How to tackle militancy?

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
21

Re: How to tackle militancy?

you cant deny this, its a geographical and ethnic issue.
There is a difference between help of pakistan and help of America as America helps us with drones attacks.

22

Re: How to tackle militancy?

FATA is their trade area , Even ANF is under military control since day-1 , You can understand ,which I can not write . This is very complicated situation . Corruption is the greatest problem .

23

Re: How to tackle militancy?

Monitor ALL ngos, monitor all incoming 'donations', trace where arms/ammo supply is moving and should have hints for the roots/supplies/fuel to militants, that should be first step. Monitor all forms of communications to areas under investigation etc. But for that army/ISI will have to re-allocate its personnel from monitoring politicians/journalists towards militants and that could be a big no-no for them.

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Re: How to tackle militancy?

There is something very spectacular about the TTP which we don't know. All we know is that the military is in no mood to take on them head-on. Skirmishes have been going on, but the question will continue to linger as to when the military would strike at the heart of the problem?

I have said it many times that Pakistan needs to take some lessons from Sri Lanka and Israel on how organised terror threats are neutralized. Amid negotiations, settlements, ceasefires and concessions, Colombo battled for 30 years with half-a-dozen terror groups armed with sophisticated weapons, suicide bombers and flowing funding channels.

Force: Three divisions of Sri Lankan military fought the last act of LTTE war in the highly urbanised district of Puthukkudiyirippu. While it took the military around 4 months to get control of Puthukkudiyirippu, the heart of the district was captured in 4 days after killing the entire leadership and top, mid and low level cadres of the LTTE which put up over 600 highly trained guerrillas to fight off the offensive.

It's a very long story which needs to be studied, none more especially than our military and political strategists.

Key to success: A Colombo-based journalist, B Murlidhar Reddy of The Hindu, was the only foreign print media journalist who witnessed the last phase of the war from the battleground. He listed three main points that led to the success: 1: Single-minded determination; 2: Sound military strategy and 3: Patriotic fervour.

Israel's strategy has been very simple. It does not let the top leadership layer of Hamas to be stable while it respond to every single bullet fired from Palestinian territories.

Pakistan's problem: Political will is missing, military focus is split and it does not retaliate in any case, be it the assassination of army's sergeon-general, attack on navy and air force's assessts or raid on army's heart, mind and soul — the GHQ.

25

Re: How to tackle militancy?

You forgot the civilian being killed in more big figure .
Taliban ,army and US is much complicated business .

26

Re: How to tackle militancy?

Sri Lanka also lost civilians in big numbers. Chandrika Kumaratunga lost an eye in a bomb attack while she was president of the country. But they decided that instead of some people dying every day, let a few hundreds die in a few days in order to achieve lasting peace. And not a single terror activity was recorded in Sri Lanka since the end of the armed conflict in 2009.

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Re: How to tackle militancy?

the day this small section of people in the army/govt will stop supporting these murderers, and show willingness that they sincerly want to get rid of this cancer. we will start seeing results. Also, what Captain1 said, start monitoring where all the money/funds are coming from. there are so many unregistered madressas being run across Pakistan, and nobody dares to find out what really happens there. this unwillingness and spineless attitude has brought us to this point, where extermism is on rise than ever before.

28

Re: How to tackle militancy?

Simple.

Clear out the FATA areas. Which in total land mass is about 10% of the country? Move out the women, children, elderly.

Then 24hours a day bombing raids. Demolish the whole area. leave nothing. Kill everything.

Taliban will talk after that.

Truth is were not being tough on them...

OK, my initial scenario looks impossible and I wouldn't approve of it.

Id' say start with education but these terrorists are not ones to listen....they'l just end up blowing up schools.

Back to scenario one?

29

Re: How to tackle militancy?

there are close to 900,000 internally displaced people in Pakistan, the question is if resident of FATA to leave the place, how are we going to manage them?, where we going to keep them all, in camps, current IDP's are already living in such poor conditions, most of them would be better off before they fled their homes. there is just limited assistance for them.

30

Re: How to tackle militancy?

Agree with CEO. If Army sincer in it it's matter of few months to finish this fitna. Also need an operation over all Pakistan to destroy there bunkers which openly working every where for examples specious madrases and few religious political parties working under Difae Pakistan council including JI and PTI.

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Re: How to tackle militancy?

Military has the capacity but not the will. I do not see any use of this debate.

32

Re: How to tackle militancy?

That strategy would not work in Pakistan. SK is an island. Tamil terrorists could not escape...where Pakistan's problem is open border with Afghanistan & religious extremists backing and sympathizing with Taliban from within, including many in the armed forces. As for Israel, its building a wall to fence out Palestinians & swiftly response to any attack. Where would Pakistan build a wall?

Having said that, there are practical things that can be done to dismantle Taliban in Pakistan.

1) Regulate traffic across Afghan border (nothing can be done w/o that). Mine the border and fence it where possible.
2) Stop state patronage of religious extremists, and go after Taliban leadership with full force.
3) Pass laws; arrest and try terror suspects as enemy combatants under Army Act w/o recourse to civilian legal system (CJ and courts have released many terrorists that back in battlefield fighting against security forces).

4) Invest in FATA and give people hope.
5) Regulate madrassas and cut off outside funding to these terror factories.

33

Re: How to tackle militancy?

The problem Pakistan faces is that its neither Srilanka nor Israel.

Srilanka was an island, hence easier for them to overcome LTTE in the end. Pakistan has borders with Afghanistan, Iran, and India. At the moment the most problematic border is with Afghanistan, we have already seen what happened when the army did operations in Swat, Mohmand and Dir. The issue is no longer related to Pakistan now, its a bigger regional conflict.

Similarly, the way the west pampers Israel, and helps them with all kind of weapons and support on international forums, we can forget that.

I agree with you that its important to punish the top leadership, but that can be possible through coordination of the tribals, better intelligence and good relationship with Afghanistan.

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Re: How to tackle militancy?

I try to avoid posting my opinions in things that relate to Pakistan only. However, as an Indian, I have a vested interest in this as well.
With all due respect, Pakistan's militancy problem didn't pop up over night. It was nurtured and raised over the course of decades. Any solutions will take a long time. The way to start, is by getting jobs for the young men that see no hope for their future. That's how you break the back of the militancy. You take away their soldiers. You give the young men hope and a way to earn a living. Once they have skin in the game and a lively hood, they're not going to want to ruin it.
Put away the guns, and break out the checkbooks. Otherwise.....it's all just idle talk!

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Re: How to tackle militancy?

This is a fact that Pakistan is neither Sri Lanka nor Israel. But they say if there is a will, there is a way. Sri Lanka and Israel may not offer us a plug-and-play strategy, but they can still serve as a good precedent.

The biggest problem in Pakistan's case is country's establishment. What Pakistan has become today is a direct result of working with two mindsets. We lay more trust in proxies than going by the book of self-defence.

As for weaponry, Sri Lanka got lots of military supplies from China. Even Pakistan supplied Colombo with heavey and

It's true that the LTTE had no fallback as the Taliban have in Afghanistan, but top LTTE leadership regularly used Tamil Nadu of India for retreating in critical situations. The LTTE also used Tamils of TN for support, funds and supply of arms. We are also aware of India's role in Lanka-LTTE clash. Indian Air Force used to airdrop aid to the LTTE. In our case, Afghanistan is playing Tamil Nadu.

Puthukkudiyiruppu, the power-base of the LTTE, was actually fully encircled before the final assault got under way. This is the place where Prabhakaran was finallly killed while trying to take the sea root out of the country. Encircling Puthukkudiyiruppu also made sure that arms' supply will stop fully. Northwestern areas under the LTTE's control had a population of over 350,000. Lankan military established a safe zone within those areas to house fleeing civilians. We can clearly see how they planned the attack.

One of the major successes of President Rajapaksa was his drive the get the international funding channels choked. Canada and Norway were the top suppliers of funds to the LTTE. The US, the UN and the EU were all taken on board for stopping funding channels. Once the issue was raised on international platforms, every country had to come forward to help Colombo.

We also need to remind ourselves how a politician, initially backed by the LTTE in his election, put his country first when he came to power. He had the political will to take on his one-time supporters. There were no ifs and buts about that.

As far as Israel is concered, you don't need the most sophisticated arms for target-killing. Israel always knows about the whereabouts of top leadership of Hamas. We don't.

As I said earlier, if properly studied, we can take a lot of cues from Sri Lanka and Israel. I also believe it's not that our military doesn't understand all this, the problem is that they are working with two mindsets.

36

Re: How to tackle militancy?

Revamping of education system to provide education to the masses.

37

Re: How to tackle militancy?

^ That comes second. First step is to stop those who blow up schools.

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Re: How to tackle militancy?

You mean IK who recently did failure march in support of Taliban towards Waziristan, where Taliban offered him welcome with BOMBS.:)

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Re: How to tackle militancy?

*Unless military, ISI, people like IK, N$ and his cronies, JI, JUI, the old alliance of MMA, will not condemn and act against Taliban, nothing unfortunately will happen. TTP whose origin is in Punjab has to be eliminated with full force forgetting any blood relations like civil war of America. Otherwise These kinds of gruesome acts will continue if these above well wishers exist in Pakistan. *

Do Pakistanis have enough courage to do that? If not then remember the saying of Ismail Merthi,

"warna khao peo oar chalay jaao"

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Re: How to tackle militancy?

I was wondering why the US is unable to target the training camps of Taliban. They make all kinds of hue and cry that there are safe havens and training camps inside pakistan. They also have no qualms attacking the top leadership of Taliban inside Pakistan. Why do they not attack the training camps of these guys? I would guess that that is a much easier target and won't result in as much bad press as drone attacks which result in collateral damage.

Or is my whole premise false and there are no training camps? Do they get all their training in the field then?

Dismantling of so-called madrassas, which are by and large incubators for religious nut-jobs, must be part of any strategy to fight this menace.