Muhammad Ismail Khan

Although, in rhetoric, everyone is against terrorism, there has been a noted disagreement over what constitutes threats to a certain state and even to a certain institution. Thus, whenever there is a major attack, we hear state institutions blaming each other; within Pakistan, every major bomb blast is followed by accusing fingers pointed toward the interior ministry

In a recent development reported by The New York Times and confirmed by the US officials, a top Taliban leader, in fact number two by influence, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar has been captured a few days ago. That a joint intelligence operation of Pakistan and US intelligence agencies led to his trail was something that was allegedly weak until now. More than this latest exercise, Baradar’s abode from where he was caught, Karachi in Pakistan, should push states and their institutions to further enhance cooperation among themselves.

This story should be enough to silence those who believe that the division of militants along different lines is the best way of dealing with them. Although, in rhetoric, everyone is against terrorism, there has been a noted disagreement over what constitutes threats to a certain state and even to a certain institution. Thus, whenever there is a major attack, we hear state institutions blaming each other; within Pakistan, every major bomb blast is followed by accusing fingers pointed towards the interior ministry for not averting the attack.

The division seems to have served no purpose; rather it breeds mistrust among institutions, which also fritter resources allocated to them. Cries of lack of coordination among institutions are raised. Everyone knows about this gap at all levels of decision-making: in the midst of increasing suicide attacks in Pakistan. In late 2009, the prime minister is reported to have rushed to the interior ministry, grilling it for the delay in setting up the promised coordination authority. Yet, at the same time, Pakistan was accused of not coordinating at the state level — a charge Pakistan has indirectly levelled against the US.

Although the question about coordination among agencies has been raised everywhere around the world, the tone of such a question is more severe in Pakistan, as militants of all hue and colours seem to originate from this country.

A noted division of any state’s intelligence apparatus is traditionally along geographical lines, i.e. the external and internal agency. In Pakistan too, such a dividing line exists. Created with the express purpose of serving as an intelligence body within the armed forces, as its name suggests, the Inter-Services Intelligence has vastly expanded its ambit and is now considered the state’s external intelligence agency. The Intelligence Bureau on the other hand, is the state’s internal intelligence agency. Moreover, there are also law-enforcement agencies (LEA) such as the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), whose domain is mostly internal. Here, the assumption is that the threat from outside is for the external agency to handle, while the ones inside are to be handled by internal agencies and related LEAs.

Many countries, sticking to this divide, are having success with this model. For instance, the agency responsible for thwarting the trans-Atlantic plane attack in 2006 was MI5, Britain’s internal intelligence agency. The attack, after all, was planned within Britain. Nonetheless, modern-day terrorism also raises challenges: in many cases, militants are not only non-state actors but also trans-state actors as they can cross borders at will. Any delay by the state apparatus warning about the threat can cause havoc. If you read the 9/11 Commission Report, you will come across the reference towards both Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for letting down the US by not warning against the threat. The same applies to the Mumbai attack of November 2008, which led to questions of why coordination failed among the agencies. After all, the flexible manner in which trans-state actors operate may not necessarily be shared by states and their institutions.

Generically, Pakistan’s problems with coordination are a direct result of such complexities, which are also encountered by other countries. Within Pakistan, an additional factor has been a civil-military divide inside the security apparatus. Such divide would have meant nothing had Pakistan been secured from a civil-military divide in the larger polity. In fact, even though some may argue that the real reason for bad coordination is the internal-external divide and not the civil-military divide, it is the latter which deepens the former.

That eases the job of militants. Compared to other countries, the severity of the threat for Pakistan is as strong from militant groups that are internal as it is from those that are external to the country. While the US may debate what constitutes a threat to its security, the threat to every single inch of Pakistan’s land is equally serious from the militants who are on the outside, on the fringes, or inside the country. In order to understand this, consider this hypothetical situation from three different angles.

A militant, shooting at the US forces in Afghanistan, escapes the battlefield, crosses the Durand Line and enters the tribal areas of Pakistan. In the troubled terrain, he colludes with those who have challenged the writ of the Pakistani state. Intent on taking revenge from Pakistan, this guy takes a death toll in the fertile areas of Pakistan.

Look at it another way: when he was in Afghanistan and threatening the US presence, he was known as the ‘Afghan Taliban’. While some in the US may view him as a threat for the stability of the Karzai government, others may pay least attention to such an ‘insurgent’ who may not be a threat against distant America. When he entered Pakistan and after he started resisting the Pakistani forces, he was known as the ‘Pakistani Taliban’. Finally, when he entered the urban areas, he was dubbed as the Punjabi Taliban.

Now look at it from the third angle: as long as he was in the US, he was chased by the CIA; when he slipped into Pakistan and perhaps as long as he was ‘external’ to the state (which also means in the tribal areas), the only agency which could have spied on him was Pakistan’s external intelligence agency, the ISI, which is operationally subservient to the military. When he entered the plains of Punjab, the civilian infrastructure under the provincial or federal government, i.e. Criminal Investigation Department (CID) or FIA, was supposed to spy on as well as nab him.

Although it could be argued that there rarely have been cases of a single militant changing regions quickly all the time, yet Baradar’s case even put that in doubt. Still, what is true is that there has been a network relationship among militants. For example, the relations of Baitullah Mehsud with a sectarian militant group in Punjab and his allegiance to the Afghan Taliban are now on the record.

It is this division of the threat that leads to mistrust between states. At the end of the day, the US points fingers at Pakistan for not doing enough against the Afghan Taliban; Pakistan smells a rat that the US is not serious against the Pakistani Taliban. Some have even come up with theories that the CIA is funding them. Within the country, the interior minister has to face opprobrium for not thwarting the attacks. It is another matter that he has also learnt the art of the trade: he now deflects everything onto a ‘foreign hand’.

That said, there is no point in merely finding a scapegoat as long as the state organs are not flexible and convinced of thinking beyond their area in the face of a networked coordination among the militants. Baradar’s capture shows they can — whether or not it applies across a spectrum of militants who, ostensibly, may not have crossed their distinct regional category right now remains to be seen.

The writer is a graduate in International Relations from Boston University and a freelance journalist. He is also the editor of Multipak and can be reached at ismkhan84@gmail.com