NSC meeting
In a rare occurrence, the
civil and military leadership met in a session of the National Security
Committee (NSC) to review the National Action Plan (NAP) for countering
terrorism. Whereas the NAP was formulated three years ago with the consensus of
all political parties and the military top brass in the wake of the APS
massacre, the NSC meeting conceded that there was much room for improvement in
its implementation. This too was a rare congruence between the civilian and
military leadership since for the last three years they have more often traded
blame for the patchy progress of the NAP. The problem is that the military’s
Operation Zarb-e-Azb in FATA had succeeded in merely exporting the terrorist
problem, not crushing it entirely. The subsequent Operation Raddul Fasad was an
implicit admission of the existence of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)
terrorists operating from across the border on Afghan soil, but also the
existence of underground cells of the terrorists inside Pakistan. The recent
attack on a church in Quetta is the latest manifestation of the continuing
terrorist threat. Although the Prime Minister’s Office’s statement after the
NSC meeting did not explain the inadequacies in the implementation of the NAP
except to say “policy and institutional reform” was needed, to perceptive
observers the fault has been visible for long. Despite the 20-point NAP, many
things envisaged under it have gone abegging. A central coordinating body, the National
Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA), was envisaged in the NAP to bring the
plethora of civilian and military intelligence and security forces together in
the fight against terrorism. Unfortunately, NACTA was stillborn or orphaned at
birth because it was never empowered to overcome the traditional reluctance of
intelligence agencies to share information, as well as the mutual suspicion and
divide between the civilian and military components of our intelligence
community. In the absence of an effective NACTA, each intelligence agency,
civilian or military, has been operating autonomously against the terrorists.
Hence the ‘patchiness’ of the effort since this slate of discrete operators
provided wriggle room for the terrorists to creep through. The Joint
Intelligence Directorate envisaged under the NAP too did not make any effective
progress, while the counter narrative to weaken the appeal to some sections of
society of the terrorists’ message remains conspicuous by its absence. National
Security Adviser (NSA) Lt-General (retired) Nasser Khan Janjua was given the
responsibility for monitoring the progress of the NAP in August 2016 but there
is no word what if any effect that has had. Now once again in the NSC meeting
Janjua was asked to finalise the National Security Policy. The fact however is
that a draft of the policy has been lying with the National Security Division
for the last two years. Is it simply the usual bureaucratic red tape and apathy
that is responsible or is there a perception of powerlessness on the part of
the NSA in the face of powerful competing institutions? Another example of
hardly any or non-implementation of the provisions of the NAP is the yet to be
initiated madrassa and FATA reforms. All these issues regularly raise their
heads after every terrorist incident. Can we hope that the NSC’s review of the
implementation of the NAP after the Quetta church attack will bring better
results this time?
The issue of terrorism cannot
be divorced from our neighbourhood’s conflicts. Proxy wars in Afghanistan and
Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) have earned us the ire of Washington. President
Trump’s new foreign policy and the Pentagon’s semi-annual report both underline
the tougher line with Pakistan over the allegation that the Afghan Taliban
enjoy safe havens on our soil and ‘cross-border terrorism’ in IHK threatens
conventional and nuclear war on the subcontinent. The icing on the cake is the
US’s once again raising the bogey of the security of our nuclear weapons,
although Washington has helped strengthen our control and command systems to a
satisfactory level. We are once again put under suspicion of our nuclear
weapons, technology and materials falling into terrorists’ hands. Last but not
least, while Washington pays lip service to dialogue and cooperation with
Pakistan, it has made clear it will undertake unilateral actions where divergence
exists. One example of this hardened military versus diplomatic line is the
drone attack the other day in Kurram Agency, the fourth strike in the area and
perhaps the harbinger of more such strikes to come. Pakistan must carefully
recalibrate its counter-terrorism drive in conformity with the NAP and respond
to the US with a convincing policy thrust, not simply lip service and expressions
of pious intentions.
No comments:
Post a Comment