Pakistan’s Last Gambit? continues ......

The May 2011 US Special Forces operation in Abbottabad to kill al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden will always invoke questions about Kayani’s complicity and competence as the army chief. His failure to challenge TTP in Waziristan, despite serious provocations, too remain a question mark on his career.

This brief analysis shows Pakistan Army’s continuing complicity with terrorist groups despite fighting terrorism, at least theoretically, and falling victim to terrorist violence in reality. Any indication of a change remains elusive even as the new chief, General Raheel Sharif, has decided to launch a military operation in the tribal areas.

QUESTION OF SKILL

Some experts believe that the army and the paramilitary forces it leads are not really equipped or trained to respond to the guerilla offensive by the armed and networked terrorist groups entrenched in the mountains of Pakistan’s tribal and frontier areas. Others have a different view; they accept that skill gaps are a problem but these are essentially a natural outcome of the State policies of creating terrorist groups to target adversaries.

The problem of skill must be tested first so that a pragmatic assessment of Pakistan’s failure or inadequate response to terrorism and terrorist groups can be gauged.

A close scrutiny of what went on in the name of the war beginning November 2001 reveals several clues about the Pakistan Army’s apparent lack of requisite skill sets combined with the duplicitous policy towards the Taliban, al Qaeda and other proxy groups. The theatre of war, which even to this date continues to be Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas or FATA—comprising seven semi￾autonomous tribal agencies of Khyber, Kurram, Orakzai,Mohmand, Bajaur, North and South Waziristan—is one of the most dangerous terrorist safe havens in the world today.

To be continued....