1970s when farming began to be mechanized, most Barelvi Sunnis farmers lost their jobs and began moving into the city. Displaced and hopeless, they came under the influence of the Deobandi preachers who tried to bring them into their puritanical but stringent beliefs that harbored hate for the Shias, the Ahmadis and for all infidels. Thus, the HuJI (1984) and later its off-shoots Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (1985), Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (1985) received a lot of blood and spirit in the Sunnis of Jhang who were looking for a new Messiah in their evolving plight.

According to the study⁵⁴, ‘regional rivalry, particularly between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, has been played out within Pakistan, as well as through the jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s’. As General Zia ul Haq initiated the process of Islamization, that was backed by the Saudi Wahabi ideology and funds in a bid to impede the effects of the Iranian Revolution in Pakistan, the Revolution at the same time arranged for several members of the Imamia Student Organisation (ISO) to be awarded scholarships to study in Iran. The Tehrik-Nifaz Fiqh Jaffria TNFJ benefitted from monetary and political ties with post-revolutionary Iran.

Another example is found in Gilgit⁵⁵, a region that remained deprived of political participation because Pakistan could not declare it a province, doing which would make it lose its legitimacy in its case for Kashmir that is pending in United Nations. For this reason, Gilgit has been governed by the Kashmir Affairs Ministry (Islamabad), which practically had a bureaucratic dominance over the ‘elected’ Northern Areas Legislative Council (NALC). Gilgit being a Shia majority area, not only despised the over-arching authority of officials from Islamabad, but also felt being ruled by a Sunni office that may have a natural disliking for a people of an opposing sect. Some local parties like the Gilgit Baltistan Democratic Alliance (GBDA), Gilgit-Baltistan United Movement (GBUM) and Balwaristan National Front (BNF) have been voicing for autonomy/secession too – in reaction to which the people of Gilgit allege the government to have Sunni migration into Gilgit, whose demographic has been changed from 95% Shia to 60% now.

In the 1980s, Gilgit experienced two parallel phenomena in the wake of the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet-Afghan War. Firstly, a number of local Shia clerics were invited to study in prominent centers of religious learning in Qum and Mashhad in Iran and on their return, they started politicization of the Shia community and many Shia started joining the Tehrik Nifaze Fiqah Jaffria (TNFJ) and the Sipah-i- Muhammad (SM)⁵⁶. Secondly, almost at the end of the Soviet-Afghan War, in 1988, the jihadists were returning and many settled in Chilas and Gilgit, riots erupted when some Sunni puritans beat up Shia who were eating at the festival of Eid, when the Sunnis were still fasting. Army had to be called in and Shia claim that 700 of them lost their lives in the event. By 1999, after the Kargil conflict, the SSP, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Al-Ikhwan and Harkatul Mujahideen had opened offices there, with recurring attacks on Shia and counter attacks from the Shia – sectarian strife continued until 2005, after which the area has seen relative peace.

Thus, Gilgit presents a case of genuine grievances that were aggravated by the neglect and alleged antagonism of the center against the Shia majority of Gilgit. The Gilgit-Baltistan (Empowerment and Self-governance) Order 2009, that established a legislative assembly with 24 elected members, and six reserved seats for women and three for technocrats – has been a first step in redressal⁵⁷.

These details show that though external factors, which are usually material, likes arms, funds, propaganda text etc. is vital in provoking violence in targeted areas and communities – the psychological aspects that are the wholesome product woven out of the historical, ethnic, religious, socio-economic, and geographic veins of a human community, are just as inherently instrumental in accepting and rejecting violence. In the examples of Jhang and Gilgit, we find the reason and need for having a governance – a governance that is able to feel the grievances of its people and is able to foresee the destruction, misery and remorse it is going to evolve into in near future, and a governance that is able to un-do disaster before it has been exacted.

And the reparation of the psychological raptures that have shattered mutual trust, respect and the reasons to stay united, will not be achieved with material inputs alone, but only with act of trust-building, respect-giving and humanization of the reasons to stay united.

Chapter 3

Fault Lines Current Situation

The efforts of the Pakistan Government in alliance with the Pakistan Army has borne its fruit and has resulted in a sweeping off of militant groups and their stronghold from the land. As of now, though there are terrorist attacks but their quantity and the casualties they have incurred has declined considerably. Though several outfits like the al-Qaida linked TTP seems to have been uprooted, this does not mean that Pakistan has not become free of terrorism – according to a PICSS Report⁵⁸, 2017 witnessed ‘950 overall violent incidents (security forces actions and militant attacks combined) in which 1395 people were killed while 1965 others were injured’. Compared with 2016, this was a 41% reduction in overall incidents and almost 25% reduction in number of deaths. Though reduced, these numbers are still alarming.

The past history of militant outfits in the country has shown that they can become dormant and resurface with the same or different names in a spontaneous manner. It is imperative therefore, for our institutions to know the exact strengths, locations, maneuvering tactics, recruitment methods, points of operation, channels of reaching the media, social networking and foremost sources and channels of their funding and weapon supplies. But foremost of all, it is imperative to understand the ideological bases of our fault lines and the groups that nurture them – to know how and why the targeted individuals/groups will fall prey to different types of incitements, and to know the loopholes in their ideologies that can be and have repeatedly been exploited by external factors. For this purpose, it is necessary to make an in-depth study in the history of religion, the basis of different extreme element in many schools of thought and how they have manifested globally and in the subcontinent in different periods. These ideologies, whether religious, like Wahhabism, Deobandi, Barelvi or sectarian like the Sunni/Shia difference or even sub-nationalist/ethnic like the Baloch or Pashtun separatisms, though standing on some sound belief, all harbor some extreme values that impel members to take violent steps. Therefore, unless the history and beliefs are not assimilated and chronicled, neither will our institution be able to penetrate these schools, nor initiate the needed corrections, nor be able to predict their future intents or curb them.

As of current disposition, though suppressed TTP is still one of most trouble-causing outfit hiding some of its elements in FATA and operating in liaison with IMU, ETIM and Al-Qaeda⁵⁹. Jamat-ul-Ahrar an off-shoot of TTP formed in 2014, is another most active group, operating from FATA and Nangahar⁶⁰, the adjacent province in Afghanistan – it has managed several attacks in Karachi, Lahore and Quetta along with other cities. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al-Aalami has been operating as the major proxy of Daesh⁶¹ in Pakistan, carrying out several high profile in Baluchistan that were claimed by Daesh.

Apart from funding from proven foreign sources, these groups also receive donations from local sympathizers. In some places these outfits have found to be running local business. A lot of money has been collected through kidnappings for ransom and drug sales. But the main source of revenue still remains foreign, like the governments of India and Afghanistan and the CIA. These funds are channeled through local ‘elders’ or ‘Maliks’; through leaders of religious organizations associated with these outfits; and through ‘hundi’ or money-laundering. Major efforts from the Pakistan Government have been made to cut funding to these outfits, especially those being done through banks or via money-laundering⁶². Destroying militant strongholds also effects their organized channels. However, destroying their ‘centers of gravities’ does not mean they will not re-assemble and re-sprout at other places.

Where we have tried to understand the regional and sub-regional webbing of militant outfits, there is also the global aspect that needs constant vigilance. Al-Qaeda’s footprints can be traced back into the Bosnian War⁶³ (1992-95). Later, with Osama Bin Laden, it was spread into Muslim states from Africa to Afghanistan and from the Central Asian States to the island states of Malaysia and Philippines. 9/11 and the subsequent Arab Spring only served to make the al-Qaeda network more and more complex, with its leaders mastering the art of organizing at a focal point and then disintegrating into thin air only to re-emerge under new names and leaders. Outfits in Pakistan being associated with terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda, Daesh and Ansar al Sharia, means that they cannot act independently, and are in constant need of external life-line for funds, ideological support and legitimacy. Being linked with these international network gives the groups associated with them a kind of universality of purpose and a fortified belief in their own legitimacy.

Phenomenally, being part of an international network, that acts like the liberator of mankind, has been a major factor for the acceptance of the Takfiri ideology⁶⁴, with which killing and terrorizing of fellow Muslims becomes purely lawful in the eyes of militants. Designating Muslim states as dar-ul-harb and equating suicide with sahada (martyrdom) are also fruits of this larger-than-life affiliation. Therefore, to subdue the menace of terrorism, which when allowed to seep in to the target societies, further takes the faces of sectarianism, ethnic conflict and religious – it is imperative to gauge the ever-changing situation of these international outfits and vigilantly track their psychological, ideological, physical effects and pressures on the local groups they engage with.

This brings us back to the idea of Hybrid Warfare⁶⁵ – that will use all available resources, including person to person contact, penetrating into societal values and cultures, and literally abducting a portion of the population into becoming a non-state universal. While creating this alienated group within the populace, the Hybrid⁶⁶ uses other influences via social media, political influence and NGOs to create an air of people’s distrust on their government and authorities, and try to condition mass opinion towards anti-national and anti-faith feelings, and at the same time pressurize governments through international institutions to give in to their recommended structural changes – making the threat we are living in a compounded threat.

The compounded threat is an ever-evolving one, as the factors that have initiated them will not cease in pursuing them until their goals are satisfied. In Pakistan’s case, this includes the Indian factor, that will not backtrack until it sees permanent victory in Kashmir and until its interests in Afghanistan are permanently satisfied. And the factor of US and its Allies, who want an Afghanistan open to their will, to exploit its resources and an Afghanistan that would willingly become US springboard for influence in Central Asia and a deterrence against Russia and China, thus creating a convergence of interest – and until these impossibles have been achieved, the Hybrid phenomenon will be played upon us continuously and with changing faces.

In fact, ‘to change’, surprise, shock, paralyze and change again by the time the target has been able to understand what has happened and how – is the key to hybrid warfare. In the decade passing, and with so many changing phenomena, and the trail of miseries that keep diminishing into the unknown, a developing country like Pakistan, with limited resources, and with economic and institutional issues of its own, has barely been able to assess the hybrid phenomenon with clear and certain statistics. But can we stay oblivious to this war being waged upon us, as a secondary matter?

Already the damages incurred by Pakistan in the last 15 years due to the religious/sectarian and ethnic fault lines have been colossal. According to an NDU research article⁶⁷, the War on Terror and its subsequent redirection towards Pakistan has ‘brought huge destruction to Pakistan by slowing down the economic growth, devastating the social structure, and harming the country politically’. A 2011 Ministry of Finance document⁶⁸ revealed that in ‘the last 10 years the direct and indirect cost of war on terror incurred by Pakistan amounted to $ 67.93 billion or Rs.5037 billion, whereas a 2016 report⁶⁹ by Neta Crawford of the Watson Institute reported ‘62,000 deaths and an additional 67,000 injuries’ over the last 14 years, the economic losses borne by the country due to the Afghan War and terrorism has been estimated up to $28459.89 million only between 2011 and 2014 by the Finance Ministry⁷⁰.

It is time for us to understand that this compounded Hybrid threat is the foremost matter of interest. The Hybrid phenomenon is like a constant fever that numbs the honor and fortitude of a people, its constant presence and its recurring shocks indicate its covered cancerous nature, which will eventually prove as an existential threat and the ‘real and present danger’ for a heedless nation!

Chapter 4

Fault lines – Modus Operandi and flaws

Fault lines, whether ethnic or religious/sectarian, exist in all societies. Many times, there are genuine grudges between people such that may result in brute force, but following the natural course of things, they are usually placated and as a whole, society remains a homogeneity – and nations remain intact. This is because, the reasons to remain united and functionary are always far greater than the reasons to disunite, – in other words, in a natural course the commonalities dominate over the differences.

Yet, if convulsions over specific fault lines are recurring and occurring in decreasing spans of time, this inevitably means that the group of people representing the fault line has ‘gained strength’, the absence of which had kept it relatively dormant before. This strength has been replenished either from some internal or some external source.

In the previous chapters we have widely gone through internal factors comprising of political, social, economic, geographic and faith factors, that have led to religious, sectarian and ethnic outbreaks in the country. We have also made a study on the ideological and operational grounds of terror outfits that have mixed their purposes with those of previously existing religious subgroups and subnational groups, in such ways that ideology which was previously foreign to internal fronts, became meshed with their traditional ideologies. We discussed the Takfiri Ideology that has a diametrically inverse idea of a state from the one existing in most democratic states, and with which it may completely legitimize murder, extortion and terrorization of individuals, communities and the state as a whole.

In this chapter we will elucidate on how these very internal weaknesses inside a nation-state, can be and are being – in a systematic manner- exploited by external actors.

With WWI and WWII, colonial powers were in retreat, and an international system under the League of Nations and the United Nations became the flagbearers of human rights and the establishment and preservation of nation-states. With the rise of nation-states, most of whom came into existence between 1945 and the 1960s, all-out war to subjugate a weak country to the will and interest of the strong country became more and more out-of-the-question, as breach into the sovereignty of another state would require the approval of the Security Council every time. Since each powerful state wanted to portray itself as the protector of humanity, reliance on covert methods, like espionage, assassinations and backing internal coups became a practice – with the help of which the powerful states ensured proxy rule in newly freed states. These practices swiftly evolved into the ability of not only maintaining proxy rulers but also in creating or strengthening dissident groups that would play the role of proxy warriors in target countries.

Technically, this warfare has grown from the 4^th Generation to the 5^th. The 4GW, in which avoiding a state-to-state war, external powers backed, funded and trained non-state actors such as guerrillas, terrorists, and rioters to gain economic, strategic and cultural dominance. This was followed by the 5GW, which meant improvising the 4GW command centers with high-tech mission-accomplishers; drones which exterminate targets from thousands of miles away with remote-control joysticks; small Special Force units, another name for high-tech assassins; and even private contractors.

In short, the 4GW diminished the difference between the combatant and the civilian – and the 5GW obliterated the sovereignty of states.

Now at the epitome of human innovation and expertise, 5GW has grown into the Hybrid War phenomenon, which in the wake of a combination of geo-strategy with geo-economics, is a blend of conventional warfare, irregular warfare and cyberwarfare – with the use of all possible tools such as fake news, diplomacy, lawfare, foreign electoral intervention, trade wars etc. Hybrid warfare is thus a flexible complex, that operates from simple human-to-human contact to super-tech, and from Kinetics to subversion via non-kinetics, making war an ‘any time, any place, anything’ effort.

Identifying and exploiting internal fault lines of a state and directing them towards desired outcomes is referred to as creating Non-Kinetic Threats in the world of 5^th Generation and Hybrid warfare. After acquainting with the weak points of a state’s society, non-kinetics aims at ‘persuading, coercing, shaping and impairing the national will of a target state, through exploitation or deepening or precipitating already existing Fault Lines/Instabilities’⁷¹, and the tactics involved are not as ‘lethal’ like the Kinetic warfare but are supposedly ‘non-lethal’ or ‘sublethal’. Powerful nations can apply non-kinetics under the cover of peacekeeping, humanitarian, disaster relief and other operations for causes such as national integrity, democracy and human rights.

In a developing country like Pakistan, who has survived amidst a troubled neighborhood, seeing wars on its three sides, in Afghanistan since 1979, in the Iran-Iraq War 1980-88, and several times with India – the country has always been a ripe ground for settling the odds. In the Soviet-Afghan War, Pakistan seeing itself at the pathway of the Soviet’s imperial lust, allied with the US against the Soviets, and allowed CIA and Al Qaeda element to operate between the Afghan and Pakistani soil for the purpose of creating proxy forces that could subdue the Soviets with guerilla tactics. After the Soviet’s retreat, these same forces became an unmanageable complex – often battling front to front in Afghanistan – until the US invaded and successfully redirected, with the help of CIA and Raw, many elements towards sabotaging Pakistan itself. And for over a decade Pakistan faced an onslaught of terrorism that took over 60,000 lives and devastated the peace of the people.

Living through all these wars, Pakistan has been an open laboratory for the evolving non-Kinetics, that included raising and aiding non-state actors, to social-media psyops, to influencing our education system. These non-state actors can be terror outfits, NGOs acting as change-agents in a community, or even politicians that have been bought for influence. To tackle with such menace that tend to weaken the writ of the state, blur it sovereign boundaries, and acquiesce/impair the national will of the people – the Government of Pakistan has reacted, but this reaction has been far from a complete success.

After a decade of falling victim to terrorism the Pakistan Government and Army came together and proceeded with a number of counter-terrorism campaigns starting from Operation Al-Mizan and Operation Rah-e-Haq and leading to the on-going Operation Zarb-e-Azb⁷². These operations have been very successful in clearing the land of terror outfits and their safe havens, and today the people of Pakistan feel less vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

But disappointedly, the Hybrid tactics cannot be defeated by military operations alone, psyops need to be countered by psyops, social media has to be engaged in social-media, educational institutions have to be brought into positive influence and the gaps and fault lines that were raptured by external exploiters have to be filled with broad and rooted governance. Sadly, the response of our government to terrorism and sectarian/ethnic violence has so far been more of ‘reactionary’ and not ‘precautionary’ and certainly not ‘proactive’.

The need for being precautionary and proactive is that the Hybrid phenomenon plays with best in an unapprehending environment where the society and the authorities are unaware of their presence, and is like a disease that can stay dormant and invisible for as long as desired, and sprout out suddenly at any time causing shock and paralysis.

Being ‘proactive’ against the Hybrid phenomenon would require the government institutions to fill the fault lines with good-governance such that the trust between the people and the state is fully replenished. Economic conditions, specially of the deprived sectors, that are more vulnerable to becoming part of non-state activities, has to be a priority. The political discourse which reflects unjust behaviors and pursuit of vested interests has to be reversed to make a governance-face that is trusted and relied upon by the people. Social injustice, institutional corruption and lack of accountability in all sectors have to be replaced with a swift, across the board, justice system; strict regulation in the institutes and relentless accountability at all levels. Religious institutions that have previously served as hotbeds of violent outfits need to be brought into the mainstream. Genuine grudges of ethnic/subnational/sectarian groups that have led to their radicalization must be addressed in a just manner. Education must be made a compulsory means to eradicate social and economic disparity and mere rote-learning has to be replaced with moral/value-based learning. Unless we decide as a nation to become a better people with higher values, we will not be able to fight the disease that feeds on all our such weaknesses.

The absence of synergized efforts by the state and state-institutions and the lack of political will to resolve our long-lagging basic issues, is evident in the on-going tussle between our legislative, judicial and executive – which has made a continuous mockery of our governance in the eyes of the people. It needs to be understood that the Hybrid phenomenon is a synergized one that ensures ‘any time, any place, anything’ to achieve its goals – and to counter this our state and its institutions will have to encircle everything, everywhere, all the time!

Chapter 5

Solutions and Way Forward

Detailed discussion of the preceding chapters presents upon us the question of finding a way forward that can enable us to prevent the rapture and exploitation of ethnic and religious fault lines in our country. The need of the day is to have a comprehensive strategy that is laced with the tools of in-depth knowledge of the society; with the tools of engaging with members of the society in a proactive manner; and the tools that can practically partake in removing grievances of the society. We also need to have the tools that enable us to predict future occurrences so that preemptive measure can be applied.

These needs cannot be secured by merely presenting theories and expecting our already-existing institutions like our army, our intelligence agencies or our police to deliver on them in the existing structural mechanism. Our experience has shown that although our institutions have tried their best in responding to terrorist acts, but their effort could only be reactionary – because their institutional framework allows them only that much. It is not being suggested

that these institutions can be taken out of the counter-terrorism equation, as they are the backbone of our security – rather the need is to have an institutionalized platform that can act as a bridge between security gaps, governance issues, ill-information and conceptual inability to comprehend matters and device practicable solution-based methods.

After a thorough study of several models of Counter-Terrorism and its evolved form, Counter-Violent-Extremism, this paper has come up with a wholesome strategy that will be able to investigate, conceptualize, engage and resolve with extremist elements and extremist material in Pakistan. Pakistan is a unique country and it needs to evolve its own unique solutions to its problems.

Therefore, this paper suggests the formation of a wholesome ‘institution’ with the following salient capabilities:

• Cluster Mapping

A mapping of the society is needed at the provincial, district, neighborhood level. Sensitive districts or areas can be specially marked and data on population sectors based on ethnicities, castes, political affinities, locations, age-groups and the schools, colleges and institutions that they engage with etc. all fall in the domain of Cluster-Mapping⁷³. Though this is a colossal task and some relevant data is kept with security institutions but that data is by no means complete, nor is it based on the vision of knowing a society with the aim of engaging with it in social terms. Mapping political entities of a constituency, the political thinking of the people, the local trends of a particular society etc. can provide us with the right tools of engagements for problem solving in times of peace and in times of crisis.

• Digital Mapping

The Hybrid phenomenon has penetrated our social media with an onslaught. Today Social Media is not only used by markets or by political parties also by external factors to influence the choices and trends of a society. The recent episode of Russiagate⁷⁴ is an example of how a foreign government can be involved in the electoral process of the US – if global powers are not safe from social/political intervention, how then can we assume ourselves to be safe. For this reason, just producing and inducing positive material into the internet is not enough. There is a need to map users’ trends, inclinations and quantity of engagements; to develop a data on real and fake users; home and foreign users and sources of fake/negative material. The organized

data collected under Digital Mapping⁷⁵ has to be then used in a ‘Digital Communication Strategy’ to eradicate foul origins and to engage with genuine users. Counter-Messaging Centers have to be developed under the supervision of a qualified team that is well-informed in both the psychology of users, methods of engagement and the ideological framework that needs to be secured at the national level.

• Engagement

While engagement in the digital arena is far-fetching and over-encompassing, there is also a need for person-to-person engagements. The digital platform is effective in taming the general conception of the masses, but those who invest in Violent-Extremism have a physical presence in their target localities and their presence among the people and opportunity for person-to-person negotiations create a bondage and sense of ownership between the extremists and their adherents – therefore necessitating the need to break these bondages via physical presence and engagement with the people. For this purpose, Contact-Cells need to be formed, that can engage with the people via public talks, open-mics, social campaigns, welfare-works campaigns, extremists-rehab centers (in the lines of the Sabawoon Rehab Center⁷⁶ set up in Swat) and personal contacts etc. This physical presence, especially in vulnerable areas will enable the teams to read the pulse of the situation, successfully predict near-future possibilities and help device and imply effective preemptive measures.

• Research

On ground and digital data acquired by the methods detailed above, needs to be gauged by experts in order to make them usable in the national grid pertaining the top-notch institutions of the military, intelligence, legislature and related ministries. Unless the crude data has been interpreted along diverse angles; formulated into predictive charts and graph that elucidate the data according to various possible scenarios and social elements; and is theorized by experts who have the ability to connect numbers, real-time events and theories in a practicable manner that does not drive the related institutions away from the human aspects of the problems but brings them closer to it – unless all this, there would not be any presentable policy guidelines for the institutions. For this purpose, a Research-Team of highly qualified experts and researches needs to be put in place, in such a manner that data-collection can be directed and synchronized in a productive way and real-time interaction between data-collectors and researches can open up real time, unique solutions and ways to look at things.

This Research-Center will then be a bridging factor between on-ground realities, policy-making, legislation and in strategizing the security institutions.

• Digital Archiving

In addition to collection of virtual and on-ground personalized, social, ethnical, religious etc. data, there is also a need to have a collection of histories, cultural practices, popular myths, social and political trends of localities. Archiving national history, contemporary political history, literature and related research works, is also a necessity. This colossal work needs to be done in an institutionalized manner, as this Digital-Library will serve all related institutions. The on-going work of collection and organization will need to be monitored by another set of digital experts, who can relate this data with the emerging trends and situations.

• Social Media Experts

What sort of slogans, info-graphics, short-films, documentaries and other persuasive material will strike the minds of an audience; what language will reach the specific sector or the masses; how to combine trends with messages etc. – all this is a separate science that has to be dealt with by teams of social experts. A Social Media Center (SMC) will create the material suitable for different media like the Mainstream Media, Facebook, WhatsApp etc. or needed by Counter-Messaging Centers or Contact Cells etc.

All different media have their unique styles and ways of penetrating, especially social media, which is an interactive media, needs to be handled by teams of handlers that interact with SM communities and can instantly extract needed material from the SMCs. These Handler-Teams can be supervised by a panel comprising of social experts and representatives of different security institutions and related ministries, so that comprehensive, result-oriented effort can be made in a day-to-day practice.

• Synergy

While doing all the above-mentioned tasks, different teams will come across valuable information pertaining element of violent-extremism, corruption, crime, social-depredation etc. There will then be a need to forward this information to related institutions and also to be able to set Forward-Teams that can engage element of the society such as the youth or educated or influential people of the society to help/scheme the eradication of crime/evils using soft-power. Therefore, such teams will not only bridge the information gap between the Army, the Ministries, the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) etc. but also serve as their effective soft-tools.

The suggested ‘institution’ may seem as a complex of several departments but will serves as a simplifier of complex issues plaguing our state. In order to appreciate the efficiency of such an institute, we will now make a brief survey of how some other countries have approached the issues of violent extremism in their societies and have they or not used such tools.

Chapter 6

Comparison with other Models

• The UK Model

In 2018 the Secretary of State for the Home Department presented their revised Strategy for Countering Terrorism by the title ‘CONTEST’⁷⁷ to the UK parliament. In spite of a tight security system, UK faces a fair risk of terrorism; in 2017, UK saw five attacks in London and Manchester that led to the 36 deaths and many injuries. Since 2000, UK has proscribed the National Action, the Scottish Dawn and the National Socialist Anti-Capitalist Action as terror outfits, while Northern Ireland presents another security risk.

The 2018 CONTEST was an update of ‘the tried and tested strategic framework of four ‘P’ work strands:

•Prevent: to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.

•Pursue: to stop terrorist attacks.

•Protect: to strengthen our protection against a terrorist attack.

•Prepare: to mitigate the impact of a terrorist attack.

The Prevent mechanism includes arrests, rehabilitation, and engage with the communities and the vulnerable, and to prevent the online dissemination of terrorist material. The Pursue focuses on increasing investigative capabilities, introduce new CT legislation, train more staff, to improve information sharing, disrupt terrorist finance and maintain a global reach to disrupt those that directly threaten the UK. To Protect, the plan suggests collecting greater volumes of high-quality data on terrorism related person and material, apply leading screening and detection technologies at the border, enhancing CBRNE detection, strengthening information-sharing and security at sensitive areas like airports and crowded places. And prepare by maintaining capabilities of the emergency services when attack has happened.

These measures suit the UK environment, which is an industrialized one with high literacy rates. Moreover, terrorism in the UK is usually related to Al Qaeda and Daesh-inspired terrorism, which usually attracts Muslim youth, most of whom want to join these groups in foreign lands. Therefore, in UK the targets can be narrowed and terrorism material can be easily tracked out. Unlike the UK, in Pakistan those vulnerable to become part of terrorist outfits are not of foreign origin but the very local and amongst them of the economically deprived majority. Terrorism material in our country is also not entirely dependent on the internet, most literature is taught in specific Madrassas or at secret training camps, hidden within the local communities. Moreover, the terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and TTP had been having several strongholds in the country before the Army’s operations, unlike in UK, where contacts were mostly made online.

• The Malaysia Model

From 1948 to 1960 Malaysia had faced the Communist insurgency, so when they were faced with the new strand of religiously-inspired extremism, they had an experience to look back on. Malaysia has been threatened by groups like Jema’ah Islamiyah (JI), Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia and other groups linked to the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group. CVE success in

Malaysia too has reason in widening their approach compared to the US-centric understanding of CVE, which tends to focus on community programs and surveillance.

Malaysia extensively built on anti-terrorism legislation such as the Security Offences Act 2012 or SOSMA, the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2015 (POTA), the Special Measures Against Terrorism in Foreign Countries Act 2015 (SMATA) and the National Security Council Act 2016 (NSCA)⁷⁸, easing detention of terrorist without warrant.

Malaysia also emphasized on programs of re-education of mainstream values and continuous monitoring as follow-up security measures. In 2016⁷⁹, the Ministry of Home Affairs published its Integrated Rehabilitation Module for Detainees. Public awareness campaigns were organized in collaboration with Malaysian Special Branch, the Department of Islamic Development of Malaysia (JAKIM) and civil society organizations. The Jihad Concept Explanation Action Committee was set up to address misconceptions about jihad at different social groups and institutions; they include schools, universities, mosques, suraus (community prayer areas), and the Internet. Public talks were organized and material was created to be disseminated in the print, visual, and social media.

Also, in 2016⁸⁰, Counter-Messaging Centre (CMC) were set up under the Home Ministry and a Digital Strategic Communications Division (DSCD) under the Southeast Asia Regional Centre for Counterterrorism (SEARCCT) was established.

Such wide-ranging activities helped Malaysia to curb the menace of terrorism in the country. Compared to Malaysia, one can safely say that the magnitude of terrorism and violent extremism in Pakistan have been a multitude higher – therefore our effort needs to reflect the same multitude.

• The Saudi Arabia Model

Analyst Abdullah F. Ansary of the MEPC writes⁸¹, ‘After September 11, 2001, Saudi Arabia embarked on a very aggressive counterterrorism campaign: arresting thousands of people, questioning thousands of suspects, dismantling al-Qaeda cells and killing or capturing their leaders, seizing large caches of arms, extraditing suspects from other countries, and establishing joint task forces with global partners, including the United States. The Riyadh compound bombing in May 2003, however, created a turning point in Saudi Arabia’s fight against extremism. Following that attack, the Saudi government realized that existing security measures were insufficient and recognized the essential role of radical ideology in motivating terrorists and justifying terror’.

According to Ansary, religious extremism that was simmering in Saudi society for decades and following the Gulf War extremists began to commit takfir against the Saudi government and began to voice opposition to the stationing of U.S. troops in the kingdom. Takfiri groups, mainly AlQaeda, relies on religious and media committees for radicalization and recruitment. They have radicalization congregation centers and use text messages, telephone calls, books, notes, and audio and video tapes etc. in their campaigns.

Saudi authorities have adopted two strategies: the “Security Strategy,” implemented by all Saudi security forces with the cooperation of members of the community, and the “Advocacy and Advisory Strategy,” implemented through counseling programs and dialogue, advisory and advocacy campaigns. In order to combat radical ideology, government officials adopted a series of “soft” counterterrorism measures aimed at undermining extremist views and disrupting the activities of those who promote violent extremism: a counseling program, a tranquility campaign, a religious-authority campaign, a media campaign, a national solidarity campaign against terrorism, the development of public education, the monitoring of preaching, the review of sponsored publications, national-dialogue conventions, control of charities, Internet filtering, anti-terrorism legislation and increased international cooperation.

All these measures have helped pacify extremist activities in the country. The lesson for Pakistan in this model is that we too have to move from the hard-power strategies to soft-power strategies.

Conclusion

Pakistan has been a victim of terrorism since the inception of the Al -Qaeda phenomenon in Afghanistan and the subsequent US occupation of the country. Dealing with the outfalls of terror upon the innocent people of Pakistan has been a colossal challenge for the Government and Security apparatus of the country. Though followed by many successes in eradicating this menace, several studies have come up that elucidate upon the underlying fault lines in the religious and ethnic construct of the country, that have been exploited and will be potential targets in the evolving 5th Generation Hybrid Warfare.

The wholesome picture of our ethno-religious construct, brought up in this work and the suggested institutionalized measures for CVT in future, may seem to be an unworkable solution at first glance, yet if viewed in the swiftly evolving compounded warfare that is growing towards our ideological, psychological and sovereign boundaries, we may conclude that this preparation is inevitable and is the vital synergy needed if the existing institutional structure of the state needs to consolidate it efforts successfully.

The models mentioned above further clarify the universality of terrorism and violent extremism in the world, how so many states are fighting against this menace and how each state has devised its strategy according to its own sociopolitical structure and requirements. We also see that governments have engaged multiple institutions in CT and CVT. Starting from policy-making, to information gathering, to engagement, rehabilitations and anti-propaganda. Countries have learned from their experiences that CT/CVE is a colossal task and cannot be taken lightly. In Pakistan’s case, who is still surrounded by divisive enemies, we certainly cannot take this menace lightly – we need to muster our forces comprehensively, in the ideal, virtual and physical battlefields.

Surely, the evil of exploitation and enticement thrive only in the dark, and will be squelched whenever the light of awareness is shone on to it.

About the Author:

Aneela Shahzad is a geopolitical analyst and served as the editor at the Maritime Study Forum, Islamabad. She has authored the books, ‘Palestine and Israel- a collection of essays’, ‘Geopolitics from the Other Side’ and ‘Understanding Geopolitics’ and regularly contributes in different dailies and magazines.[i]

Reference

1. [i]Minority Rights Group International, World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples – Pakistan, September 2010, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/4954ce652.html [accessed 2 May 2019]

• One of the Pakistan’s smallest ethnic communities is made up of people of African origin, known as Sidi. The African-Pakistanis live in Karachi and other parts of the Sindh and Baluchistan provinces in abject poverty, but they rarely complain of discrimination. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1869876.stm

• Rehana Saeed Hashmi, Gulshan Majeed, Saraiki Ethnic Identity: Genesis of Conflict with State, Journal of Political Studies, Vol. 21, Issue – 1, 2014, 79:101

• ‘The speakers of Hindko are mostly found in the plains and the foot-hills of the Himalayas. They live both on the east and on the west of the River Indus… the territory of Hazara, a division of KPK, and Tanawal is located within this division, Muhammad Nawaz ‘A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY OF SEGMENTAL AND SELECTED SUPRASEGMENTAL

FEATURES OF HINDKO DIALECT SPOKEN IN TANAWAL, HAZARA

• Khowar speaking people in Chitral live in different valleys, such as; Tori-Khow, Muli-Khow, Mastuj, Kuh, Lotkuh and Drosh comprising of about one million including those who have migrated from Chitral, Diachronic and Synchronic Development of Khowar Language in Chitral: Kp District (Pakistan), ISSN 2356-8852 Journal of Social Sciences and Humanity Studies

• Shina language is spoken by people scattered over a vast mountainous region stretching from northern areas of J&K in the east to the territories of Gilgit-Baltistan and North-Western frontier province of pakistan. In J&K, the language is spoken in Gurez valley and Dras area of Kargil district in Ladakh division. https://www.academia.edu/28240228/Language_use_patterns_and_ethnolinguistic_vitality_of_the_Shina_speaki ng_Gurezi_immigrants

• UNESCO, Mainstreaming Education of Afghan Refugee Children in Pakistan   http://www.unesco.org.pk/education/documents/mearc/MEARC-End_Term_Progress_Report.pdf
• ‘The state of Punjab wants to obliterate the proven history of Sindh as its being a separate state and nation, having its own creed, heritage, culture, language and traditions. In the wake of the present conditions, the Sindhis should strive to rise to the occasion in order to save their motherland. I am confident that they will redeem Sindh from the cruel clutches of usurpers’, G M Syed, Sindhudesh A Study In Its Separate Identity Through The Ages http://www.gmsyed.org/sindhudesh/Sindhu%20Jii%20Sanjah%20-%20GM%20Syed.pdf
• ibid

1. More JSQM workers in Badin quit nationalist politics, DAWN, https://www.dawn.com/news/1353669

1. Zulfiqar Shah, ‘State crimes by Pakistan: Is Sindh at the verge of secession?’ http://www.merinews.com/article/state-crimes-by-pakistan-is-sindh-at-the-verge-of-secession/15902455.shtml

1. Pakistan Day: JSQM leader demands freedom for Sindh and Balochistan, ET, https://tribune.com.pk/story/354308/pakistan-day-jsqm-leader-demands-freedom-for-sindh-and-balochistan/

1. Huma Yusuf and Syed Shoaib Hasan, CONFLICT DYNAMICS IN SINDH, ‘The most wellknown of these is the Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSMM), the political arm of the militant Sindhu Desh Liberation Army (SDLA), led by Shafi Burfat, which was banned in April 2013 for its alleged involvement in acts of province-wide violence’ https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/PW104-Conflict-Dynamics-in-Sindh-Final.pdf

1. Chinese engineers were the main target, Daily Times, https://dailytimes.com.pk/2500/chinese-engineers-were-the-main-target/

1. Houses of six PPP leaders targeted in ‘bomb attacks’, DAWN, https://www.dawn.com/news/755470/houses-of-six-ppp-leaders-targeted-in-bomb-attacks

1. Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army claims twin blasts targeting Rangers in Larkana, DAWN, https://www.dawn.com/news/1274451

1. Christophe Jaffrelot, The Pakistan Paradox: Instability and Resilience, Oxford University Press (2015), p. 104

1. Abdul Qadir Mushtaq, MOHAJIR QAUMI MOVEMENT (MQM) (A LINGUISTIC AND RACIAL POLITICAL PARTY1979-1988) https://www.ijern.com/images/January-2013/c-16.pdf
2. Pakistan: Human rights crisis in Karachi, AI Index: ASA 33/01/96Amnesty International February 1996, https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/172000/asa330011996en.pdf

• What Altaf said…, DAWN, https://www.dawn.com/news/1279393

• Gloria Caleb, Decades of unease with the Centre, https://www.dawn.com/news/201157

• Stanford, Mapping Militant Organizations, http://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/457

• ibid

• Rehana Saeed Hashmi, Baloch Ethnicity: An analysis of the issue and conflict with state, http://pu.edu.pk/images/journal/history/PDF-FILES/4-%20PC%20Dr.%20Rehana%20Saeed%20Hashmi_52-1-

1. pdf

• Heritage under attack: PkMAP says it views Ziarat Residency as a ‘symbol of slavery’, ET, https://tribune.com.pk/story/564257/heritage-under-attack-pkmap-says-it-views-ziarat-residency-as-a-symbol-of-slavery/

• Jalal Faiz, POLITICS OF EDUCATION, CONFLICT AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN BALOCHISTAN, PAKISTAN, pg. 206

• No change made in list of banned outfits, The News, https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/14426-no-change-made-in-list-of-banned-outfits

• Balochistan group says it kidnapped Solecki, DAWN, https://www.dawn.com/news/342452/balochistan-group-says-it-kidnapped-solecki
• Lashkar-e-Balochistan claims responsibility of Karachi blast, Pakistan Today, https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2012/07/23/lashkar-e-balochistan-claims-responsibility-of-karachi-blast/

• Afghanistan will never recognise the Durand Line: Hamid Karzai, DAWN, https://www.dawn.com/news/1318594

• ‘Ghaffar Khan of Charsadda, also known as Bacha Khan. He often was called “Frontier Gandhi,” as he was a close associate of India’s renowned leader, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’, Hassan Abbas, Militancy in Pakistan’s

Borderlands: implications for the nation and for afghan Policy, pg.8.

• Pakistan military warns Pashtun rights group its ‘time is up, Aljazeera, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/pakistan-military-warns-pashtun-rights-group-time-190430085756182.html
• Kenneth Katzman, Al Qaeda: Profile and Threat Assessment, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RL33038.pdf

• Zachary Laub , The Taliban in Afghanistan, CFR. Belfar Center, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/taliban-afghanistan

• Hassan Abbas, A Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/profile-tehrik-i-taliban-pakistan

• TEHRIK-E TALIBAN PAKISTAN, UNSC,

https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/sanctions/1267/aq_sanctions_list/summaries/entity/tehrik-e-taliban-pakistan-%28ttp%29

• Proscribed Organizations, NACTA, https://nacta.gov.pk/proscribed-organizations/

• India, Afghanistan gave help to Pakistani Taliban, says group’s ex-spokesman, Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-militants/india-afghanistan-gave-help-to-pakistani-taliban-says-groups-ex-spokesman-idUSKBN17S1VN

• Muhammad Mushtaq, Misbah Shaheen, The Siraiki Province Movement in Punjab, Pakistan: Prospects and Challenges, Journal of the Punjab University Historical Society Volume No.30, Issue No. 2, July – December 2017

• Dr. Umbreen Javaid. Movement for Bahawalpur Province, http://pu.edu.pk/images/journal/pols/Currentissue-pdf/Movement%20for%20Bahawalpur%20Province.pdf
• Profile: What is Jaish-e-Muhammad? Aljazeera, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/02/profile-jaish-muhammad-190215061851082.html

• https://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/terroristoutfits/LeO.htm

• Pakistan: LeJ behind police academy attack in Quetta, Aljazeera, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/10/pakistan-lej-police-academy-attack-quetta-161025160102452.html

• Farhan Zahid, The Zainabiyoun Brigade: A Pakistani Shiite Militia Amid the Syrian Conflict, Jamestown Foundation https://jamestown.org/program/the-zainabiyoun-brigade-a-pakistani-shiite-militia-amid-the-syrian-conflict/#.V1Z41fl96Uk

• Mansur Khan Mahsu, The Battle for Pakistan Militancy and Conflict in Kurram, http://frc.org.pk/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/kurram.pdf

• ibid
• “We are the Walking Dead”, Human Rights Watch, https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/06/29/we-are-walking-dead/killings-shia-hazara-balochistan-pakistan

• Timeline of major attacks on minorities in Pakistan, ET, https://tribune.com.pk/story/721785/timeline-attacks-on-minorities/

• Pakistan mosque attacks in Lahore kill scores, BBC, https://www.bbc.com/news/10181380

• Gen (r) Mirza Aslam Beg, Proxy war and politics in Pakistan, https://nation.com.pk/28-Aug-2011/proxy-war-and-politics-in-pakistan
• How India is fomenting trouble in Pakistan via Afghanistan, https://www.thenews.com.pk/archive/print/642835-how-india-is-fomenting-trouble-in-pakistan-via-afghanistan
• Suroosh Irfani, Pakistan’s Sectarian Violence: Between the “Arabist Shift” and Indo-Persian Culture, https://apcss.org/Publications/Edited%20Volumes/ReligiousRadicalism/PagesfromReligiousRadicalismandSecurityi nSouthAsiach7.pdf
• Mohammad Waseem, Dilemmas of Pride and Pain: Sectarian Conflict and Conflict Transformation in Pakistan, Chap.4

• ibid

• ibid
• ibid

• ibid
• PICSS Annual Security Assessment Report 2017, https://www.picss.net/6654-2/

• ‘…during the U.S. invasion of October-November 2001. Taliban fighters, along with those from al-Qaeda Core, found refuge across the border in Pakistan. Also finding sanctuary were fighters from the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (I.M.U.) and the Islamic Jihad Union (I.J.U.)’, Lauren McNally, Marvin G. Weinbaum, A Resilient Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, MEI Policy Focus 2016-18, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=2ahUKEwjrqdKugYDiAhVxxYUKHR7

kAGMQFjABegQIAhAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mei.edu%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fpublications%2FPF18_ Weinbaum_AQinAFPAK_web_1.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3e5FMVeqlk9LjKH0rwPRQi

• Taliban splinter group splits further, DAWN, https://www.dawn.com/news/1370121

• Lashkar-e-Jhangvi worked with Daesh to attack Quetta Police College, The News, https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/160082-Lashkar-e-Jhangvi-worked-Daesh-attack-Quetta-Police-College

• Countering Financing of Terrorism, NACTA, https://nacta.gov.pk/counter-financing-of-terrorism/

• ‘Bosniaks also received assistance during and after the war from Islamic charities and humanitarian organizations, many of them from Saudi Arabia. Some of these groups served as fronts for Al Qaeda, which used them for planning attacks in Bosnia and elsewhere’, Steven Woehrel, CRS Report for Congress, Islamic Terrorism and the Balkans, Order Code RL33012
• ‘The practice of takfir, or excommunication after one Muslim declares another an infidel or apostate, became increasingly prominent, first during the 1960s in Egypt and then after the first Gulf War in the 1990s when veterans of the jihad in Afghanistan began to apostatize Saudi Arabia for hosting and supporting Western troops to fight Iraq’s then leader, Saddam Hussein’, Hassan Hassan, THE SECTARIANISM OF THE ISLAMIC STATE Ideological Roots and Political Context, Carnegie, https://carnegieendowment.org/files/CP_253_Hassan_Islamic_State.pdf

• “war amongst the people”, where “all the people – anywhere – are the battlefield”, Dr. Stefano Marcuzzi, Hybrid Warfare in Historical Perspectives, NATO Foundation Defense College http://www.natofoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/NDCF_StefanoMarcuzzi_Paper.pdf

• Thomas E. Nissan, Social Media’s Role in Hybrid Strategies, NATO StratCom COE
• Tariq Khan1, The Social, Political and Economic Effects of the War on Terror: Pakistan 2009 To 2011, https://www.ndu.edu.pk/issra/issra_pub/articles/issra-paper/ISSRA_Papers_Vol5_IssueI_2013/04-Policy-Paper-Tariq-Khan.pdf

• Cost of War on Terror for Pakistan Economy,

http://www.finance.gov.pk/survey/chapter_11/special%20section_1.pdf

• Neta Crawford, Watson Institute, Update on the Human Costs of War for Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001 to mid-­­‑2016

• Impact of War in Afghanistan and Ensuing Terrorism on Pakistan’s Economy, Annex_3

• NATIONAL STRATEGY PAPER NON-KINETIC CHALLENGES TO THE STATE OF PAKISTAN, NDU, https://ndu.edu.pk/issra/issra_pub/Non-Kinetic-Challenges.pdf
• Zahid Ali Khan, Military operations in FATA and PATA: implications for Pakistan, ISSI, http://www.issi.org.pk/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/1339999992_58398784.pdf
• Christian Ketels, Cluster Mapping as a Tool for Development, https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/Cluster%20Mapping%20as%20a%20Tool%20for%20Developme nt%20_%20report_ISC%20WP%20version%2010-10-17_c46d2cf1-41ed-43c0-bfd8-932957a4ceda.pdf

• James Carden, How ‘Russiagate’ Has Reshaped American and Russian Public Opinion, https://www.thenation.com/article/russiagate-bilateral-tensions-opinion-poll/
• Geomorphological Mapping, https://wwDigital Mappingw.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/digital-mapping

• Yumna Rafi, Bringing them home: Pakistan’s child deradicalisation centre offers second chance, https://www.dawn.com/news/1208602
• CONTEST, The United Kingdom’s Strategy for Countering Terrorism, June 2018, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/716907/140 618_CCS207_CCS0218929798-1_CONTEST_3.0_WEB.pdf
• Bilveer Singh , Prevention of Terrorism: Relevance of POTA in Malaysia, https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/189934/CO15075.pdf

• Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani, ISIS Recruitment of Malaysian Youth: Challenge and Response, https://www.mei.edu/publications/isis-recruitment-malaysian-youth-challenge-and-response,

• STATEMENT BY H.E. AMBASSADOR MUHAMMAD SHAHRUL IKRAM YAAKOB THE PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF MALAYSIA AT THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH LEVEL CONFERENCE OF HEADS OF COUNTER-TERRORISM AGENCIES OF MEMBER STATES NEW YORK, 28-29 JUNE 2018, https://www.un.org/counterterrorism/ctitf/sites/www.un.org.counterterrorism.ctitf/files/S3-Malaysia.pdf

• Abdullah F. Ansary, Combating Extremism: A Brief Overview of Saudi Arabia’s Approach https://www.mepc.org/combating-extremism-brief-overview-saudi-arabias-approach