Opinion
Terror Remains Beyond Control
of Pakistani State
by
Sreeram Chaulia
The
disclosure by Chinese authorities that the hijackers of a domestic
airplane who were thwarted in March came from Pakistan confirms
terrorism to be the prime export item of the volatile country. It is the
latest shred of evidence in an unsavory track record for which Pakistan
has gained international notoriety as the cradle of extremist jehad.
If one performed a word count from the list of reports about failed and
successful terrorist attacks around the world in the last decade, the
term 'Pakistan' makes a ubiquitous appearance.
In January 2008, Spain revealed that it had foiled a terrorist plot to
blow up Barcelona's public transport system and jailed 10 suspects, nine
of whom were Pakistanis and one an Indian Muslim. All three suspects of
a terror cell nabbed by German investigators in September 2007 had been
trained in Pakistan and were launched on "direct orders to act from
Pakistan".
The botched 'Trans-Atlantic Air Plot' of August 2006, which aimed to
detonate liquid explosives on board several aircraft flying from Britain
to the US, involved many people of Pakistani descent and training.
Two of the 15 suspects in the 'Toronto Case' of June 2006, arrested by
Canadian police before they could launch major terrorist attacks in
southern Ontario, were migrants from Pakistan. Three of the four suicide
bombers who killed 52 people in the 2005 London terror strikes were of
Pakistani origin and the trail of their mission went back unmistakably
to Al Qaeda camps in Karachi and Lahore.
Last but not least, the Sep 11 terror attacks in the US in 2001 were
masterminded and financed from Pakistan by individuals of Pakistani
descent -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Sheikh Omar Saeed.
The dossier is incomplete without mentioning the scores of successful
and forestalled terrorist attacks across India for more than half a
century that have credible provenance in Pakistan.
While Pakistan's jehadi activities in India carry the imprint of the
former's state apparatus, the waves of Pakistan-linked terror plots and
attacks in Europe and North America lack the official hand of the
government in Islamabad. They are free expressions from militarized
segments of Pakistani society rather than a premeditated foreign policy
strategy of the Pakistani state.
Islamabad has no strategic motive or benefit for abetting carnage on the
streets of London or Berlin. To the extent that the jehad paraphernalia
within Pakistan has grown mighty with state connivance and
encouragement, one can argue an indirect culpability of the Pakistani
state in exporting terror to far-flung parts of the world. But the
linkages forged by terrorist cells in Europe and North America with
Pakistan-based Islamist seminaries and training camps have more to do
with the amount of jehadi human capital that has accumulated in
Pakistani society.
The manpower, money and technological inputs Pakistani society has
pumped into Islamist terrorism worldwide are second to none, even
outdistancing Saudi Arabia. Pakistan's 20,000 madrassas educate an
estimated 1.5 million students per annum. The vast majority of social
institutions programming future jehadis are beyond the control of the
Pakistani state. They are financed through voluntary charity of
Pakistani businessmen who believe in earning Islamic piety. A network of
Saudi Arabian and Iranian donors also bankrolls Pakistan's jehad
factories in the guise of humanitarian service.
International terrorist plots with the invariable Pakistani hand draw
upon this rich resource base for jehad that has taken roots in the
social system of Pakistan. It is in recognition of this reality that
Newsweek magazine commented: "No other country on earth is arguably more
dangerous than Pakistan, where militancy is woven into the fabric of
society."
Following Pakistan's parliamentary elections in February 2008, attention
was devoted to the defeat of radical parties that espoused an Islamist
worldview. Many commentators in India and the West toasted the results
as vindication of the basic moderation in Pakistani society and a
rejection of violent jehad. Nothing can be more erroneous than to
conclude that an electoral defeat of rightwing Islamists implies that
fundamentalism is on its way out. Hardly 30 percent of Pakistan's
electorate exercised its franchise in the recent elections, a figure
that does not justify using poll results as barometers of moderation of
the whole society.
Even the minority that did come out to vote overwhelmingly for centrist
parties can be seen as delivering a verdict against President Pervez
Musharraf's misrule rather than against fundamentalism per se. It is
easy to get confused about an electorate that was responding with
brickbats for a detested military dictator and with sympathy for
centrism after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
In a World Public Opinion Poll conducted in September 2007 (three months
before Benazir's assassination), between 60 and 76 percent of Pakistanis
favored expansion of the role of Sharia in the country's legal system.
Is it logical to maintain that the same Pakistani society was somehow
transformed overnight in barely four months to favor moderation and
secularism in the elections?
If the election of February is a beacon that extremism is on the wane in
Pakistani society, there should be a concomitant decline in terrorist
attacks within the country. If moderates have prevailed in Pakistan, the
uncovering of ever more international terrorist plots with 'Made in
Pakistan' logos should become passé. Neither of these logical next steps
has transpired. Lacking deep transformation, Pakistan continues to be
the world's leading exporter of Islamist terror.
(Sreeram Chaulia is a researcher on
international affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship in Syracuse,
New York. He can be contacted at sreeramchaulia@hotmail.com)
Boloji.com is owned and managed by
Boloji Media Inc Privacy Policy |
Disclaimer No part of this Internet site may
be reproduced without prior written permission of the copyright holder.
