On June 18, 2013, the Afghan Taliban opened an office in Qatar to conduct negotiations with the United States. Eight days later, the insurgent movement launched a brazen assault on the Afghan presidential compound in Kabul (Nordland and Rubin 2013). During the same week, militants fired on a military convey in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir, killing five Indian soldiers and wounding seven more in an assault (Associated Press 2013). The technically indigenous Hizbul Mujahideen claimed credit, but many in India and elsewhere suspected that the Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was behind the attack, as it has been behind others during the previous year. The Kashmir front has been torpid for several years, but LeT is promising a renewed jihad once U.S. troops draw down in Afghanistan (Wani 2013). Meanwhile, the jihadist insurgency that erupted in Pakistan shows no signs of abating. Marked by attacks against the state and by sectarian violence, especially directed toward Pakistan’s minority Shia community, it damages the country’s cohesion and threatens its stability.
Pakistan’s militants are fighting on multiple fronts, and the 2014 U.S. drawdown in Afghanistan could contribute to further atomization among them (for more on current ideological fissures between militant groups, see White in this volume). Such a process could rob the collective jihadist movement in South Asia of some of its critical mass, but also fuel mutually reinforcing tensions in Pakistan’s militant milieu and in the region. The current peace between India and Pakistan is fragile, and the drawdown could also create conditions under which increased tensions in Afghanistan spill over into heightened violence throughout the region. Pakistan’s main political parties are less wedded to a policy of maintaining proxies than the military writ large or its Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). However, they are also more anxious to make peace with antistate militants than is the military, which has spent much blood and treasure waging Pakistan’s own war on terror. It is unclear whether the military leadership agrees on the extent and nature of the internal threat or what to do about it. Nor has the Pakistani establishment evinced any indication it is ready to dismantle the militant infrastructure or cease its practice of using jihadist proxies to achieve security objectives. Instead, it continues to selectively support some militants and to counter others, in some cases utilizing prostate militants to do so. Pakistan’s approach is predicated on the utility that groups provide externally and internally, as well as on whether they threaten the state and the level of perceived influence over them. This modus operandi is informed by and contributes to the dynamic and increasingly interconnected nature of Pakistani militancy.
Even given best-case scenarios geopolitically, militants in Pakistan will continue to threaten that country and stability in the region. This chapter explores the evolving dynamics of Pakistani militancy, the Pakistani state’s approach to it and some of the developments that could eventuate as and after the U.S. and NATO forces draw down in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has supported militant proxies since partition and played host to indigenous militant groups since the 1980s. Their numbers proliferated in the 1990s. There are various ways to classify Pakistan’s militants, two of which are detailed here. (White, in this volume, presents an alternative understanding of the differences between the groups.) One way to understand the Pakistani militant milieu at the time is to divide groups based on their sectarian affiliation (Fair 2009). Most of Pakistan’s militant groups belong to the Deobandi sect, which follows the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence.1 The major ones emerged from or were tied to the Deobandi Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Assembly of Islamic Clergy, or JUI) as well as the robust madrassa (religious school) system associated with it. The largest and most notable of them included:
• Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI)
• Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), which splintered from HuJI2
• Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), which broke from HuM
• Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP)
• Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), initially formed as the militant wing of SSP before (nominally) splitting from it
Separately, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was the biggest and most significant group to emerge from the Ahl-e-Hadith movement, which is Salafist in orientation.3 Strong divisions existed between LeT and the Deobandi outfits, but they are collectively known as Punjabi militant groups, a moniker that derives from the fact that they were headquartered and enjoyed their strongest support base in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous and powerful province.4 Elsewhere, Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), formed by a dissident member of Jamaat-e-Islami named Sufi Muhammad in the 1989, was based in Malakand (White 2008a: 35).
Another way of comprehending the militant milieu at the time is to categorize groups based on their activities in one of three loci (Fair 2009). During the 1990s the Pakistani security apparatus backed a welter of proxies against Indian security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir. These included the Deobandi HuM, HuJI, and JeM, as well as the Ahl-e-Hadith LeT. This was in addition to support for indigenous Kashmiri groups, most notably Hizbul Mujahideen (HM). The SSP and LeJ, which benefited directly and indirectly from state support at various times, were engaged in sectarian attacks against Pakistan’s minority Shia population. Shia groups mobilized in response, and the country experienced escalating sectarian conflict. After its formation, JeM occasionally involved itself in sectarian violence as well.
Pakistan also supported the Taliban in Afghanistan, and after the latter group swept to power many of the Deobandi groups that focused primarily on Kashmir or sectarian violence in Pakistan used Afghanistan as a base for operational support and training (9/11 Commission Report; Tankel 2011: 106–110). In 1994, TNSM fomented an insurrection in Malakand Division in a bid to institute sharia there. Ultimately, an accommodation was reached whereby the state adopted a “hands-off approach to the areas around Malakand” (White 2008a: 35). After the Pakistan military quashed this uprising, Sufi Muhammad turned his attention to supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan, and TNSM mobilized men to fight there during the latter 1990s (Lieven 2011: 465). Jalaludin Haqqani, who hails from southeastern Afghanistan and rose to prominence as a military commander during the anti-Soviet jihad in the 1980s, accepted an appointment in the Taliban government as minister of tribal affairs. The Haqqani Network—Deobandi and Pashtun like the Taliban—was always both an Afghan and a Pakistani organization. It had a significant infrastructure in Loya Paktia, in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani tribal agency of North Waziristan. During the 1990s, the Haqqanis administered their own training camps in the Loya Paktia region.5 Although located in Taliban-controlled territory, the Haqqanis enjoyed a significant degree of autonomy, hosting al-Qaeda when that group’s relations with the Taliban government were strained and protecting LeJ militants on the run from the authorities in Pakistan (Brown and Rassler 2013: 109–111; “Request for Extradition” n.d.). The major India-centric Deobandi groups also benefited from the training infrastructure in Haqqani territory, which strengthened the ties between them and al-Qaeda (Brown and Rassler 2013: 109). Thus, all of the major Deobandi Punjabi groups shared a common ancestry and increased their ties to one another as well as to the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, TNSM, and al-Qaeda during the 1990s.6 Connections often were diffuse, stemming from time spent at various madrassas, training camps, or fighting side by side (Abou Zahab 2012: 370–372).
The Deobandi/Ahl-e-Hadith divide shrank after 9/11, but did not disappear, and the number of militant loci increased and blurred.
The India Locus
When Musharraf agreed to support the U.S. invasion, he did so in large part to keep India from gaining a “golden opportunity with regard to Kashmir” (Musharraf 2006: 201–202; Dawn 2001). No evidence suggests the United States gave the Musharraf regime any guarantees with regard to the Kashmir jihad at the time. However, the cooperation Pakistan agreed to provide the United States did not include action against those militants focused on fighting in Indian-administered Kashmir or attacking India, save to keep them from traveling to Afghanistan to support the Taliban (9/11 Commission Report 2004: 331). After 9/11, LeT, JeM, and HuM, as well as a host of smaller India-centric groups remained active in Kashmir, though violence, measured in terms of fatalities and the number of violent incidents, declined after 2002 (Ministry of Home Affairs 2013: 5). Indian and international pressure contributed to this decline, as did the splintering of HuM and JeM, which saw some militants head to Afghanistan and others turn against the state. The normalizing of politics in Kashmir and introduction of fencing along the Line of Control also contributed to a decline in violence.
Following the launch of the peace process with India in early 2004, known as the Composite Dialogue, and accompanying back-channel negotiations, Kashmir-centric groups were directed to reduce their militant activities (Tankel 2011: 128; Coll 2009). These groups were curtailed further in response to international pressure the following year (Tankel 2011: 176–177). The ISI reportedly paid militant leaders to temper their activities and keep their cadre in line, while seeking to confine many of those no longer active in Kashmir to their training camps. These men were provided food, board, and, in some cases, a stipend. In other words, they were paid not to fight. Many were kept in reserve (author interviews December 2008–July 2011; Haqqani 2005: 306). Positive inducements were coupled with threat of retribution against those militants who disobeyed the directive to reduce their activities (Tankel 2011: 177–180; Amir 2006). The aim was to rein in, not dismantle, militant groups and hold their members in reserve to be either demobilized or reengaged depending on regional developments. By 2006–2007 there was a serious decline in militant activity on the Kashmir front.7 Diminished support for militancy in Indian-administered Kashmir did not extend to decreased assistance for terrorist strikes against India, which witnessed a rise in attacks by LeT and by indigenous jihadists who benefited from Pakistani support (Tankel 2011: 140–145).
By the time of the 9/11 attacks, it was becoming clear the guerrilla war in Indian-administered Kashmir was not bearing fruit. Some Pakistani militant groups, most notably LeT, began escalating involvement in attacks against the Indian hinterland (Tankel 2011: 140). The 9/11 attacks, followed by the December 2001 assault on India’s parliament by JeM, also may have triggered a realization within the ISI that an overreliance on Pakistan proxies risked provoking international ire. These factors likely contributed to LeT’s decision to expand its recruitment efforts in India and terrorist operations there (Tankel 2011). In early 2002, riots in the Indian state of Gujarat claimed the lives of 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus.8 The riots mobilized a section of India’s Muslim population already prone to radicalization at a time when LeT and the inchoate network that would become the Indian Mujahideen (IM) were increasing recruitment efforts (Bedi 2003; Swami 2008b; Gupta 2011: 4). India had banned the Student Islamist Movement of Indian (SIMI) in 2001, driving many of its members underground and triggering a cleavage within it between those who, while extreme, were not prepared to take up arms and hardliners looking to launch a terrorist campaign (author interview June 2012; Fair 2010). A small number of SIMI activists who split from the organization went on to form the core of the IM, a network of militant modules and cells that activated in 2006 and began claiming credit for attacks in 2007 (Swami 2010). A loosely networked leadership operating from Pakistan and the Persian Gulf leads the IM. Their presence in Pakistan has fueled suspicion that the ISI is not only supporting the IM, but also seeking to exert influence over its direction (Tankel 2013b). Clear connections between LeT and IM exist, and the former is widely suspected of supporting the latter (Fair 2010).9 Since the 2008 Mumbai attacks Pakistan appears to be restraining LeT from launching major terrorist strikes against India, leaving it to work in concert with or support sporadic IM operations.
The Afghanistan Locus
Militants from all of Pakistan’s major Deobandi groups joined the Taliban to fight against the U.S. counterattack in the wake of 9/11 (Tankel 2011: 110). Thousands of pro-Taliban Pashtun tribesman streamed across the border as well, with the TNSM leading thousands of them to battle American forces in Afghanistan. After the small number of U.S. forces, fighting alongside the Northern Alliance, routed the Taliban, most of its leaders fled across the border. Musharraf’s decision to side with the United States in the wake of the 9/11 attacks did not extend to vigorously pursuing the movement in Pakistan, where Taliban leaders resettled after their government was toppled in December 2001.10 The Afghan front remained reasonably quiet for the next eighteen months, as Taliban leaders in Pakistan regrouped (Strick van Linschoten and Kuehn 2012: 244, 257). Jalaludin Haqqani moved across the border to North Waziristan after the U.S. invasion. Initially inactive and possibly even open to a settlement with the Karzai government, Haqqani ultimately decided to fight under the Taliban banner once they launched an insurgency in Afghanistan.11 However, the Haqqani Network retained a significant degree of operational autonomy as well as strong ties to both al-Qaeda and the Pakistani state (Brown and Rassler 2013: 121–122, 133–134).
From their base in Pakistan, the Taliban began an assassination campaign in Afghanistan in spring 2003 and announced a leadership council that summer (Giustozzi 2009: 1, 34; Strick van Linschoten and Kuehn 2012: 252–253). Training camps for Taliban fighters were operating in Pakistan by this time and the movement began a recruitment drive. This included dispatching Mullah Dadullah, reportedly accompanied by Pakistani authorities, to madrassas in Baluchistan and Karachi (Strick van Linschoten and Kuehn 2012: 253). Significant recruiting efforts directed toward Pakistani volunteers increased in 2004, and these recruits were playing an important role in the Afghan insurgency by 2005 (Giustozzi 2009: 34–35). Rather than remain inactive, Deobandi militants whose activities in Kashmir had been curtailed and who had been confined to their camps migrated toward the Afghan front via the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), tapping into Afghan-centric militant infrastructure that had risen there (Abbas 2009). The destruction of portions of the training infrastructure in Pakistan-administered Kashmir during the 2005 South Asia earthquake increased the militant migration.12 This reinforced existing ties among the Deobandi groups, the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and a raft of Pashtun militants who grew in number and prominence. The Ahl-e-Hadith LeT also opened up a second front in Afghanistan during this time, bringing its militants into closer contact with some of those from these other organizations.
Attempts to reign in historically Kashmir-centric groups in the mid-2000s contrasted with rising Pakistani state support for Afghan-centric proxies, most notably the Quetta Shura Taliban and the Haqqani Network.13 The overriding primacy the United States gave to al-Qaeda allowed the Taliban-led insurgency space to regenerate, while concerns about American staying power in the region led Islamabad to increase significantly its active support for the Taliban and Haqqani Network from roughly 2005 onward (Barno 2011; Armitage 2009; Mazzetti et al. 2010). Attacks against coalition forces in Afghanistan jumped to over five thousand in 2006, more than a threefold increase from the previous year (Wood 2007). The Afghan insurgency gained momentum over the next few years and was going from strength to strength by 2008, by which time it was interconnected with the revolutionary and sectarian jihads that had exploded in Pakistan.
Revolutionary and Sectarian Loci
President Pervez Musharraf’s decision to support the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11 strained Pakistan’s relations with all of its militant proxies to varying degrees. As early as October 2001, JeM gunmen were targeting Westerners and Christians inside Pakistan in retaliation for the U.S. counterattack in Afghanistan (Iqbal 2001). JeM’s leader, Maulana Masood Azhar, is believed to have expelled some of those who were involved in the October 2001 attacks in order to avoid his own arrest (Mir 2003). In response to this action, as well as Azhar’s general willingness to continue working with the army and ISI, a number of Jaish members left and joined those who were expelled to form the splinter group Jamaat ul-Furqan. HuM split too, with some members leaving to form Harkat-ul-Mujahideen-al-Alami (alami means “global”) in response to the leadership’s unwillingness to break ties with the state. Despite these incidents, active support continued for Pakistan’s India-centric proxies, and no consistent efforts were made to degrade the various indigenous militant groups extant at the time, with the exception of LeJ. This last group was able to regenerate in part thanks to its ability to tap into the legitimate aboveground organizations connected to SSP and JeM, but the early targeting of LeJ members contributed to their subsequent disproportionate involvement in antistate violence (Abou Zahab 2012: 371).
Pakistan made notable efforts to capture or kill al-Qaeda operatives and other foreign fighters, but these tapered off after 2005 (Jones 2011). Initial efforts included launching Operation Al Mizan, a military incursion into the South Waziristan Agency of the FATA in 2002, following the arrival of foreign fighters fleeing Afghanistan earlier that year.14 Resistance there was prompt (Burke 2011: 175; M. I. Khan 2004; Z. A. Khan 2012). A series of Pakistani military incursions into FATA—followed by peace deals that empowered pro-Taliban Pashtun militants—ensued, contributing to the spread of Talibanization in the tribal areas. Developments outside FATA contributed to the proto-insurgency brewing in Pakistan and strengthened the nexus between Pashtun militants, their brethren from various Punjabi groups who fled to FATA during the ensuing years, and those Afghan militants and al-Qaeda members who sought sanctuary there following the U.S. invasion.
In December 2003, members of the Pakistan air force—inspired by Maulana Azhar, JeM’s amir—attempted to blow up President Musharraf’s motorcade. Two weeks later, a Jaish member, who, the leadership later maintained, had split from the group by this time, made a similar attempt not far from where the first attack took place. Concerns about the involvement of low-level military personnel and police officers in jihadist activities contributed to a crackdown in which the authorities detained more than a thousand individuals and held many without trial (Mir 2009: 110). This practice of executing mass arrests (and later releasing many of those detained) in tandem with efforts to eliminate specific militants (often through extrajudicial means) constituted the extent of Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts during the early and mid-2000s. Some of those who escaped the crackdown remained in Punjab, but others took shelter in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, FATA, and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), known since 2009 as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) (Mir 2009: 110; Abou Zahab 2012: 373–374). Many of those who traveled to FATA linked up with Punjabi militants, particularly from SSP, LeJ, and various splinter groups, who had fled there following the aforementioned crackdowns and had since strengthened their ties with al-Qaeda and pro-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen (Abbas 2009; Abou Zahab 2012: 373–374).
Pakistan’s failed military incursions and subsequent peace agreements had emboldened pro-Taliban militants, and by 2006 the insurgency against the state was accelerating swiftly (Gul 2009: 12; Ghufran 2009; Fair 2009). In July 2007, Pakistani security forces launched an assault against the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad and the two madrassas attached to it. The Lal Masjid had been a well-established ISI asset, and one of its madrassas, Jamia Fareedia, historically attracted students from NWFP and FATA, many of whom were sympathetic to militancy (Abbas 2007; Pardesi 2008: 97). The Ghazi brothers, who led the mosque and madrassas, had issued an edict in 2004 that military personnel killed fighting in FATA were not martyrs, and the Ghazis had been arrested that year for stockpiling weapons and planning terrorist attacks in Pakistan.15 Militants from JeM, HuJI, and LeT were holed up in the complex prior to the raid, and many remained there when it commenced (Pardesi 2008: 103; Asghar and Azeem 2007; Dawn 2007). The raid turned a primarily FATA-based proto-insurgency into a full-blown insurgency that soon threatened to envelop the country. It also transformed the debate for Pakistan’s religious parties, some of which had struggled with how closely to embrace the Ghazi brothers’ exhortations toward vigilante Islamism. With one of the Ghazi brothers dead and the other under arrest, the religious parties were free to embrace them as martyrs (White 2008b). In so doing, they threw rhetorical fuel on the jihadist fire that soon engulfed parts of the country.
By this time, the Talibanization that had begun in South Waziristan in 2004 spread to other agencies in FATA and was expanding into frontier areas such as Bannu, Tank, Kohat, Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan, Swat, and Buner. Many of these men, who shared the aim of establishing “local spheres of sharia” in their respective areas of influence, officially united in December 2007 to form the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban (Fair 2009). The TTP quickly became the face of the insurgency but never cohered into a homogeneous entity with firm command and control, instead becoming instead an umbrella organization for many antistate militants. Al-Qaeda provided ideological and operational support for the insurgency in Pakistan, and over time some Pakistani militants joined al-Qaeda’s ranks directly.16 LeJ members are also overrepresented in antistate violence, giving the antistate insurgency a sectarian cast. (Given the harsh crackdowns LeJ suffered after 9/11, its antistate animus is understandable.) LeJ militants, and some of those associated with SSP and JeM as well, exploited Talibanization in FATA and KPK to turn those areas into safe havens (Abbas 2009; Abou Zahab 2012: 376). This dynamic was compounded by TTP commanders’ historical connections to LeJ and SSP.17
In 2009, following a military incursion (Operation Rah-e-Haq, or “Path of Truth”) into Swat, Pakistan reached a peace agreement with TNSM, better known as the Swat Taliban. The agreement institutionalized sharia in Malakand Division and the Kohistan district of Hazara Division.18 Emboldened, the TNSM—along with other militants operating in the area—began to occupy areas of Swat before expanding to the districts of Shangla and Buner. The proximity of these districts to Islamabad helped catalyze Pakistani public opinion against these militants and paved the way for a major military offensive (Rah-e-Rast) in May 2009 in Swat. The military launched another major campaign against the TTP in South Waziristan—Operation Rah-e-Nijat—the following month. Punjabi militants provided power projection capabilities for an escalation of high-profile terrorist attacks against sensitive targets in cities such as Islamabad, Lahore, and Rawalpindi intended to punish the state for these incursions (Abou Zahab 2012: 376; Abbas 2009). On the one hand, these incursions achieved a degree of success in the frontier. On the other hand, they also served as an object lesson in the high costs of such actions. Nevertheless, they marked an escalation of Pakistan’s efforts to confront the threat.
Pakistan’s security policy has always been India-centric. Thus the value of groups like LeT and the Haqqani Network resides primarily, though hardly exclusively, in the leverage they provide against India and in Afghanistan respectively. Pakistan’s geopolitical compulsions, however, are informed by worries stemming from external influences on internal stability as well. Although the security establishment was not blind to internal threats, its approach in the initial years after 9/11 remained overwhelmingly India-centric. When confronted with a proto-insurgency in FATA, the Musharraf regime opted for a strategy of appeasement, aimed at halting the spread of militancy into the settled areas of Pakistan. Meanwhile, the state’s escalating support for the Quetta Shura Taliban and Haqqani Network in Afghanistan meant that the military deliberately spared significant militant infrastructure in FATA. Moreover, although it did rein in pro-state groups fighting in Kashmir, the Musharraf regime chose not to dismantle them. Instead, using the combination of inducements and coercive mechanisms described above, the ISI reduced the activities of some (LeT) and essentially held others in reserve. The attempt to “bench” these groups occurred at roughly the same time Pakistan was escalating support for the Afghan insurgency, but there is little evidence to suggest that it sought to control the flow of fighters from the east to the west. Nor was the de-escalation of the Kashmir front accompanied by a heightened focus on counterterrorism.
In November 2007, President Musharraf, who had taken power in a coup and remained the head of the army, resigned his command as chief of army staff, making way for General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. During the Musharraf era, the military made no sustained effort in the areas of counterinsurgency. On the one hand, the internal security threat had not yet manifested. On the other, these lackluster efforts created conditions for that threat to mature. Upon assuming his command Kayani took steps to increase the army’s “ownership of and commitment to Pakistan’s internal security duties” (Fair 2011b). In 2008 and 2009, the security establishment started making more sustained counterinsurgency and counterterrorism efforts against antistate militants inside and outside FATA. Pakistan launched Operation Sher Dil in Bajaur Agency in 2008 and in 2009 followed with Operations Rah-e-Rast (Swat) and Rah-e-Nijat (South Waziristan) in 2009. Years of experience operating in FATA coupled with training assistance and capacity building provided by the United States meant Pakistan’s security forces were better prepared to clear and hold territory (Jones and Fair 2010: 65–74). These campaigns weakened the TTP infrastructure in various areas, most notably Bajaur, Swat, and South Waziristan, and led to the capture or killing of Pakistani militants involved in plotting, supporting, and executing attacks against the state as well as some foreign fighters (Jones and Fair 2010; Pak Institute for Peace Studies 2011: 27).
Military incursions drove some TTP and TNSM militants across the border into eastern Afghanistan, primarily the Korengal Valley, and from there they began to launch cross-border raids into Pakistan.19 These actors appear to benefit at least from benign neglect by the Afghan security forces, though Pakistan alleges they receive active support from Afghanistan’s intelligence agency (Khan and Hussain 2011; Rehman 2013; Tankel 2013c). It is an article of faith among many in the Pakistani security establishment that India uses its Afghan consulates as listening posts to gather intelligence and to equip the TTP and other antistate militants. American forces withdrew from the Korengal Valley in mid-2010, turning an already troubled region into a militant safe haven for Afghan-centric and Pakistan-centric militants. Pakistani officials equate the situation, inaccurately, to the safe haven in FATA and accuse the United States of not doing enough to curb militants basing there. When taken to the extreme, this feeds conspiracy theories that the United States supports cross-border TTP strikes.20 In short, elements within the Pakistani security establishment believe their country is the victim of a proxy war. Coupled with a strategic culture of relying on nonstate actors, this has led the Pakistani military to rely on some militant groups to counter others.
When Pakistan was forced to further rein in LeT following the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the ISI facilitated a pathway for an increased presence in eastern Afghanistan, where the group’s fighters began appearing in greater numbers in late 2009 and early 2010. (This chronology has been confirmed both by author interviews conducted in July 2011 and by the statements of American officials during briefings provided to them by the author.) This was partly a means of creating a pressure-release valve for the group. However, it also may have been intended as a means of using a trusted proxy to gather intelligence on the other militants operating in the area, particularly those belonging to the TTP and TNSM (Williams 2008; Gannon 2008). The security establishment also encouraged LeT to carry out a propaganda campaign against al-Qaeda and the TTP, demonizing them ideologically for launching attacks in Pakistan.21 In some instances, LeT or associated groups acting under its umbrella have even attacked the TTP in the tribal areas. In June 2013, LeT militants in concert with those from Ansar-ul-Islam, a Barelvi group formed in Khyber Agency, launched a cross-border offensive from Kunar Province against the TTP in the Mohmand Agency. They also reportedly struck TTP elements on the Afghan side of the border who had fled Mohmand during previous military operations (T. Khan 2013b). Although LeT is the main group on which the security services rely, the military also gave the Taliban commander Mullah Nazir covert support to attack Uzbek militants who enjoyed the protection of then TTP amir Baitullah Mehsud during Operation Zalzala (Jones and Fair 2010: 57).
On numerous occasions the military also attempted to use the Quetta Shura Taliban and Haqqani Network to temper the TTP and reorient its focus toward Afghanistan. For example, in February 2009, leaders from the Haqqani Network helped create the Shura Ittihad-ul-Mujahidin (SIM). This umbrella group consisted of Afghan and Pakistani militants, including those involved in antistate violence. Mullah Omar publicly reiterated his instructions that SIM, like all militant entities, focuses on fighting in Afghanistan rather than attacking Pakistan (Brown and Rassler 2013: 160). It is generally believed that initiatives such as these were undertaken at the ISI’s behest (Brown and Rassler 2013: 161). The Pakistani military made efforts to prevail on other FATA-based militants to withhold support from those actors attacking Pakistan and remain focused on Afghanistan. In exchange, these entities were not targeted during military campaigns in FATA.22
To be sure, the geopolitical utility some groups offer is the most compelling reason Pakistan continues to provide them with active support, defined here as providing money and matériel, assistance with training, operations, and logistics, organizational assistance, ideological direction (where possible), and, of course, sanctuary as well as other protection from external enemies (for example, intelligence sharing) (Byman 2005: 59). However, amid an insurgency, it also has become important for maintaining influence over proxies that, as an organizational policy, eschew attacks against the state. For example, the ISI has provided infusions of money and other goods to LeT to keep current members in line and induce former members who might be assisting antistate militants to return to the fold (author interviews July–October 2011; Tankel 2013a). As part of this effort, LeT leaders reindoctrinated former and current members against launching attacks in Pakistan and encouraged its local clerics to deliver the message that jihad in Pakistan was against Islam (author interviews; Fair 2011a). (For more on this point, see White in this volume.) The Pakistani security establishment also encouraged the involvement of LeT’s licit front organization, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), as well as of other militants groups like SSP, in the Difa-e-Pakistan Council (DPC). The DPC is a coalition of more than forty “politico-religious parties.” It serves as a stalking horse for the security establishment and thus fits squarely in the tradition of the military-mullah-militant nexus that has existed for many years (Siddiqui 2012). Consolidating leaders from various militant groups into a single political platform may be a way for the security establishment to increase influence over aspects of their behavior and provide an incentive to keep their cadres in line.23 At the same time, however, this opportunity amplifies militant voices and provides them with political clout, which can act as a barrier to action against them.
These efforts are part of a broader bid to regain control over the militant infrastructure, rather than to dismantle it. Despite the nuanced fluidity of treatment, this approach is predicated on a straw man: the assumption that the country faces two choices, “tolerate some militants” or “take on every group at once.” This belief informs a willingness to accept a persistent level of violence in the hope of avoiding a conflagration, as long as the groups receiving state support have utility either abroad or at home. This approach has also contributed to the integration of militant loci, purposefully in some instances and inadvertently in others.
Militant attention to India decreased after 9/11, relatively speaking, though its perceived malevolent involvement in Afghanistan fueled Pakistani support for proxies fighting there and contributed to the integration of these two loci. This was evident from the escalation of attacks against Indian targets in Afghanistan by Pakistani proxies, in some cases with clear army or ISI support, from 2008 onward (Swami 2008a; Mazzetti and Schmitt 2008; O’Donnell 2009; Brulliard 2010; Rubin 2010; Motlagh 2010). Over time, Afghanistan became a focal point for every major militant outfit as well as for a host of smaller networks and splinter groups. It also emerged as a safe haven from which the TTP and its allies could attack the Pakistani state. This reinforces the Pakistani military’s support for Afghan-centric proxies and contributes to cross-border clashes between pro-state groups like LeT and antistate ones like the TTP. In short, the Afghan locus has integrated with the insurgency in Pakistan. What began as a reaction to military efforts in FATA and state crackdowns against select militants cohered into this new locus of activity: revolutionary jihad to topple the apostate government in Islamabad and institute an extreme interpretation of Islamic law throughout the country. Sectarian violence became intertwined with this revolutionary jihad. It also expanded, as Deobandi jihadist groups increasingly targeted Barelvis and Ahmadis as well as the Shia (see, e.g., Waraich 2011).
The acceptability of waging war against the state is a major ideological division within the jihadi universe, but the line is permeable. Because separateness and togetherness coexist among and within groups, militants who disagreed with one another over activity in one locus might cooperate (or compete) in another. This creates ideological confusion and discord while simultaneously providing ideological sanction for any one of a number of targets. Cumulatively, this contributes to increased integration and atomization of the various entities within the militant milieu. Historical connections among groups coupled with the fact that many new outfits were born as a result of splintering or fragmentation enabled greater integration and coordination.
Interaction, integration, and competition are most pronounced in FATA. For example, the Haqqani Network is Pakistan’s most reliable proxy in Afghanistan and, as a policy, abjures attacks in Pakistan. However, it is also an essential enabler for the TTP as well as for a host of smaller antistate entities (including many Punjabi group splinters) and al-Qaeda (Brown and Rassler 2013). Although it has worked to limit any public association with the insurgency in Pakistan, it actively benefits from TTP manpower. In return, the Haqqani Network acts as a “platform for operational development and force projection” for segments of the TTP and other antistate entities (Rassler and Brown 2011: 46). This includes providing access to training, expertise, resources, and the prestige that comes from participating in certain operations in Afghanistan (Rassler and Brown 2011: 47; “Attack on Sri Lankan Cricket Team” 2009; “Interrogation of Amanullah” n.d.). Moreover, the Haqqani Network has been al-Qaeda’s main enabler in the region for more than two decades and is thus more responsible than any other ally for its resiliency (Brown and Rassler 2013). Connections also exist in Pakistan’s settled areas, where they enable insurgents to leverage the infrastructure belonging to groups still tolerated, or supported, by the state. Many of the attacks that take place in Punjab, for example, involve at least some measure of coordination with current or former members of tolerated organizations such as SSP, JeM, and, in some cases, even LeT (author interviews July 2011; Abbas 2009; Abou Zahab 2011: 377).
Looking ahead to 2014 and beyond, events in Afghanistan and developments regarding Pakistan’s inchoate rapprochement with India could help determine the scope, scale, and direction of Pakistani militancy. However, it is unlikely that sectarian attacks or the revolutionary jihad against Pakistan will abate in the short-term regardless of what happens on either front.
The drawdown of Western forces could contribute to further atomization within the militant milieu, not least because foreign troops represent the one target on which all the different entities—whether pro- or antistate—can agree. If so, this might rob the collective jihadist movement in South Asia of some of its critical mass, as various entities refocus on other targets. At the least, it could reduce the propaganda windfall some militants realize from waging jihad against foreign forces. Escalating debates within and between militant organizations over whether to focus violence externally or internally might undercut Pakistani efforts to rein in or hold in reserve some proxies. At the command level, this is likely to create tensions within and between various entities, while integration at the operational level can be expected to continue.
A status quo insurgency or escalating conflict would mean continued Pakistani support for its proxies, with the attendant operational consequences outlined in the previous section. Even given a regional settlement, Pakistan could be expected to maintain ties and perhaps some level of support to its proxies for both geopolitical and internal purposes. Pakistan has significant concerns about the impact of the U.S. and NATO drawdown on its internal security. This has informed its outreach to former Northern Alliance members in Afghanistan and its willingness to help facilitate negotiations between the United States and Afghan Taliban. At the same time, the Pakistani security establishment also worries that a march to power by the Afghan Taliban would invite a massive influx of Indian assistance to the former Northern Alliance.
Islamabad has insisted that negotiations designed to reach a settlement must ultimately include the Haqqani Network. This raises the possibility that the ISI may seek to play one faction against another rather than allow the Quetta Shura Taliban to act as the sole representative of the insurgency. Even absent external efforts to sow division, significant questions exist regarding how much control Quetta Shura Taliban leaders have over their own foot soldiers, much less those operating under the banner of the Haqqani Network or the Pakistani Taliban. Hence it is far from certain that all of the militants currently fighting in Afghanistan would buy into a settlement. Some could be expected to fight on and, depending on the posture of the Pakistani state, might assist the TTP in launching cross-border attacks as well. Additionally, the Quetta Shura Taliban have no love for their sponsors in Pakistan and, if freed from reliance on the Pakistani state, could facilitate support for the TTP.
Looking to the east, despite their increased focus on Afghanistan, groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba have yet to abandon the Kashmir cause or the jihad against India more broadly. LeT is unlikely to vacate the Afghan front; it is a sufficiently elastic group to maintain a presence there while also refocusing on India. The Kashmir front is quiescent and regenerating it would be difficult, though recent events, including several militant attacks and cross-border firing, suggest attempts by groups including LeT to do just that (BBC 2013; Akhter 2013). Hizbul Mujahideen claimed most of the major operations on this front in 2013. Although its leadership is based in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, HM is an indigenous Kashmiri group. Evidence suggests it is working with LeT to slowly reignite the conflict and make increased violence appear organic. Kashmir is unlikely to see a return to the bad old days when roughly two thousand militants were chalking up attacks on a daily basis. There were 192 violent incidents in 2012, the last year for which data is available from the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs (Ministry of Home Affairs 2013: 5). Contrast that with 2,565 in 2004, when the insurgency was already flagging, or the 1990s when whole cities were “liberated” by the insurgents. While returning to that level of conflict is highly unlikely, real grievances remain. Because violent incidents are now the exception, not the rule, and there are so few militants in Kashmir, even a relatively modest uptick can have a disproportionate impact.
Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif has indicated his intention to promote ties with India. This is to be commended and encouraged. The army and ISI have kept LeT from launching any major attacks against India since Mumbai in 2008, but the group is allowed to maintain low-level activities and is unlikely to be dismantled as long as major geopolitical disputes with New Delhi persist. Indeed, modestly improved diplomatic and economic relations with New Delhi have not precluded Pakistan’s ongoing development of tactical nuclear weapons intended to deter the type of Indian invasion that might result from another spectacular terrorist attack by Pakistan-supported militant groups. As long as Pakistan maintains militant proxies any Indo-Pakistani rapprochement will remain incomplete and at risk of disruption. If the ISI intends to keep LeT reined in, it could compensate the group’s leaders by continuing to facilitate involvement in domestic politics and policy as an offset, while also using coercive mechanisms to keep members in line. However, not all militants would remain idle. Some could attempt unsanctioned attacks against India and others might turn on the state.
The Indian Mujahideen is a notable wildcard. Its existence provides the ISI and LeT, collectively, with another means of striking India. Yet it also presents a potential source of tension between them. The ISI could attempt to exert greater control over the Indian Mujahideen network as an indigenous proxy, thus increasing the level of plausible deniability for any attacks, while also showing “progress” by reining in groups like LeT. Conversely, LeT could attempt to use the IM to circumvent ISI constraints on its own actions.
It is unlikely that sectarian violence or the revolutionary jihad against Pakistan will abate, regardless of what happens vis-à-vis India or in Afghanistan, where the TTP and other antistate insurgents already operate. The TTP and its associates have shown no willingness to part with their maximalist agenda, including the withdrawal of Pakistani military forces from FATA and adjacent territories and the right to institute sharia in those areas, with the eventual aim of imposing it throughout the country. Almost twenty-seven hundred people were killed in more than eleven hundred acts of political violence in Pakistan between January and April 2013. Casualties from jihadist violence constitute a significant number of those killed (S. Khan 2013). This included another spate of mass terrorist attacks against the Shia in Pakistan and the TTP’s blistering series of attacks against the Awami National Party, Pakistan Peoples Party, and Muttahida Quami Movement in the run-up to the 2013 elections. These parties were singled out for their “secular doctrine” and because they were “responsible” for the incursions into FATA (T. Khan 2013a).
At the time of writing, the PML-N-led government of Nawaz Sharif has taken steps toward beginning peace negotiations with the TTP, but talks, if they do occur, will face serious obstacles. The military, which has expended much blood and treasure waging Pakistan’s own war on terror, opposes negotiating, at least in the short term. However, it is unclear whether the military leadership agrees on the extent and nature of the internal threat or what to do about it. In the meantime, antistate militants launched another spate of attacks throughout Pakistan after the elections. Whether this was part of a strategy by the TTP and its allies to position themselves for peace negotiations with the government is unclear, but at the time of writing they certainly appear to have the initiative. Conversely, beyond the geopolitical utility proxies provide, the security establishment is unlikely to take any action that could draw them into the antistate insurgency. Hence no incursion into North Waziristan, where the Haqqani Network is headquartered, was in the offing at the time of writing. Moreover, any action in the tribal areas is likely to be accompanied by terrorist strikes elsewhere in Pakistan. The TTP is already gaining ground in Karachi and emerging as a new force to be reckoned with in that troubled metropolis. LeJ continues to operate reasonably freely and its networks and connections to SSP mean it can do so throughout the country. In short, even given best-case scenarios geopolitically, Pakistan appears to face a durable jihadist threat. Counterintuitively, this raises the perceived costs of dismantling pro-state groups.
Discourse in the West regarding safe haven in Afghanistan often fixates on al-Qaeda Central (AQC) and its potential to regenerate and launch transnational attacks. Although AQC may be able to carve out small pieces of territory from which to operate, the group is unlikely to enjoy much more freedom of movement than it presently does in Pakistan. Any residual U.S. force will almost certainly contain a heavy concentration of Special Forces operators who, backed by air power, should be able to continue targeting AQC. In some respects, were AQC to once more cross the border into Afghanistan, targeting its members would be even easier than if they remained in Pakistan.
In contrast to the attention given the future of AQC, the possible consequences of the U.S. drawdown in Afghanistan for Pakistani and Afghan militants are little understood. Antistate militants already launch cross-border strikes from Afghanistan, but the presence of American and NATO forces has limited their prospects for growth. The looming drawdown brings with it the opportunity for the TTP and associated antistate elements to expand and take greater advantage of cross-border sanctuaries in Afghanistan to attack Pakistan. These havens could become essential should the Pakistan military launch an incursion into North Waziristan. (Pakistan’s decision to launch such a campaign will be based on the future utility of the Haqqani Network, as well as the ease with which the group can be displaced across the border.)
Afghanistan and Pakistan already are engaged in a cold border war that includes exchanges of artillery. In the absence of a settlement, bilateral relations could deteriorate further, leading Kabul to in fact provide the TTP and associated anti-Pakistan elements with the type of support Islamabad already suspects such groups are receiving. Escalating violence that draws in regional actors, including India, could exacerbate this dynamic. As a result, Pakistan could face not only an internal jihadist insurgency, but also the sort of cross-border jihadist violence that it has long supported against its own neighbors. The inevitable impact of such a conflict on the Pashtun population on both sides of the border would also lead to greater instability in FATA and KPK.
Pro-state Pakistani groups also operate in Afghanistan, and their access to safe haven there will have other consequences. To begin with, the prospect of continued (and perhaps rising) cross-border strikes by the TTP and its ilk makes it unlikely that Pakistan will take steps to demobilize its proxies. Not only could doing so result in blowback, but members of pro-state groups based in Afghanistan could gather intelligence on antistate elements and even launch direct strikes against them. At the same time, access to safe haven in Afghanistan reduces ISI’s situational awareness, at least theoretically, of what pro-state groups are doing. This is most worrying in the case of LeT, given its likely intention of escalating attacks against India. LeT’s presence in eastern Afghanistan ensures plausible deniability for different factions within the group, for its leaders, and, ironically, for the Pakistani state. Each could conceivably claim they did not sanction plots orchestrated against India from across the border, even if planned in Pakistan, with the result being a heightened likelihood that such attacks will occur. Depending on the state of the insurgency in Afghanistan, it is possible that other militants with a significant presence there will provide at least a modicum of assistance to India-centric groups as well.
Over the medium to long term, Pakistan’s triage approach constrains its policy options, further locking the establishment into a reactive as opposed to forward-leaning posture and making it more difficult for the country to face either its geopolitical or domestic challenges. The cumulative creeping expansion of jihadist influence also contributes to an identity crisis that threatens to corrode Pakistan’s cohesion. Sectarian violence cuts particularly deep in this regard and threatens to draw in perpetrators who presently have no involvement in militancy. It strikes a sensitive nerve within the military, whose members value their institution’s nonsectarian identity. Some military personnel understandably worry about the impact of ongoing sectarian violence on that identity. Barring a cataclysmic event, however, and despite the negative trends, extreme outcomes such as fragmentation, the breakaway of discontented provinces, or total state failure are unlikely in the near to medium term. Instead, Pakistan is likely to continue muddling through. As one scholar observed, however, there are “several kinds of muddling through”; and if current trends continue, Pakistan may face “more extreme and unpleasant futures,” with destabilizing consequences for the entire region (Cohen 2011: xiv).
This chapter is informed throughout by fieldwork performed by the author, including numerous interviews conducted between 2008 and 2012. Interview subjects include Pakistani, Indian, and American security professionals and diplomats, as well as members of militant groups, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Interviews are cited as a group when necessary. Please contact the author for more information.
1. Adherents to Barelvi Islam also follow the Hanafi school of thought. They historically constituted the largest Sunni bloc, but no reliable recent census data is available to confirm that this remains the case or to determine their percentage of the population relative to other schools of thought within Sunni Islam.
2. The two briefly reunited to form Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA), or “Movement of Partisans,” and then separated again.
3. Salafis adhere to a strict interpretation of the Quran and hadith and reject the various schools of Islamic jurisprudence and the learned men who interpreted them. They believe Muslims must return to a pure form of Islam and advocate emulating the Prophet and his companions in all areas of life.
4. This is not an exhaustive list and accounts only for the largest Punjabi groups extant prior to 9/11. Numerous other smaller groups existed as well, as did front organizations and splinter groups in the Kashmir theater. Nevertheless, prior to 9/11 these entities constituted the major Punjabi organizations.
5. The “Haqqani Network” was not known as such at the time. The appellation was first used in 2006 (Rassler and Brown 2011: 1 n. 2).
6. Thousands of students from Deobandi madrassas in Pakistan, many of whom belonged to various Pashtun tribes that straddled the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, took leave to fight on behalf of the Taliban.
7. Improved Indian counterinsurgency efforts, fencing along the Line of Control, and a reduced appetite for conflict in Indian-administered Kashmir contributed as well.
8. Unofficial estimates put the death toll as high as two thousand. It was widely alleged that officials from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who led the state government encouraged and assisted Hindus who were involved in violence. For official casualty figures, see BBC 2005. For unofficial casualty figures, see Human Rights Watch 2002. In 2012, a state legislator and former state education minister was one of thirty-two people convicted for their role in the riots (Harris and Kumar 2012).
9. Syed Zabiuddin Ansari (a.k.a. Abu Jundal), an Indian Lashkar operative who played a pivotal role in 2008 Mumbai attacks and was deported from Saudi Arabia in July 2012, reportedly told the Indian authorities he had moved from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia in order to oversee joint LeT-IM operations. He alleged that LeT had set up joint bases with the IM in various locations in India to plan conduct operations there. Mirza Himayat Baig, an LeT operative convicted in India for his role in the 2010 Pune bombing, also acted as a key link with the IM in India. Baig cooperated with the IM to execute the 2010 Pune attack in which other LeT operatives are alleged to have collaborated along with several IM leaders (Nanjappa 2012; Chauhan 2012; Haygunde 2013; Express News Service 2013).
10. After 9/11 the ISI advised Mullah Mohammad Omar, head of the Taliban government, to find a safe haven and later provided him one in Pakistan (Zaeef 2010: 152).
11. Haqqani made overtures to the newly formed Karzai government between 2001 and 2003, only to see his brother who traveled to Kabul as an envoy detained and beaten before being sent back across the border (Brown and Rassler 2013: 123).
12. Most headed to Waziristan, but the sectarian groups also had a presence in Lower Kurram and Orakzai. LeT began reclaiming a foothold in Bajaur and Mohmand where it had historical connections (Abou Zahab 2011: 373–74; Tankel 2011: 197).
13. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-e-Islami (HiG) also benefited from Pakistani support.
14. Although several top al-Qaeda operatives were captured in Pakistan’s cities in the first few years following 9/11, many of AQ’s lower ranks as well as those who had trained in AQ camps sought sanctuary in South Waziristan.
15. The Ghazi brothers were released after the Pakistani minister for religious affairs Ijaz ul-Haq (General Zia ul-Haq’s son) intervened on their behalf (Pardesi 2008: 98).
16. Prominent examples include Ilyas Kashmiri and Badr Mansoor.
17. Hakimullah Mehsud, the TTP amir killed in November 2013, was previously the group’s leader for Orakzai, the area where a tribal leader affiliated with SSP first raised a Taliban force using the name Tehreek-e-Taliban in 1999. His relative Qari Hussain Mehsud (known as Ustad-e-Fedayin, or “trainer of the suicide bombers”), who is also deceased, was a member of the SSP and LeJ before joining the TTP. The local TTP commander in Darra Adam Khel, Tariq Afridi, was another former SSP member. He was also affiliated with LeJ, helping it to become one of the most active groups in the area. Darra Adam Khel is strategically located on the highway connecting Peshawar with Karachi, which is used by NATO supply convoys headed into Afghanistan via Torkham. The area also provided a jumping-off point for SSP/LeJ and JeM militants participating in operations in Upper Orakzai, where some militants fled following military incursions into South Waziristan in 2004. For a rich discussion of the sectarian influence on the insurgency in Pakistan, see Abou Zahab 2012.
18. For a copy of the Nizam e Adl Regulation, 2009, see BBC 2009.
19. Each side has lobbed artillery shells at the other, with both typically claiming such actions are in response to a corresponding provocation or to cross-border militant traffic.
20. These tensions played out when American military and intelligence officials confirmed Mullah Fazlullah, the Swat Taliban leader, was operating from northeast Afghanistan. One of their number said he was an “other-side-of-the-border problem.” A spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul countered this explanation, saying Fazlullah “remains a person of interest” and that coalition forces would attempt to take him out if they received actionable intelligence (Priest 2012).
21. LeT has published books and produced a number of audiocassettes criticizing al-Qaeda and the TTP and labeling their members apostates, a message that its leaders also deliver during sermons. Its leaders assert (in writings such as the sermon “The Schism of Excommunication”) that accusing another Muslim of apostasy, as al-Qaeda and the TTP have done to the Pakistani authorities, is a dangerous practice and that if there is any reason to doubt the accusation then the accuser has sinned gravely (Rabbani n.d.). To defend the Pakistani state’s cooperation with America, LeT leaders and clerics argue that cooperating with non-Muslims for worldly profit (in this case foreign aid) makes a Muslim misguided, but not an apostate. Indeed, Muslims are only apostates if they actively fight against other Muslims, and LeT leaders argue that operations in the tribal areas do not count because this is done to protect the Pakistani population. Further, they aver that those who murder Muslims instead fighting the true enemy—that is, Christians, Jews, and Hindus—are apostates (author interview July 2011; Fair 2011a). Al-Qaeda refuted points from “The Schism of Excommunication” in the book titled Knowledgeable Judgment on the Mujrites of the (Present) Age. For further consideration of ideological divisions among militant groups, see White in this volume.
22. For example, during Operation Rah-e-Nijat (2009–2010), Pakistan brokered deals with Mullah Nazir’s group in South Waziristan and Hafiz Gul Bahadur in North Waziristan in which both were asked to refuse to sanctuary or safe passage to TTP militants in exchange for aid and a ceasefire agreement (Jones and Fair 2010: 73).
23. LeT/JuD has been attempting to become an important player in Pakistan’s political landscape, launching mass protests against international issues like Danish cartoons and domestic ones such as Pakistan’s women’s protection bill. In addition to playing a leading role on the Difa-e-Pakistan Council, some of its members have run for office, albeit not on the JuD line (author interview; Green 2012; MacDonald 2012; Rana 2012).
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