Identify the real enemy

ARE we still too naive to determine our enemy?

Certainly not, but only if we have common sense and we keep our eyes wide open.

We must also keep in mind that the enemy is non-traditional, in the sense that it does not only want to encroach on our physical spaces, but also ideological, social, cultural and political ones, in order to disrupt the social fabric.

This enemy is more dangerous because it is internal; it lives within us and can hurt us from within.

It can poison our thinking slowly, without being noticed.

It wants to impose certain religious, ideological and social agendas against the collective will and order of the people.

It employs violence to achieve its goals.

Sometimes it only incites violence and creates an enabling environment for its violent ideological brothers.

The state has to take constitutional, legal and security measures to deal with its enemies.

But when our state functionaries appear to have lost the ability to recognise the enemy within us, it can be inferred that the enemy has accomplished its job. Keep reading 》》》》

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Jihad, Extremism

Actors of instability

PAKISTAN’S security indicators have been improving lately, mainly due to the state’s enhanced counterterrorism efforts. Government and security officials highlight gains on the counterterrorism front; statistics support their claims. However, that does not mean we have won the war. We still need to develop effective ideological and political responses to broaden and strengthen the ongoing counterterrorism campaign.

During the last two weeks, the security and law-enforcement agencies claimed some significant successes. ISPR chief Lt Gen Asim Bajwa revealed that a network of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) had been busted in Karachi.

Karachi police and the Sindh Counterterrorism Department claimed the killing of some wanted terrorists and the arrest of Asif Chotu, head of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi Al Almi, who reorganised the violent sectarian group, from Dera Ghazi Khan. Several other alleged terrorists have been either killed or arrested across the country in recent weeks. That indicates that the law-enforcement agencies have stepped up their campaign to dismantle terror networks in urban areas.

Sectarian groups are only one pillar of the existing terrorism infrastructure.

Most of the militants arrested in recent weeks and months belong to the LeJ. It seems that the law enforcers are focusing more on sectarian terrorist outfits and their allies. Definitely, it will contribute to further decreasing sectarian-related terrorist attacks in Pakistan. The year 2015 saw a 60pc decrease in such attacks compared with 2014. These efforts will also weaken sectarian groups’ nexus with different Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) factions and the latter’s support networks in Pakistan.

However, Pakistan’s militant landscape is very diverse with multiple actors of instability at work. Sectarian terrorist groups are only one pillar of the existing terrorism infrastructure, which will take time to perish. Though a few other groups have also been weakened, their support bases and operational capabilities remain intact.

A review of the statistics of 2015 suggests that the TTP remained the major actor of instability, carrying out 212 terrorist attacks across the country. The group also managed to carry out 12 cross-border attacks from Afghanistan. The TTP splinter group Jamaatul Ahrar further fuelled instability by carrying out 28 terrorist attacks.

Another tribal areas-based group, the Lashkar-i-Islam, was involved in 27 attacks in Khyber Agency and the suburbs of Peshawar. The small militant groups in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata, described as the local Taliban, carried out 56 terrorist attacks in 2015. Meanwhile, while LJ was involved in 33 attacks in 2015; the Shia sectarian group Sipah-i-Mohammad Pakistan also remained active during the year, mainly in Karachi, Quetta and Islamabad-Rawalpindi, and carried out 19 targeted killings. Baloch separatist groups were another key actor of instability, mainly in Balochistan.

In recent years, new actors have been emerging and some old groups are taking advantage of the changes. Affiliates of the militant Islamic State (IS) group accepted responsibility for three attacks, while Jundullah managed four high-intensity attacks in different parts of the country. AQIS also absorbed the human resource of weakening militant groups; it was involved in abduction cases in Pakistan.

In this context, the responses of the law-enforcement agencies need a dedicated platform to scientifically monitor the changing behaviours, trends, and emerging operational patterns of groups involved in terrorism. This initiative will help them broaden their threat perception and evolve effective responses.

So far, it has been difficult for the security and law-enforcement agencies to think beyond established threats. Pakistan is a frontline state in the war against terrorism, but Al Qaeda has never been on its threat-perception radar. Instead, the group was always considered part of a global problem, which resulted in the emerging threats being deemed insignificant.

The same is proving true for the IS, which is now transforming local terrorist groups. It is a real and emerging threat for Pakistan. Understanding the dynamics, including the erosion of conventional militant groups like the Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) and the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad is also a difficult task.

Interestingly, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, while denying the presence of IS in Pakistan, has claimed that banned groups like JuD are using the name of Daesh (Arabic acronym of IS) to mask their activities. The minister has always been reluctant to include the group on the list of banned outfits and his new statement indicates the confusion which persists within the security establishment about the status of certain militant groups. The problem with the government is that it does not consider a group a threat unless it is involved in terrorist activities inside the country.

But at least it has been acknowledged that banned militant groups have become recruiting bases for international terrorist organisations, including Al Qaeda and the IS.

The successes of law-enforcement agencies deserve commendation, but it has been seen in the past that the elimination of a terrorist group’s leadership did not completely crush the group. After a while, the group reorganised and nurtured a new leadership. It happened more than twice in the case of the LJ. The killing of LJ leaders, including its founder Riaz Basra in 2002, provided a brief lull in sectarian killings. But in 2004, a new wave started which receded in 2008 when its new leaders were killed.

Yet again, a sudden rise in sectarian killings was observed in 2010 when a new leadership, including Asif Chotu and Naeem Bukhari, took over the group. This leadership proved more lethal, as it had not only expanded the group’s geographical outreach to interior Sindh but also found new targets, including the Hazara and Ismaili communities, and the Bohra community in Karachi.

The relief in statistics provides an opportunity to the government and law-enforcement agencies to review their responses and recompose their operational strategies. The most important aspect is linked to how to intervene in the spaces that continue breeding new generations of terrorists. Both the politico-ideological and operational perspectives are important and need collaborative efforts.

The actors of instability use ideological and political spaces to survive, which automatically create the spaces for their operational activities.

By Muhammad Amir Rana, a security analyst. He is the Director of Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), Islamabad, Pakistan.

http://www.dawn.com/news/1242368

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Jihad, Extremism

One size may not fit all - by Hasan Abdullah

Only a few years ago, he was studying at a madressah. Then one day, his family was informed that he had died in a suicide bomb blast. He was the suicide bomber, as confirmed by the propaganda video recorded prior to the attack. His younger brother says the family is still finding it hard to come to terms with the incident.

`He was funny. He used to make others laugh and was known in his friends circle as a champion of the game of snake on the mobile phone,` says his brother Amin. Their real names have been withheld upon their request.

So was it the madressah that turned a jolly young man into a suicide bomber`? His family appears reluctant to answer this question. `We don`t really know,` says Amin`s father.

Some religious-political parties such as Jamaat-i-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam have been trying to play down the role of religious seminaries in fostering extremism, with their representatives sometimes making outlandish claims of entirely denying any role of seminaries in the radicalisation of people.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan says the overwhelming majority of madressahs have nothing to do with violence in the country. While that may be the case with the majority, there is little doubt about the dubious role of some madressahs in promoting militancy.

`It is a fact that some religious seminaries are acting as a supply line of suicide bombers. They may say that their `produce` is just for Afghanistan but once out of the conveyor belt, one doesn`t always have control over where the bomber ends up,` says Tariq Habib, a journalist who has reported on militant groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

On top of that, Habib says, there is `inherent sectarianism in the curriculum. Madressahs can deny as much as they want, but if you go through their fatwas, it is clear that they have declared many Muslim sects as disbelievers. From there starts the legitimisation of their killing.

Nearly seven decades after the creation of Pakistan, the leadership has for the first time, formulated a National Internal Security Policy (NTSP) that seeks to `protect national interests of Pakistan by addressing critical security issues as well as concerns of the nation. It is based upon principles of mutual inclusiveness and integration of all national effort.

According to Saleem Safi, a senior journalist and Islamist militancy expert, the task is far more difficult than perceived. `Real challenge for the NISP and the political leadership is to construct a national narrative. It is very difficult to bring a society, divided on multiple lines, under one narrative on terrorism and extremism.Raza Rumi, Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, says the government has much to do when it comes to reforming madressahs.

`There are three issues of main importance: first the registration and regulation. They have to adhere to a regulatory framework. Second, the curricula that needs to be updated and modernised. No point in teaching Fatawa-i-Alamgiri or such other outdated texts. More importantly, sectarian hate that goes into teaching has to be curbed and discontinued.

Third pertains to foreign students and teachers that become part of madressah networks without the necessary permission of the State,` says Rumi. He says that for madressah reform two imperatives need to be considered: first, the `extremist mindset flows out of the theological interpretations which are man-made and sectarian and they need regulation and debate. Second, terrorist activity is limited to only a few. And in the past the Pakistani state has used them as recruitment grounds for jihad abroad. These places and handlers are well-known and can be nabbed.

However, scores of teachers and students at various madressahs have expressed frustration at what they view as being singled out and targeted for their beliefs.

`The 21st amendment clearly discriminates between religious and secular elements of the society. Even on the streets, we are noticing the change in attitude of policemen who use derogatory language and try to humiliate every bearded person,` says Mufti Muhammad Zubair, Naib Muhtamim (Vice Principal) at Jamia Suffa in Karachi.

Bilal Hashim Siddiqui is a marketing graduate from Institute of Business Administration in Karachi. He is currently pursuing religious studies at Dar ul Uloom in Gulshan-i-Iqbal area of Karachi. He agrees with Rumi`s call for a debate but says `the secular elite do not have the moral and intellectual courage to have an honest debate` with Islamists.

`The media and the state have been suppressing any hon-est discussion on Islam. They want to regulate the debate in such a way that Islamists have to stay within the pre-defined, narrow framework set or rather imposed by the secularists.

They want us to debate Islam by judging it according to the secular value-systems,` says Siddiqui.

`It seems the government has little understanding of the nature of the conflict and it`s simply playing on some impressive buzzwords like madressah reforms, deradicalisation, counter-terrorism, secularisation and many more. These labels may be sellable when it comes to securing international funding but does not really bc1p in dealing with the challenges at hand. If anything, our society is getting increasingly polarised and that is not good,` says Sib Kaifee, an Islamabad-based security consultant who has acted as an advisor at some diplomatic missions as well.

A number of analysts seem to agree with some of the grievances coming out of madressahs.

`Government policies need a balance where every segment of society must be taken on board. Unfortunately, it seems that government policies are tilted towards the secular and liberal segment of society. I fear an Egypt-like polarisation if this trend continues. If the state fails to keep a balance then this type of polarisation may lead the society to violent confrontation,` says Abdullah Khan, director of the Conflict Monitoring Centre in Islamabad.

The government, however, appears confident that things are on the right track.

`A unity has been formed. You should not lose sight of this. The terrorists` strength has finally been broken,` says Minister for State and Frontier Regions retired Lt. Gen Abdul Qadir Baloch.

But Rumi warns against any misadventures.

`It would be unwise for the state to isolate millions of students and their families. Therefore the reform has to be debated and those who advocate violence need to be identified and proceeded against under the law,` he says.But Sib Kaif`ee sees a more l`undamental challenge.

`Clearly we have a significant number of people who do not even recognise the law of` the land and the system in place. Some of them vocally express their opposition while others are acting like sleeper cells waiting to explode. So instead of further polarising society, our mainstream media really needs to open up a debate on Islam and secularism. If` we want to promote certain values then we need to convince the people about the superiority of our ideas,` he asserts.
One size may not fit all - by Hasan Abdullah, dawn.com

"Islamabad: from the outside" by Mirza Khurram Shahzad

:Sitting in the lap of the magnificent green Margallas, Islamabad`s E-7 sector normally remains calm and quiet through the day.

The only noticeable activity is usually the movement of monkeys on its northern service road or the noticeable presence of several vigilant security men keeping an eye on the villa of Doctor Abdul Qadeer Khan.

That changes when the students of madressah Jamia Faridia come out on to the streets in their spare time.

The madressah Jamia Faridia, built on the northern edge in the green area between sector E-7 and Marga11a hills, is Islamabad`s largest religious seminary. It was constructed with the blessings of former military dictator, General Zia ul Haq, in violation of the rules and regulations of the Capital Development Authority (CDA).

Around 1,500 students, enrolled in this seminary, flock out after Asar prayers to roam around in grounds, parks, streets and markets.

They have come from different parts of the country to seek religious education in this Deobandi seminary, where they also reside.

Jamia Faridia is affiliated with the Lal Masjid and was once administered by Ghazi Abdul Rasheed, who was killed in the military operation in 2007. It is currently being administered by Maulana Abdul Aziz.

The majority of these students are from the north-western areas outside Islamabad such asChitral, Batagram, Swat, the tribal areas and also villages around Abbottabad, Murree and Kashmir.

Abdullah and Muhammad are two friends who have come here all the way from Chitral to seek higher education in this seminary and have nothing to do in the evenings but to go out in the streets of Islamabad.

`We initially studied in a seminary in Chitral but then came here to Jamia Faridia, because no seminary was offering higher education in Chitral,` Abdullah says as he leaves the madressah after Asar prayers.

`We will have free time to spend and relax a bit until Maghreb prayers and then we will return to the seminary,` he said.

Around three miles cast of Jamia Faridia, in sector F-6, up to 800 students of Jamia Muhammadia occupy a park in front of the Super Market commercial centre.

Soon after Asar prayers, they come out in the park and rest on the swings, benches and grass patches, leaving no room for other kids, particularly the girls and women living in the flats adjacent to the park.

`There was no madressah in my village in Tarbela Ghazi, so my father sent me here to become an Aalim (religious scholar),` says 15-year-old Huzaifa, who is in the first year batch of Jamia Muhammadia.

Like Huzaifa, Abdullah and Muhammad, there are over 15,000 students who have come to Islamabad to study in its religious seminaries. Incomparison there are hardly any local students from Islamabad who have joined these madressahs.

Intriguingly, organisations of all sects have built large seminaries in the federal capital, but none have established madressahs of this level in the areas from where the students actually hail.

`More than 90 per cent students in the 375 madressahs of Islamabad come from other citics. But this is a stupid question as to why these students come to study here. Islamabad is a city of outsiders and people in all departments have come from other cities,` says Maulana Abdul Quddus, a spokesman for Wifaq-ul-Madaris Al Arabia in Islamabad.

`It`s the government`s duty to provide high grade madressahs and schools in every nook and corner of the country. If they cooperate with us and establish high standard madressahs in other cities and facilitate them, students will not come to Islamabad for religious studies,` he says.

But Muhammad, a final year student of Jamia Faridia, believes there are financial reasons behind this.

`There are madressahs in our area in Chitral but they are not of this high level. The religious scholars don`t establish high grade madressahs in remote areas because they collect more funds from cities like Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.

Moreover, life is easy here,` he said.

According to government statistics, there are a total of 329 madressahs in Islamabad, out ofwhich 175 are registered. Up to 16,000 students study in these madressahs but no official data has been maintained about the students who come from other cities.

On the other hand, around 250,000 students study in 422 formal government schools and up to 300,000 in 2,000 private schools including the high standard private schools affiliated with foreign universities. But hardly any students come from other cities to study in these schools.

Pervez Hoodbhoy, a senior professor formerly associated with Islamabad`s Quaid-i-Azam University, says that while the state originally provided space to religious elements in the federal capital during Gen Zia`s regime, those elements have now become much stronger and bring in people from outside to increase their power.

`If`a molvi gets a residence in a house associated with a mosque or madressah on a prime location in a city like Islamabad, he then brings in more and more people from outside to strengthen his hold.

`Over the years, they have now strengthened their street power in Islamabad. They can close down the city whenever they want to, and they have become accustomed to using this tool to blackmail the authorities. This is the reason they don`t establish large seminaries in other cities and have made Islamabad as their headquarter.

`But this has sufTocated the city, particularly for women who can`t move freely in the areas where madressahs exist. And children of`ten can`t go to parks because these madressah students have occupied most of`those.

Hoodbhoy also said that the madressah students have also forcibly snatched the citizens right of freedom of assembly on various occasions.

`I remember when we protested against a terrorist attack on the Hazara community in Quetta in front of the National Press Club, Islamabad two years ago, these students armed with clubs, bats and iron rods came there and attempted to attack us. Police had to intervene to save the protesters.`

Islamabad: from the outside
by Mirza Khurram Shahzad, dawn.com

Speaking in tongues - Terrorists

In 1857, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan began a reform programme for the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent, firmly believing that they would not be able to progress in society without the acquisition of Western education and sciences. Nearly one-and-a-half century later, madressahs in Pakistan believe the same.

`Without modern education, Muslims can`t survive, argues Attiqur Rehman Chohan, spokesman for the Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) in Peshawar. `The Dawa System of Education has been established to impart religious and modern education simultaneously. Our institutions are being set up across the country.

Notwithstanding the ban apparently imposed on them by the government as part of the National Action Plan against terrorism, the JuD is running about 30 English-medium schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is believed that their schools network in Punjab is much larger. Perhaps the ban is only in name.

`Our organisation is introducing a curriculum that is currently taught at Atchison College, Lahore and at the University of Oxford. The programme will start in the first phase from Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, and thereafter extended in other cities,` explains Chohan.

Thus far, the JuD has been training teachers who can instruct in the English language. Around 250 teachers in Islamabad have completed their training, but the JuD`s requirement is much larger. `We have planned to set up English-medium schools and colleges at divisional level.

Our network will then be extended to district and tehsil levels,` elaborates the spokesman.

In the past, religious organisations following different schools of thought focused on madressahs to produce their particular breed of cleric.

The trend has now shifted; the medium of instruction no longer needs to be a vernacular language or Arabic, while subjects taught are no longer restricted to theology. This process of establishing modern institutions, where students can be taught business, science and technology in the English language, has been underway since almost a decade.But this strategy is not born out of` the clerics` love l`or modern education; it is what they need to systematically propagate their ideology to a wider audience.

Most of these new English medium institutions are not restricted to schools either; well-off people affiliated with religious groups have set up vocational and technical colleges on the basis of sect. The number of English medium schools in the country has been increasing simply because religious groups have started their entry into modern education systems. The problem arises, however, when sectarian teachings become part of the curriculum in the guise of religious teachings.

Some sectarian groups also organise special coaching classes and tuition centres to prepare candidates to appear in competitive exams such as Central Superior Service (CSS) and provincial management service. `A religious group regularly arranges classes in Lahore for candidates who intend to take the CSS exams, so as to induct officersfrom their sect in the bureaucracy,` explains a source.

Given the number of sects and sectarian differences at play in Pakistan, almost all major players now run a growing network of modern educational institutions and madressahs in tandem.

The Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), which represents the Deobandi school of thought and has the largest network of madressahs in the country, runs private schools and colleges through the Sufa School System. `Retired teachers and professors ideologically infused by the JUI-F have been running this system in different areas, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,` claims the party`s provincial information secretary, Maulana Abdul Jalil Jan.

The Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) too runs a separate body in Mansoora, Lahore, named Dar-i-Argam. This organisation manages the party`s affiliated chain of English-medium schools across the country. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa alone, the party has more than 150 private schools. Another two JT-affiliated syndicates, Hira and Iqra, have also their separate network of schools and colleges.

The Barelvi school of thought is not to be left behind either: they have a network of private schools that run under the supervision of four different bodies, AIMS Education System (AES), Mustafvi Model Schools, Muslim Hands and Minhajul Quran. These schools run in both the rural and the urban sectors.

Education experts and social commentators call the flourishing of parallel education systems a dangerous trend. The argument is that in the absence of a government-run uniform system of education, private educational institutions run by different schools of thought will systematically polarise Pakistani society, which is already reeling from the effects of sectarianism.

`Radical religious groups have already intruded into parliament and culture. Now they have planned to acquire managerial capabilities as well as the use of modern technology through their own English medium schools and higher education institutions,` says Professor Khadim Hussain, guest lecturer at the Linguistics Department, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. `They now want to accommodatetheir people in civil services, defence and other fields.

Prof Hussain explains that till a few years ago, the share of such groups in private education sector was about 25 per cent but now it has risen to more than 40pc. If the trend continues, he says, there will be an increase in `social isolation`.

The issue at heart for academics and educationists is not the increase in school buildings, but what is being taught in these buildings. One analyst describes the intervention of religious groups in education systems as something meant to indoctrinate children instead of educating them.
Speaking in tongues by Zulfiqar Ali dawn.com