U.S. ASSERTS PAKISTAN SAFE HAVEN FOR ANTI-INDIA TERROR GROUPS

By a Correspondent

A prominent American think tank has exposed Pakistan’s hypocrisy on terror by asserting it  has a two-pronged strategy on terror groups, “to take overt action against groups targeting the  Pakistani state and citizenry — like the Tekrik-e-Taliban Pakistan — without taking action  against the groups it has considered “strategic assets,” including the Afghan Taliban that have  sought sanctuary on its soil and anti-India militants that its intelligence agencies have covertly  supported. 

In a report drawn up as a background paper for President Joe Biden, titled “Non-state armed  actors and illicit economies: What the Biden administration needs to know,” the Brookings  Institution points out why Pakistan uses the two-pronged strategy: “This approach has been an  effort to hedge bets: regarding the Taliban’s possible influence in Afghanistan after an  international withdrawal, and regarding militant proxies who may give Pakistan parity on an  otherwise lopsided conventional military footing with India. There are signs some of this is changing. For instance, Pakistan has developed a good relationship with Kabul, especially in  recent months, but it also knows its leverage over the Taliban keeps it relevant to the Afghan  peace process.” 

Lending credence to this report, the US Department of State, in its “Country Reports on  Terrorism” compiled by the Bureau of Counter-Terrorism, asserts: “Pakistan continued to serve  as a safe haven for certain regionally focused terrorist groups. It allowed groups targeting Afghanistan, including the Afghan Taliban and affiliated HQN, as well as groups targeting  India, including LeT and its affiliated front organizations, and JeM, to operate from its  territory.” 

The US report dismisses Pakistan’s claims of having taken strict action against terror groups operating from its soil. “Thus far, however, Islamabad has yet to take decisive actions against Indian- and Afghanistan-focused militants who would undermine their operational  capability….they have made no effort to use domestic authorities to prosecute other terrorist  leaders such as JeM founder Masood Azhar and Sajid Mir, the mastermind of LeT’s 2008  Mumbai attacks, both of whom are widely believed to reside in Pakistan under the protection  of the state, despite government denials.” 

Authored by Madiha Afzal, a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings focusing on Pakistan, the Brookings report says “anti-India militant groups continue  to have a foothold in Pakistan”. On the question of Pakistan taking action against the Lashkar e-Taiba (LeT) in recent years, especially in the wake of its enhanced monitoring by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in 2018 for terrorism financing, the report says: “The  United States has acknowledged these steps, but has argued that Pakistan needs to hold these  LeT leaders accountable for more than terrorism financing. Pakistan has taken less action  against Jaish-e-Mohammad, the terrorist group responsible for the Pulwama attack of February  2019; its leader, Masood Azhar, is at large.” 

On Pakistan’s claims that it is taking actions against terror groups inside the country, the report  points out: “Yet the long-term sustainability of actions Pakistan has taken in response to  pressure from FATF remains to be seen; will they be reversed when the FATF grey-listing is  lifted? And what happens after the international withdrawal from Afghanistan is complete?” 

The report makes light of Pakistan’s consistent claims that India is backing terror activities on  Pakistan soil. Rather, it says: “Placing the blame on India for terrorism in Pakistan is something  the country has long done, although not always in as direct a manner as in 2020. Beyond linking  the recent ISIS-K attack with India, Pakistan also linked the Baluch Liberation Army’s June  2020 attack on the Karachi Stock Exchange with its eastern neighbor. In November, the Pakistani foreign minister, in a splashy press conference, released details of the “dossier”  Pakistan has compiled linking India to funding, arming, and training terrorists (including the TTP) against Pakistan. 

Only the summary — not the full dossier — discussed in that meeting  has been made public. The Pakistani government says it has shared the dossier with the U.N.  and various governments, but those parties have not publicly acknowledged it.” The Brookings report seeks to understand why Pakistan plays cat and mouse games with  terrorism and concludes there is “an unwillingness of the Pakistani state to paint all jihadist  groups with the same brush, to recognize the linkages in ideology that connect them all — and  to acknowledge how those ideologies find fodder in Pakistan’s laws, educational curricula,  politics, and indeed the very nature of how Pakistan has defined itself”. In this context, author Madiha Afzal goes straight to the root of the problem as she sees it:  “That lack of recognition of how terrorism and extremism are connected, and of the very roots  of extremism, is the crux of the problem: Militant groups can always find recruits, from other  groups or from the general population. Non-armed right-wing fundamentalist groups, notably the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), share these ideologies, glorify violence and enjoy  growing support and sympathy.” 

The report suggests Pakistan is perhaps not really interested in driving the terror groups from  its soil It provides a convincing explanation for this attitude of Pakistan’s by saying: “For a  brief time after the Peshawar school attack of 2014, there was some clarity in recognizing the  homegrown nature of the Pakistan Taliban, and the country devised a National Action Plan to  tackle extremism and terrorism. While it was incomplete and never acknowledged the deeper  roots of extremism, it was a start. But it has gone by the wayside as the Pakistani state has  turned back once again to blaming India for terrorism in the country.” 

On Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan, the Brookings report says the TTP, once a target of  attack by Pakistan, is beginning to revive itself once again. “The TTP has been regrouping  since last summer. Various breakaway factions pledged allegiance to the group last July, and  there are reports of it making a comeback in at least six districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The  TTP killed at least 40 security forces between March and September, 2020. On the other end,  the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement, an ethnic protest movement, has alleged that ‘the Taliban are  being allowed to return’ to the tribal areas in a ‘secret deal with the military’. Pakistan has  vehemently denies this, but without providing any proof. 

According to the report, the TTP “maintains ties with the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida” and  its comeback is probably “linked with the Afghan peace process and Pakistan’s fencing of the  border with Afghanistan, both of which threaten the group’s sanctuary in Afghanistan” A UN  report from July, 2020 stated there were 6,000 Pakistani fighters in Afghanistan, most affiliated  with the TTP. 

The report claims Pakistan may have made a deal with Afghanistan on the terror issue: “There  has also been some speculation that the Afghan peace process might include, at some point, a  separate Afghan-Pakistan deal, with Afghanistan denying safe haven to the TTP potentially in  return for Pakistan denying sanctuary to the Haqqanis (though it is unclear whether that will be  possible, or acceptable to Pakistan). Pakistan has already raised questions about Afghanistan’s  sanctuary for the TTP.”