from white, "pakistan's islamist frontier," 2008
In and around 2002, for example, observers often made the mistake of reading the MMA hrough the lens of the Afghan Taliban; in doing so they underestimated the degree to which the Pakistani Islamists would be shaped by (even entrapped by) local political interests. Similarly, Observers today often make the mistake of reading the new class of neo-Taliban insurgent groups narrowly through the lens of al Qaeda and the Waziri militant networks; in doing so they again tend to underestimate theways in which these insurgents and their agendas are woven deeply into the fabric of both local and regional politics.
(...) Unlike the JUI, which drew largely from a rural support base and recruited the clerical Classes, the JI sought to recruit technocrats and activists, and drew its support predominantly rom the “devout middle classes” of Pakistan’s urban centers.16 Opposed to the Muslim League, the JI was Mawdudi’s attempt to institutionalize a movement of Islamic renewal among Muslims in India.
(...) Early attempts by the JI and the JUI to give the new state a substantive Islamist character were, on the whole, unsuccessful. Many of their failed efforts, however, set the pattern for future Islamist strategies of political agitation. For example the Tehrik-e-Khatam-e-Nabuwat (Movement for the Finality of the Prophethood), which pressed for the government to declare the Ahmadiyya sect as non-Muslim, was harshly suppressed by the government in 1953; but by 1974, after significant public pressure by Islamist groups, its main objectives had been accommodated in the form of a constitutional amendment.
(...) The Jamaat’s domestic policy during this era was consumed with the question of whether to give precedence to Zia’s program of Islamization, or to hold to the party’s democratic principles and insist on civilian governance. After much internal disagreement, Mawdudi’s successor Mian Tufail decided that the opportunity to do away with Bhutto and institutionalize the shariah program of the Jamaat was too appealing to pass up: the party became a partner with Zia and contributed several cabinet members to his government.
(...) The JUI had a much more limited interaction than the Jamaat with Zia’s government as such; by the early 1980s, the JUI, like the JI, was disillusioned with Zia’s reforms and began agitating for a return to civilian rule. But the Deobandis were ultimately shaped in profound ways during the Zia era through their participation in the Afghan jihad, and by the patronage they received from the state. The jihadi campaign against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, funded by the Americans and Saudis and operated by the Pakistani intelligence services, resulted in the establishment of hundreds of madaris throughout the Frontier.
(...)
Both the prestige and the external financing which came with the jihadi vocation began to upend the traditional social order, particularly in the tribal areas. Tribal elders, including those maliks who served as paid liaisons between the tribes and the state’s political agent, found their standing undermined by new groups of entrepreneurial youth. This trend dovetailed with the explosion of remittance income from the Gulf states in the 1970s, which further reshaped in dramatic ways the political economy of the tribal areas.48 The systems of indirect rule which the state had relied upon for over a century began to deteriorate in the face of new regional and economic realities. [in sum, a antiquated system of state patronage for tribal maliks was being undermined by a new class of well-funded clerics]
(...) The Jamaat, though it had played a major role in the IJI’s election campaign, was never entirely comfortable with its place in the pro-military alliance. In 1987 Qazi Hussain Ahmad had taken over leadership of the Jamaat from Mawdudi’s successor,Mian Tufail. As an ethnic Pashtun, Qazi Hussain was the first non-Mohajir to lead the party since it inception in 1941, and was more sympathetic than his predecessors to populist political mobilization.51 Under his leadership the Jamaat retained its ideological focus on Islamization, but broadened its political agenda to include populist agitation and more rhetoric on socio-economic issues. This orientation did not always fit comfortably with the IJI’s political approach.
(...) The JI’s ambivalent relationship with the pro-military block in the post-Zia era was also accelerated by domestic political realignments which were threatening its hold on its traditional base of support among the Mohajir community. Therise of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) in Karachi in the late 1980s — a rise engineered in part by Zia and the army to weaken the Jamaat — left the party casting about for new constituencies. Qazi Hussain’s ethnic background and Islamic-themed populism allowed the Jamaat to broaden its base of support among the non-Mohajir middle classes in Punjab and — perhaps most importantly —
into the Pashtun frontier areas.
(...) On account of the extensive links which had been established in the 1980s between the Deobandi political establishment and the Pakistani intelligence services, the JUI by and large had only a muted responseto the military coup in 1999; the party’s investment in the Taliban precluded it from taking a more confrontational approach to the return of military rule.
The Jamaat, by contrast, had considerably less political investment in the Taliban movement and realized that, for all of the state’s support for Taliban and Kashmiri Islamist proxies, Musharraf would be unlikely to make even half-hearted attempts at expanding the reach of Islamist legal or political influence. The partythus conducted protests following the coup; Qazi Hussain was temporarily banned from the NWFP, and party activities were closely monitored by the government to prevent domestic unrest.
(...) The “mullah-military” nexus is, however, a more complicated story than is commonly portrayed. It is a relationship anchored in mutual manipulation, and one which has produced at least as much antagonism as cooperation. The military often used the Islamists for domestic or foreign policy ends: to distract from the unpopularity of a martial government, or antagonize India, or extend its sphere of influence into Afghanistan. But it is also evident that the Islamists were not infrequently at odds with Pakistan’s martial regimes. The religious parties bitterly opposed Ayub Khan. Even during Zia ul-Haq’s martial government, as the mutual manipulation reached its zenith with the army’s instrumentalization of the religious parties for the jihad and the Islamists’ attempts to garner state funds and press for Islamist reforms, the partnership was short-lived. By the mid- 1980s the relationship had soured and groups like the Jamaat were again deeply disillusioned with the martial state.
(...) The early Deobandis, for example, had a long history of interaction with madaris in Afghanistan and the tribal areas, but the movement did not begin as one dominated by ethnic Pashtuns. The Afghan jihad accelerated the process of “Pashtunization” among the Deobandi parties in Pakistan — a process which has resulted in the emergence of JUI factions which often put greater emphasis on ethnic and regional issues than on the broader implementation of Islamic revivalism throughout Pakistan. The Jamaat too has seen dramatic changes to its constituent base since Partition. Founded on an appeal to Punjabi and Mohajir urban religiosity, the party was weakened by the rise of the MQM in Karachi in the 1980s, which cut into its voter base. The selection of Qazi Hussain as amir in 1987 and the party’s efforts to broaden its appeal to a Pashtun constituency subsequently realigned the Jamaat’s approach to mobilizing its political base. Most notably, it increased its focus on issues relating to foreign influence in Afghanistan, and played off of gender issues (e.g., condemning gender-integrated events) in a way that was likely to appeal to the socially conservative Pashtun population.
(...) The reality is more multifaceted. Even the two major Islamic political blocs, the Jamaat and the JUI-F, have distinctly different visions of an Islamic state and society, and have often been at odds with one another. The parties, for example, had notably different views on the Taliban.71 The JI’s outlook is deeply ideological, modernist, and pan-Islamic. Its urban middle-class constituents are primarily concerned with restructuring the legal and political order. The JUI-F, by contrast, is a relatively pragmatic party with a rural, clerical constituency whose objectives are to protect the madrassah system from state interference and promote a conservative interpretation of Pashtun social values which they defend as Islamic. It should come as no surprise that these two movements have often found themselves on different sides of the political space in Pakistan and, prior to 2002, did not join together in any meaningful way to
advance a common agenda.
(...) These general patterns change somewhat at the local level, particularly in areas which have a history of tribal governance, such as the FATA and present-day Swat. In these regions, Islamist political behavior is often less related to ideology or patronage concerns than it is to established patterns of group conflict which appear in segmentary lineage tribal systems. These are patterns in which small tribes or factions partner with the state or with other small factions to take on a dominant faction in their own area. This kind of perpetual balancing, and the highly provisional alliances which make it possible, are regular features of religious politics in the tribal areas, and ones which are integral to understanding Islamism in the contemporary Frontier. It is important, for example, to realize that when Islamist groups in the tribal areas ally with
the state, they usually do so in the pursuit of political advantage vis-à-vis local rivals rather than in allegiance to state authority or shared political ends.
(...) Segmentation also, however, provides a secondary advantage to the religious parties: both the JUI and the Jamaat have learned to leverage their positions as political organizations in order to serve as middlemen between the state and the various militant factions to which they are linked. In this respect, the Deobandi parties have focused their efforts on the western (Afghan) front, positioning themselves as occasional brokers between the government and Taliban groups in the tribal areas. The Jamaat’s linkages, by contrast, have proven particularly useful to the state in support of anti-Indian incursions on the eastern (Kashmiri) front.74 Often these parties are asked to serve as interlocutors in secret negotiations; but just as often, they take up the cause of militant groups in public fora, either to rally their own political base or to express by proxy certain strategic interests of the state which cannot be expressed on an official basis.
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(...) First, even though the religious parties are no longer in a governing role, and no longer command the influence they did even several years ago, the relationship between mainstream “democratic Islamists” and the new insurgent movements is a critical dynamic in understanding Islamism in the Frontier. The promises and demands of groups such as Tehrik-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP), the TNSM in Swat, and the Lashkar-e-Islami (LI) in Khyber are not very far removed from those of the MMA six years ago. The tactics and organization of such groups, to
be sure, differ in profound ways from those of the MMA. But the continuities are equally important. Absent the historical backdrop of the MMA’s tenure, it would be easy to miss the quasi-political nature of groups like the TNSM and LI. It would also be easy to misconstrue the complex relationships between the “democratic Islamists” and the new insurgent groups — relationships which may figure prominently in the ability of the state to eventually bring insurgents into the political mainstream.
(...) The rise of the Islamist alliance in 2002 cannot be understood apart from the American invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, which immediately became the cause célèbre of the religious parties, and gave them an electoral issue with strong regional, ethnic, and religious appeal. Not surprisingly, it was Pashtun religious politicians such as Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the JUI-F, Maulana Sami ul-Haq of the JUI-S, and Qazi Hussain Ahmad of the JI who were best positioned to make use of “Islamic rage” in the wake of American operations against the Pashtun Taliban in Afghanistan.
(...) This change agenda was not only reactive, but also sweepingly proactive. The MMA promised the institution of a true Islamic system in the Frontier, including the prohibition of “obscene” material on cable television, the provision of Islamic banking, and the conversion of the provincial assembly into an “Islamic jirga.”12 Other pledges were considerably more vague, such as the curtailing of un-Islamic work by NGOs and foreign elements, the enforcement of “Islamic justice,” the imposition of the shariah into the provincial framework of law, and the promotion of policies designed to encourage the use of head coverings. Much as Mufti Mahmud had done in 1970, the MMA wove this Islamic reform agenda together with a rhetoric of populist
governance, an approach which in many ways echoed the language of the PPP.13 Drawing on its lower- and middle-class roots, the religious alliance put forward a strikingly populist campaign that equated Islamic political reforms with a pro-poor agenda.14 The MMA’s plan for its first hundred days promised the creation of a halfmillion new jobs, free education through the secondary level, interest-free loans for low-cost housing, cheap medications, and old-age allowances.
(...) If the Afghan situation had sufficient explanatory power to describe the election results, then why did the MMA make such surprising inroads into non-Pashtun Hazara division, an area in which there is minimal concern among the electorate about Afghan issues? Or why did the MMA lose in district Tank (adjacent to Waziristan), where there is a widespread affinity for the Afghan Taliban? The Afghan situation, along with the political interference by the ruling elites designed
to capitalize upon it, were necessary but not sufficient factors to explain the ascent of political Islam in the Frontier in 2002. Acute anti-establishment feeling was a significant driver of the electoral shift, as was the success of the MMA’s own populist agenda and its drive to implement a new kind of politics oriented around “Islamic values” and religio-political motifs.
(...) A more complete assessment, however, accounting for the MMA’s full fiveyear
tenure, reveals a decidedly more benign outcome: while the MMA certainly introduced or reinforced several troubling socio-political trends, it did not bring about widespread change in the Frontier, and neither did it demonstrate the means or the will to carry out more than a superficial program of Islamization. The story of the MMA’s gradual adaptation to the exigencies of governance begins with this first, tumultuous year in power.
(...) But it is clear in retrospect that late 2003 represented a critical inflectio
point at which the MMA leadership began pivoting toward an Islamism that was decidedly more populist, and more practical.
(...) It was clear after the MMA’s tumultuous first year in office that the substance of its Islamization agenda had largely stalled. Even so, the alliance continued to promote its program through informal channels. At the most basic level, the MMA did this through its use of Islamic rhetoric, which it used to shore up its credentials among the electorate; deflect attention from local problems; and generally distinguish itself from the mainstream and nationalist opposition, both of which were afraid of appearing un-Islamic in comparison to the ulema. Such was the MMA’s use of religious language that even political rivals in the ANP and PPP were often forced in provincial assembly sessions to show their support for “Islamicized” resolutions with which they disagreed in substance, for fear that they would be politically outmaneuvered by the MMA.
(...) Opponents claimed that the MMA leadership was often reluctant to take action against insurgent groups, or even against clerics who were causing trouble for local authorities. By and large, this was true: the Islamists frequently found themselves boxed in by their own religious rhetoric, such that they could not afford to confront any individual or group which carried out activities in the name of religion, lest they be seen as undermining their own message.
(...) But with the rise of the TNSM and neo-Taliban–linked bombings in 2006 and 2007, the MMA’s hesitance in confronting religious insurgents began to have tangible and adverse implications for the province. By the spring and early summer of 2007, the religious parties were coming under severe criticism for their indecisive response to the TNSM’s militancy in Swat, and
to a wave of bombings which had penetrated into the settled areas of the province.36 Politicians from the religious parties unconvincingly blamed the federal government and its security services, rather than the Taliban groups, for fomenting instability in the Frontier to destabilize the MMA government (though in private they acknowledged the spread of dangerous militant organizations into the settled areas).37 The situation in NWFP further deteriorated in the summer of 2007 following retaliations by militant groups after the siege of the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad. The MMA government put off any kind of action against the TNSM until the final weeks of its rule, when the JUI-F chief minister quietly agreed to an expanded security presence in the Swat valley.38 Even then, the JUI-F did so reluctantly and in the face of
internal opposition by the Jamaat, and later denied that it had ever acceded to allowing military action in Swat.
(...) It is an overstatement to suggest, as some observers have, that the rise in militancy in 2006 and 2007 in NWFP was a result of the MMA provincial government; as is noted below, the religious parties were often at odds with the new insurgent movements, and upset about their expanding influence. At the same time, however, the MMA clearly played an indirect role in facilitating the spread of the insurgency by virtue of its inaction. While the alliance performed decently well in carrying out its law and order obligations under relatively peaceful conditions, the rising tide of insurgency eventually exposed the MMA’s political limitations in being able to take action against other self-described “religious” movements.
(...) (Anecdotal evidence suggests that the most problematic aspect of the madrassah system is not its curriculum as such, but its narrow pedagogy and openness to itinerant recruiters affiliated with sectarian or militant organizations.) One of the largely unexamined questions of the MMA’s tenure in NWFP is the degree to which the Islamist parties in general, and the JUI-F in particular, leveraged their position in government to benefit the madaris. Not since the Afghan jihad had the Deobandi parties been granted such extensive access to state resources, and it
was clear that for the JUI-F — as one up-and-coming party leader noted — “the madaris are our number-one priorities.”40 Given their important social welfare function, the flow of government resources to religious organizations is not prima facie a cause for concern. Still, there are legitimate fears that some of these madaris may have had linkages with the neo-Taliban movements now active in the Frontier.
(...) It is impossible to reliably assess the net impact of the MMA’s patronage of the madaris. It is clear that substantial funds were channeled to religious institutions during the Islamists’ tenure; but it is also clear that many of these funds were provided in-kind, and to institutions which served important social as well as religious functions.
(...) Statements by MMA leaders seemed to indicate that this emphasis on female education was due in part to a desire “to quash western propaganda that Islam did not guarantee women’s rights.”49 Regardless of the rationale, however, the MMA did eventually convince skeptical donors that they were serious about educating women.50 “I do believe now,” said one World Bank education advisor in 2007, “that they want women’s education. I don’t question that anymore.” Female enrollment figures reflected the province’s investment in girls’ education,
with some o f the most striking gains coming from the most conservative areas dominated by the MMA. Over two years, Bannu saw a 38% increase in female primary enrollment; in Dir, 22%; in Buner, 40%; and in Dera Ismail Khan, 85%.51 Middle and secondary school female enrollments also increased, sometimes dramatically: in poor districts like Buner and Hangu, girls’ enrollments were up over 50%; in Dir, 39%; and in Shangla, Mahsehra and Lakki Marwat, over 20%.52 Overall, between 2001/02 and 2006/07, the gross female enrollment ratio in public primary schools increased from 48% to 57%.
(...) Critics were quick to point out, however, that they were much
less supportive of expanding opportunities for women’s employment which might
absorb the newly-educated female population.
(...) The MMA government’s record on health and social welfare issues was much the same: the alliance, lacking a clear agenda tying health to its Islamization mandate, deferred almost entirely to the advice of the provincial bureaucracy and the international donors. Most outside experts agree that the Islamist government adopted responsible health policies which differed little from those of previous governments, and interacted in a professional manner with domestic and foreign institutions.
(...) In spite of the MMA’s views on the role of women in public life, its impact on the gender policies of the province, and on the norms of the society at large, were relatively modest. Aside from a few abortive attempts to mandate the wearing of head coverings for female students, the alliance’s education and health policies basically supported the status quo on gender issues. Any greater ambitions to institutionalize enforcement of gender norms died with the repeated failure of the Hisbah bill. On a social level, the MMA did exert informal influence (e.g., people noticed more women observing purdah in local markets), but even here the change was not dramatic.
(...) There is no question that the MMA leadership was uncomfortable with gender reforms. “Deep down,” admitted a party advisor in the Frontier, “the JUI does not want to give a free role to women. They think that free mixing is not Islamic.”65 This did not mean, however, that the religious parties tacitly supported a Taliban-like agenda on gender issues.66 In reality, many of the most troubling and high-profile actions which set back women’s rights in the NWFP, such as the forcible closing of girls’ schools, were not sanctioned by the alliance’s leadership, and actually ran counter to the MMA’s political and institutional interests. The religious parties, for
examle, received a great deal of criticism for the closing of girls’ schools in the northern districts of NWFP beginning in 2007, when in fact that activity was carried out almost entirely by the TNSM and affiliated neo-Taliban groups, in contravention to the MMA’s own program of expanding female primary education.67
(...) Beyond the explicitly religious content of the MMA’s agenda, the Islamists also brought with them a unique style of governance and a distinctive political culture. These remain important even in the post-MMA era, as they shaped the political landscape of the Frontier and helped to redefine the boundaries of Pashtun nationalist discourse. Echoes of the MMA’s “Islamic populism” can be seen in the style of the ANP-led government which followed, and also in the ad hoc forms of Islamist governance established by the neo-Taliban in both the settled and tribal areas.
(...) Unlike any previous ruling party in the Frontier, the MMA brought to its exercise of governance a unique lower- and middle-class sensibility. The JUI-F drew its base of support predominantly from the underdeveloped southern districts, and the Jamaat relied on support from the so-called “devout middle classes” in the Peshawar valley and the poor districts in the north. Appealing to these constituents, MMA parliamentarians often spoke at length about wanting to help small farmers, shopkeepers, transport workers, and the young berozgar (unemployed) class, including madrassah graduates. Party workers from the PML-N, ANP, and PPP, by contrast, would often begin their criticism of the MMA by critiquing the Islamists’ ineffective industrial policy, or their lack of commitment to large-scale irrigation projects of the kind favored by the landed elites.
(...) The MMA’s style of Islamic populism was undoubtedly a form of political posturing, but it also points to the way in which the Islamists sought to articulate a vision of an Islamic welfare state which equated religious values with populist reforms likely to appeal to lower-class voters. It is, for example, remarkable to note the extent to which the MMA’s published manifesto focused not on the enactment of shariah legislation or the curbing of un-Islamic acts, but on promises to curb corruption, ensure provision of “bread, clothes, shelter, education, jobs and marriage expenses” (an effective play on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s famous promise of roti, kapra aur makan), ensure speedy justice, promote literacy through free education, and “[take] care of backward areas and classes.”88 In this sense, the language of Islamic populism was a rhetorical bridge which joined the MMA’s concern for Islamization and religious symbolism with its
efforts yo expand a patronage base among its lower-class constituency.
(...) The portrait which emerges above is that of the MMA as a right-of-center but
essentially status quo political force. And indeed, as early as 2004 it had become obvious
that the Islamist parties would not be a radical Talibanizing influence in the Frontier.
While their policies and rhetoric continued to trouble many observers, the religious
parties were clearly unwilling or unable to press for dramatic Islamist reforms. It is easy
to forget that this trend-line toward moderate politics, while apparent in retrospect, was not at all obvious even in 2003. [four factors given below: internal tensions in the alliance which stymied radical action, constitutent pressures (i.e., most people didn't really want it), the role of the international community via necessary development funding, and the role of the state in the formation of its politics)
(...) One of the most salient factors which limited the MMA’s ability to implement its Islamist agenda was the lack of enthusiasm for real reform within sectors of the MMA’s own constituency. An overwhelming majority of Pakistanis, when surveyed, express support for “implementing strict shariah law” in Pakistan.95 Actual implementation of strict regulations ostensibly deriving from the shariah is decidedly less popular.96 Even the relatively modest changes implemented by the MMA in NWFP provoked grumbling — and not just among “liberal-minded” Pashtuns.
(...) Beginning with the MMA’s victory in the NWFP, in which the state itself had a hand, there were profound pressures on the provincial Islamist government to comply with the interests
of the martial regime in Islamabad... In the end, the federal structure of Pakistan, the central government’s fiscal and bureaucratic leverage, the ability of the security services to fragment the religious alliance, and the MMA’s unique role as a “loyal opposition” to the Musharraf government kept the Islamists in Peshawar vulnerable to manipulation by the state.113 The MMA did not have wide berth to pursue a rigorous Islamization agenda even if it had wanted to, and nor did it have the autonomy to pursue policies which ran counter to significant state interests.
(...) Finally, as will be argued below, it is worth noting a lesson that should not be drawn from the decline of the MMA: religious politics is not going away in the Frontier. If anything, it is more relevant than ever.
There is a striking resonance between the rhetoric, promises, complaints, and hot-button issues of the MMA in 2002, and the language of neo-Taliban groups in the Frontier today: injustice, corruption, obscenity, government inaction, and foreign intervention, to name a few. The locus of this “discussion,” to be sure, has gradually moved outside the bounds of formal electoral politics and into the realm of vigilantism, militancy, and insurgency — but it may yet come back. If and when it does, the religious parties are likely to again play an important role, and the lessons from the MMA’s tenure may again be relevant in responding to the religious politics of the Frontier.
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(...) This new movement, known as the neo-Taliban, is distinct from both the Afghan Taliban and from mainstream Pakistani Islamists such as the MMA, though it has critical linkages with both groups.2 “Neo-Taliban” is itself a term of convenience, and refers not to a coherent operational entity but rather to a loose collection of selfdefined Taliban groups which share a number of common features.
(...) Groups with close ties to al Qaeda, such as some Taliban organizations in Waziristan and Bajaur, are more likely to have a transnational Islamist outlook and clear ideological reasons for rejecting the legitimacy of the Pakistani state. Other more locally-oriented movements, such those which emerged in Swat district and Khyber agency, tend toward a language of vigilante Islamism, in which they accept the state’s role in theory, but legitimize violence on the basis of its ostensible failings.
(...) Third, the movement is often linked to criminal networks and the illegal economy. This was, and remains, true for the Afghan Taliban, which is intimately linked to the opium trade. In the Pakistani context, it is becoming increasingly clear — even to the public at large — that the groups which call themselves Taliban are often no more than armed gangs which use religious symbolism to gain a foothold in local communities.6 Whereas mainstream religious parties such as the JUI-F historically maintained side interests in local transport networks, the neo-Taliban groups have explicitly sought to dominate local services and industries, particularly in FATA and
PATA region. The timber mafia in Swat was reportedly a key backer of the TNSM insurgency, and local leaders in Khyber agency such as Mangal Bagh rose to prominence through their control of transport networks used for smuggling goods across the Durand Line.7 Some observers have suggested that the neo-Taliban may eventually go the way of the FARC in Colombia, becoming over time less ideological and more criminal in nature.
(...)The creation of Tehrik-e-
Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP) in late 2007 merely formalized what had become a franchise-oriented model of insurgency.
And while the Tehrik eventually took on a coordinating role among the various Taliban groups, it succeeded as a brand more than as an organization. TTP’s branding strategy sought to portray the movement as cohesive, and affiliate it with a simple platform of religious and political values. This aggregation function served the TTP leadership in Waziristan by amplifying its voice and reach, but also served the local affiliates by providing them with access to resources, and by discouraging local communities from pushing back against outsiders who claimed to be part of the umbrella organization. Despite this strategy, the TTP remains a loose alliance of convenience; local commanders still play a critical role in the decision-making of these groups, andsome localized movements — like that of Mangal Bagh in Khyber — have ought to triangulate their position vis-à-vis the state by staying out of TTP and instead pursuing a parallel Taliban-like agenda. (...) the Taliban groups have proven to be adept at co-opting the state at the local level. Their expansion has often followed a predictable pattern: well-armed groups of young men enter an area with Kalashnikovs and white pickup trucks, calling themselves Taliban; they win the favor of the community by taking on local criminal elements and prohibiting certain un-Islamic behaviors; they establish qazi courts for the quick adjudication of disputes; and, having garnered some measure of local support, they set about solidifying their control by marginalizing or killing local notables and government officials, enacting even stricter Islamist measures, and establishing environments conducive to their own criminal networks.8 By playing off of local discontentment with the judicial system, policing, and other state services, the insurgents are able to gain a foothold which they then use to reinforce their local position.
(...) At a macro level, the neo-Taliban movement is indisputably a Pashtundominated insurgency. Disputes within the movement often fall along predictable tribal lines; and just as often, local tribal blocs leverage Taliban influence in order to compete against traditional rivals. But at the same time, the insurgents are threatening established norms by killing tribal elders, carrying out suicide bombings, and attacking jirgas. Other aspects of Pashtun culture (particularly those which have come under conservative Deobandi influence over the last several decades) are amplified perversely by the militants: the destruction of girls’ schools, barber shops, and music stores sit uncomfortably with most Pashtuns living in the conservative southern districts of the NWFP.
(...) Even before the government’s operation against the madrassah students in July, dissenters within the JUI-F (many of whom were from the Balochistan wing of the party) had argued that they needed to come out strongly in favor of the Taliban groups.10 Fazlur Rehman and most senior JUI-F party members from the NWFP demurred, in part because they were more dependent upon the state for patronage in the Frontier, but also because they were more directly threatened by the insurgent expansion in the southern part of the province. After the operation, the conflict burst into the open, and the JUI-F leadership wrestled for several months with internal dissenters who insisted that the party was obligated to support the madaris and the Islamization agenda of the neo-Taliban.
(...) The TNSM and its Waziri allies came to develop a similarly bleak view of the religious parties. The TNSM leadership, including Maulana Fazlullah, had close ties with the Jamaat, but also with JUI ulema from the Swat valley. Several of these ulema went to Fazlullah with the intent of persuading him to moderate his opposition to polio prevention campaigns and girls’ schools, but ultimately failed.17 Fazlullah did not strongly oppose the MMA — particularly so long as the alliance took a hands-off approach to the TNSM — but his supporters from Waziristan reportedly pushed the movement into a more hard-line posture.18 As the TTP patrons” from Waziristan became more and more dominant over their TNSM clients in Swat in 2008, the movement eventually took a harder line against the state, and against politically-active religious elements.
(...) Even secular observers interviewed in Peshawar in 2007 and 2008 expressed concern that the religious political establishment — leaders like Fazlur Rehman and Qazi Hussain — might lose their ability to draw young activists into the formal political space rather than see them join militant organizations. (The JUI-F has, in making its case to foreigners, also framed its role in this way: arguing that it is a “wall” holding back the tide of militant influence in the tribal areas.19) The religious parties relish the opportunity to play the part of intermediaries between the militants and the state, and will likely continue to do so. Their views on the legitimacy of violence and vigilantism are also apt to prove important means by which they distinguish themselves from more militant Islamist efforts.
(...) By and large, the government of Pakistan has been slow to respond to the gradual expansion of neo-Taliban influence in the Frontier. In Waziristan it undertook deals in 2004 and again in 2006, both of which failed to quell local violence and resulted in an increase in cross-border attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.21 In Swat, the provincial government responded haltingly to the return of the TNSM under Maulana Fazlullah. After considerable delay, it carried out relatively successful army operations in October 2007, which appear to have been spurred by attacks on military targets in the area, capture by insurgents of tactically important sites such as the Saidu Sharif airport, and growing embarrassment that the militant groups were operating
openly in defiance of the state. Following the collapse of the May 2008 peace deals, the army again took on the TNSM and their Waziri patrons in Swat, prompted in part by concern over the compromise of critical lines of communication, including the Shangla Pass in northern NWFP.22 The military also carried out limited (and mostly cosmetic) operations under the aegis of the Frontier Corps in Khyber agency in the summer of 2008, ostensibly to disrupt the activity of Mangal Bagh’s Lashkar-e- Islami; and a large-scale campaign in Bajaur and Mohmand agencies, which included both ground and air operations and resulted in the displacement of several hundred thousand refugees into the settled areas of the NWFP.23 While recent actions, such as those in Bajaur, suggest the adoption of a more aggressive posture by the military in the Frontier, the overall pattern of the state’s response has been quite tentative in the past years. The case of Darra Adam Khel is broadly illustrative of the ways in which the government has attempted to deal with the emergence of the neo-Taliban, and serves as a microcosm for nderstanding the interaction between insurgents and the state.
(...) The rise of militant influence in Darra illustrates a number of the neo-Taliban characteristics described above. The local militant movement, by most accounts, emerged in an ad hoc way and only later established linkages with other networks in the Frontier. It built goodwill by targeting local criminals, but soon engendered resentment for its own criminality and brutality. It took advantage of the poor governmental oversight of the FR areas, and co-opted elected officials into its camp, thus allowing it to frame its agenda in terms of local development and not simply Islamization or power politics.41 It used religious parties and local tribesmen as intermediaries,
while recognizing that the government lacked the capacity and the will to follow through with sustained paramilitary or military operations. And it fostered relationships with outside groups, including Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Punjabi sectarian organizations whose members reportedly established militant training camps near Darra.4
(...) The response of the state to the violence in Darra was also illustrative of the broader challenges it faces in the Frontier. The government repeatedly negotiated with neo-Taliban militants, usually through jirgas, and these negotiations repeatedly failed. One basic problem was the lack of credible state capacity to enforce its agreements. The system of managing the FR areas relies heavily on indirect rule by the political agent through the tribal leaders, and is ill-equipped to deal with a robust militant movement like that of the neo-Taliban. The state was able to displace the militants for a short while, but had no robust system of local governance through which to maintain order.
(...) In the Frontier the results appeared to tell a different, but related, story. The MMA was defeated soundly by its rivals, garnering only 10% of provincial assembly seats (down from about 50% in 2002). The Pashtun nationalist ANP delivered the strongest showing, with 32% of seats, followed by independent candidates with 23%, and the PPP with 18%.44 The PPP-S, PML-N, and PML-Q each polled about 5%. Despite widespread fears of terrorism, overall turnout appeared to be comparable to that of the 2002 election. (Participation was somewhat depressed in Malakand division due to fears about Taliban presence, and somewhat inflated in the areas around Bannu due to Taliban ballot-stuffing.45)
(...) The electoral success of the ANP and PPP brought about a flood of news reports hailing the rise of secularism and the rejection of religious politics and “Talibanization” in the Frontier. While this narrative captured one important dynamic of the poll results, it did not tell the entire story. The religious parties’ defeat was due to a number of factors. Public anger over American action in Afghanistan was no longer a driving force as it had been in the 2002 elections, and anti-Western sentiment was no longer the province only of the religious parties. Moreover, the MMA’s standing had been weakened by rifts within the alliance over the extent of its cooperation with Musharraf ’s military government, and following the imposition if the Emergency in late 2007, the JI had decided to boycott the elections. (While it is doubtful that the Jamaat would have returned a strong showing in the polls, its participation might have cut somewhat into the ANP’s success in urban areas, and districts such as Upper and Lower Dir.) The mainstream and nationalist parties were also given much wider latitude to contest the elections than in 2002, and there was by all accounts significantly less government interference in the election process.
(...) The movement traces its roots to the Khudai Khidmatgars (Servants of God) who, led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, launched a non-violent campaign against the British in 1929. Known as the Red Shirts, these Pashtuns later later allied themselves with the Indian National Congress, with Khan dubbed the “Frontier Gandhi.” On account of their affiliation with the Congress, the Red Shirts were sidelined after the creation of Pakistan in 1947 and intermittently banned until the early 1970s. The movement nominally continued during this period under the leadership of Khan’s son Wali Khan, who joined the leftist National Awami Party (NAP). The NAP, as noted above, formed a coalition government in NWFP in 1972 with Mufti Mahmud of
the JUI, but this alliance was short-lived.49 Wali Khan’s NAP was banned during the latter years of Bhutto’s rule, and he eventually took up the leadership of the National Democratic Party (NDP) in 1984, which in turn merged into the Awami National Party (ANP) in 1986.
(...) The party also brings with it notable weaknesses. It does not have significant influence in many of the areas which have come under insurgent threat, such as the southern settled districts, or FATA agencies outside of Khyber and parts of Mohmand and Bajaur. It has a history of vicious infighting, manifested in ongoing disputes between Asfandyar Wali Khan (son of Wali Khan, and uncle of the current chief minister) and the Bilours, a long-established Hindko-speaking political family from Peshawar. Its leadership is often uncomfortable and ineffective in using Islamic language that appeals to the religiously conservative population, particularly outside of the Peshawar valley. (Although, in its efforts to promote the Nizam-e-Adl Act in Malakand division, it has been more proactive in enacting religious legislation than the MMA government.) And its pro-Karzai policy is deeply unpopular throughout the Frontier,
where Karzai is widely ridiculed to as a “fake Pashtun.
(...) The ANP’s nationalist agenda, while generally consonant with U.S. interests in the near-term, is therefore more complex than it is often portrayed. The party has spoken out strongly against American strikes in the FATA, and has pushed, against U.S. pressure, for peace deals in Swat. Taking the long view, the ANP’s enthusiasm for Western military intervention in Afghanistan is also likely to be contingent. This support, as one party leader has argued, is based on the premise that “the U.S. and NATO in Afghanistan are not as dangerous as Persians and Punjabis.”56 To the ANP, the American support for Karzai is, on the one hand, a check on Tajik (i.e., Darispeaking Afghan) influence and, on the other, a check on Pakistani state hegemony
over the Pak-Afghan frontier areas. This perspective suggests that the ANP will continue to be viewed with suspicion by the military-bureaucratic elites in Islamabad. It also suggests that any substantive attempt by the international community (together with the government of Pakistan) to negotiate with the Taliban in Afghanistan may put the party in the awkward position of having to weigh its its support for Pashtun dominance of Afghan politics against its secular political orientation and its abiding fear of a “Punjabi” proxy in eastern Afghanistan.
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(...) Most actions undertaken by the FC, however, should not be confused with actual counterinsurgency activities. Any review of the literature on insurgency will suggest that successful counterinsurgency efforts are fundamentally about a political contestation over the legitimacy of a given government. Absent a strategic program of coordinated political reforms in the FATA, there is essentially no government in the tribal areas to contest. FC activities, while useful, are maneuver-oriented and tactical rather than politically-oriented and strategic.
Counterinsurgency activity in the FATA — whether by the FC or the army — will not achieve overall political objectives until and unless the government begins to conduct such activities in the context of a coordinated program of governance reform, such as the one outlined below.
(...) Citizen mobilization programs which raise lashkars against local militants might represent a very effective counterinsurgency model in the Frontier, since most communities have both the legitimating mechanisms (jirgas) and means (small arms) to mobilize quickly. Almost by definition, the state cannot direct these lashkars, but it can encourage and support them. In some areas and in some cases, consistent and timely state support of lashkars has the potential to induce a cascading effect in encouraging other communities to take up arms against militant organizations.
(...) Neo-Taliban groups which have established a foothold in the Frontier have often proven to be unpopular on account of their brutality and their seizure of local assets. One key area, however, in which these insurgents have effectively played on local discontent is on matters of justice. The judicial system in the Frontier, inherited from the British, comes under nearly constant criticism for its partiality, corruption, and slow processing of cases.53 Taliban groups have proven adept at exploiting frustration over the judicial process by establishing qazi courts which adjudicate disputes and award punitive judgments on the spot. These courts have blossomed in almost every Pashtun-majority part of the Frontier — including the tribal agencies,
PATA regions, the Swat valley, and even in Peshawar district itself. According to reliable reports, “the Taliban have been campaigning in the Tribal Areas and asking locals to submit their complaints in the Qazi courts rather than the country’s courts if they want ‘quick and easy’ justice.”54 The use of qazi courts by Islamist movements as a means by which to bypass or challenge the writ of the state is long-established in the Frontier, particularly in areas such as Swat.
(...) Observers who trace the rise of extremism in the Frontier tend to focus on exogenous factors, such as the Afghan jihad and the American war in Afghanistan following 9/11. These are of course critical events. But comparatively less attention has been paid to the internal, structural weaknesses of the state which have facilitated the rise of radical Islamist movements. This section and the one which follows examine these weaknesses and the crises of governance in the settled and tribal areas, respectively.
(...) The Local Government Ordinance (LGO),
commonly known as the Devolution plan, devolved powers from a class of elite deputy commissioners — each of whom oversaw several administrative districts, and wielded broad discretionary authority — to a class of local elected officials. The reforms were intended to encourage local ownership and decision-making; boost delivery of health, education, and other government services; buttress the military’s democratic credentials; and bypass the provincial government so that elites in Islamabad could exert direct political influence on local government.
(...) The Frontier today is a complex patchwork of governance systems — of settled districts, provincially administered tribal areas, frontier regions, and federally administered tribal areas. Each of these has its own unique history and logic. But the amalgam of frameworks has also made it difficult to manage anything resembling a coordinated counterinsurgency response to the growing radicalization of the Frontier. Prior to the Devolution system, the provincial home secretary in Peshawar served as the link between the settled areas, the PATA, and the FATA. This critical link was broken in 2002 when, following the promulgation of the LGO, the government began transferring administrative oversight of the FATA from a special cell in the provincial government to a new FATA Secretariat in Peshawar.
(...) There are four reasons behind the advocacy for FATA reform. First, the region is rightly seen by security planners as an “ungoverned” space conducive to the development and perpetuation of insurgent and terrorist safe havens.82 Following the reestablishment of al Qaeda
operations from FATA, this has become a preeminent national security issue for the United States. Second, the Pakistan army’s failed intervention in Waziristan in 2004, combined with actions taken by the neo-Taliban insurgents targeting political agents and tribal maliks, has resulted in the collapse of the political agent system in several of the southern tribal agencies.83 There is a recognition among some military and civilian leaders that it may be more profitable to move forward with FCR reforms than to attempt a reinvigoration of the now-discredited political
agent system. Third, civil society advocates have proposed FCR reforms in order to bring FATA
governance into conformity with international civil and human rights norms.84 The FCR system lacks basic civil protections; allows for collective punishment of individual crimes; and places extraordinary discretionary powers in the hands of the political agent, who often faces perverse incentives to collude with tribal elders for their mutual financial gain.85 And finally, there are political pressures behind the current agitation for reform: the ANP would like to see the FATA integrated into the NWFP, as it believes that integration will serve both its ideological aspirations (for pan-Pashtunism), and electoral prospects.
(...) The U.S. should support extension of the Political Parties Act to the FATA. This legal change would be largely symbolic, but nonetheless politically meaningful. The current political environment, in which party activity is formally suppressed, favors parties such as the JUI-F which can mobilize via madrassah networks. Allowing formal party activity would send an important signal to residents of the FATA about their political rights and their place in the larger Pakistani polity, and would provide incremental benefits to mainstream and nationalist parties seeking to compete for votes in the tribal areas.
(...) But the most critical reforms are those which focus on institutions of governance. Aside from the office of the political agent, and the relatively moribund “agency councils,” the FATA lacks institutions through which political power and state resources can be channeled. Absent institutional development, FATA reforms will have little effect in integrating the tribal areas into the Pakistani mainstream, or addressing the governance vacuum which has proven to be so advantageous to neo-Taliban groups. The U.S. should strongly promote the development of institution-oriented reform plans. These might include the establishment of local government structures (directly or indirectly elected) which feed into a FATA Council on the model of a provincial assembly; courts which establish a right of appeal to Peshawar or Islamabad; and modest civil institutions through which to coordinate development programs.88 Of these, a local
elected government is perhaps the most important. Such a system need not mirror the local government system in the settled areas, but at the very least the state should begin a process by which to establish a baseline set of government functions, and build up institutions which, over time, can constitute legitimate alternative centers of local power.
(...) The cultural reductionists contribute an important word of caution to the debate over FATA reforms, but ultimately fail to account for the dynamism and adaptability which Pashtun society has demonstrated over the last three decades.
