Scholar for sale

FOR PAKISTAN

This person called Tarek Fatah never ceases to amaze me. He has an uncanny ability to tailor his writings and utterances to suit the desires of the audience he is addressing. No wonder then that he has been given residence and citizenship in a western country that should know better. Not content with his tirades from that sanctuary he ventures forth to any country that invites him to speak against Pakistan. No wonder then that India invited him and no surprise that what he said ‘found resonance among the audience’ as reported by his hosts.

This time Mr Fatah chose to speak on the rise of Islamism worldwide and in his view there was only one reason for that — the creation of Pakistan. Not India where Muslims are disgracefully treated and where radical Hinduism and a horrendous caste system create hatred among Muslims not only in India but worldwide.

Surely a scholar like Mr Fatah would have some knowledge of a global religious resurgence. He should know about the policies that create turmoil in Muslim lands. He should know about the violence unleashed against Muslims that has nothing to do with Pakistan. If he chooses to remove his blinkers and gets out of his ridiculous and comic hatred of Pakistan he would see Pakistan for what it is. A country battling the forces of terror and extremism that three decades of externally sponsored violence has spawned. Maybe he should come and face with the violence that Pakistan is fighting. Scholars like him are a dime a dozen. India is welcome to them.

While in India Mr Fatah should meet the saffron robed crazed Hindu mobs that rampage and kill Muslims and Christians — even burn them alive. If he wants to be raped he should venture out on Delhi’s streets. And if he wants to see squalor he should go and visit the ‘unclean caste Dalit’s. He could also go as a tourist to the north eastern states where insurgencies are raging. In fact he should leave Canada and settle in India. This single agenda scholar is no scholar — he is a blot on scholars.

TTP's breakup a cause of concern

ZoneAsia-Pk

Pakistan’s on-going war against terrorism – the final push – has so far claimed more than 910 militants in North Waziristan and decimated hundreds of militant camps. When Operation Zarb-e-Azb was launched, defence analysts from across the board exhorted the government to take a hands-on approach and work with the Army to develop a multi-pronged strategy to defeat extremism, separate from terrorism, but as big a threat as the latter.

Yet the government initially appeared not only reluctant to endorse a boots-on-the-ground approach but also quickly became sucked into a political imbroglio that shifted the entire country’s attention away from North Waziristan and the internally displaced persons in Bannu, to the Capital. Efforts to engage all state institutions in a political drama only served to exacerbate the government’s own position and paved the path for deep-state to raise eyebrows over the government’s legitimacy.

In the backdrop of the on-going military operation, a national political crisis, regional politics immersed in Machiavellian histrionics and the international security situation held hostage by the Islamic State, a breakaway faction of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan announced itself as the true vanguard that would bring Shariah to Pakistan.

Many quarters have felt that the formation of Jamatul Ahrar signifies a victory of sorts – Pakistan’s largest militant threat developing defections from within shows weakness and a dissonance that can allow the Army and government to end the TTP question once and for all. Fragmentation can only mean smaller weaker targets, easy to take out. The first sign of defeat for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was when it broke into factions, maybe the stratagems that ended Sri Lanka’s 30-year-old war could also put an end to militancy in Pakistan.

However, this needs to be examined in a larger context and it might just be too soon to bring out the champagne.

The TTP claims a certain a ideology. Their’s is a war to reassert orthodox Islamic values in their own vein of interpretation. The seed of war here stems not from social injustice, a sense of deprivation or against foreign occupation – the seed is an idea. When the government decided to hold talks with the TTP, there was an outcry from within TTP structures that believed that there could no compromise on ideas – that would be compromising divine mandate.

It was in the midst of these talks that dissenting groups from within the TTP held attacks under the banner of Ahrarul Hind to jeapordise negotiations. The bombing of a district sessions court in Islamabad and the decapitation of Pakistan Army soldiers was their handiwork. Brutal at best, one could compare their line of ideology and strategy with the IS. The only difference was that all factions claimed allegiance to Mullah Omar, head of the Afghan Taliban under the Al-Qaeda umbrella.

The Jamat, with all the media-savyness of former TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan, claims the support of 70 to 80 TTP commanders. In an hour and a half long video, Maulana Qasim Khorasani (former TTP commander of Mohmand Agency chapter and inline to succeed Hekimullah Mehsud) announces that the TTP has fallen prey to self-seeking individuals (cue Mullah Fazalullah and all the commanders who pushed for talks). Their war is to build a global Caliphate and they will start from Pakistan. The group demonstrates no qualms about violence, they justify it through religion.

Ehsan, in a statement released last week, mentioned that while they were allied with the Afghan Taliban, the IS provided a good example as to how they planned to operate.

This should not serve to alleviate fears regarding militancy in Pakistan, this should serve to alarm. The group is headed by emir Maulana Qasim Khorasani, and Ihsan is its spokesman. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar’s shura, or executive council, includes: Omar Khalid al Khorasani, the powerful commander from Mohmand; Mansoor Nazim Shura and Maulana Haidar from Arakzai; Maulana Adbullah from Bajaur; Qari Ismail from Khyber; Qari Shakil Haqqani from Charsadda; Mufti Misbah from Peshawar; and Maulana Yasin from Swat. The Jamat includes Taliban factions from the tribal agencies of Mohmand, Bajaur, Khyber, and Arakzai, and the districts of Charsadda, Peshawar, and Swat.

By providing these groups an alternative to peace talks, we see the emergence of a new umbrella organisation, seemingly as big as the TTP if not bigger (if Ehsan is to be believed). The group claims that it will stop at nothing to achieve it’s goal of Islamic dominance in the world and they were willing to sacrifice for it.

This leaves the government with no excuse. The Pakistan National Security Council needs to come into action and develop a strategy to deal with new emerging threats. What with the announcement of an Al-Qaeda wing in India, these threats cannot be taken lightly. In a region where physical borders are more than just porous, collective action by the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India is the need of the hour. There is no question of complacency here.