Beyond the Double Game: Lessons from Pakistan’s Approach to Islamist Militancy

ABSTRACT

States commonly take one of three approaches to militant groups on their soil: collaboration; benign neglect; or belligerence. All three approaches are present in Pakistan, where some groups also move back and forth among these categories. I employ the term “coopetition” to capture this fluidity. The dynamic nature of militancy in Pakistan makes the country an excellent laboratory for exploring a state’s assessment of the utility an Islamist militant group offers, and the threat it poses relative to other threats informs the state’s treatment of that group. In this article, I put forward a typology that situates Islamist militants in Pakistan in one of the above four categories. I also illustrate how a group’s identity, objectives, and alliances inform assessments of its utility and threat relative to other threats. In addition to enhancing our understanding of militant–state dynamics, this taxonomy builds on and helps to unify earlier typologies of Pakistani militancy.

KEYWORDS:

• Pakistan
• India
• Afghanistan
• Terrorism
• Taliban
• Haqqani Network
• Pakistani Taliban
• Lashkar-e-Taiba
• Typology

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ERRATUM

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Laura Tyler, Pavan Rajgopal, and Yumna Fatima for their assistance. This article also benefited from enormously helpful comments from two anonymous reviewers.

Notes

¹ Shashank Bengali and Aoun Sahi, ‘Kerry urges Pakistan to keep up fight against militants’, Los Angeles Times, 13 January 2015, <http://www.latimes.com/world/afghanistan-pakistan/la-fg-pakistan-kerry-militants-20150113-story.html>.

² Paul Pillar, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy (Washington: Brookings Institution 2001), 179; Daniel Byman, ‘Passive Sponsors of Terrorism’, Survival 47/4 (2005), 117–44.

³ Traditionally, ‘coopetition” refers to cooperative competition that occurs between companies with partially congruent interests. See, for example, Adam M. Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff, Co-opetition (New York: Doubleday 1996).

⁴ Scholars have identified instances of rebels or insurgents simultaneously clashing and collaborating with one another and a ruling power in civil wars for the purpose of mutual benefit. This concept has yet to be explored in great depth in relation to either Pakistan or the political violence and terrorism literature. On the civil war literature see, for example, David Keen, Useful Enemies: When Waging Wars Is More Important than Winning Them (New Haven: Yale University Press 2012).

⁵ Although this articles focuses on Islamist militants in Pakistan, these are not the only groups that Pakistan has supported. For example, on Pakistani support for the Khalistan movement see C. Christine Fair, ‘Lessons from India’s Experience in the Punjab’, in Sumit Ganguly and David P. Fidler (eds), India and Counterinsurgency: Lessons Learned (London: Routledge 2009). On Pakistan support for ethnic militants fighting in India’s northeast see D.B. Shekatkar, “India’s Counterinsurgency Campaign in Nagaland’, in Sumit Ganguly and David P. Fidler (eds), India and Counterinsurgency: Lessons Learned (London: Routledge 2009).

⁶ C. Christine Fair, ‘The Militant Challenge in Pakistan” Asia Policy 11 (2011), 105–37; Stephen Tankel, ‘Beyond FATA: Exploring the Punjabi Militant Threat to Pakistan’, Terrorism and Political Violence 28/1 (2016), 49–71.

⁷ Sumit Ganguly and Paul Kapur, ‘The Jihad Paradox: Pakistan and Islamist Militancy in South’, International Security 37/1 (2012) 111–41; Husain Haqqani, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 2005); C. Christine Fair, Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War (London: Oxford University Press 2014).

⁸ C. Christine Fair, ‘Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Pakistani State’, Survival 53/4 (2011), 29–52; Stephen Tankel, Domestic Barriers to Dismantling the Militant Infrastructure in Pakistan (Washington: United States Institute of Peace 2013); Arif Jamal, ‘LeT’s State/Non-State Support and Relationships’, Paper presented at NDU conference Extremism in South Asia: The Case of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Washington, DC, 12 Oct. 2011.

⁹ Paul Staniland, ‘Armed Groups and Militarized Elections’, International Studies Quarterly 59/4 (2015), 694–705.

¹⁰ Seth G. Jones and C. Christine Fair, Counterinsurgency in Pakistan (Santa Monica CA: RAND 2010).

¹¹ Milos Popovic, ‘The Perils of Weak Organization: Explaining Loyalty and Defection of Militant Organizations Toward Pakistan’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 38/11 (2015), 919–37.

¹² Staniland, ‘Armed Groups and Militarized Elections;” S.V.R. Nasr, ‘Islam, The State and the Rise of Sectarian Militancy’, in Christophe Jaffrelot (ed.), Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation (London: Zed Books 2002), 101–08.

¹³ Zaffar Abbas, ‘Operation eyewash’, Herald (Pakistan), August 2005.

¹⁴ Mark Mazzetti, The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth (New York: Penguin Group 2013), 169.

¹⁵ Hassan Abbas (ed.), Stabilizing Pakistan through Police Reform (Washington: Asia Society 2012).

¹⁶ Ashley J. Tellis, Pakistan and the War on Terror: Conflicted Goals, Compromised Performance (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 2008).

¹⁷ Dan Byman, Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2005), 59.

¹⁸ Pillar, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy, 179; Byman, ‘Passive Sponsors of Terrorism.”

¹⁹ C. Christine Fair, ‘Militant Recruitment in Pakistan: Implications for Al-Qa’ida and Other Organizations’,Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 27/6 (2004), 489–504.

²⁰ Tankel, ‘Beyond FATA.”

²¹ Elizabeth Grimm Arsenault and Tricia Bacon, ‘Disaggregating and Defeating Terrorist Safe Havens’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 38/2 (2015), 85–112.

²² Staniland, ‘Armed Groups and Militarized Elections.”

²³ Popovic, ‘The Perils of Weak Organization.”

²⁴ Ahmed Rashid, Taliban (Oxford: Pan Books 2000), 90–91.

²⁵ Don Rassler and Vahid Brown, The Haqqani Nexus and the Evolution of al-Qa’ida (West Point NY: Combating Terrorism Center 2011), 37.

²⁶ Vahid Brown and Don Rassler, Fountainhead of Jihad: The Haqqani Nexus, 1973–2012 (London: Hurst 2013), chapter 1.

²⁷ Arif Jamal, Call for Transnational Jihad: Lashkar-e-Taiba 1985–2014 (East Brunswick NJ: Avant Garde Books 2014), chapter 2.

²⁸ Fair, ‘Militant Recruitment in Pakistan.”

²⁹ Mohammad Amir Rana, Gateway to Terrorism (London: New Millennium 2003), 330.

³⁰ Stephen Tankel, Storming the World Stage: The Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba (New York: Columbia University Press 2011), 84.

³¹ For a delineation of groups and their activities see Mohammad Amir Rana, A to Z of Jehadi Organizations in Pakistan, trans. Saba Ansari (Lahore: Mashal Books 2006).

³² Akbar Khan, Raiders in Kashmir (Karachi: National Book Foundation 1970); Shuja Nawaz, “The First Kashmir War Revisited’, India Review 7/2 (2008), 115–54.

³³ Praveen Swami, India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad: The Covert War in Kashmir, 1947–2005 (London: Routledge 2007), chapters 2–3.

³⁴ Ibid., chapter 5.

³⁵ Sumantra Bose, Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press 2003), 126–29; Arif Jamal, Shadow War: The Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir (New York: Melville House 2009), 146.

³⁶ Tankel, Storming the World Stage, chapters 3–4.

³⁷ On HM see Jamal, Shadow War.

³⁸ Rizwan Hussein, Pakistan and The Emergence of Islamic Militancy in Afghanistan (Burlington VT: Ashgate 2005), chapter 2.

³⁹ Barnett R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan (New Haven: Yale University Press 2002), 83–84.

⁴⁰ Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New York: Penguin 2004), 67–68.

⁴¹ Rashid, Taliban, chapter 14.

⁴² The ISI moved some of the Kashmir-focused Deobandi groups’ training camps into Afghanistan after the Taliban came to power. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (New York: W.W. Norton 2004), 157.

⁴³ Ahmed Rashid, ‘Pakistan: Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind’, Current History 95/600 (1996), 158–64.

⁴⁴ Jamal, Call for Transnational Jihad, chapters 4–5.

⁴⁵ ‘Foreign pro-Taliban fighters inside Afghanistan pre-hostilities’, Jane’s World Armies, 8 August 2001; Rashid, Taliban, 90–92; Julie Sirrs, ‘The Taliban’s International Ambitions’, Middle East Quarterly 8/3 (2001), 61–71.

⁴⁶ Tankel, ‘Beyond FATA.”

⁴⁷ Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/ 11 (New York: Knopf 2006), 250.

⁴⁸ Brown and Rassler, Fountainhead of Jihad, 113–14.

⁴⁹ Mariam Abou Zahab, ‘The Regional Dimension of Sectarian Conflicts in Pakistan’, in Christophe Jaffrelot (ed.), Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation (London: Zed Books 2004), 117.

⁵⁰ Mariam Abou Zahab, ‘Pashtun and Punjabi Taliban: The Jihadi–Sectarian Nexus’, in Jeevan Deol and Zaheer Kazmi (eds), Contextualising Jihadi Thought (London: Hurst 2011), 370.

⁵¹ Abou Zahab, ‘The Regional Dimension of Sectarian Conflicts’, 121.

⁵² Anatol Lieven, Pakistan: A Hard Country (New York: Public Affairs 2011), 465.

⁵³ Dan Balz, Bob Woodward, and Jeff Himmelman, ‘Afghan campaign’s blueprint emerges’, Washington Post, 29 January 2002, <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/18/AR2006071800687.html>.

⁵⁴ Pervez Musharraf, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir (New York: Free Press 2006), 201–02. See also ‘Wrong step can spell disaster: Musharraf’, Dawn, 19 September 2001.

⁵⁵ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Pakistan’s Sanction Waivers: A Summary (Washington: 2001). On assistance to Pakistan see Susan B. Epstein and K. Alan Kronstadt, Pakistan: U.S. Foreign Assistance (Washington: Congressional Research Service 2013).

⁵⁶ Abdul Salam Zaeef, My Life with the Taliban, ed. Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn (New York: Columbia University Press 2010), 152; Brown and Rassler, Fountainhead of Jihad, chapters 1 and 5.

⁵⁷ Peter L. Bergen, Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden – from 9/11 to Abbottabad (New York: Random House 2012), loc. 1040–45.

⁵⁸ The United States also required access through Pakistan via ground and air lines of communication (GLOCs and ALOCs) to support US and later Coalition forces in Afghanistan.

⁵⁹ Al-Qaeda paid Pashtun tribesmen handsomely for safe haven. Zahid Hussain, Frontline Pakistan: The Struggle with Militant Islam (New York: I.B. Tauris 2007), 143–44, 148.

⁶⁰ Abou Zahab, ‘Pashtun and Punjabi Taliban’, 372–73; Tellis, Pakistan and the War on Terror.

⁶¹ Musharraf, In the Line of Fire, 244–57.

⁶² Amir Mir, Talibanization of Pakistan: From 9/11 to 26/11 (New Delhi: Pentagon Press 2009), 108–10; Hassan Abbas, ‘Defining the Punjabi Taliban Network’, CTC Sentinel 2/4 (2009), 1–3.

⁶³ Jones and Fair, Counterinsurgency in Pakistan, 54.

⁶⁴ C. Christine Fair, ‘Pakistan’s Own War on Terror: What the Pakistani Public Thinks’, Journal of International Affairs 63/1 (2009), 39–55.

⁶⁵ Ibid.; Nasreen Ghufran, ‘Pushtun Ethnonationalism and the Taliban Insurgency in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan’, Asian Survey 49/6 (2009), 1092–114.

⁶⁶ Rahimullah Yusufzai, ‘A Who’s Who of the Insurgency in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province: Part One – North and South Waziristan’, in Hassan Abbas (ed.), Pakistan’s Troubled Frontier (Washington: Jamestown Foundation 2009), 32–33.

⁶⁷ Abou Zahab, ‘Pashtun and Punjabi Taliban’, 374–77.

⁶⁸ Ibid.

⁶⁹ Tankel, Storming the World Stage, 176.

⁷⁰ Improved Indian counterinsurgency efforts, fencing along the Line of Control, and a reduced appetite for conflict in Indian-administered Kashmir also contributed. On Pakistan’s efforts see ibid., loc. 176–9.

⁷¹ For example, Stephen Tankel, ‘Pakistani militants plan their own pivot east,” War on the Rocks, 9 July 2013, <http://warontherocks.com/2013/07/pakistani-militants-plan-own-pivot-east/>; Rohini Chatterji, ‘Lashkar-e-Taiba behind attacks in Gurdaspur, say MHA sources; Pakistan condemns strike,” FirstPost, 27 July 2015, <http://www.firstpost.com/india/live-lashkar-e-taiba-behind-attacks-in-gurdaspur-say-mha-sources-pakistan-condemns-strike-2364392.html>; Harkirat Singh, Aseem Bassi, and Vinay Dhingra, ‘5 terrorists, 3 security men killed in Pathankot air force base attack,” Hindustan Times, 2 January 2016, <http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/pathankot-air-force-base-attacked-4-terrorists-2-iaf-men-killed/story-Sutonspc1t7zVlYIanfisO.html>.

⁷² Ellen Barry, ‘Al Qaeda opens new branch on Indian Subcontinent,” New York Times, 4 September 2014, <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/world/asia/al-qaeda-announces-new-branch-on-indian-subcontinent.html>.

⁷³ Tellis, Pakistan and the War on Terror.

⁷⁴ Antonio Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan (London: Hurst 2007), 1, 11, 37–38; Ashok Behuria, ‘Fighting the Taliban: Pakistan at War with Itself’, Australian Journal of International Affairs 61/4 (2007), 529–43.

⁷⁵ Because of the escalating insurgency in Afghanistan this order was reversed. ‘Prepared Testimony of David Barno to the United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs;” ‘An Interview with Richard L. Armitage’, Prism 1/1 (2009), 103–12.

⁷⁶ On India’s presence in Afghanistan see C. Christine Fair, ‘Under the Shrinking U.S. Security Umbrella: India’s End Game in Afghanistan?” Washington Quarterly 34/2 (2011), 179–92.

⁷⁷ Kristen E. Boon, Aziz Huq, and Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr (eds), Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Conflict in Afghanistan (New York: Oxford University Press 2011).

⁷⁸ Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop, 34–35. Brown and Rassler, Fountainhead of Jihad, 138–41. On the role of Punjabi and sectarian groups see, for example, Abou Zahab, ‘Pashtun and Punjabi Taliban’, 373–74.

⁷⁹ Seem for example, Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt, ‘C.I.A. outlines Pakistan links with militants’, New York Times, 30 July 2008, <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/world/asia/30pstan.html>; Alissa Rubin, ‘Militant group expands attacks in Afghanistan’, New York Times, 15 June 2010, <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/world/asia/16lashkar.html>.

⁸⁰ Fakhar Rehman, ‘Pakistan intelligence agency claims Afghanistan supports Taliban splinter groups’, NBCNews.com, 27 March 2013, <http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/27/17474913-pakistan-intelligence-agency-claims-afghanistan-supports-taliban-splinter-groups?lite>; Stephen Tankel, ‘The militant groups next door’, Foreign Policy, 24 April 2013, <http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/24/the-militant-groups-next-door/>.

⁸¹ Shehzad H. Qazi, ‘Rebels of the Frontier: Origins, Organization, and Recruitment of the Pakistani Taliban’, Small Wars & Insurgencies 22/4 (2011), 574–602.

⁸² Ibid.

⁸³ For example, Inter Services Public Relations, ‘COAS Address on the Eve of Yaum-e-Shuhadda – 2013’, press release, 30 April 2013; Khaled Ahmed, ‘Our pathology of fear’, Express Tribune, 24 November 2012, <http://tribune.com.pk/story/470732/our-pathology-of-fear/>; Rehman, ‘Pakistan intelligence agency claims.”

⁸⁴ Joshua Foust, ‘The undeclared AfPak war’, Foreign Policy, 15 March 2011, <http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/03/15/the-undeclared-afpak-war/>; Tankel, ‘The militant groups next door.”

⁸⁵ For details see Fair, ‘Under the Shrinking U.S. Security Umbrella.”

⁸⁶ In addition to supporting the TTP, Pakistani security officials also believe India supports separatists in Balochistan. ‘India funding terrorists in FATA, Balochistan: army’, Daily Times, 13 February 2015, <www.dailytimes.com.pk/13-Feb-2015-India- Funding-Terrorists-in-FATA-Balochistan-army>.

⁸⁷ For details see Seth G. Jones, ‘Pakistan’s Dangerous Game’, Survival 49/1 (2007), 15–32.

⁸⁸ Zahid Hussain, ‘Conspiratorial paranoia’, Dawn, 28 August 2012, <http://www.dawn.com/news/745041/conspiratorial-paranoia>.

⁸⁹ For example, see Ahmed, ‘Our pathology of fear.”

⁹⁰ Abbas, ‘Defining the Punjabi Taliban Network.”

⁹¹ Ibid.; Abou Zahab, ‘Pashtun and Punjabi Taliban’, 374–77.

⁹² Don Rassler, ‘Al-Qa’ida’s Pakistan Strategy’, CTC Sentinel 2/6 (2009), 1–3.

⁹³ On declining efforts see, Seth G. Jones, ‘The Terrorist Threat from Pakistan’, Survival 53/4 (2011), 69–94. On a truce see ‘Letter to Osama bin Laden from Atiyya Abd al-Rahman’, 19 June 2010, Government Exhibit 421, 10-CR-019(S-4)(RJD).

⁹⁴ Stephen Tankel, ‘Destabilizing Elements: The Punjabi Militant Threat to Pakistan’, in Ravi Kalia (ed.), Pakistan’s Political Labyrinths: Military, Society, and Terror (London: Routledge 2015), 96–98.

⁹⁵ Bruce Pannier, ‘What next for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan’, Radio Free Europe, 23 August 2015, <http://www.rferl.org/content/qishloq-ovozi-imu-ghazi-uzbekistan-pakistan/27204379.html>.

⁹⁶ Qazi, ‘Rebels of the Frontier.”

⁹⁷ Omar Waraich, ‘ISIS faces a crowded landscape of terror in Pakistan’, Time, 26 February 2015, <http://time.com/3720070/isis-pakistan-terror/>; Pannier, ‘What next for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.”

⁹⁸ For example, Chatterji, ‘Lashkar-e-Taiba behind attacks in Gurdaspur, say MHA sources.”

⁹⁹ Stephen Tankel, ‘Indian Jihadism: The Evolving Threat’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 37/7 (2014), 567–85.

¹⁰⁰ Fair, ‘Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Pakistani State.”

¹⁰¹ Tankel, Domestic Barriers to Dismantling the Militant Infrastructure in Pakistan; Jamal, Paper presented at NDU conference Extremism in South Asia.

¹⁰² Jamal, presentation; Hassan Abbas, LeT’s History & Ideology ‘Extremism in South Asia: The Case of Lashkar-e-Taiba’, Washington, DC, 12 October 2011.

¹⁰³ Brown and Rassler, Fountainhead of Jihad, 159–61.

¹⁰⁴ Rassler and Brown, The Haqqani Nexus, 2, 10; Brown and Rassler, Fountainhead of Jihad, 160.

¹⁰⁵ Tankel, Storming the World Stage, 123.

¹⁰⁶ Tankel, Domestic Barriers to Dismantling the Militant Infrastructure in Pakistan.

¹⁰⁷ Ibid.

¹⁰⁸ Abbas, LeT’s History & Ideology; Tankel, Domestic Barriers to Dismantling the Militant Infrastructure in Pakistan.

¹⁰⁹ Tankel, Domestic Barriers.

¹¹⁰ Mohammad Amir Rana, ‘The case of JuD’, Dawn, 25 March 2012, <http://www.dawn.com/news/705250/the-case-of-jud>.

¹¹¹ ‘Shahbaz wanted to cut deal with TTP as long they didn’t conduct operations in Punjab: report,” Express Tribune, 10 March 2015, <http://tribune.com.pk/story/850789/shahbaz-wanted-to-cut-deal-with-ttp-as-long-they-didnt-conduct-operations-in-punjab-report/>.

¹¹² Qazi, ‘Rebels of the Frontier.”

¹¹³ Staniland, ‘Armed Groups and Militarized Elections.”

¹¹⁴ Taha Siddiqui, ‘Difa-e-Pakistan part 2/2: who is aiding the jihadis’ resurgence?” Express Tribune, 12 February 2012, <http://tribune.com.pk/story/335231/difa-e-pakistan-part-22-who-is-aiding-the-jihadis-resurgence/>.

¹¹⁵ Abou Zahab, ‘Pashtun and Punjabi Taliban’, 382.

¹¹⁶ Qazi, ‘Rebels of the Frontier.”

¹¹⁷ Anand Gopal, Mansur Khan Mahsud, and Brian Fishman, ‘Inside Pakistan’s tribal frontier: North Waziristan’, Foreign Policy, 23 April 2010, <http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/04/23/inside-pakistans-tribal-frontier-north-waziristan/>.

¹¹⁸ Saida Sulaiman, ‘Empowering ‘Soft Taliban’ over ‘Hard Taliban’: Pakistan’s Counterterrorism Strategy’, in Hassan Abbas (ed.), Pakistan’s Troubled Frontier (Washington: Jamestown Foundation, 2009), 187.

¹¹⁹ Imtiaz Gul, The Most Dangerous Place (New York: Viking Press 2010).

¹²⁰ One Pakistan military officer bluntly offered this assessment to Reuters. See Hafiz Wazir, ‘U.S. drone strike kills key Pakistan Taliban commander: sources,” Reuters, 3 January 2013, <http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-drone-idUSBRE90203G20130103>.

¹²¹ Jones and Fair, Counterinsurgency in Pakistan, 57.

¹²² Qazi, ‘Rebels of the Frontier.”

¹²³ Nader Buneri, ‘Taliban infighting picks up’, The Nation, 11 April 2014, <http://nation.com.pk/national/11-Apr-2014/taliban-infighting-picks-up>.

¹²⁴ Daud Khattak, ‘Contrasting the Leadership of Mullah Fazlullah and Khan Said Sajna in Pakistan’, CTC Sentinel 7/7 (2014), 18–20.

¹²⁵ Ibid.

¹²⁶ Ibid.

¹²⁷ Musharraf, In the Line of Fire, 244–57; Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos (London: Penguin 2008), 230–31; Mir, Talibanization of Pakistan, 108–10.

¹²⁸ Abou Zahab, ‘Pashtun and Punjabi Taliban’, 73

¹²⁹ Amir Mir, journalist with The News, interview by author, Lahore, July 2011; Jamaat-ud-Dawa official, interview by author, Lahore, July 2011; Mir, Talibanization of Pakistan, 110–11.

¹³⁰ Popovic, ‘The Perils of Weak Organization.”

¹³¹ Mir, Talibanization of Pakistan, 108–09.

¹³² Tankel, ‘Beyond FATA.”

¹³³ Tariq Pervez, former director general of the Federal Investigative Agency and currently director of the Initiative for Public Security, interview by author, Islamabad, July 2011; Amir Mir, interview by author; Ayesha Siddiqa, ‘Pakistan’s ‘strategic’ backwaters’, Express Tribune, 20 February 2013, <http://tribune.com.pk/story/510087/pakistans-strategic-backwaters/>.

¹³⁴ Declan Walsh, ‘Explosion in crowded market kills dozens in Pakistan’, New York Times, 16 February 2013, <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/world/asia/explosion-in-crowded-market-kills-dozens-in-pakistan.html>.

¹³⁵ ‘Formidable threat: Lashkar-i-Jhangvi in Balochistan’, Dawn, 17 June 2013, <http://www.dawn.com/news/1018716>.

¹³⁶ Amir Mir, ‘Blood flows freely in Pakistan’, Asia Times, 5 October 2011, <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/MJ05Df01.html>.

¹³⁷ Ibid.

¹³⁸ See, for example, Zofeen T. Ebrahim, ‘Hazara killers – supported from Punjab to the Middle East’, Dawn, 21 February 2013, <http://www.dawn.com/news/787668/hazara-killers-supported-from-punjab-to-the-middle-east>.

¹³⁹ Ismail Khan, ‘North Waziristan operation – daunting challenge ahead,” Dawn, 15 September 2014, <http://www.dawn.com/news/1132050>; Zulfiqar Ali, ‘Change of command: Maulvi Halim replaces Gul Bahadur as Waziristan Taliban chief,” Express Tribune, 15 August 2014, <http://tribune.com.pk/story/748965/change-of-command-maulvi-halim-replaces-gul-bahadur-as-waziristan-taliban-chief/>.

¹⁴⁰ Khan, ‘North Waziristan operation.”

¹⁴¹ Haji Mujtaba, ‘Air strikes in northwest Pakistan kill 24 militants: officials,” Reuters, 17 August 2015, <http://www.reuters.com/article/pakistan-militants-idUSL3N10S3QO20150817>.

¹⁴² Hameedullah Khan, ‘Pakistan Taliban commander allegedly killed by drones’, Al-Jazeera, 26 November 2015, <http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/pakistan-taliban-commander-allegedly-killed-drones-151126094717789.html>.

¹⁴³ Sameer Lalwani, ‘Actually, Pakistan is winning its war on terror’, Foreign Policy, 10 December 2015, <http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/10/actually-pakistan-is-winning-its-war-on-terror/>; ‘Malik Ishaq’s killing a big blow to Daesh’, The News, 1 August 2015, <http://www.thenews.com.pk/print/13889-malik-ishaqs-killing-a-big-blow-to-daesh>.

¹⁴⁴ White House, National Security Strategy, February 2015.

¹⁴⁵ On US security assistance see Epstein and Kronstadt, Pakistan.

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Stephen Tankel

Stephen Tankel is an assistant professor in the School of International Service at American University and a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He served as a senior advisor for Asian and Pacific security affairs at the Department of Defense in 2014.