Defining The Punjabi Taliban Network
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TalibanSwatter
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This should help us break the back of the punjabi taliban network once and for all.
AZADPAKISTAN2009
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Great I suggest package them and send them to India , it will solve two problems
a) Get rid of taliban
b) Let India think these were part of thugs who did mumbia attack
Why keep them in Jail , move them out to India
Kill two birds with 1 taliban
a) Get rid of taliban
b) Let India think these were part of thugs who did mumbia attack
Why keep them in Jail , move them out to India
Kill two birds with 1 taliban
TalibanSwatter
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Trouble Brewing in Punjab...
DAWN
As the state machinery took its time before launching the operation in Waziristan, the Taliban outflanked it by launching an offensive of their own, bringing the war to the heartland of the country.
After taking on GHQ, the proverbial nerve centre, they have shown a change in the tactics of terror: the militants’ attacks have now metamorphosed into a full-blown urban war.
The brazen attack on GHQ, which was quickly followed by three synchronised raids on security establishments in Lahore, is a change in the tactics of the Taliban. Until recently they would attack military convoys with improvised devices or their frenzied cadres would blow themselves up near a target or in a crowd. Now they have descended from the hills of Waziristan (as the common understanding goes) to extend the theatre of war. It will divide the focus of the armed forces and put many people’s lives at risk.
The day GHQ was attacked two words seemed to stick out in the local and international media: brazen and audacious. But there is more to it than merely an attack by the Taliban who have challenged the writ of the state everywhere and at will. No less than six terrorist attacks in Punjab — one targeting the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, another the Manawan police academy, the GHQ assault in Rawalpindi and three synchronised attacks against security establishments, including Manawan once more, in Lahore — bear the hallmark of militants other than the Taliban of Waziristan.
According to the New York Times, these attacks showed the deepening reach of the militant network, as well as its rising sophistication and inside knowledge of the security forces. These attacks are enough to jolt the country’s establishment out of its belief that nothing is brewing in the backyard of Punjab. The sophisticated attacks across the Indus highlight a stark reality: the phenomenon of the Taliban is not ethnic, but a national one. The most alarming aspect of this saga is that militants belonging to sectarian terror outfits have been in the forefront of these attacks.
The mastermind of the GHQ attack, Aqeel, has been associated with Lashkar-i-Jhangvi — a sectarian terror group active in Punjab since long. He was also allegedly involved in the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team. It shows how dangerously these sectarian groups have, over the years, transformed into a force capable of taking on the state.
The southern part of Punjab shares many things with the tribal areas of the NWFP. If the century-old Frontier Crimes Regulation had imposed maliks on the common tribesmen for their control and exploitation, feudalism has sucked the life out of the common Punjabi. Exploitation and alienation is on the same level in Fata and southern Punjab, which gives common cause to the Taliban and the sectarian groups to team up against an identical enemy — the FCR in the tribal areas and feudalism in Punjab.
Things went awry when the state started patronising such organisations, which played on the inherent contradictions in society. The state wanted to privatise Kashmir and the Afghan war, but little did it know that one day the militants could turn their guns on it. The whole of the NWFP in general and Peshawar in particular had been the staging post for the so-called Afghan jihad for no less than 10 years, which is enough time to contaminate the local cultural and religious ethos. Besides, given poor economic indicators, state patronage of militancy and its long porous border with Afghanistan, the NWFP was bound to be the breeding ground for obscurantist forces like the Taliban.
When inculcating ‘jihad’ became the state policy during Gen Ziaul Haq’s dark rule and ‘jihad fi sabeelillah’ became the motto of the armed forces, the first seed of Talibanisation was sown. Genuine political leadership was banished from the country while political activity was stifled. The vacuum was then filled by sectarian and linguistic groups which left the social fabric in tatters. People started seeking identity in narrow ‘ideologies’ in the absence of national parties that could give representation to everyone.
Public display of ostentatious religiosity became the norm with small militant outfits becoming an extension of the state’s foreign policy, while mainstream leaders — including nationalists — were branded as traitors, corrupt and inept. Religious vigilantes started stalking every segment of society, especially campuses. Conformity replaced diversity of opinion; anyone falling on the wrong side of the establishment was either chased out or condemned to silence.
After years of mayhem in Afghanistan the Taliban emerged victorious, in the process attracting jihadis of every hue to the country. For the first time sectarian militants found a safe haven in Afghanistan after spilling a lot of blood in Pakistan. When the Taliban took over Kabul, it bolstered the many obscurantist factions in Pakistan. However, when the Taliban were toppled by the US after 9/11 and found sanctuary in the tribal badlands of Pakistan, a local version of the extremist militia emerged to challenge the writ of the government in the name of the Sharia.
The sectarian groups of Punjab found an ally in Fata.
The rot does not lie only in the tribal areas. While they provide sanctuary to every group that challenges the writ of the state, they have their own grievances. They may fly in the same flock but they are not birds of a feather. Once done with Waziristan the state’s focus should turn to Punjab, where sleeper cells are not sleeping anymore. This should be done before southern Punjab becomes another Swat.
Sectarian crimes accentuated by economic deprivation and socio-cultural contradictions have clothed themselves in petty identities. In the short term they need to be removed physically; in the long term the inherent contradictions have to be addressed, for which drastic steps have to be taken.
DAWN
As the state machinery took its time before launching the operation in Waziristan, the Taliban outflanked it by launching an offensive of their own, bringing the war to the heartland of the country.
After taking on GHQ, the proverbial nerve centre, they have shown a change in the tactics of terror: the militants’ attacks have now metamorphosed into a full-blown urban war.
The brazen attack on GHQ, which was quickly followed by three synchronised raids on security establishments in Lahore, is a change in the tactics of the Taliban. Until recently they would attack military convoys with improvised devices or their frenzied cadres would blow themselves up near a target or in a crowd. Now they have descended from the hills of Waziristan (as the common understanding goes) to extend the theatre of war. It will divide the focus of the armed forces and put many people’s lives at risk.
The day GHQ was attacked two words seemed to stick out in the local and international media: brazen and audacious. But there is more to it than merely an attack by the Taliban who have challenged the writ of the state everywhere and at will. No less than six terrorist attacks in Punjab — one targeting the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, another the Manawan police academy, the GHQ assault in Rawalpindi and three synchronised attacks against security establishments, including Manawan once more, in Lahore — bear the hallmark of militants other than the Taliban of Waziristan.
According to the New York Times, these attacks showed the deepening reach of the militant network, as well as its rising sophistication and inside knowledge of the security forces. These attacks are enough to jolt the country’s establishment out of its belief that nothing is brewing in the backyard of Punjab. The sophisticated attacks across the Indus highlight a stark reality: the phenomenon of the Taliban is not ethnic, but a national one. The most alarming aspect of this saga is that militants belonging to sectarian terror outfits have been in the forefront of these attacks.
The mastermind of the GHQ attack, Aqeel, has been associated with Lashkar-i-Jhangvi — a sectarian terror group active in Punjab since long. He was also allegedly involved in the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team. It shows how dangerously these sectarian groups have, over the years, transformed into a force capable of taking on the state.
The southern part of Punjab shares many things with the tribal areas of the NWFP. If the century-old Frontier Crimes Regulation had imposed maliks on the common tribesmen for their control and exploitation, feudalism has sucked the life out of the common Punjabi. Exploitation and alienation is on the same level in Fata and southern Punjab, which gives common cause to the Taliban and the sectarian groups to team up against an identical enemy — the FCR in the tribal areas and feudalism in Punjab.
Things went awry when the state started patronising such organisations, which played on the inherent contradictions in society. The state wanted to privatise Kashmir and the Afghan war, but little did it know that one day the militants could turn their guns on it. The whole of the NWFP in general and Peshawar in particular had been the staging post for the so-called Afghan jihad for no less than 10 years, which is enough time to contaminate the local cultural and religious ethos. Besides, given poor economic indicators, state patronage of militancy and its long porous border with Afghanistan, the NWFP was bound to be the breeding ground for obscurantist forces like the Taliban.
When inculcating ‘jihad’ became the state policy during Gen Ziaul Haq’s dark rule and ‘jihad fi sabeelillah’ became the motto of the armed forces, the first seed of Talibanisation was sown. Genuine political leadership was banished from the country while political activity was stifled. The vacuum was then filled by sectarian and linguistic groups which left the social fabric in tatters. People started seeking identity in narrow ‘ideologies’ in the absence of national parties that could give representation to everyone.
Public display of ostentatious religiosity became the norm with small militant outfits becoming an extension of the state’s foreign policy, while mainstream leaders — including nationalists — were branded as traitors, corrupt and inept. Religious vigilantes started stalking every segment of society, especially campuses. Conformity replaced diversity of opinion; anyone falling on the wrong side of the establishment was either chased out or condemned to silence.
After years of mayhem in Afghanistan the Taliban emerged victorious, in the process attracting jihadis of every hue to the country. For the first time sectarian militants found a safe haven in Afghanistan after spilling a lot of blood in Pakistan. When the Taliban took over Kabul, it bolstered the many obscurantist factions in Pakistan. However, when the Taliban were toppled by the US after 9/11 and found sanctuary in the tribal badlands of Pakistan, a local version of the extremist militia emerged to challenge the writ of the government in the name of the Sharia.
The sectarian groups of Punjab found an ally in Fata.
The rot does not lie only in the tribal areas. While they provide sanctuary to every group that challenges the writ of the state, they have their own grievances. They may fly in the same flock but they are not birds of a feather. Once done with Waziristan the state’s focus should turn to Punjab, where sleeper cells are not sleeping anymore. This should be done before southern Punjab becomes another Swat.
Sectarian crimes accentuated by economic deprivation and socio-cultural contradictions have clothed themselves in petty identities. In the short term they need to be removed physically; in the long term the inherent contradictions have to be addressed, for which drastic steps have to be taken.
Mujahid
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As a global terror network, Al Qaeda is attracting an alarmingly high number of militants to operate its franchises in Punjab under the Taliban brand name. Some of these franchises are already out on a rampage. Through a series of recent attacks on civilian and security targets, they have shown that they are as ruthless as their Pakhtun counterparts and as resourceful as their Al Qaeda mentors. Almost all the terror attacks in Punjab over the last two weeks, including the one on GHQ in Rawalpindi, carry their mark. Even in incidents where they are not the main attackers, they are believed to have put together all the logistics by supplying weapons, procuring transport and arranging board and lodging for the assailants. Reports that two of their top commanders have been arrested should, therefore, mean that they have suffered a setback. The arrests come in the wake of the nabbing of another Punjabi Taliban commander, Aqeel alias Dr Usman, who is said to have masterminded the GHQ attack.
Nevertheless, this does not mean that they have been dealt a fatal blow. The tentacles of the Punjabi Taliban have spread across the province through the activists of banned sectarian organisations and the veterans of jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan. The arrest of a few leaders cannot render their network ineffective. From Kahuta in north Punjab to Rahimyar Khan in the south, the entire province is strewn with radicalised individuals whose ranks appear to swell, even as they lose some of their leaders. One wonders what strategy the state has in mind to curtail the terror tactics of these militants and to neutralise their organisations. If the government and its law-enforcement agencies fail to act promptly, they may soon find that it is too late to root out the menace.
DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Punjabi Taliban
Nevertheless, this does not mean that they have been dealt a fatal blow. The tentacles of the Punjabi Taliban have spread across the province through the activists of banned sectarian organisations and the veterans of jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan. The arrest of a few leaders cannot render their network ineffective. From Kahuta in north Punjab to Rahimyar Khan in the south, the entire province is strewn with radicalised individuals whose ranks appear to swell, even as they lose some of their leaders. One wonders what strategy the state has in mind to curtail the terror tactics of these militants and to neutralise their organisations. If the government and its law-enforcement agencies fail to act promptly, they may soon find that it is too late to root out the menace.
DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Punjabi Taliban
seekers
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yes! all of them would merge in their belief salfi/wahabi/deobandi
Coolyo
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Exactly, this is not a war of groups of people.
This is a war against Wahabism (AKA Salafism/Ahle-Hadith or Deobandis (Deobandis are a lighter form of Wahabis))
The Muslims of Pakistan must unite against these fascist ideologies!
This ideology is basically the revival of the Kharjis!
The same NAJD, where Abd-Al-Wahab was born, and promoted this sick Wahabi ideology! Has been described by the holy Prophet (S)!
This massive growth of Wahabism can be traced to Zia-Ul-Haq and other politicians which supported the Saudi Style of religion...
As Muslims (Both Sunni and Shia), we should unite against the Wahabi threat (AKA Salafi/Ahle-Hadith/Deobandi)! These ideologies trace their origin to the colonial age, and have NOTHING to do with Islam!
TalibanSwatter
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nicely summarized - we should know our enemy.
Hulk
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DAWN.COM | Editorial | Militancy in Punjab
Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has been excoriated by all right-thinking individuals across Pakistan for his shocking comments about the PML-N sharing a common cause with the Taliban.
But away from the politics of the war against militancy, on the security front alarming new trends are emerging in Punjab. Heres what is known. Earlier this month, the names contained in the FIAs red book, a list of the countrys most-wanted criminal suspects, were made public: 25 of the 119 names on the list were of suspects from Punjab, the highest number for any province.
The key suspects in many attacks on security targets in recent months are southern Punjab-based members of four militant groups: Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Jaish-i-Mohammad, Sipah-i-Sahaba and Harkatul Jihad al-Islami. The increase in fidayeen-style attacks (in which death is likely but not inevitable as with suicide attacks) has in particular caught the eye of investigators. Fidayeen attacks are the bread-and-butter tactic of Punjabi militants. Then in the last two days alone several tonnes of explosive materials and other weapons favoured by terrorists have been found in raids in Lahore.
Everything points to the terrifying reality that Punjab has a home-grown terrorism problem that appears to be growing by the day. And yet some elements have mischievously tried to play down the Punjab-militancy nexus by pointing to the fact that the groups involved are not Punjabi because they have members who belong to other provinces too. There is no doubt that the other provinces also have a terrorism problem in their midst and they need to beef up counter-terrorism measures rapidly. But the violence in Punjab is real, it is present and it shows no sign of abating. Quibbling over whether there is such a thing as the Punjabi Taliban is beside the point: there are militants who live in and are from Punjab, these militants are attacking the state and the people, and they must be captured or eliminated.
It is true that the Punjab government is doing something to fight the threat: despite Mr Sharifs stomach-churning comments, the provincial administration he oversees has deployed significant law-enforcement and intelligence resources to track down the Taliban. But the authorities appear to be approaching the problem as a narrow counter-terrorism issue. The wider problem is the infrastructure of hate and religious intolerance that is thriving in the province, often under official patronage. No matter how many militants the state captures or kills, there will always be more if the pipeline of hate continues to churn out brainwashed foot soldiers. The Punjab authorities must find a way, and the will, to shut down the pipeline of hate and intolerance.
Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has been excoriated by all right-thinking individuals across Pakistan for his shocking comments about the PML-N sharing a common cause with the Taliban.
But away from the politics of the war against militancy, on the security front alarming new trends are emerging in Punjab. Heres what is known. Earlier this month, the names contained in the FIAs red book, a list of the countrys most-wanted criminal suspects, were made public: 25 of the 119 names on the list were of suspects from Punjab, the highest number for any province.
The key suspects in many attacks on security targets in recent months are southern Punjab-based members of four militant groups: Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Jaish-i-Mohammad, Sipah-i-Sahaba and Harkatul Jihad al-Islami. The increase in fidayeen-style attacks (in which death is likely but not inevitable as with suicide attacks) has in particular caught the eye of investigators. Fidayeen attacks are the bread-and-butter tactic of Punjabi militants. Then in the last two days alone several tonnes of explosive materials and other weapons favoured by terrorists have been found in raids in Lahore.
Everything points to the terrifying reality that Punjab has a home-grown terrorism problem that appears to be growing by the day. And yet some elements have mischievously tried to play down the Punjab-militancy nexus by pointing to the fact that the groups involved are not Punjabi because they have members who belong to other provinces too. There is no doubt that the other provinces also have a terrorism problem in their midst and they need to beef up counter-terrorism measures rapidly. But the violence in Punjab is real, it is present and it shows no sign of abating. Quibbling over whether there is such a thing as the Punjabi Taliban is beside the point: there are militants who live in and are from Punjab, these militants are attacking the state and the people, and they must be captured or eliminated.
It is true that the Punjab government is doing something to fight the threat: despite Mr Sharifs stomach-churning comments, the provincial administration he oversees has deployed significant law-enforcement and intelligence resources to track down the Taliban. But the authorities appear to be approaching the problem as a narrow counter-terrorism issue. The wider problem is the infrastructure of hate and religious intolerance that is thriving in the province, often under official patronage. No matter how many militants the state captures or kills, there will always be more if the pipeline of hate continues to churn out brainwashed foot soldiers. The Punjab authorities must find a way, and the will, to shut down the pipeline of hate and intolerance.
Ali.009
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What ‘Punjabi’ Taliban?
It is not enough that Washington limit India’s role in Afghanistan, which expanded in the first place due to Bush administration’s double game with Pakistan. US policymaking circles need to be cleansed of the flawed theories on Pakistan and the region fed to US by Indian sources. There is no such thing as Pashtun Taliban or Punjabi Taliban. Beware Pakistanis. Washington and its allies in Islamabad are out to mislead you. There is one real Afghan Taliban and another fake one, the TTP [aka Indo-American Taliban]. By using the term Punjabi Taliban, they want to divide Pakistanis and get at some Kashmiri freedom groups that might be based in the plains of central and northern Pakistan.Kashmiri freedom groups based in the plains of Punjab.
By Ahmed Quraishi
Monday, 15 March 2010.
Ahmed Quraishi-Pakistan/Middle East politics, Iraq war, lebanon war, India Pakistan relations
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—South Waziristan is an Indian outpost on Pakistani soil with a religious version of Mukti Bahini in place, the terror militia created by India in 1969 before its full-fledged and unprovoked invasion of East Pakistan two years later. The similarity is in using proxies. This is not an outlandish theory but an emerging fact anchored in hundreds of pieces of information and intelligence that Pakistani security forces have gathered from the western strip of Pakistan stretching from Balochistan and all the way to the tribal agencies in the north.
To simplify this, let’s start with the series of attacks on Lahore in the past fifteen months.
Attacking Pakistan’s military and attacking Lahore has been an old Indian obsession. The link was first made by Indian analysts associated with Indian military and intelligence. They theorized that since Pakistan's military is mostly drawn from Punjab province, it only makes sense that the best way to punish it for involvement in occupied Kashmir is to attack that part of Pakistan where the families of Pakistani military officers live. Indian propagandists have long been promoting this flawed line of thinking. Explaining Pakistan in lingo-ethnic terms is something New Delhi turned into an art form after 1971. That’s when it successfully exploited this lingo-ethnic card to invade East Pakistan. Our Indian friends later took the same idea to Soviet Moscow to encourage them to meddle in Balochistan and NWFP using Afghan soil.
But after 9/11, this flawed theory was taken by the Indians to a new place: Washington, along with the ideas of independent Balochistan, Pashtunistan and the alleged ‘lingo-ethnic’ divide in Pakistan. Some US powerbrokers took fancy to this theory. To cut a long story short, that’s how US media’s anti-Pakistan bias in the past five years was heavily tinged with this Indian theory on Pakistan. It is also one way of explaining why Afghanistan gradually turned into an anti-Pakistan territory and India was empowered at Pakistan's expense despite being celebrated by US officials as a ‘major non-NATO ally.’
It is interesting to see an overlap between this Indian security mindset and the TTP. This so-called Pakistani Taliban group attacks the same targets today that New Delhi’s security establishment has been focused on for decades: the army and Lahore.
‘Punjabi Taliban’ is another misnomer that serves the same agenda of forcing Pakistanis to see one another through lingo-ethnic glasses. There is no such thing in Pakistan. Those Pakistanis who volunteered with the Afghan Taliban or with Kashmiri freedom groups during the 1990s came from all linguistic backgrounds [Punjabi, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Pashtun, Urdu-speaking, and Balochs]. To lump all of them together in one ‘Punjabi’ Taliban is wrong and malicious.
It is also part of the indirect desire to attack the geographic position of the Punjab province, where much of Pakistan’s strategic installations and military units are based. It would also mean taking the war to the heart of Pakistani military’s base as defined by the Indians who see it as Punjab-focused.
Pakistan’s political and military leaders should tell their friends in Washington that freezing the expansion in India’s role in Afghanistan is not enough. It should be accompanied by a cleansing within US policymaking circles to remove the poisonous Indian theories on Pakistan that so many within the US academia and media have embraced. Washington should understand that strategies such as inserting pro-US elements into power in Islamabad to contain Pakistan from within won’t work. A better course of action is to genuinely understand and respect Pakistani strategic concerns and interests and work with them, not covertly undermine them when the time is right and grudgingly accept them when the tides are rough.
Pakistanis will also have to understand that they will pay a heavy price for insisting on securing their own interests in the region. And it’s not hard to identify the culprits. India won’t just roll over with punches. And there are lobbies in Washington that won’t simply let go of Afghanistan after experiencing the sweet taste of regional imperialism.
All terror in Pakistan is linked to South Waziristan, where Pakistanis are recruited, brainwashed and then used to kill other Pakistanis. South Waziristan has been turned into Pakistan’s Tibet or Xinjiang. Our strategists understand this. It is time for our public opinion to see this reality without the distortions created by the multimillion dollar media campaigns by foreign governments that want us to see our problems through their eyes.
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