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Peshawar Mosque Bomb Blast Rattles Pakistan

As You Sow, So Shall You Reap

Dr. N. C. Asthana, IPS (Retd)

In the suicide bomb attack in a mosque in the Police Lines of Peshawar (the
capital of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), on January 30, 100 people
have been killed and 221 severely wounded, making it one of the deadliest
terrorist attacks. Ninety-seven of the dead were police officers. In a tweet,
Sarbakaf Mohmand, a commander of the terrorist group TTP (Tehreek-e-
Taliban, Pakistan, aka Pakistani Taliban) claimed responsibility for the attack.
According to a local police officer some 300 namazis were present and those
who survived the blast were injured when the roof and a wall came crashing
down. Capital City Police Officer (CCPO), Peshawar Mohammad Aijaz Khan
told Geo TV that the head of the suspect suicide bomber had been recovered
from the debris.

Sarbakaf is an interesting name for a terrorist. The Persian composite word Sar-
ba-Kaf, means one who carries his head in his hands, that is, he is ever ready to
die for a cause. The name, most probably assumed by him, tells a lot about the
organization he belongs to. He is believed to be the brother of the slain TTP
commander Umar Khalid Khurasani who was killed last August in Afghanistan.
Sarbakaf said that the attack was a part of the revenge attacks they had planned.
However, about ten hours later, saying that the TTP did not attack places of
worship, the TTP spokesperson Mohammad Khurasani sought to distance the
TTP from the attack even as he remained silent on the claim of Sarbakaf. Most
analysts maintain the TTP to be the most likely suspect.

Security Lapse or ‘Inside Hand’?

It is not yet clear as to how the suicide bomber managed to slip into the walled
campus, which houses Peshawar’s police headquarters and is itself located in a
high security zone with other government buildings. Hamid Mir, journalist with
Geo TV, tweeted that the defence minister Khawaja M. Asif had claimed that
someone from inside the Police Lines had facilitated the suicide bomber. I am
inclined to agree with this. Otherwise, gaining access to the secured area with a
suicide vest is not possible—even simple frisking could have detected it.
Mohammad Aijaz Khan said that it was possible that the attacker was already
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present in the Police Lines before the blast and that he may have used an official
vehicle to enter with the explosive. This also supports the ‘inside hand’ theory.

What is the TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban, Pakistan)?

In the wake of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, many Pakistani

militants who had earlier fought in Afghanistan in the Mujahideen war, turned
against the Pakistani state for its support of the United States’ so-called global
war on terror—this was just one of their many grievances. They began
sheltering the Afghan Taliban, al-Qaeda, and other militants who were fleeing
from the US forces in Afghanistan.

The US put pressure on Pakistan for taking action against them. However, as K.
Alan Kronstadt et al pointed out in their 2008 study for the Congressional
Review Service, there were serious doubts about Pakistan’s real commitment to
it and the operations were largely ineffectual. The militant groups actually grew
stronger and more aggressive. This eventually led to the establishment of the
TTP in 2007. To appease the USA, Pakistan banned it on paper in August 2008
itself.

The TTP was set up as an umbrella organization of several militant groups of

Pakistan in support of the Taliban in Afghanistan to fight against the USA. [The
word Tehreek in Arabic means a movement. Taliban is bad Arabic for the plural
of Talib meaning student. The correct plural of Talib is Tullab or Tulaba.
However, some ignorant person, on the pattern of say, Sahiban being the plural
of Sahib, made Taliban the plural of Talib. By Talib, the reference was to the
training schools for Mujahideen, which were run in Pakistan under the cover of
madaris (plural of madrisa), that is, religious schools.]

The TTP claims that its armed struggle is intended to establish an Islamic
political system in Pakistan based on the group’s interpretation of Sharia, a task
it says was the main goal for establishing Pakistan in 1947. According to
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, they have several thousand cadres
with strongholds on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The TTP has been experiencing a strong resurgence since the Afghan Taliban
and US government signed a peace deal in February 2020. Since July 2020, ten
militant groups opposed to Pakistan have merged with the TTP, including,
among others, three Pakistani affiliates of al-Qaeda and four major factions that
had separated from the TTP in 2014. These groups include the Amjad Farouqi
group, one faction of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the Musa Shaheed Karwan group,
Mehsud factions of the TTP, Mohmand Taliban, Bajaur Taliban, Jamaat-ul-
Ahrar, and Hizb-ul-Ahrar. The Taliban victory in Afghanistan in August 2021
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was a shot in the arm for them. On their part, the Afghan Taliban released TTP
leaders and fighters who had been arrested by the previous administrations in
Kabul.

According to Abdullah Khan, a senior defence analyst with the Pakistan

Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, the TTP have expressed their
allegiance to the head of the Afghan Taliban but have their own agenda and
strategy, which includes stricter enforcement of Islamic laws, the release of its
members in government custody, and a reduction in Pakistani military presence
in those parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, that it has long used as a base.

Hitherto the TTP has been mainly targeting Pakistani forces, in a manner
similar to and reminiscent of the Afghan Taliban’s war against the Americans.
They are believed to have been responsible for the 2009 attack on army
headquarters, Rawalpindi and the dastardly 2014 attack on the Army Public
School (APS) in Peshawar, killing at least 150 people, including 131 students.

What Was The Bomb Like?

Usually, suicide bomb vests and belts, because of the obvious limitation of
keeping a profile that is as flat as possible and does not bulge out
conspicuously, are designed as anti-personnel weapons. The explosive is not
much (generally a few hundred grams) but the emphasis is on shrapnel.
However, in this case, given the fact that the roof (that is, the floor of the first
floor) and a wall collapsed, it means that the amount of explosive was in the
range of several kilograms—may be 10 kg of plastic explosive or more. For
illustration, the C-4 plastic explosive comes in blocks of 1.25 pounds (US
Army’s standard M112 demolition charge block) which are 1.5x2x11 inches in
size. For 10 kg, 18 blocks will be needed. It is difficult to believe that this much
quantity could have remained inconspicuous on his person in spite of the winter
clothing. We are told that the bomber was in the front row—this was probably
with the assistance of those who helped him go inside first.

Provocation for the Present Attack and Its Background

In late November 2022, the TTP called off a ceasefire that it had entered into
with the Pak federal government in June. Later, calling upon their cadres, they
said that as military operations had been continuing against them in different
areas, it was imperative for them to carry out attacks wherever they could in the
entire country. They made a special reference to the spectacular army operation
in December 2022, when Pakistan Army’s Special Services Group (SSG)
stormed the CTD (Counter Terrorism Department) police station in Bannu
district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where the detained TTP cadres had snatched
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weapons from the police and then had taken hostages—the SSG killed all 33 of
the TTP at the cost of the martyrdom of two of their commandos.

Talks between government officials and the TTP, hosted by Afghanistan’s

Taliban rulers in Kabul, had first started in October 2021 but broke down in
December 2021. They were resumed in May 2022. However, it again ran into a
deadlock on the question of the revocation of the merger of FATA (Federally
Administered Tribal Areas) with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They also resented the
continued detention of TTP cadres while a truce was still being negotiated.
Subsequently, they started attacking military targets in and around Dera Ismail
Khan, Tank, South Waziristan, and North Waziristan districts in Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa. They had warned the police of not associating in the operations
against them.

In October 2022, Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior had warned that more than a
year-long peace negotiations between the TTP and the government “had come
to a standstill”, which had led to unease within the TTP’s ranks. The
government had also warned that the risk of TTP sub-groups defecting to the
ISKP (Islamic State Khorasan Province) or joining hands with the Hafiz Gul
Bahadur group to resume terrorist activities. Hafiz was one of the founders of
the TTP but developed rivalry with Baitullah Mehsud. The TTP is also
reportedly upset with the rookie foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto calling for the
government to revisit its strategy to deal with the militant outfit.

Any alliance between the TTP and the ISKP could strengthen the ISKP and
worsen the threat it poses beyond the region. According to a US intelligence
assessment, the ISKP could be capable of mounting an attack in the West,
including in the United States.

The TTP Wants To Remain In the Time Warp of FATA

FATA was a semi-autonomous tribal region in north-western Pakistan

consisting of seven tribal agencies and six Frontier Regions. It was an area of
some 10,507 square miles, outside of Pakistan’s four provinces. They FATA are
bordered by Afghanistan to the west with the border marked by the Durand
Line, the North-West Frontier Province and the Punjab to the east, and
Baluchistan to the south. With a population of just about half a million, this is
the source of all trouble.

Keeping the area under constant military control to maintain order there was not
cost-effective for the British. They were therefore happy to trade the disorder
there with the fact that it served as a buffer from unrest in Afghanistan. The
British introduced the device of the so-called Frontier Crimes Regulations
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(FCR) 1901 to control the people there. This arrangement of ‘indirect rule’
granted power to local leaders—all civil and criminal cases were decided by a
‘jirga’ (council of elders). Government interference in local matters was kept to
a minimum through local-level tribal intermediaries, the maliks (representatives
of the tribes) and lungi holders (representatives of sub-tribes or clans), who
were influential members of their respective clan or tribe. The tribes regulated
their own affairs in accordance with customary rules and unwritten codes.

This system, a classic example of a time-warp, survived even after the creation
of Pakistan until 2018 when FATA was merged with the neighbouring province
of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the
Constitution of Pakistan.

Basically, the TTP simply wants to go back in time to an age where they could
live in their primitive, unruly, independent way—most importantly, without any
control—with the gun being the only rule. Modern administration and
governance are anathema to them. The tribal areas are as backward as one could
imagine in terms of modern amenities—the only thing modern there is
weaponry!

How Pakistan’s hobnobbing with terrorists started?

It started in the wake of the Mujahideen war against the Soviets. The US-driven
Mujahideen war against the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s
was one of the most brilliant covert operations ever designed in the history of
warfare and intelligence. The CIA’s covert operation was called ‘Operation
Cyclone’, in which they recruited, armed and trained fighters on a massive scale
—according to some estimates, the Mujahideen casualties were in the range of
150,000 to 180,000. It cost the US about $20 billion in that era.

Since the US was extremely particular about ‘plausible deniability’ for the
entire operation, they had no option but to involve the ISI in recruiting, arming
and training the Mujahideen. As the training had to be imparted secretly, the
invented the device of the madrisa. The CIA and ISI opened a large number of
such ‘Islamic schools’ in the remote, border areas. Instead of religious
education, they were given military training there. Arms for the Mujahideen
were arranged from the illicit arms bazaar across the world. Weapons were
shipped to Pakistan and from there they were sent over land to the fighters in
Afghanistan. Brig. Mohammad Yousaf of the ISI has described the operation in
detail in his books, ‘Afghanistan: The Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower’
and ‘Silent soldier: The man behind the Afghan Jehad General Akhtar Abdur
Rahman Shaheed’.
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The whole operation was brilliant in theory. However, there was an undesirable
side-effect. And the world is paying the price of that side-effect even now. ISI,
being closely involved in the whole process, pilfered a great quantity of arms
and money. Citing arms-trades specialist James Adams in his book, ‘Unholy
Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism’, John K. Cooley
writes that between the delivery point at Karachi to the border checkpoints of
the Pakistani army from where they were meant to be distributed to the
Mujahideen, the ISI pilfered about 50% of the arms, which ended up either in
their warehouses or sold off in international black market.

Why the Isi Continued To Play With Fire?

Having acquired that valuable experience of raising, training and equipping the
victorious force of the Mujahideen/Taliban fighters as a potent weapon, it was
difficult for the ISI to eschew the temptation of not using them for exporting
terror. However, at least for the sake of argument, the ISI had one strategic
reason for helping the Taliban come back to power in Afghanistan in their war
with the USA. By helping the Taliban come back to power, Pakistan sought to
ensure that its eastern frontier was rendered safe from two of its old fears:
Afghan alignment with India; and a massive influx of refugees that could cause
destabilisation among Pakistan’s Pashtuns.

In the 20 years from 2001 to 2021, the ISI pulled the wool over the American
eyes with such panache that, despite a constant uncomfortable feeling all along
about what they had been doing, the Americans could never pin any clear blame
on Pakistan. The ISI, while pretending to be an ally of the US in their two-
decade long war in Afghanistan, pulled the rug from under their feet. To
appease USA, Gen. Musharraf made them believe that they had undertaken 20-
months long counterterrorism operations against the militants hiding in FATA
in 2003, whereas they cleverly avoided putting all their might behind it. They
continued to equip the Taliban with weapons from the Mujahideen War. The
TTP could well be using some of these.

The ISI cleverly ‘made’ the Taliban ‘survive’ the military operations! As
Stephen Tankel discloses in his US Institute of Peace study, they established a
pattern of military incursions into FATA followed by peace deals that
empowered the pro-Taliban Pashtun militants. These included a February 2005
peace agreement with Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan and the September
2006 Waziristan Accord in North Waziristan.

Presently, politically, Pakistan has been in turmoil since several months, with
the PDM (Pakistan Democratic Movement) and PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf)
gunning for each other in a battle of nerves. In fact, people are yet to be
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convinced of the administrative credentials and capabilities of the government.

This situation provides an excellent opportunity for terrorist strikes to add to the
general chaos and the ‘climate of collapse’.

The Chickens Come Home to Roost

What Pakistan is facing today is their karma—you cannot keep on exporting

terror and hope to be immune to it. If the ‘inside hand’ theory in the present
attack is confirmed after investigations, it would also show how deep the
penetration of the jihadis is in the Pakistani society and administration.
Moreover, their helplessness in the matter of the Taliban government in
Afghanistan continuing to aid and shelter the TTP has made them pitiable. After
this attack also, the Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan could only lament
that Afghan Taliban must stand by their commitment to the international
community to not allow anyone to use their soil for attacks against another
country. According to the Voice of America, violence claimed by or blamed on
the TTP and other militant groups has killed almost 1,000 Pakistanis, including
nearly 300 men of the security forces, in some 376 terrorist attacks in 2022.
This represents an approximately 50 per cent increase since the Taliban came to
power in Afghanistan.

No one in history has ever been able to keep a poisonous snake as a harmless
pet, the way one keeps a dog or cat. Nature has had never created them for that
purpose. Sooner or later, the snake would bite you. This is precisely what has
happened to Pakistan and the terrorists fostered by them.

(Dr. N. C. Asthana, IPS (Retd) is a former DGP of Kerala and ADG

BSF/CRPF. Of the 51 books that he has authored, 20 are on terrorism, counter-
terrorism, defence, strategic studies, military science and internal security, etc.
They have been reviewed at very high levels in the world and are regularly cited
for authority in the research works at some of the most prestigious professional
institutions of the world such as the US Army Command & General Staff
College and Frunze Military Academy, Russia.)