Before it was dismissed through a military coup in October 1999, Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League (PMLN) government took some significant steps against Deobandi militant groups, particularly the SSP and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ). With scores of militants arrested and convicted in 1998-1999, the SSP and LJ shifted bases from their home province, Punjab, to Afghanistan, where they were provided sanctuaries by Mullah Omar’s regime. In 1999, Sharif’s government sent a high-level delegation to Kabul demanding that SSP and LJ militants, including LJ leader Riaz Basra, be handed over to face trial in Pakistan. Those efforts to bring jihadi militants to justice ended with Musharaf’s coup.(1)
Deobandi madrassas and mosques, which provide a growing pool of recruits, have been as integral to the Pakistani Taliban’s rise, now loosely aligned under the Tehrik-i-Taliban (Movement of the Taliban, TTP), as they were to that of the Afghan Taliban in the 1990s. Militant fundraising, which includes criminal activities such as kidnappings for ransom and bank robberies, has gained momentum with the tribal extremists expanding their control over territory and reviving ties with drug and smuggling cartels in Afghanistan, severed after the Taliban’s ouster. The militants now have greater manpower, money and access to equipment than ever before. Their increasing capabilities have indeed produced an upsurge of jihadi violence countrywide. “Deobandi groups are becoming bolder and more violent than we have ever seen. “Their trademark has become the spectacular suicide attack”.(2)
Facing significant international pressure after 11 September 2001, Musharraf reversed the government’s support to the Taliban regime in Kabul, and promised to crack down on extremist groups at home. Efforts were, however, selective at best. After the Taliban’s ouster, many militants from radical Sunni groups including the LJ, having lost their Afghan sanctuaries, were allowed to return to Pakistan.
Government inaction also permitted Taliban militants fleeing Afghanistan to establish havens in the tribal areas, from where they deepened contacts with Pakistani jihadi groups. Moreover, Musharaf’s failure to implement his stated commitment to reform the madrasa sector enabled a second generation of militants, trained in Pakistan’s madrasas and terrorist camps, to establish links with other cells and/or merge into new entities.(3)
The military high command’s regional priorities played a major role in this policy of turning a blind eye to the presence of radical Sunni groups. According to an informed observer, the military government “left the sectarian infrastructure intact because in the future it would prove useful in order to implement the state’s foreign policies in Afghanistan and Kashmir….As long as these are the policy preferences, these groups will remain intact”.(4) Indeed, new jihadi groups emerged under Musharaf’s watch.
The military government’s failure to move against religious extremists can also be attributed to its dependence on the six-party religious alliance, Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), led by the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) and the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), to offset opposition from moderate secular parties.
Although Pakistan now has an elected civilian government, the military high command has yet to cede authority in key policy areas, including counter-terrorism and relations with Afghanistan. This has significant ramifications for the new administration’s efforts to curtail religious extremism at home and pursue peace with its neighbor.
The military and its intelligence agencies, particularly the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), have often hampered investigations by civilian law enforcement agencies like the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and Intelligence Bureau (IB), which have a better track record against extremists but lack the resources and authority to fulfill their mandate. Their ability to build cases that have traction in the courts, against those responsible for attacks or inciting others to violence within Pakistan, will be vital to combating religious extremism and terrorism within and from Pakistan.
1.Crisis Group interview, Rana Jawad, Islamabad, 7 October 2008
2.Crisis Group Interview, Karachi, 16 October 2008
3.Crisis Group Asia Report No130, Pakistan: Karachi’s Madrasas and Violent Extremism, 29 March 2007; and Crisis Group Reports, The State of Sectarianism in Pakistan; Unfulfilled Promises: Pakistan’s Failure to Tackle Extremism; Pakistan: The Mullahs and the Military; and Pakistan: Madrasas, Extremism and the Military..
4.Crisis Group interview, Wajahat Masood, Lahore, 24 June 2008.
