ISIL expanded suddenly over the last year and a half, from half-forgotten bombing outfit in western Iraq to regional danger. It has won the allegiance of unaffiliated Islamist groups as well as those formerly bound to al Qaeda. Attention is on North Africa and the Middle East, but conditions conducive to ISIL’s growth exist pervade most of the Islamic world. (See my “Hearts of Darkness along the Tigris and Euphrates”)
Pakistan is especially vulnerable to ISIL expansion. The country’s importance for regional stability and the effort to stabilize Afghanistan is clear. So too is the army’s possession of a sizable and growing number of nuclear weapons.
State ideology
The Pakistani government disseminates an intolerant, militant, and violent ideology that is an admixture of austere Islam and hyper-nationalism. This state ideology emerged in the aftermath of the 1971 war which saw India handily defeat the Pakistani army. East Pakistan was lopped off and became the new country of Bangladesh. Pakistan lost considerable territory, resources, and prestige, and felt vulnerable to further disintegration. Politicians and generals needed a national creed to hold the country together. Mullahs helped.
The result was an especially militant ideology, drawing freely from a preexisting anti-western interpretation of Islam (Deobandism) and a paranoid-style of nationalism that had been wounded then exaggerated by poor showings against India. In political development, economic growth, and most of all in three wars, Pakistan has been embarrassed by its Hindu foe.
State ideology encourages acts of terrorism, especially against India and indigenous Shias whom they deem supportive of Iran after the Khomeini Revolution (1979). Though not sharing ISIL’s vision of a restored caliphate, state ideology envisions the army as securing national greatness.
State militant groups
The army created a number of militant groups to increase its power. The army funnels money and arms to them and aids them in infiltration and operations.
Lashkar-i-Jhangvi strikes at Shia people which Sunni Islam sees as heretical and which state ideology sees as potential agents of Iran.
Control of Kashmir, the territory bitterly disputed by Pakistan and India since 1948, is an essential part of state ideology. The army organized at least two groups (Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Mohammed) to conduct terrorist attacks and insurgent activities in Kashmir. Lashkar-i-Taiba struck deep into India with the 2009 Mumbai attack.
Many of these groups train in and operate from base camps in northwestern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. Fighters learn from one another and move from one outfit to another. Organizational boundaries are fluid.
Many fighters are trained by, and operate with, al Qaeda, which has avoided destruction since 2001 and ensconced itself along the Af-Pak line. The Pakistani army, at least parts of it, protect al Qaeda for its help in training Kashmiri guerrillas. Little wonder that Osama bin Laden was found living comfortably a stone’s throw from an army base.
In recent years the Af-Pak base camps have welcomed an influx of international fighters – Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens, and Uighurs. They come to train before retuning home to the restive Caucasus region and Central Asia.
The Afghan Taliban operate mainly to the north but enjoy sanctuaries inside Pakistan and support from its military. They are focused on their own country. But there is an internationalist element and defections to ISIL are occurring.
The Pakistani army has an increasingly uneasy relationship with these client groups. The country is under pressure from the international community, especially the US and China, to break with them. Client groups see deference to foreign powers as a sign of impending betrayal and lack of faith.
Secession movements
Poor government leads to insurgencies, as in Mali, Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia, and elsewhere. Government in Pakistan alternates between an oligarchy of landowners and a clique of generals – neither of which governs well. Two insurgencies are underway.
The Pashtun tribes of the Northwest frontier are fighting for autonomy and battling the state for duplicitously cooperating with the US in the Afghan war. They already have a measure of autonomy based on treaties hammered out with British colonial administrators over a century ago which Islamabad has generally respected. There is also a large Pashtun refugee population far away from the mountains, especially in the port city of Karachi. Islamist militancy has spread in many urban neighborhoods.
The Pashtun movements of Pakistan are more international in outlook than their kin of the Afghan Taliban. They have made common cause with the previously mentioned internationalist fighters ensconced in eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan.
A second insurgency has been underway continuously in the western province of Baluchistan – a territory seized by Pakistan shortly after independence in 1947. It is forty-one percent of the country’s land area, rich in minerals, and site of a promising trade corridor with Central Asia. The Baluchs would welcome a break from Islamabad.
Baluch separatists, however, are more secular than Pashtun separatists, al Qaeda, and ISIL. Their interests are national and they are not likely to cooperate with Islamist groups. Indeed, the Pakistani army has at times employed Islamists to help repress Baluchs.
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Pakistan is ripe for radical Islamist expansion. ISIL has already established itself just to the north in Afghanistan and undoubtedly sees potential to the south. It has organizational talents, financial resources, and the appeal of military victories in the Middle East under its belt. It appears as a rising, irresistible force that has struck fear into western and regional rulers.
Pakistan may accept ISIL pockets inside its territory. There is little to prevent it if ISIL adroitly plays to disgruntled Pakistanis. The generals may note a common hostility to the West, Shiism, and Hinduism, and attempt to channel ISIL into objectives in Kashmir and Afghanistan. Acquiescence would be only a temporary respite from disintegration.
©2015 Brian M Downing