Pakistan's own war on terror: what the Pakistani public thinks.

• Author: Fair, C. Christine
• Position: Report

In April 2009, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that the Pakistani Taliban was a "mortal threat" to the world. (1) By that time, militants associated with Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, or the "Pakistani Taliban") were closing in on the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, having already seized much of the Pashtun belt. Clinton's apprehensions were not unfounded. Many, if not most, of the Islamist terrorist conspiracies disrupted or executed in Europe have had footprints in Pakistan's tribal belt. The specter of the Taliban rampaging through the capital conjured corresponding fears that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal--or elements thereof--would fall into the hands of Islamist militants, even though those fears were surely misplaced.

Concerns across the international community over Pakistan's commitment and ability to repel the militants and restore the writ of law have been motivated by Pakistan's lackluster track record. Past operations to combat domestic militants have been furtive, with varying degrees of dedication, and even greater variation in efficacy. Worse, many ended in defeat, sealed through peace deals that were cast in terms favorable to the militants. This is true even though as many as 1,100 security forces have perished in these battles and another 2,800 injured as of June 2009. (2) While the army's commitment to battling this internal threat has been suspect in international capitals--much less its nonexistent efforts to eliminate the Afghan Taliban from its territory and to curb Islamist militants operating in India from its territory--the Pakistani public has not supported its government's participation in the U.S.-led war on terror. Worse yet, until the spring of 2009, Pakistan's citizens have been hesitant to embrace their own war on terror despite the persistent encroachment of the Pakistani Taliban, with their micro-emirates of Shariah and the expansion of suicide bombing against Pakistani targets (police, paramilitary, military and government officials).

While the shortcomings of the security forces have been frequently commented upon, Pakistan's public commitment to eliminating these militants has largely remained beyond the purview of scholarly commentary. Yet, contrary to popular belief, public sentiment does constrain military as well as political options in Pakistan, as evidenced by the eventual resignation of President Pervez Musharraf amidst calls for impeachment. This is evermore true with the return of civilian governance, however inept it may be.

Pakistani public attitudes are critical to Pakistan's ability and political will to stay involved in military operations against the militants. This essay explores the Pakistani public's attitudes about the militants targeting their own state and the state's efforts to contend with these threats. (3) To do so, this essay employs several data sets collected since the events of 9/11, including urban data collected in the summer of 2007 in a study commissioned by the author under the auspices of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in collaboration with the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA). (4) It also draws from the urban data collected by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, as well as several years of data collected by the International Republican Institute (IRI), which was fielded among a robust, nationally representative sample. (5) IRI's most recent publicly released poll was fielded in July-August 2009. Finally, this essay employs nationwide data from May 2009 collected by PIPA in collaboration with the author. (6)

This essay is organized as follows: first, the paper provides a brief overview of militant groups operating in and from Pakistan and the interconnections that exist among them. This is critical to understanding where the TTP exists within the landscape of Pakistan's myriad militant groups. Next it exposits, according to different data, how Pakistanis perceive the threat posed by Islamist militant groups operating in and from their country. It then examines Pakistanis' beliefs about their government's approach to handing militancy, including military means, negotiating with militants and allying itself with the United States. Where appropriate, it will provide analyses of how these issues are viewed differently by respondents across Pakistan's four provinces. The essay concludes with some reflections on the policy implications of its principle findings.

PAKISTAN'S MILITANT LANDSCAPE (7)

Numerous militant groups have operated from and within Pakistan for decades. Some of these have traditionally focused upon Kashmir, including the Deobandi groups of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Harkat-ul-Ansar/Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUA/HUM), Ahl-e-Hadith organizations such as Punjab-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) and Jamaat-e-Islami associated groups such as Hizbul Mujahideen and Al Badr. While these groups are often referred to as "Kashmiri groups," this is a misnomer as they have few ethnic Kashmiris among their ranks and most of these groups do not operate exclusively in Kashmir. These so-called Kashmiri groups are widely viewed as assets of the state, raised and supported by the Pakistani security establishment to carry out Pakistan's interests in India. Other Pakistan-based groups have traditionally focused upon sectarian targets such as the Deobandi anti-Shia groups, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). Many of these Deobandi groups share overlapping membership with each other and with the religious party, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI). (8)

In addition, from the 1970s through September 2001, Pakistan also supported numerous Pashtun militias to secure its interests in Afghanistan, the most notorious of which was the Afghan Taliban. While Pakistan has been nominally allied to the United States in its effort to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, Pakistan continues to host apex Afghan Taliban leadership who, along with Al Qaeda, enjoy sanctuary in the Pashtun territories of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) (9) and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) as well as key cities throughout Pakistan. (10)

Since 2004 Pakistan has witnessed the emergence of a cluster of militant groups whose activists describe themselves as "Pakistani Taliban" and who, since then, have successfully established an archipelago of micro-emirates of Shariah within large swathes of the Pashtun belt inclusive of the FATA and the NWFP. While various Pakistani Taliban commanders have operated in specific agencies (e.g., Baitullah Mehsud, Maulvi Nazir, Mullah Fazlullah, Maulvi Faqir, et al.), in late 2007 many of these commanders coalesced under the banner of the "Pakistani Taliban," under the purported leadership of Baitullah Mehsud based in South Waziristan in the FATA. Despite this, there was no evidence that the TTP acted as a coherent entity under the firm command and control of Mehsud. (Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a U.S. drone strike in August 2009. Hakimullah Mehsud has taken over the leadership of the TTP and has perpetrated numerous attacks against Pakistani security forces since the end of September 2009.) The rise of this collective of Islamist militants operating against the state with the goal of establishing local spheres of Shariah in their areas of influence seems to have coincided with, or was precipitated by, the Pakistani military operations in the FATA as well as U.S. strikes in the FATA by unmanned aerial vehicles (e.g., predator and reaper drones). (11)

While this "Talibanization" of the Pashtun belt began in North and South Waziristan in 2004, it quickly spread to areas that had previously been peaceful, such as in the Mohmand, Orakzai and Kurram agencies. Pakistani Taliban militants have also emerged in the frontier areas of Bannu, Tank, Kohat, Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan, Swat and Buner. (12) Since the summer of 2007, Pakistan has battled the Pakistani militants associated with the Tehrik-e-Nafaz-e-Shariah-Muhammadi (TNSM), which seized the Swat Valley in late October 2007. (13) TNSM is one of the groups nominally allied to Mehsud's TTP.

While Pakistan continues to see some groups as assets (e.g., the so-called Kashmiri groups and the Afghan Taliban), the state has launched, with varying degrees of commitment and success, a low intensity conflict against several components of the TTP using the paramilitary Frontier Corps and elements of the regular army. The armed forces have suffered numerous defeats and have ratified these defeats on the ground with several problematic peace deals with militants--all of which have been on favorable terms to the militants and all of which have been broken even as the ink was drying. (14)

While the capabilities of the army have no doubt shaped its lack of will, another important factor is that the Pakistani public has not--until very recently--embraced these military engagements. Without popular support, Pakistan's military leadership cannot engage effectively, at least in...