Aparna Rawal, specialist on the AfPak region speaks with Col Anil Bhat (retd.) on Pakistan's growing security challenges on its western border and Indian defence minister's offer for the first time to help Pakistan counter terrorism | SAM Conversation
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00:00 Welcome to SAM Conversation, a program of South Asia Monitor.
00:15 I'm Colonel Anil Bhatt.
00:18 Our topic today is Pakistan's growing security challenges on its western border and the Indian
00:26 defense ministers offer for the first time to help Pakistan counter terrorism.
00:36 To discuss this we have Ms. Aparna Rahul who's been working on the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
00:55 Pakistan has been facing many challenges within the country and on its border with Afghanistan
01:11 and its relations with Afghanistan too.
01:15 The Taliban there are strained. In the past year, 2023, almost every month since January
01:29 23, there have been seven to eight, about seven to eight per month attacks on Pakistan
01:36 army.
01:37 The months of May, April and May, the figure was higher.
01:49 And in the recent past also, there's been a lot of tension between the Tariq Taliban
01:58 and Pakistan and the Pakistan army and the Afghanistan Taliban.
02:08 It's another story that still doesn't stop the Pakistan army from launching all kinds
02:14 of propaganda offensives against India.
02:18 Aparna, would you please share your thoughts on the aspect of Pakistan's challenges as
02:34 far as the Tariq Taliban, Pakistan are concerned and the Afghanistan Taliban?
02:42 Well, for starters, Pakistan has never had a very great relation with Afghanistan as
02:50 the history has always been.
02:53 And when we're talking about the Western border for Pakistan, we have to take into consideration
02:59 also Iran, which is also having some issues in terms of relations with Pakistan.
03:05 And we also need to be talking about Afghanistan part, because at this given point, these are
03:11 the two countries with which Pakistan should be sharing decent relations.
03:17 But unfortunately, it's never been a very cordial relation.
03:20 It's always been an on and off relation.
03:23 Now why do we bring this into the picture?
03:25 It's because the Western border, Pakistan shares the border with Iran and Afghanistan.
03:34 So Iran is more towards the West side and majority of the Balochistan is alongside Iran.
03:42 Now in the past couple of years, I think since Pakistan came to independence, Iran has always
03:50 had a decent relation with Pakistan.
03:52 While in terms of Afghanistan, Pakistan has never had a very good relation with Afghanistan.
04:00 Pakistan built its international relations since 1947 with Pakistan.
04:05 In terms of Afghanistan, Afghanistan in 1948 voted against the inclusion of Pakistan in
04:13 the UN.
04:14 And this was owing to the fact that till date, Afghanistan does not recognize the demarcated
04:23 boundary between the two countries, because it still holds its claims to the Pashtun lands
04:28 across on the Pakistani side.
04:30 So this is where the question of insurgency also pops up from the Pashtun side.
04:36 The Pashtuns view the Durand line between Afghanistan and Pakistan as an artificial
04:43 entity because they have their own families and their relatives right across the border.
04:49 They don't recognize this line as theirs.
04:51 So there has been a lot of ill will, disgruntled feelings, a lot of rebellions that have been
04:58 happening and Afghans have always maintained that Pakistan is illegally occupying their
05:04 area.
05:05 In terms of Iran, Pakistan had very cordial relations.
05:09 In fact, they were like brothers in arms in the start.
05:12 This was because of their animosity towards the Baloch separatists, which were present
05:18 in Iran and were present also in Pakistan.
05:23 And at the same time, these two countries wouldn't want the Baloch to have any kind
05:28 of self-determination for an independent state of Balochistan.
05:33 So given these conditions, they managed to have a decent relation.
05:38 Plus, both of them were part of CENTO.
05:41 Iran helped Pakistan in the past in the war against India in 1971, while Pakistan also
05:47 went ahead and helped Iran in terms of the Iran and Iraq war that was in 1980 to '88.
05:58 So they helped them out.
06:00 They have also carried out a lot of operations together against the Baloch.
06:06 Now coming back to the current times, we have Iran accusing Pakistan of providing safe havens
06:15 to groups like Jaish-e-Aladl, which is actually a new version of the Sunni Deobandi terrorist
06:24 group called Jundullah.
06:27 And they believe that Pakistan is providing safe havens to this particular group.
06:33 So Jaish-e-Aladl is responsible in the past couple of months for carrying out a lot of
06:39 attacks on the Iranian security forces, whether it's the police, whether it's the soldiers,
06:46 so on.
06:47 Recently, there were many of the revolutionary guards.
06:52 Just a moment, please request you to elaborate a little bit on Jaish-e-Aladl.
07:01 Jaish-e-Aladl is actually a new iteration of Jundullah.
07:08 Now Jundullah was basically a group of orthodox, extremely orthodox Sunni Deobandi group.
07:17 And it was later on disbanded.
07:19 Which region?
07:21 This is of Iran, the Balochistan-Iran area.
07:25 So these people are, I mean, Jundullah is basically operating from Pakistani side, as
07:33 Iran is claiming.
07:35 Iran was saying that these people, the Pakistanis were giving safe haven to these groups.
07:42 Now Jundullah was disbanded by 2010.
07:45 By 2010, the group was disbanded upon the arrest of its Emir, Abdul Malik Rigi.
07:51 He was eventually executed.
07:54 But however, this particular group, Jaish-e-Aladl, which has been claiming attacks recently,
08:01 these guys, they advocate for the right of the Sunni Baloch present in the Iranian part
08:06 of Balochistan, the Sistan area.
08:10 And they are catering more to the Sunni citizens of Iran.
08:16 Sunni Baloch citizens, to be precise.
08:19 So with this in mind, the attacks are being carried out also on the Shia communities,
08:26 because this particular group, Jaish-e-Aladl, which is called the Army of Justice, it is
08:33 very anti-Shia.
08:34 So they have carried out plenty of attacks in different regions, like since 2014.
08:44 And these are areas of Saravan, Kasra-e-Kand, Negor, all inside Iran's Sistan and Balochistan
08:52 province.
08:53 Jaish-e-Aladl has mostly targeted the Iran security forces.
08:59 Now these attacks involve suicide bombings, IEDs, kidnappings, killings, so on.
09:06 So Iran has been completely threatened by this particular group.
09:11 Now they somehow believe that all these attacks are happening from the Pakistani soil.
09:16 They orchestrated from the Pakistani soil.
09:18 Hence, when in 2019, 27 of their revolutionary guards were killed in one of the attacks claimed
09:26 by Jaish-e-Aladl, Iran criticized Pakistan for not doing enough to curb its inability
09:32 to stop the terrorism on its soil.
09:35 That time, however, Pakistan had complied with the investigation and tried to help with
09:41 that.
09:42 However, that didn't stop, because later on in the following years, Pakistan also started
09:47 getting attacked from BLA and BLF, BLA Baloch Liberation Army and Baloch Liberation Force.
09:57 These were having their safe havens in Iran, as Pakistan has claimed.
10:01 So both countries have been at each other's throats, pointing fingers, saying that each
10:07 is giving a safe haven to the other.
10:11 And with so much building up in 2023, after numerous number of attacks in Iran from the
10:17 Jaish-e-Aladl cadre, what happened was Iran decided to carry out a strike.
10:27 Just a moment.
10:28 Yes.
10:29 Just a moment.
10:30 Aparna, please.
10:31 Sorry for stopping you.
10:32 Balochistan, there's a lot of Chinese there.
10:36 Are there reports of Baloch groups targeting the Chinese also?
10:44 Yes, it's still very much existing.
10:46 In fact, the Baloch insurgency in Pakistan, even though the Pakistani media says that
10:53 it's come under control, it would be foolish to actually consider it as any kind of lesser
11:01 frequency of the Baloch insurgency at the moment.
11:05 Because the kind of environment that has built in Pakistan at the moment is that most of
11:10 the insurgents have joined hands with the likes of TTP, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan,
11:15 also called the Pakistani Taliban, the Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army, and a lot of new splinter
11:23 groups have popped up.
11:25 So if you're talking about them targeting the Chinese, yes, it's very much happening
11:31 right now because according to the Baloch, with the Chinese colonization, they believe
11:38 that the Chinese will marginalize the Baloch population in Balochistan.
11:44 With Pakistan trying to provide more investments with the CPEC coming into the picture, BRI
11:51 projects, Gwadar now has been completely sealed off with military forces without people getting
11:56 entry in that area, Baloch feel that somehow they're being exploited, their own minerals
12:04 and resources are being exploited, but then do not gain from it.
12:09 Plus, there have been a lot of reports, like a couple of years ago, there was a major general,
12:17 Ayubin Bilal, who was ordered by the Chinese to carry out a kill and dump policy in the
12:23 area of Balochistan.
12:24 He carried out this operation Ground Zero in order to curb the Baloch insurgency.
12:30 And this meant like wiping out the Baloch race.
12:35 People in Balochistan don't get the basic education.
12:38 At the same time, their own language and their heritage, culture, it's all being curbed as
12:45 the way Punjab wants it.
12:48 The people of Balochistan are actually somewhat feeling very disgruntled because of this.
12:54 And at the same time, this is a form of colonization because the people are going missing.
13:02 If you raise your voice against the military, the Pakistani military or any of the law enforcements,
13:08 you are going to go missing.
13:09 There'll be abductions.
13:10 And these have been going on for a very long time.
13:14 The protests are falling on even like the deaf ears.
13:18 So coming back to the terrorism angle, yes, TTP also has joined hands with the Baloch
13:27 network, which is working under Bras.
13:30 You have BLA, BLF all working together.
13:33 So now the human intelligence also has increased.
13:36 Area of influence also has increased.
13:39 So insurgency has been on a complete uptick at this point.
13:43 Not to mention Pakistan was hoping that after the exit of the Americans from the Afghan
13:51 soil, they would have some kind of a strategic depth in Afghanistan since they had been helping
13:57 Taliban out for a very long time.
14:00 During the Afghan-Soviet war, Pakistan was funding the Mujahideen's fighting in Afghanistan.
14:06 And at that time, even Iran was backing them.
14:09 But what happened was when Pakistan in the third Afghan civil war, when Pakistan changed
14:16 its alliance completely to Taliban, this is where Iran backed out because Iran was fighting
14:22 for the Northern Alliance.
14:25 They were fighting with the Northern Alliance, which was completely anti-Taliban.
14:29 So during this time, Pakistan started putting its seeds right in the soil, hoping that with
14:35 time, when Taliban comes to power, Pakistan would have some kind of strategic depth and
14:40 influence in the area.
14:43 During this time, since during 1996, Taliban comes to power, didn't stay in power for too
14:49 long.
14:50 By 2001, Americans came.
14:52 Upon the exit of Americans, the Afghan Taliban came to power again with the help of Pakistan.
14:58 But Pakistan was not able to convince Taliban to help them curb the issue with TTP as well.
15:06 Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, who has been waging a war against Afghanistan, carrying out terror
15:11 campaigns, jihad against Pakistan.
15:14 The idea is to overthrow the Pakistani administration and bring a strong Sharia rule according to
15:20 what TTP thinks should be the Sharia rule.
15:24 At the same time, TTP has pledged its alliance very openly to Afghan Taliban, and Afghan
15:31 Taliban has done nothing to curb them.
15:35 So Pakistan, of course, was quite disappointed with that.
15:40 The ceasefire was called off in 2021.
15:43 And since then, TTP has been waging war, especially in areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, around the
15:48 Durand Line, because at the end of the day, TTP consists of a lot of Pashtuns and people
15:56 from the tribal region who do not consider themselves to be a part of Pakistan.
16:01 And as it is, Taliban and Afghanistan were not very happy in the past also, when Pakistan
16:08 tried to incorporate that area in their one-unit policy, which was to incorporate it in the
16:17 western part of Pakistan.
16:21 They were not happy about it because they don't consider themselves to be a part of
16:25 Pakistan.
16:26 So given this, TTP, since the rise of Taliban, has been waging its war on Pakistan.
16:35 And not only that, what has happened, two umbrella networks have emerged.
16:40 This is a new trend.
16:41 Like around the Durand Line, we are now seeing many splinter groups, a lot of small independent
16:48 splinter groups, which Pakistan claims are coming from Afghanistan, across the Durand
16:54 Line.
16:55 These groups have pledged their allegiance to either the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group or the
17:02 TTP.
17:03 One of the groups which has come to power on a great level is this group called JAMK,
17:10 that is Jabhat Ansar Al Mahadi Khurasan.
17:17 This is a faction of the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group.
17:23 Now Hafiz Gul Bahadur, what makes this group interesting is that in the past, Hafiz Gul
17:29 Bahadur among the tribals is viewed as a very strong commander because he fought in the
17:36 Afghan war.
17:38 He had ties with the Siraj-ud-Din Haqqani network.
17:41 He had ties with Al-Qaeda.
17:43 And the people from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa area and the tribal area felt that he was
17:48 somebody that they could follow.
17:51 So when Taliban comes to power, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, this man comes up with his group.
18:00 Pakistan tried to make a deal with this man, hoping that they would come into some terms
18:06 to curb the terrorism from the TTP end because this man was the deputy emir of the…
18:13 Aparna…
18:14 Yes.
18:15 Aparna, may I please interject here a moment?
18:22 Who are funding these groups?
18:26 Where are they getting their arms from?
18:30 These are basically…
18:31 TTP, I take it, may be stealing them from Pakistani armies, armories.
18:49 Yes.
18:50 Anyway, please go ahead.
18:51 Just try and throw light on…
18:52 The reason I want to touch up on this Hafiz Gul Bahadur group is because the way it's
18:59 emerging now, it's a new group, the new faction, JMK, which is emerging, is actually
19:06 reaching prominence at a very short span.
19:09 And not only are these new people who are coming in, the TTP core commanders or the
19:15 TTP cadres that are actually coming across now, these are no longer the illiterate people
19:21 or the tribal people fighting from the mountains anymore.
19:24 It's no longer the attack and scamper policy.
19:27 Like, they're not carrying out a guerrilla style kind of warfare.
19:33 These people actually, just like TTP, BLA, the Baloch insurgents, they have this brigade
19:39 called the Majid Brigade, which is a straightforward suicide brigade.
19:44 The idea is to go create maximum damage, get their aims clear.
19:50 It's no longer hit and scamper.
19:52 Same thing is going on with the TTP people.
19:56 Not only are they recruiting individuals who are very well educated and tech savvy, to
20:02 be more precise, because now we are also seeing, like BLA, BLF, SRA, Sindhudesh Revolutionary
20:09 Army, we are seeing that even like these groups that are coming out of TTP are making claims
20:15 and attacks on social media.
20:17 They know how to use technology to gain traction, prominence, awareness, while they're also
20:23 making the claims openly known.
20:26 We wouldn't know about a group like JMK unless we knew who was the one claiming the attacks.
20:33 And now the attacks are being claimed soon after the attacks are happening.
20:38 So this particular group was a faction of the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group.
20:44 But unlike its parent group, it is actually more proactive on the social media.
20:50 It doesn't shy away from the claims.
20:53 So now we are seeing splinter groups coming into the picture, and they are definitely
20:58 more highly capable and efficient at carrying out their attacks and claiming their attacks.
21:03 So this is a new trend that has started with the splinter groups.
21:09 And we're looking at TTP and HDB, that is Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, as the two main networks
21:15 that people are joining.
21:16 If they're not joining these two, we're seeing a lot of them joining ISK Khurasan.
21:22 It has also been claimed that in order to curb the TTP threat that is coming into Pakistan,
21:30 Pakistan has invited the ISIS Khurasan, who is also a rival of Taliban, to come and stay
21:38 in the ISI guest houses.
21:40 There's a deal that has been signed, and this deal is the Davori Agreement that they came
21:46 up with, our main rafter of village from where one of the ISIS leaders belonged.
21:52 So according to this deal, both of them are killing two birds with one stone.
21:57 ISK wants to have extraction in Afghanistan and counter Taliban.
22:03 And Pakistan wants to take care of TTP.
22:06 Now tell me, Aparna, with all this happening, Pakistan still manages to pump in terrorists
22:20 in Jammu and Kashmir, maybe less than earlier in the valley.
22:25 But certainly in the slightly south, in that region, it's increased.
22:31 And even in the valley, the threat is still there.
22:36 The old targeted areas, the threat is still there.
22:41 And Mr. Rajnath Singh, our defence minister, has sent many tough messages that you better
22:53 behave or we can, we can enter your house and kill you.
23:03 Well, that was done only once on the land in 2016 by way of what we refer to as surgical
23:12 strikes and a very, very well coordinated air attack on Balakot by the Indian Air Force
23:21 was done in 2019.
23:23 But these are single, you know, we haven't done anything beyond that.
23:30 What do you see the effect on India as with all that is happening?
23:37 At the moment, with the way things are going on, Pakistan is already looking like a sinking
23:45 ship.
23:46 Its relations are definitely in a very bad state with Taliban and India and Taliban are
23:53 sort of warming up to one another.
23:56 In one front, at least there is a hope that we might be able to counter a certain amount
24:02 of threats with this kind of relation if we allow it so.
24:08 But in a more cautious way, given the Taliban themselves were insurgents who have now turned
24:14 into an administrative government.
24:16 So we have to tread carefully.
24:20 Maybe we can cultivate on that kind of a relationship and hope that we can counter
24:25 them.
24:26 And also, we need to wind up soon.
24:32 And as far as the offer by Mr. Rajnath Singh to Pakistan that for the first time, that
24:40 do you need any help from us?
24:41 How do you think that is being viewed?
24:44 I personally don't see that being viewed.
24:46 I think so it was more of a scathing remark to hit under the belt, given that the elections
24:52 are nearby.
24:53 And the way I see it, we are already carrying out Operation Sarva Shakti around the Pir
25:01 Panjal, south of the Kashmir area.
25:04 That is being done from the Indian side.
25:07 There are more COVID operations on the way.
25:09 I don't think it's going to be disclosed anytime soon to the public.
25:14 But as far as we are concerned, I think why interfere or disturb the enemy when it's making
25:21 its own mistakes?
25:23 Might as well sit and watch it take itself down.
25:27 Yes, yes, yes.
25:30 Anyway, Apna, I'd like to thank you for all that you explained about these groups.
25:42 And we'll keep our eye on these and meet again.
25:51 Thank you very much.
25:52 Thank you very much for having me.
25:54 [BLANK_AUDIO]