TTP strikes again
August 17, 2012
The audacious attack on the Kamra airbase in the early hours of Thursday was the latest in a series of high profile assaults on sensitive military targets in the country. The attack, that took place in the dead of night and was over by dawn on Thursday, left nine terrorists and one member of the security forces dead and the base commander injured. In addition to the dead on both sides, one aircraft was damaged. By mid-afternoon, the TTP were claiming it as their work and there is no reason to disbelieve this. An attack – possibly several and all involving army or air force facilities – had been predicted in intelligence reports that had been leaked to the media, and other attacks in the near future cannot be ruled out. Peshawar airport has been placed on a high state of alert and we may assume that other airports and sensitive facilities around the country are also experiencing a tightening of security.
There are calls for this or that person to be sacked, and fingers point to intelligence failures. In the past, reports on similar attacks have never seen the light of day allowing mistakes to be repeated and lessons not to be learned. Fears are already being expressed that the details of this attack, and the security failures that allowed it, will once again be hidden from public scrutiny The need to apportion blame aside, a cooler understanding of this event is also needed. Threats are many, but often false or deliberately misleading and the intelligence agencies are inevitably one step behind the terrorist. To successfully intervene in a terrorist operation, the intelligence services and police need to become aware of it in detail at the planning stage. Probably more often than we hear about it, they stop operations but it is their failures that get publicised. Once threats that are undetected move to the operational phase, intervention is extremely difficult and reaction is the name of the game. In order to get into terrorist groups at the planning stage a strong local police force, skilled in surveillance and with modern equipment is essential. Our police are more noted for their weaknesses than their strengths, and as the attack on PNS Mehran showed the perimeter security of crucial installations can be woefully inadequate. These are functional and strategic weaknesses that terrorists exploit, and it is not one single deficit that contributes to a successful attack but a web of deficits, often interlocking, that provides safe passage for the terrorist and his evil designs. The attack on the Kamra base was largely thwarted. All the attackers were killed and our casualty figures were relatively low; but the TTP have once again scored a propaganda victory. Until and unless we develop a countervailing narrative, the TTP and other organisations like it are going to find tacit support and succour within the community. Their sympathisers and fellow-travellers are all around us, the silent enemies who look the other way, and they are as great a threat as the men with the bombs and guns.
The OIC and Syria
August 17, 2012
In the small hours of Thursday morning, The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) suspended the membership of Syria. Saudi Arabia had organised an emergency summit of the 57 OIC members in the light of the ongoing conflict, and the suspension is much to the chagrin of Iran which had opposed it. The USA, meanwhile, has swiftly welcomed the move. The Arab Spring has seen something of a rejuvenation of the OIC, and it is playing an increasingly active role in the political life of the region. After the United Nations itself it is the largest international organisation in the world, though its profile has rarely reflected that fact, and it is sometimes regarded as symbolic rather than powerful or proactive. In the context of the Syrian conflict it is of particular note that the OIC meeting includes all the nations which have a direct interest in its outcome. Significantly, it did not include China but Russia had a nominal observer status. The US had a special envoy to the OIC in attendance and he doubtless lobbied for American interests on the sidelines, but at this conference it was not the big powers round the table that were in the driving seat. It was the nations that really matter, rather than those who matter because they are big enough not to make anybody else matter.
The OIC suspension of Syrian membership will add to the already substantial isolation the Assad regime is experiencing. The Assad government had a lone supporter in the OIC, Iran, but President Ahmedinajad was unable to sway even a minority of other OIC member states to his side. Syria has all along presented the uprising as the brainchild of western states and regional rivals, and there is little doubt that the USA, Britain, France and others are giving sustenance to some of the rebel groups – but so are Arab states as well. There is no unified opposition in Syria but a mosaic of groups that represent tribal and sectarian interests and who, if they were not fighting the incumbent regime, may well be fighting one another. This is a significant fear in the event of Assad being toppled. If the OIC can open the doors of diplomacy in a conflict that has proved remarkably resistant to diplomacy of any sort, then it will have advanced its stature and reputation by mitigating a conflict whose toxicity may spread beyond Syrian borders.