The State Of Confusion

The Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsa crisis, which has been six slow months in the making, finally came to a boil on June 3, 2007, when militant students tried to grab a property near the mosque and were confronted by the Security Forces. An armed engagement followed, and subsequent Army operations to blow away the boundary walls of thecomplex have resulted in intermittent exchanges of fire. Official sources maintain a total of 20 killed--including a Lieutenant Colonel of the Special Services Group on Sunday, June 8--though Abdul Rashid'Ghazi', the leader of the 'resistance' inside the Mosque, claims that over 335 of his students (including 310 women) have been killed inside thecomplex by Army fire.

In what appear to be disturbing connected developments, three Chinese men were shot dead and a fourth was critically wounded on June 8, in Peshawar in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), where the victims had set up a small unit to manufacture three-wheel auto rickshaws. Significantly, there had been widespread speculation that the military action against the Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsacomplex had been taken under Chinese (and, of course, American) pressure, after six Chinese women and one man, among nine persons, were abducted by militant students of the Seminary on June 23, 2007, on allegations of running a brothel under the guise of a massage centre. All the abductees were subsequently released, but China had, in fact, on June 27, officially asked Pakistan to step up its protection of Chinese workers in the country.

In another related development, President Pervez Musharraf's plane was shot at on June 6, 2007, when it was taking off from the military airfield at Chaklala in Rawalpindi. A machine gun and two artillery weapons were subsequently recovered from the roof of a house nearby, though officials initially denied there had been an assassination attempt. The firing on the plane, in any event, had been wide off target. 

A number of violent incidents and protests have also occurred across the country after the initiation of the Lal Masjid operation by the Army, and there are indications that these could escalate. The Karkoram Highway was blockaded at various places in the Mansehra and Abottabaddistricts of the NWFP; in Quetta, activists of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI, Fazlur Rehman faction) held demonstrations protesting the'attack' on Lal Masjid; at Khairpur in the Punjab, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) and JUI activists forced a shut-down on the town; in Lahore, students of the Jamia Asharfia held demonstration on the main Ferozpur Road; and in Okara, students of the Jamia Masjid forced shopkeepers to down shutters in protest. There have also been several attacks against security forces. 

On June 4, a suicide attack on a military convoy near Mir Ali in North Waziristan killed at least 11 persons, including six soldiers. On the same day, six persons, including two policemen, were also killed in three separate attacks by religious extremists in Swatdistrict. Militant groups in Swat had earlier warned of 'serious repercussions' in case thegovernment took action against the Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsa complex. On June 9, tens of thousands of tribesmen, including hundreds of masked militants wielding assault rifles, led by Maulana Faqir Mohammad, a cleric onIslamabad's wanted list, demonstrated in Bajaur in FATA, raising violent slogans and calling for"Death to Musharraf". 

Official sources have now claimed that eight "high value terrorists" were "holedup" inside the Lal Masjid, while one had already been killed there. These terrorists, Religious Affairs Minister Ejazul Haq asserted, without disclosing their identities, were"far more dangerous and harmful than Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives." Haq asserted that the militants were from the Harkat-ul-JihadIslami, had taken control of the complex, and were "holding children and Ghazihostage". Significantly, President Musharraf had claimed, on June 29, that militants from theJaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and al Qaeda were hiding in the Lal Masjid Complex. 

Within the broad context of Pakistan's troubled politics, current levels of violence in the wake of the Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsa operation are far from exceptional. Indeed, in all aspects, the militant challenge appears unequal; even contemptible. Despite boasts of'hundreds of suicide bombers', the 'Lal Masjid brigade' has responded rather tamely, with not a single suicide attack, and over 1,221 surrenders. The big-talking head of theMasjid, Abdul Aziz, who claimed to derive his mandate from the Prophet Muhammad appearing in his dreams and who had repeatedly exhorted his followers to embrace shahadat (martyrdom), was caught in humiliating circumstances, trying to slink out of the military cordon in awoman's burqa (full body veil). 

Indeed, at a purely military level, overcoming the resistance in the Seminary Complex would be a pushover for the Army, were it not for concerns about the loss of innocent lives. The essentially military challenge at Lal Masjid is insignificant, as the radical Islamist former Inter Services Intelligence(ISI) chief, Hamid Gul, notes, Aziz and Ghazi "are traditional clerics and notjihadis." In any event, after the death of a senior officer the Army cannot be expected to be in a particularly forgiving mood. Moreover, despite the slow build-up of the crisis, and its eventual provocation by the militant Lal Masjid students themselves, it is abundantly clear that Ghazi had not prepared his followers for a direct and protracted confrontation with the Army. While a few small arms and possibly some explosives are clearly in the possession of the militants--effective weapons to breach the siege or to deliver explosive loads at spatially distanced targets are evidently lacking. 

But it is not here that the principal danger lies. With crisis following crisis in thick succession, everything--even a so-called'assassination attempt' on Musharraf which was, at best, ludicrous, with no significant danger to the President at any time--weakens him and destabilizes his regime. The unstable equilibria that the Pakistani state had established with various non-democratic power-players, including tribalchieftans, radical Islamists, Islamist terrorists and the Army's political proxies, are rapidly crumbling in an accelerating progression of emergencies, and the Islamists are now seeking to violently renegotiate the distribution of national political power. In all possible outcomes other than the most violent and enveloping oppression--and even this, at best, would be a temporary evasion--Musharraf will be the inevitable loser. Structurally, Pakistan is now poised for a radical reconfiguration of power equations and any measures to forcibly prevent this from happening can only be transient and potentially counterproductive. 

These pressures converge with the wide spectrum of other political forces--including the'secular' democratic formations--that are seeking greater democracy and an end toMusharraf's role as Army Chief after the November 2007 Presidential elections. Simultaneously, the judiciary is engaged in a major bid for the reassertion of its authority and independence, engineered through the confrontation over the dismissal of Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhry--a confrontation that, many believe, puts Musharraf bid to retain his uniform directly at risk. 

For Musharraf and the Army, however, no measure of greater devolution is acceptable, not only in view of theArmy's perceived 'obligations' of national security and reconstruction, but because of the enormous accumulation of what Ayesha Siddiqa has described as"illegal military capital", and the Army's tremendous financial interests in every aspect of national administration and commerce.Siddiqa, in her book Military Inc., notes that, "The military's power allows it to define its economic interests and exploit public and private sector resources, a behaviour that increases theorganisation's appetite for power." Musharraf will accept no dilution of power unless it is forced on him--and theArmy's continued pre-eminence within the country makes such a coercive outcome unlikely in the foreseeable future. 

There is, of course, an influential stream of opinion in Pakistan that suggests that the Lal Masjid crisis, like other crises before, has simply been orchestrated by the regime in order to conjure its dramatic and proximate'resolution'--no doubt with the loss of some expendable lives--that would help cementMusharraf's crumbling image as a bastion against Islamist extremism and the Talibanisation of national politics. There is some inconclusive evidence that the crisis may have been collusively orchestrated by elements within the establishment and the intelligence services, and the fact that the crisis was permitted to fester and, indeed, to cyclically escalate, from the first incidents--the takeover of a public library by women students of the Jamia Hafsa--in January 2007, gives some credence to such an assessment. As with virtually every aspect of politics in Pakistan, there are contradictory elements in play, underlining the complex relationships between the jihadi elements within the country and the military leadership. 

As with the strategy of 'management' of radicalism in the NWFP and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), however, this approach has inherent risks and limitations. While the Army remains committed to a nationalist perspective--albeit increasingly tainted with elements of the Islamist extremist and jihadi ideology--at least some of the jihadi groups go beyond the boundaries of the sarkari (officially sanctioned) ideology to embrace a puritanpan-Islamist dogma that rejects the primacy of nationalist or State interests. It has, till now, been possible to direct much of the fury of this radicalised Islamist terrorist element outwards--towards Afghanistan and India--but there is evidence of an increasing proportion of this rage turning inwards. 

Abdul Rashid Ghazi has sought to protract the standoff at the Lal Masjid, calling for the suspension of the military operation pending a judicial determination of any alleged wrongdoing by him. At the time of writing, however, reports suggested that a high-level meeting convened by Musharraf was hammering out the details of a final military strategy to end the confrontation. A military'victory' may give Musharraf some immediate relief, partially restoring his sagging image in the international media and community, and aiding his projection asPakistan's last bulwark against extremism and terrorism. But slow processes of attrition are working against Musharraf and there has been a steady loss of both domestic and international legitimacy for his regime. The build-up in the Lal Masjid complex contributed to this loss of legitimacy for over six months; a violent resolution of the crisis will do nothing to restore such legitimacy. It is only through the augmenting use of force and the ambivalent and precarious manipulation of jihadi sentiments that the Musharraf regime will continue to retain its grip over power in Pakistan. 

Ajai Sahni is Editor, the South Asia Intelligence Review (SAIR); Executive Director, Institute for Conflict Management.Courtesy, SAIR.