The ISI Mark

For decades, now, the West has systematically misreadwhat it perceives as 'Islamic' or 'Islamist' terrorism, and despite theexperience -- and one would presume, large volumes of intelligence -- of thepost-9/11 age, continues to do so. Thus, on the one hand, the US NationalIntelligence Estimates, 2007, continued to view al Qaeda as "the most seriousthreat to the Homeland, as its central leadership continues to plan high-impactplots, while pushing others in extremist communities to mimic its efforts and tosupplement its capabilities." Similarly, UK's MI5 speaks of as many as 30 'activeplots' in the country, most of which "have links back to al Qaeda in Pakistan." 

On the other hand, some analysts have reduced the threat, principally, towhat one writer describes as a 'leaderless jihad', a loose-knit networksof terror in the West, inspired by the al Qaeda brand of Islamist extremism, butoperating essentially as independent "bunches of guys", with no direct ornecessary contact with any central structure of command. (OvertlyPakistan-controlled Islamist terrorism in theatres such as India and Afghanistanseldom receives significant attention in these analyses). 

In all this, there is a studied neglect of the realities of the ground,particularly of the fact that Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) -- asan organ of the country's military and political establishment -- has been, andremains, the principal source of the impetus, the infrastructure and theorganisational networks of Islamist terrorism across the world. Historically, itis now common knowledge, it was the ISI that created virtually the entirestructure of Islamist terrorist groupings behind the global jihad, whichhas now proliferated in new areas through the agency of various proxies. Thisincludes the al Qaeda, and the entire spectrum of affiliates that continues tooperate, with varying degrees of freedom, from Pakistani soil more than six anda half years after 9/11. 

At least part of the selective blindness of the West (and, indeed, of much ofthe world) is because 'al Qaeda' has begun to mean different things to differentpeople and, in much of the commentary, has become shorthand for a wide range ofideologically sympathetic groups located in Pakistan, many of which continue toreceive active state support. Of the numerous cases of arrests, conspiracies andterrorist attacks related to Islamist groupings across the world (which I havedocumented in some detail in TheFootprints of Terror), connections that are generally attributed to the 'alQaeda', have been found, on closer scrutiny, to be more correctly ascribed to arange of other groupings, prominently including Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad,Harkat-ul-Mujahiddeen, Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, andvarious factions of the 'Taliban' -- every one of which was a sarkari (statesponsored) jihadi group in its origins, and most of which (with theexception of the SSP, and, more ambiguously, some of the Taliban factions)continue to receive state patronage in Pakistan.

In the immediate aftermath of Operation Enduring Freedom, when the Afghaninfrastructure of Islamist terrorism was uprooted, Indian intelligence sourcesand various analysts, including this writer, had repeatedly asserted that Osamabin Laden, the al Qaeda leadership and remnants, and the defeated rump of theTaliban, had all been relocated in Pakistan with the active cooperation andcollaboration of the ISI and the Pakistan Army. A perfunctory denial byPresident Pervez Musharraf was immediately and uncritically seized upon by theWest as sufficient 'proof' that this was not the case, despite the overwhelmingburden of intelligence and evidence -- significant parts of which were activelysuppressed by US agencies. When attacks against US Coalition and Afghan Forces,increasingly sourced from Pakistani soil, began to draw blood in Afghanistan,these same denials continued to be blindly accepted, or remained sufficientgrounds for the Western political leadership to muddle over the Pakistani role. 

More recently, these positions have begun to shiftsubtly -- though their principal thrust remains the same. Western commentatorseasily concede past Pakistani 'misdemeanours', but are quick to justify theirfavoured 'allies' in the 'war on terror', on the grounds that the establishmentat Islamabad is now, itself, a victim of the same Islamist terrorist groups. 

It is, of course, the case that some elements of state-initiated terrorismhave now turned against their sponsoring state. But this is natural in anyassociation of violent groupings not explicitly and effectively bound by law anda dominant mechanism of legitimate control. The 'implosion of terrorism' inPakistan is a fact -- as with revolutions, terrorism consumes its own childrenand, one may add, progenitors. Pakistan has, par excellence, harnessedterrorism as an instrument of state policy for well over two decades. Today,Pakistan is in the grips of a violent 'blowback', what the Italian magazine Limeshas described as Il Boomerang Jihadista. 

Nevertheless, the fact that the Pakistan establishmentcontinues to use Islamist extremism and terror as a principal instrument ofstate policy -- despite the disastrous implosion within the country -- isequally inescapable. This is most visibly the case across Pakistan's Afghan andKashmir borders -- as well as in the substantial infrastructure of support inPakistan for the terrorists operating in these theatres -- but is equally trueof the far more dispersed incidence of Islamist terrorism in Western countries.Despite the internal turmoil they have contributed to, the Islamistfundamentalist and extremist groupings in Pakistan remain a necessary element ofthe state's instrumentalities of domestic management and external projection --giving the country leverage far beyond its natural means, in every concentrationof Muslim populations across the world. It is Pakistan, through its stateagencies, and loosely controlled radical and jihadi affiliates, thatcontinues to propagate Islamist jihad among the Muslim youth across theworld, and that offers opportunities for training and absorption into terroristorganisations headquartered on its soil. The Pakistani establishment's apparentconflict with al Qaeda and elements of the Taliban is, at worst, tactical andtransient -- in the long term, there is an identity of undiluted purpose. Werethe al Qaeda to be completely destroyed at some (improbable) stage in theforeseeable future, Islamist terrorism would continue to thrive on and fromPakistani soil.  

The reality is, there is no such thing as Islamist fundamentalist terrorism.To understand the position correctly, we need to recognize that there is onlyISI terror that has been dubbed as 'Islamist terror'. What we have, on theground, is the proliferation of Pakistani terrorism, strategically compoundedacross new areas of disorder by networks loosely affiliated with their Pakistanisources. If Pakistani state support to so-called 'Islamist terrorism' endedtoday, it would not be long before the various terrorist groups atrophied andwithered away, lacking safe havens, institutional support and traininginfrastructure, and the vast ideological resources that have been brought tobear on the so-called global jihad. This does not, of course, mean thatno Islamist terrorist incident whatsoever would then be possible. Disaffected 'bunchesof guys' may still secure the capacity and will to execute the occasional attack-- but another 9/11 (not to mention the ongoing campaigns in Afghanistan andKashmir) would need at least as much state support as the last one had. 

K.P.S.Gill is former director-general of police, Punjab. He is also Publisher, SAIR and President, Institute for Conflict Management.