The main thrust of the Army-Air Force operation in the Swat area is over. Army personnel are now busy coping with remnants of the Taliban and helping the civilian administration restore civic amenities like electricity and water, and repairing roads to facilitate the return of the displaced people.

Now, the focus of the Army is South Waziristan, where the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan is fully entrenched. The Army’s Waziristan strategy is different from the one for Swat. It is encircling the area and building pressure on the TTP by using ground and air attacks to target key Taliban locations before moving in to directly challenge TTP fighters.

The strategy of constant pressure and softening of the target can also encourage intra-tribe splits because Baitullah Mehsud, chief of the TTP, established his leadership by ruthless elimination of dissent. He managed to eliminate his rivals or neutralised them by forcing them to leave the area or accept his superiority. Two groups surfaced to dispute Baitullah’s leadership. The leader of one group, Qari Zainuddin, was killed by a Baitullah loyalist. His successor vowed to carry on the fight against Baitullah, implying that the breach persists and the Army can find some allies for its operation against the TTP.

The visit of Army Chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani to the troops in South Waziristan on June 25 reaffirms the Army’s commitment to eliminate terrorist groups that challenge the writ of the Pakistani state. He expressed similar determination during his visits to the Swat area over the last three weeks.

Pakistan’s civilian government is equally committed to the effective pursuance of counter-insurgency. President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani have repeatedly talked of eliminating the groups engaged in terrorism in the tribal areas and mainland Pakistan. The provincial administrations in Punjab and Sindh have arrested a large number of Islamic militants linked exclusively with the TTP as well as activists of local militant and sectarian groups, including Jama’at-ud Dawa/Lashkar-e Tayba.
This is a major shift in the orientation of the civilian and military leadership from the Musharraf days. In the past, the civilian government and the army top brass manifested ambiguity towards the Taliban and other militant groups. The army moved into the tribal areas in the summer of 2003 and launched operations from time to time. However, the army and the government always stopped after a while to give space to the militants to survive. Militant groups also avoided a head-on collision with the government and security forces.

Some of their activities — cross-border movement between Afghanistan and Pakistan, amassing of weapons, and training camps — were ignored Agreements with militant groups in the tribal areas were initiated by the military authorities and some senior commanders in the NWFP were not convinced that tough action should be taken against the militants. They were convinced that most Taliban were friendly to Pakistan and that if American troops quit Afghanistan, no Taliban group would have an anti-Pakistan disposition.

This divided state of mind characterised the orientation of the federal government under General Musharraf. Some federal ministers and others in the official circles made no secret of their sympathy for Islamic militancy. That was the main reason the Red Mosque issue was allowed to fester. The burqa-clad armed women were allowed to continue with their take-over of a children’s library and they paraded the streets of Islamabad at will. The movement’s leader could give exclusive interviews to TV news channels from the roadside. Had the burqa-clad women not taken Chinese nationals hostage, would their activities have continued indefinitely?

By the time the government took action against the Red Mosque in July 2007, it was too late and the government incurred high human and political cost.

The Red Mosque was a real break between the Musharraf government and Islamic militancy. The latter, personified by the Taliban based in the tribal areas, thought that if the government was allowed to get away with the suppression of the Red Mosque militants it would target other militants elsewhere. The Taliban and mainland militant groups increased their collaboration to hit back at the government. Suicide attacks and bombings have increased since then.

The PPP-led coalition government was also divided on the militancy issue mainly because General Musharraf continued as President until August 2008 and the government was bogged down in confrontation with the PMLN after the latter left the coalition. Even after Asif Ali Zardari became president in September 2008, there was hardly any significant change in the dual-track counter-militancy policy. A member of the federal cabinet openly criticised Pakistan’s pro-US policy and sympathised with the Taliban.

The change in the disposition of the civilian government and the army high command came through their own review of the growing threat of militancy in the first quarter of 2009. Mutual consultation brought the civilian government and the military to the firm conclusion that militant groups, based in the tribal areas and the mainland, could not be allowed to threaten Pakistani state and society.

What helped them come to this conclusion were the stories of brutalities of the Taliban and their attempts to expand their domain of authority; their targeting of security personnel and state institutions and symbols; the Swat ‘Nizam-e Adl’ episode; the Mumbai terrorist attack; several terrorist attacks in Lahore, especially the attack on Sri Lankan cricket team; Chinese complaints of the presence of their Muslim dissidents in Pakistani tribal areas; and American-British prodding.

The government and the Army are now on one page on counter-insurgency. The same can be said about their disposition towards the militant groups based in mainland Pakistan. However, this strategy faces some political obstacles. Mainland militant groups have developed strong roots at the societal level by cashing on sentiments about the Kashmir problem and India’s efforts to build military and diplomatic pressure on Pakistan for controlling India-specific militant groups in total disregard to the challenges that Pakistan faces from terrorism.

The Mumbai experience suggests that India is more interested in isolating and condemning Pakistan at the international level rather than working with Pakistan to eliminate the menace of terrorism. For example, the documents about the Mumbai terrorist attack supplied to Pakistan in January 2009 contained material in Hindi and Marathi whose authentic translations were supplied four months later.

Further, strong anti-US sentiment in Pakistan creates sympathy for militant groups. Islamic groups and militant organisations often talk of a conspiracy by India, the US and Israel to destabilise Pakistan. Others sections of the public do not fully share this perspective.

India needs to recognise that Pakistan is now working towards the elimination of terrorism with full determination. India needs to move away from a single-track approach of insisting on elimination of India-related terrorist groups as a pre-condition for normal interaction. India-related terrorism should be viewed as part of Pakistan’s overall problem of extremism and terrorism.

India needs to work with Pakistan to cope with terrorism and focus on problem solving in the context of India-Pakistan dialogue. This will make it difficult for Islamic parties and militant groups to play up anti-India sentiments and thus weaken the government’s efforts to cope with extremism and terrorism. A soft and cooperative approach aimed at problem solving including elimination of terrorism will be mutually advantageous.

Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi is a political and defence analyst