Waziristan, comprising of two erstwhile Agencies: North Waziristan and South Waziristan, is a hilly region within former FATA agencies of Pakistan which is now part of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. The destabilisation of the region started with the advent of the British in the 19th century and reached a climax after the USSR invasion in 1979. This area became a haven of terrorists across two nations i.e. Pakistan and Afghanistan and became a threat to the security of the two countries. Successive events caused the death toll of more than 40,000 civilians and defence personnel since 2001.
This paper will try to find out the reasons behind the destabilisation of the region and the consequences of the insurgency in the social, political, economic, and cultural spheres of Waziristan. The paper will also seek to find out how the world of professional armies deals with the situation in which soldiers will fight against their citizens. International interference was also one of the key components while handling the situation as Pakistan under the leadership of the USA waged war against terrorism in the post-9/11 era. This paper will also look at the way a peace accord was drafted between the parties and became another failure.
Conflicts have remained an important feature of human civilisation. Individual conflict in Hobbes’ state of nature became an organised and societal one with progress in the formation of identities. In South Asia, the dominance of realism and the non-security community has made conflict inevitable within different societies even after the inception of independent nations. Around seventy years since its establishment, Pakistan has not been able to gain control across the geographical expansion. Analysts have noted that such regions include around 60% of Pakistani territory. This phenomenon has repercussions for stability and disturbs the peace and governing attempts in adjacent Afghanistan, Iran, Central Asian Republics, and India.
From a strategic point of view, Waziristan in the Federally Administered Tribal Area of Pakistan has a very striking position within geopolitics. Afghanistan shares its border area with Pakistan through this patch from the west and 20 km away from the resource-rich Central Asian Republics. It is connecting the bridge between South and Central Asia. The history of the region is led by fierce wars and bloodshed to maintain independence. (Afridi, 2014).
Waziristan is situated between the Kurram River in the north and the Gomal River to the south. They are part of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, North Waziristan, and South Waziristan. According to the 2017 census of Pakistan, the population of North Waziristan is 543,254 while that of South Waziristan is 674,065. Waziristan occupies around 11,585 square kilometres. The area is populated by ethnic Pashtuns. It is named after the Wazir tribe. The language spoken in the area is Pashto. Economically it is not well developed and around 60% of the population is living below the poverty line. It is a semi-arid area. Agriculture, transport, arms manufacturing, and trade are important economic activities in the area.
Smuggling is very common across the border, due to closeness to war-torn Afghanistan. The literacy rate is not very exciting compared to rest of the Pakistan. Low employment opportunities make this place recruit hub for terrorist organisations. Similarly, the prevailing legal system in the area was a significant and fundamental obstacle to the progress of the region. Exploitation in the political and economic sphere and mental misery is also accorded to criminal activities (Dawn, November 16, 2009).
From the 1850s until their exit in 1947, British powers battled Pashtun revolts in Waziristan at tremendous misfortunes of life to either side. At the point when Pakistan incepted, inborn older folks chose to join Pakistan in Bannu Tribal Jirga in a gathering with Mohammad Ali Jinnah in 1947. Before all else, FATA has avoided a standard established structure because of some specific reasons and managed under a famous guideline Frontier Crimes Regulations of 1901. Tragically, the progressive legislatures of Pakistan have not given full thought to the tribal district and regularly utilised it for their intermediaries.
The issue turned out to be far more atrocious in the period of the 1980s when Afghan outcasts resettled in the area. Gradually and step by step, the innate zones experienced the impact of incredible culprits because of the nonappearance of a standard instrument of legitimate law. Al-Qaeda has bit by bit made advances into Pakistani terrorist associations like the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Harkat-ul-Jihad Al-Islami (HuJI), Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), and keeping in mind that it is still a long way from framing an umbrella association incorporating every one of them, it is moving discernibly toward that path. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has united its situation in North Waziristan regardless of the military’s counter-uprising effort and seems fit to break out of its fortress to neighbouring zones.
‘Pakhtunwali’ and War on Terror’ are the associated wordings; examining the point between the two up to what degrees and restrictions, Pakhtunwali has assumed a job in the present war, and how it has been misused or downgraded by the Pakistani government, radicals, aggressors, outside on-screen characters for their appropriated advantages. The ‘Pakhtuns patriots’ beating a huge region, and its key position contacts the Afghan outskirts. (Elahi, 2015) Furthermore, the Pakhtuns have customary codes of behaviour and private standards.
Alongside it, ‘Pakhtunwali’ remains upon numerous highlights: love of Allah, dedication, unselfishness worship of Allah, loyalty, unselfishness love for friends, hospitality (melmestia), Panah (refuge) purdah (covering of whole-body dress), Revenge and Avenge (Badal)(Khan, 2017). In all the referenced characteristics, friendliness, asylum, and retribution are the important elements of a Pakhtun code public activity. The originating from the outskirt were treated as visitors and they were treated under nearby conventions.
‘Panah’ is the standard code of ‘Pakhutnwali’, through which the host preserves and safeguards their visitors or ‘Panah-wanter’ even from their belligerents, and heathens. Offering Panah to a ‘persecuted’ is considered and contemplated as one of the effortless structures. Jirga is an exceptionally huge mainstay of the Pakhtun society and is the main legal framework It plays a very contributive role in finishing disputes among the tribal. That is the reason; it is viewed as a ‘spine’ in the ‘legal arrangement’ of the ‘Pakhun’ and a tribal society. this pillar was led by eminent tribal elders (maliks) and other smooth (Political Agents) from the administration’s viewpoint. Gradually and step by step, the Mujahideen compelled the legal framework (Jirga) in their grasp and passionate and killed the unmistakable Maliks (ancestral older folks) who were turning out to be not kidding danger and obstacle in their manner and undertakings. In the underlying time, Mujahedeen dealt with the mind of the Pakhtuns.
After some time, bribery, nepotism, and corruption began given the passage of of violent and extremist agents. These primitive networks and affiliations rubbished the climate under the standard and motto of expert and hostile to the government. These fanatics entered ‘Waziristan’ and completely commandeered their social and private lives; the Taliban killed and slaughtered their agile, conscious and noteworthy tribal elders, Maliks, under prevailing conspiracies (Tipu, 2013).
The birthplace of this revile isn’t the creation of the current day however its heritage can be found in the vulnerable war period. The military systems were the rearing wellspring of militancy in Pakistan. Concerning this developing danger, Pakistan was being considered as the epicentre of global terrorism for the foreseeable future. ‟ By and large, the number of insurgent groups in Pakistan soared to 60 militant outfits. Most of these insurgents not only strove to overthrow the Pakistan government but they also aspire to be a part of global Jihad.” (Rashid, 2012)
The former USSR attack on Afghanistan in 1979 had developed the plant of this curse in the region in general both in Pakistan and Afghanistan specifically. The back-and-forth began between these two superpowers in the form of proxies. In these intermediary wars, Pakistan was properly utilized by the US against the Soviet Union. In this subtle war against the USSR, Pakistan was completely worn by the USA through dollars while Saudi Arabia’s help was seen looking like jihadists from different Middle Eastern nations. After the evisceration of the Russian Federation, the different jihadist bunches were left with no proportion of check and parity in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Thus, these warlords, mujahedeen, and pastorate turned out to be extremely powerful with the progression of time, and subsequently, the brunt and nearness of two associations Al Qaeda and Taliban have been knowledgeable to the world. This 9/11 occurrence transformed the entire world into a war against terror.
The United States of America with her NATO partners assaulted poor Afghanistan for vengeance. The Musharraf government also became an ally of America in the war against terror in Afghanistan. The harshness and brunt of this assault were no uncertainty experienced in the tribal regions of Pakistan similar to a veteran in Afghanistan. The Pakistani mujahedeen in tribal territories loathed this activity of the Musharraf organization and rearranged under the umbrella of Tehrik-I-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other aggressors gatherings (See https://nation.com.pk/21-Feb-2017/reasons for militancy).
In the fallout of the Battle of Tora Bora (lit. Dark Caves), a formal troop deployment was started by the Pakistan Army, at the command of the Pakistan Government, in 2002. The traditionalist gatherings, most quite the Pakistan Muslim League, were extremely condemning of such troop organizations in the district. The XI Corps, under its administrator Lieutenant-General Jan Aurkzai, entered the Tirah Valley in the Khyber valley for the first time since Pakistan’s independence in 1947. The military troops later moved into the Shawal Valley of North Waziristan and, in the long run, entered South Waziristan. Criticism of Musharraf and the Bush grew in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2003, demanding an end to the operations. (The Dawn 2002).
In 2003, the difficulties mounted as the Tribes saw the military’s organization and rehashed PAF’s flights in the area as a demonstration of oppression. In 2003–04 open addresses, Musharraf repeatedly called for the eviction of the foreign fighters from South Waziristan and justified the army deployments in the region despite the concerns. In December 2003, at any rate, two assassination attempts against President Musharraf were followed in South Waziristan. The legislature reacted by escalating military weight on the territory. Notwithstanding, the battle was exorbitant: government powers continued overwhelming setbacks all through 2004 and into mid-2005 when the administration changed to a strategy of arrangement rather than direct clash. (David 2006)
As the Pakistan armed force’s past operational ability lay in making and fuelling insurrections and not in battling them, it neglected to detect that it was making a Frankenstein beast at home by empowering fundamentalist psychological oppression abroad and neglected to battle the scourge viably for right around 10 years. Enormous regions of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and FATA (including Waziristan) have been under Taliban control for a long time. The test of Pakistan’s sway in Swat and Buner was tended to with beast power simply after the Taliban had all the earmarks of being on a triumphant walk to Islamabad.
The insurrection in South Waziristan was handled on a war balance following quite a while of stalling, however, the writ of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) still runs in North Waziristan. The regular citizen organization keeps on putting its trust in the bogus expectation that it can sign tough harmony manage the Taliban – a strategy that has been bombed before.
On 16 March 2004, a bloody battle between the Pakistan Army troops and the foreign fighters of al-Qaeda was fought in the Mountains of South Waziristan. The Pakistani media guessed that the Pakistan Army had encircled a “high-value target ” in the rocky area, perhaps al-Qaeda’s then-second-in-order Ayman al-Zawahiri. As indicated by the military knowledge in 2004, all activists were Chechens, Uzbeks, and Tajiks who were attempting to escape Black Caves (Tora Bora of Afghanistan). Following seven days of the fight, the whole zone was captured as many as 400 al-Qaeda base stations were seized by the Pakistan Army (Khan, 2004). Disregarding its prosperity, the military failed to capture Zawahiri.
In April 2004, the Government of Pakistan consented to the Shakai arrangement, the first of three harmonious concurrences with aggressors in South Waziristan. It was signed by militia commander Nek Muhammad Wazir, yet was quickly repealed once Nek Muhammad was slaughtered by an American Hellfire rocket in June 2004. The subsequent one, the Sararogha Peace Agreement, was marked in February 2005 with Nek’s replacement Baitullah Mehsud, which got relative peace in the South Waziristan area. This arrangement would later, in September 2006, be impersonated in the neighbouring North Waziristan region as the third and last détente, the Miranshah Peace Accord, between the administration and the militants. However, these ceasefires would not have a significant impact in lessening carnage. (David, 2006)
Pakistan government marked on 5 September 2006, the understanding was known as the “Waziristan Accord”— an understanding among inborn pioneers, aggressors, and the Pakistan government was marked in Miranshah, North Waziristan. to end all battling. The agreement, named the Waziristan Accord, has been seen by some political reporters as a triumph for Pakistan.
On 30 October 2006, the United States led a fatal rocket airstrike on a madrassa in the Bajaur locale circumscribing Afghanistan. The strike murdered 82 seminary students. Long War Journal accused the U.S. of the air strike as only the U.S. had the capability to lead accurately in night strikes in the region This strike resulted in one more wave of insurgency as the deal was broken by the strike.
The attack on Lal Masjid was one of the genuine breaches in the conflict and escalated the conflict in the late spring of 2007. On 3 July 2007, the activist supporters of Lal Masjid and the Pakistan police conflicted in Islamabad after the understudies from the mosque assaulted and stoned the close by MoE secretariat. The Pakistan police, helped by the Pakistan Army Rangers promptly set up an attack around the mosque complex which went on until 11 July and brought about 108 fatalities. This reflected the fundamental impetus for the contention and inevitable breakdown of the détente that existed between Pakistan and the Taliban gatherings. Previously during the attack, there were a few assaults in Waziristan in retaliation for the siege.
Before the end of October 2007, another substantial battle occurred in the Swat area of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province between the Frontier Police and the huge part of the far conservative TNSM association, under the order of Maulana Fazlullah who was attempting to force Sharia law. On 3 November 2007, around ~220 paramilitary troopers and police personnel surrendered or deserted after a military position on a hilltop and two police stations were overrun. This left the TNSM in charge of a large portion of the Swat locale.
An undeniable military activity called ‘Zalzala (lit. earthquake) was embraced by the Fourteenth Army Division in January to flush out Baitullah Mehsud’s TTP warriors from the region. The activity brought about strategic achievement and scores of aggressors were killed during the activity, and within three days the military was in full control of the zone. Nonetheless, the activity prompted a colossal uprooting of the nearby populace. As per the GOC of the Fourteenth Army Division’s Major-General Tariq Khan, around 200,000 men, ladies, and kids were dislodged. Khalid Aziz, previous boss secretary of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and master on tribal issues, said the relocation was “one of the greatest in tribal history”.
Before 7 February 2008, the TTP had offered a détente to Musharraf and peace dealings bringing about a suspension of violence. On 21 May 2008, the Government consented to a peace arrangement with the Tehrik-I-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Also known as the Second Battle of Swat, Pakistan airborne powers watched the Swat Valley at its most elevated point in the wake of crushing the Taliban, in 2009. On 26 April 2009, the unified Pakistan Armed Forces began the tactical and strategic airborne assault, codename Black Thunderstorm, with the motive of retaking Buner, Lower Dir, Swat and Shangla districts from the TTP. This joint army-navy-air force operation was all around practised and arranged. The fighter jets of the Navy and flying corps began pounding the militant hideouts while the army kept advancing in the militant hideouts. On the whole, as per the military, 128 fighters and more than ~1,475 aggressors were killed and 317 soldiers were injured during Operation Black Thunderstorm. ~95 soldiers and police officers were caught by the militants; all were rescued by the military. 114 foreign fighters were caught, including some local leaders.
Because of the IMU’s Jinnah Airport assault on 8 June 2014, the Pakistani launched an operation on 15 June 2014 against the militants in North Waziristan including the Tehrik-I-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Al-Qaeda, East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Haqqani organize. Up to 30,000 soldiers were associated with the operation. It had been portrayed as a “comprehensive operation” that meant to flush out foreign and local terrorists sheltered in North Waziristan. By December 2015, somewhere in the range of 3,400 Pakistani Taliban and their associated contenders were killed in a comprehensive operation, as indicated by the ISPR.
In questioning parliamentarians on 19 October 2011, the ISPR expressed that a total of ~3,097 soldiers and personnel were killed and 721 others were permanently disabled in the war on terror. The ISI lost 63 of its workforce inferable from targeted attacks on ISI establishments. In a report, it affirmed that since 2001 a total of ~40,309 Pakistanis, both military and civilians, had lost their lives in insurgency. Furthermore, a total of ~3,097 soldiers and personnel were killed and 721 others were permanently disabled in the war on terror and endured an amazing number of human losses, as indicated by the reports ~20,742 activists 20,742 militants had been killed or captured by February 2010.
Studies and research directed by Pakistan’s Pakistan’s leading economists and financial experts, the war hit Pakistan’s national economy “hard”, and the results delivered by the war on the nation’s national economy were astounding and unforeseen to Pakistan’s military and economic planners. The Pakistani government’s economic institutions referred to the conflict as “economic terrorism” and according to Pakistani officials, the indirect and direct cost of the war was around $2.67 billion in 2001–02, which reached up to $13.6 billion by 2009–10, was projected to rise to $17.8 billion in the 2010–11 financial year. (The Nation, 21 July 2012 The terrorist activities have adversely affected the tribal people’s social fabric as well as life. Incessant attacks on public places for example markets, government workplaces, and private associations have diminished business openings.
The individuals feel afraid of going to markets, shopping centres, and even their working offices. In 2009-10, the unemployment ratio increased from 0.10 million to 0.12 million because of fanatic assaults in metropolitan and settled regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The official information is inaccessible for FATA yet we can undoubtedly compute the joblessness proportion in FATA with the overarching force of militancy in tribal territories. So also, the counter-rebellion measures in those territories have likewise left grave impacts on FATA’s kin’s lives. Military tasks and curfews have additionally harmed the monetary exercises, their lives, homes, towns, properties, and even urban communities and became IDPs in the nearby settled zones (Khan, 2013).
It is a dismal fact that in the war-hit territories right around 458 educational organizations were crushed and shut down during militancy and military activities. In the referenced figure 317 young men’s instructive foundations brokenness while 141 female schools were inert (Naqvi, and Shah, 2012). The entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increment endured due to an extreme flood of terrorism. The subsequent factor is money-related misfortunes and the ascent in credit danger of the nation which shows that Pakistan experienced budgetary misfortunes by debilitating to take care of the advances it obtained from monetary associations especially the IMF (Economic Survey of Pakistan, 2013).
Joblessness is the third aberrant cost, which is the monstrous mishap of prevailing unrest in the affected areas like KPK and FATA. Enormous losses in the agribusiness part businesses and tourist resorts, reciprocally, thousands of people have lost their jobs. The fourth one is the tremendous dislodging of the nearby populace. Insurrection and counter-uprising endeavours by the Pakistani govt. a large number of individuals were dislodged from FATA into the settled locale of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The fifth weakening expense of rebellion is the deferral of execution of development projects in KPK & FATA (Pasha, 2013).
Yet, some positive results from the war are before militancy and military tasks and the aftermath of the 9/11 occurrence, this region was not getting looked at by the govt. of Pakistan, policymakers, and according to global players. Due to the increasing intensity of militancy in the region attracted the attention of Pakistan’s policymakers for political reforms, otherwise, the area will remain as it was before (Khan, 2016). The tribal women didn’t take part in any political movement before militancy and military activities yet in general elections a women started participating in politics.
Also, various ladies’ associations like ‘Takra Qabaili Khwaindy’ and FSO ‘FATA Student’s Association Ladies Wing’ are assuming a functioning job in ladies’ privileges in FATA. In the ongoing political exercises and reform package, the women social activists from the tribal region have demanded complete participation from the pout. These women’s organizations have also demanded equal representation in the legislation process in FATA reforms and expressed their desire for the FATA merger in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Ibrahim, 2016).
The region traditionally remains the boiling point of geopolitics. As Lord Curzon widely said, it is the graveyard of empires. The use-and-throw policy of superpowers and feeding monsters of terrorism has shown counter effects in the region in recent times. Intervention by the USA in the name of the ‘global war on terror’ is seen as an unwanted move and suppression of local aspirations by the freedom-seeking locals. Moreover, the topography of the region is such that air strikes are proved to be ineffective in preventing counterinsurgency. Desperate measures from both sides resulted in disastrous living conditions, especially for women and children. With their lives, they have sacrificed their dignity and future as well.
The unique thing about Northwest Pakistan is There is no militant group in the world that you won’t find here, From Uzbeks to Chechens, to Chinese and Turkish militants, everyone is free in N.W. This situation makes it difficult to maintain law and order in the region. When you are dealing with a group as diverse and internally divided as the Pakistani Taliban, then you can never be sure that every sub-group would honour talks. Religion, the culture of the region, and the theological dimension introduced in the Pakistan army of Zia Ul Haq kept the morale of the fight in a dilemma.
There can never be a military or a simply political answer for an insurgency. A counter-insurgency strategy is a dynamic yet adjusted blend of forceful hostile tasks directed with an empathetic touch and socio-economic development. Political arrangements to address the central issues of estrangement of the populace and other political demands should likewise conducted with the local leadership at the same time. The tribal culture dominating the NWFP and FATA, with its furious ethnic loyalties and its diffused initiative, makes the assignment of the military and the administration increasingly troublesome. The need to follow a coordinated methodology at the national level is the panacea of the problem.
The management of governance, development, and security must continue along equal lines if the root causes of insurgency are to be successfully addressed in the long term… The army would do well to recognise, examine and learn from the counter-insurgency principle that the Indian army has so successfully followed for 20 years in Jammu and Kashmir and over half a century in India’s north-eastern region. Efforts would be for better coordination between the army, intelligence and federal and provincial governments for effective implementation of the civilian and military strategy in letter and spirit to counter such situations in the future.
During the worldwide fall of Communism, beginning in the 1980s, the West was gripped by…
Edward Hallett Carr is perhaps the greatest and most authentic authority when it comes to…
“The Army is the nation and the nation is with the Army”, COAS General Ashfaq…
Few scholarly works have modest beginnings but have become one of the most renowned seminal…
Few people in the USSR saw the end of the Cold War as a setback…
In 1921, Vladimir Lenin initiated a new economic agenda for the Soviet Union, which had…