South Asia Terrorism Portal
Cul de Sac in the War Against Terror? Ajai Sahni Editor, SAIR; Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management
After months of rationalization, America has now been forced to a reluctant admission that, as Richard Armitage put it, "incidents of violence are on the upswing" in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), and that "cross border incursions are up from the end of June." The statement is accurate - but only in the most quibbling sense. The month of June had seen a dip in killings in the State, and July re-established the preceding trend, which has been at a fairly consistent high since the beginning of the current year [Table]. Infiltration has also been high since March this year (SAIR 1.1). Clearly, US perceptions are related, not to facts, but to the convenience or otherwise of recognizing these, or to transient policy positions adopted by the US administration. This, unfortunately, has been the pattern of discourse since 9/11. By and large, the US has preferred to wink at, or underplay, Pakistan's role in the terrorist violence in J&K. The truth, however, is that the leadership of the entire movement of Islamist terror that manifests itself in violence, not only in J&K, but also, from time to time, in other places right across India, is located firmly in Pakistan. This has been the case since 1994, when the dominant indigenous terrorist grouping - the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) - was progressively marginalized by Pakistan's proxies and chose to abandon violence and come overground. Its place was taken, first by the Pakistan backed Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, and later by a succession of groups, including the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Jaish-e-Mohammad, and the 15 member Muttahida (United) Jehad Council. With rare exception, this entire leadership comprises non-Kashmiri Pakistanis. The domination of foreigners - largely Islamist extremists and mercenaries drawn out of the Afghanistan campaigns - is reflected in their rising number among those killed in encounters with Security Forces in J&K [Table]. While such terrorists have been drawn from a wide range of nationalities, their overwhelming numbers have come from Pakistan, with Afghanistan also contributing a significant proportion. Despite a handful of cosmetic measures, essentially formal bans on some of these organizations, the delayed 'freezing' of their bank accounts after most of their money had been withdrawn, and a relocation of some of their cadres and camps into Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), the Musharraf regime has done nothing to curb their activities. There is, moreover, little evidence that Musharraf has any intentions of permanently diluting the fundamentals that have dictated Pakistan's foreign policy for over the past two decades. During this period, Pakistan has been by far the most active and aggressive player in the South Asian region, defining for itself a role that has substantially shaped the foreign policy priorities and security concerns of all its neighbours to an extent immensely in excess of what could be thought of as 'natural' in terms of its size and strategic strengths. Islamist extremism and terror have been the primary instruments of motivation, mobilisation and execution of its policies in this context. Afghanistan and Kashmir were the cornerstones - though not the limits - of this politics of violent disruption. It is clear that, though the strategies of the past have been entirely discredited and reluctantly (though not necessarily permanently) relinquished in Afghanistan, the covert terrorist war in India remains central to the Pakistani vision. It is Western, and primarily American, support to a deeply criminalized state structure in Pakistan that has allowed, indeed, encouraged, the persistence of terrorist violence in South Asia. Fitful policies forcing accommodation or negotiations with terrorists and with their front organizations in J&K, or turning a blind eye to terrorism in one part of the world while condemning it in another, have only helped entrench these groups, creating an alternative sphere of a violent, murderous politics that is fundamentally a negation of democracy. The war against terror cannot be won in the absence of an internal coherence of vision, objectives and action.