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| India-Pakistan | |
| Why did the Taliban attack the ISI? | |
| 2009-05-29 | |
This question was in response to the commando-style attack at Lahore, Pakistan, on May 27, 2009, which targeted the Lahore Police and the local office of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), killing 15 police officers, a colonel of the ISI and 10 other people. While analyzing the Lahore attack, one has to keep in mind certain ground realities: The first is that there are Talibans and Talibans, and within each Taliban there are mini-Talibans. There are virtually as many Talibans in the Pashtun belt as there are tribal sirdars (leaders). The second ground reality is the clear distinction in behavior and operations between the “Neo Taliban” of Afghanistan, headed by Mullah Mohammad Omar, based in Quetta, Pakistan, and the various Pakistani Talibans led by tribal sirdars such as Baitullah Mehsud of South Waziristan; Hakeemullah Mehsud, who is responsible for operations in the Khyber, Kurrum and Orakzai areas; Maulana Fazlullah of the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), who is a native of Swat; and Sufi Mohammad, his father-in-law, who is actually from Dir and not Swat. Of these various Talibans, only the Neo Taliban of Mullah Mohammad Omar, which was created by the ISI in 1994 when Benazir Bhutto was prime minister, still owes its loyalty to the ISI and the Pakistan government. The Neo Taliban is active against the U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghan territory from sanctuaries in Pakistan, but it has never been involved in an act of terrorism in Pakistani territory against Pakistani targets, whether from the army, the ISI or the police. All the attacks on Pakistani territory and on Pakistani government targets were carried out by different Pakistani Taliban groups or by the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM)--which has transferred its headquarters from Bahawalpur to Swat--and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), an anti-Shia terrorist organization. The third ground reality is the distinction between the Pakistani Punjabi Taliban and the Pakistani Pashtun Taliban. Though they advocate the same Wahabized Islamic ideology based on the Sharia, their ethnic compositions differ. The term Punjabi Taliban is used to refer to the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and the LEJ (above). Punjabis constitute the majority of their cadres. All of them except the JEM are of the 1980s and 1990s vintage. The JEM was born in 2000 through a split in the HUM. Of these organizations, the LET, like the Neo Taliban, is the favored tool of the ISI, which uses the Neo Taliban in Afghanistan and the LET against India. Like the Neo Taliban, the LET, too, has never attacked a Pakistani target in Pakistani territory. In fact, there has never been a confirmed instance of an attack by the LET on foreign targets in Pakistani territory, lest it create problems from the ISI. The JEM and the LEJ, however, never hesitate to attack Pakistani government targets, either on their own or at the instance of al-Qaida. The attitude of the HUM and the HUJI is ambivalent. The fourth ground reality is that, while the Pakistani Punjabi Taliban and the Neo Taliban have been in existence for over a decade, the Pakistani Pashtun Talibans are products of the commando raid into the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad in July 2007, in which a large number of Pashtun tribal children, many of them girls, were killed. It was after this that tribal sirdars, including Fazlullah, Baitullah and Hakeemullah, called for a jihad against the Pakistan army and the ISI in retaliation for the raid. While the TNSM has been in existence since the early 1990s, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was born after the Lal Masjid raid. The various tribal sirdars, who are supporting the TTP, repeatedly make the following points: First, they did not want to fight against the Pakistan army; it was the army which forced them to take up arms against it by raiding the Lal Masjid and killing their children. Second, their real enemy is the U.S.-led NATO force in Afghanistan, not the Pakistan army. They are fighting against the Pakistan army because it prevents them from assisting the Neo Taliban against the U.S.-led NATO forces. Third, they will stop fighting against the Pakistan army if it makes amends for the alleged massacre of tribal children in the Lal Masjid, removes restrictions on entering Afghanistan to fight against NATO troops and stops assisting those troops in their war against the Neo Taliban. The Pakistan army is facing difficulties in its operations against the various Pakistani Pashtun Taliban groups, because the latter have many Pashtun ex-servicemen from the Pakistani army assisting them--retired officers as well as other ranks. The attack by the Pakistani Taliban against the ISI at Lahore was not its first attack against the ISI. It had attacked the ISI twice before, in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, inflicting even greater casualties than it was able to do in Lahore--which, for sure, will not be the last of these attacks. Bahukutumbi Raman is a retired officer of the Indian intelligence service. He is director of the Institute For Topical Studies in Chennai, India. | |
| Posted by:Seafarious |
| #10 is there a powerpoint available? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2009-05-29 22:28 |
| #9 Thanks Fred. "Order of Battle".....a discipline not exercised or exploited as much today as it could be. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-05-29 19:09 |
| #8 I note the difference between the Pak Taliban and Mullah Omar's Taliban. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan consists of the tribal goobers -- Baitullah & Co. -- allied with al-Qaeda. The Punjabi Taliban consists of the hodge-podge of terror organizations that have evolved in the past 20 years. They've now coalesced, starting with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, into al-Qaeda in Pakistan. If I was drawing an organization chart, I'd put Lashkar-e-Taiba and the now mostly defunct Kashmir groups off to one side and note them as being for foreign operations under ISI control -- but still allied with AQ. I sometimes look for the differences -- because I'm basically an OB guy -- in who's exploding, but all the groups are allied with the Qaeda structure, just through different controllers. Mullah Omar's Taliban is also allied with the Haqqani organization and with Hekmatyar, and it's really impossible to tell who done what in Afghanistan based on open source news. There's also an al-Qaeda Afghanistan that coordinates their operations and works out strategy. What we're looking at in the present instance is the internal Taliban plus the TNSM, which also identifies itself as TTP unless Sufi Mohammad is trying to negotiate something. They're not allied with ISI, though they're probably willing enough to treat with them as equals. |
| Posted by: Fred 2009-05-29 18:57 |
| #7 I'm color-blind in that spectrum. One Talibunny looks pretty much like another to me. |
| Posted by: mojo 2009-05-29 17:43 |
| #6 I have to question the trigger of the Red Mosque massacre as well. After all, the tribal children were well armed and indoctrinated in jihad before the army went in. As a rallying call for major attacks after, though, it serves very well. Also, why would apparently the premier boarding school for the tribal children be located in Islamabad instead of in the Punjab, closer to the childrens' families? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2009-05-29 16:42 |
| #5 I'm inclined to say that this analysis - the Red Mosque battle created the "Pakistani Pashtun Taliban" - is pernicious nonsense. Baitullah Mehsud and his people, for instance were involved in the 2004 Wana war up to their unwashed armpits. The Red Mosque might act as a rallying banner for the faction, but it wasn't an authentic incitement, any more than the Reichstag Fire incited the mass National Socialist movement. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2009-05-29 13:14 |
| #4 Gitcher program. Can't tell yer Talipaks widout cher program. |
| Posted by: Herman Unineger8237 2009-05-29 12:52 |
| #3 the Neo Taliban of Mullah Mohammad Omar, which was created by the ISI in 1994 when Benazir Bhutto was prime minister, still owes its loyalty to the ISI and the Pakistan government. The Neo Taliban is active against the U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghan territory from sanctuaries in Pakistan, but it has never been involved in an act of terrorism in Pakistani territory against Pakistani targets. What I take from this is an admission that the ISI is facilitating attacks against the US and NATO, and has been from the beginning. |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2009-05-29 12:27 |
| #2 "Why did the Taliban attack the ISI?" Because they could? Think of the parable of the frog and the scorpion: Because it's their nature. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-05-29 12:17 |
| #1 Is it an assumption that the ISI is monolithic and not subject to the same tribal factions as the rest of the culture? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-05-29 11:45 |