When General Musharraf’s military regime was in crisis and disarray under the pressure of a peaceful and political opposition primarily from the lawyers’ movement, his American allies came up with a novel idea. Musharraf was fast losing whatever political capital he had mustered from the Pakistani middle classes by providing them with a subsidized higher standard of living. The American military and security presence in Afghanistan was nervous, due to increasing from of cross-border militants and terrorist attacks on NATO forces from across Pakistan territory.
The Americans wanted a decisive push against the tribal militants, who with the help of international terror organizations like Al-Qaeda, were handing out a severe beating to Pakistani ground forces troops, who were then not well trained in counterinsurgency operations. In the eyes of the Americans, Musharraf’s fast eroding legitimacy was a problem in this situation: a Musharraf without support would not have been able to make a decisive push against the tribal militants. He was in need of some kind of political support and legitimacy.
Benazir Bhutto, a popular political leader whose anti-militancy and anti-extremism views were well known, provided an answer to Musharraf’s predicament of illegitimacy, and the Americans’ fear of losing a key military ally in Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto’s popularity could be used to bolster Musharraf’s fast eroding political legitimacy. The Americans became active in arranging some kind of alliance between the military regime of General Musharraf and popular political leader Benazir Bhutto. The diplomacy that US officials conducted in this connection is a long but oft-repeated story. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Rawalpindi while she was conducting an election rally. PPP, riding a wave of sympathy, won the 2008 parliamentary elections and General Musharraf was ousted from the presidency.
Since the 2014 soft military intervention (or intervention by spymasters) into politics, the Pakistani political scene has been sharply polarized, as if we are not a parliamentary democracy but hordes of primitive tribes fighting it out among themselves. Political consensus was not possible under these circumstances, even if we were staring at a civil war like situation.
Musharraf’s successor as Army Chief, General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kiyani, whom American media used to describe as a White House favorite, was quick to grasp the lessons that he learnt from interacting with the American security community as Pakistan’s top spy master. He used to tell the PPP government that he needed legitimacy from political actors before he sent his troops to conduct military operations into tribal areas and Swat. Pakistani people still have vivid memories of how the PPP government and subsequent PML-N government used to bring all political players around a table in Prime Minister House to develop a consensus over impending military operations.
Kiyani was adamant that he would always need political support and legitimacy from political players before he sent in his troops in for military operations. He pushed political governments to develop a political consensus in support of military operations. This was the time when reports about desertions in the paramilitary forces deployed in the tribal areas were common. The military used to strongly react to religious leaders describing Osama bin Laden and other terror leaders as martyrs in the cause of Islam. In this situation, political consensus was a powerful tool in the hands of military leaders to keep their forces intact. Moreover, the military wanted a fallback option in case anything went wrong.
Since the 2014 soft military intervention (or intervention by spymasters) into politics, the Pakistani political scene has been sharply polarized, as if we are not a parliamentary democracy but hordes of primitive tribes fighting it out among themselves. Political consensus was not possible under these circumstances, even if we were staring at a civil war like situation. The military leaders in this period changed their horses in the political race twice. First, they used Imran Khan as a Trojan horse to break the Zardari and Nawaz Sharif led consensus to keep the military out of politics. Then, they put Imran Khan behind bars and now the Sharif brothers were their horse in the race. These machinations created deep fractures in the already polarized political landscape. There is little realization in the military, or even if there is a realization we don’t know about it, that the military’s interferences and interventions have created a political situation in which political consensus in support of military operations is impossible—a consensus which the military needs to go after residual militant elements.
The PTI, ANP and JUI-F - all three political parties which are relevant to military operations, as all three of them have their bases of support in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a region where operations have to be carried out, have openly opposed the newly announced military operation Azam-e-Istehkam announced by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif. The government was forced to take a step back after such an overwhelming opposition from political forces which are based in the KP province.
Prime Minister Sharif later clarified that no large-scale operation is being planned. It would not be incorrect to say that the Pakistani military is already in the middle of a military operation in the Pak-Afghan border areas since the Taliban came to power in Kabul. The Pakistani military stepped up small-scale operations in the border areas in order to prevent militant groups, including Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other recently formed militant groups which are offshoots of TTP.
It is pertinent to mention here that the TTP and its fighters are not concentrated in any particular area of Pak-Afghan border region. They are scattered all over the seven districts of the former tribal areas.
To give the reader an idea of what is going on in the tribal areas, it would be appropriate to narrate what happened during April 2024. During the first two weeks of April, Pakistani troops carried out five intelligence-based raids on militant hideouts in the North and South Waziristan districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Military officials said that during these five raids, at least 15 high value targets and militants were killed by Pakistani security forces. Officials said that all these operations were intelligence based—which practically means that in case of each of these raids, Pakistani intelligence services provided the intelligence information about the presence of high value targets at those particular hideouts, which were then raided by Pakistani troops.
It is pertinent to mention here that the TTP and its fighters are not concentrated in any particular area of Pak-Afghan border region. They are scattered all over the seven districts of the former tribal areas. Most of the time, TTP fighters hide in private residences, which in North and South Waziristan comprise mud houses. It is not possible for the military to remain on alert or deployed in the residential areas of these districts. Therefore, the Army has to depend on intelligence services to provide them with accurate information about the presence of militants in any particular area.
Military officials say that three of these five raids were carried out in North and South Waziristan, the once hub of the Tehreek-e-Taliban activity in the Pak-Afghan border areas. North and South Waziristan remained the headquarters of the Pakistani Taliban from 2007 till 2014, when the military entered these districts for a full-scale military operation. Pakistan Taliban leaders and fighters fled to Afghanistan in the wake of these operations.
The details of these military operations are publicly available on the website of the Pakistan military media directorate. On 6 April 2024, security forces conducted an intelligence-based operation in North Waziristan District. “During the operation, troops effectively engaged the terrorists’ location, as a result of which two terrorists were sent to hell.”
On 5 April 2024, security forces conducted an intelligence-based operation in Dera Ismail Khan District on the reported presence of terrorists. During the conduct of the operation, after an intense fire exchange, eight Terrorists were sent to hell.
The PTI, ANP and JUI-F - all three political parties which are relevant to military operations, as all three of them have their bases of support in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a region where operations have to be carried out, have openly opposed the newly announced military operation Azam-e-Istehkam announced by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif.
On 13 April 2024, security forces conducted an intelligence-based operation in Buner District, on the reported presence of terrorists. During the conduct of the operation, “after an intense exchange of fire, HVT terrorist ring leader Saleem Rabbani was sent to hell, while two other terrorists were injured.”
On 9 April 24, security forces conducted an intelligence-based operation in South Waziristan District. During the operation, after an intense exchange of fire, two terrorists were successfully neutralized and sent to hell.
On the night of 6 and 7 April 2024, exchange of fire took place between security forces and terrorists in North Waziristan District. Pakistani troops effectively engaged the terrorists’ location, as a result of which “two terrorists were sent to hell.”
Similarly, Pakistan military also carried out a small-scale military operation on the night of 5 and 6 April 2024 in the Panjgur District of Balochistan on the reported presence of terrorists. During the conduct of the operation, after an intense exchange of fire, 2 terrorists including terrorist Asad Hasrat were sent to hell.
The south western province of Balochistan, where a low-intensity separatist insurgency is underway, is increasingly becoming a new headache for the government of Pakistan. Pakistani security planners, however, see a new wave of violence in the north west and south west of the country as a whole and not as separate problems. Their perception is that both the insurgencies are aimed at destabilizing Pakistani society, government and the economy.