Better late than never

The day when a Bangladeshi court sentenced Mufti Hannan – a warrior against the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan and ring leader of the Bangladesh chapter of Harkat-ul-Jihad – to death, his successors were also accepting the same fate in the bordering area of Pakistan. Pakistan, after a prolonged dilemma, has finally decided to finish off all the bases controlled by the militants in North Waziristan, which is infamous as a safe haven to the global militants, once and forever.

Massive bombardment by Pakistani jets and the military campaign led by the infantry and artillery regiments of the army, have made it difficult for the militants to reside in the troubled region even for a day. Many started to flee the area, while a handful of militants have already died from the airstrike.

The belated realisation by the Pakistan government came after Karachi Airport, the busiest airport of the country, came under an audacious attack by the members of Pakistan Taliban that took the lives of at least 36 people, including military officials.

It is believed that the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan and the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States had jointly set up militant bases in the bordering area of Durand Line, the line that divides Pakistan and Afghanistan, during the early 1980s. Pakistan’s ISI, in collaboration with the CIA, has provided military training and weapons to the Afghan warriors who were resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

ISI also provided support to Mullah Omar, the spiritual leader of the Taliban, to grab the power of Afghanistan in the 90s. While the insurgent groups of the country were busy with infightings, the throne of Afghanistan fell into the grasp of Mullah Omar with the help of ISI.

Additionally, ISI assisted the process of gathering radical Muslims from around the world to fight against the Soviets in those camps. Though the Soviet invasion was foiled in 1989, the process of gathering radical Muslims in that region was carried out. The recent air assault that caused the death of some 80 militants, who were mainly ethnic Uzbeks who used to meet in North Waziristan, depicts the truth. Pakistani Taliban, after the deadly Karachi Airport attack, claimed that the members of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan played a formidable role in the attack.

Many insurgents of India and Bangladesh like Mufti Hannan received military training during the battle against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan that lasted for nine years. The chaotic region of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border has produced hundreds of thousands of militants since 1980.

Those militants carried out many deadly attacks in this subcontinent which took the lives of many, including Benazir Bhutto. The grenades used by the Huji in Bangladesh are believed to be a part of the consignment of grenades manufactured by Austrian company ARGES, that was supplied to the Pakistani Army. ARGES grenades were used in a series of 13 bomb attacks in Mumbai in March 1993, and similar grenades were used by terrorists during the attack on the Indian Parliament in December, 2001.

However, after the deadly attack of 9/11, Pakistan publicly denied their affiliation with the Taliban of Afghanistan. But some evidence created a popular belief among world leaders, as well as military analysts, that there were certainly some links between the Afghan militants and the ISI, even after 9/11. After the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, all fingers were pointed to the affiliation of ISI and the militants. It is widely believed that the plot of killing Benazir was masterminded by the ISI.

In 2011, Osama bin Laden was encountered in a mansion that was adjacent to the military academy of Pakistan, and only 137km away from the garrison city of Rawalpindi. This incident was a clear indication to the previous claim by international relations analysts about the connection between the ISI and the Taliban.

Many have opined that the ISI is divided into two factions – those who believe in abolishing the entire militant network of Pakistan, and the others who believe in supporting them to create further turmoil in the subcontinent and dominate other countries, especially Afghanistan, which is ruled by Hamid Karzai. Many Pakistani military officials term Karzai a pro-Indian.

Several efforts to demolish the militant bases situated in the north-west of Pakistan had ended up being in vain due to the lack of assistance from the ISI from dissent among the organisation. Surprisingly, the ISI was trying to establish a tentative peace process between the Pakistani Taliban and the government.

The Karachi incident – the effort to siege the busiest airport of the country – as well as the attack on the military check post adjacent to it left at least 38 people dead. In the mean time, another affiliate of the Pakistani Taliban massacred nearly 30 members of Pakistan’s minority Shiite community in the Balochistan province. These incidents have eventually torn apart the nascent peace process between the parties.

The recent developments in Pakistan – continuous airstrikes, nonstop shelling by the army, the launching of a deadly ground offensive – indicate a major change in heart in the key backers of the militants in Pakistan. It seems, Pakistan has finally concluded that there is no way out but to eliminate the entire militant network that has been spreading its tentacles since 1980s. Though it is too late to realise, better late than never.