Recent developments in Pakistan are worrisome for fellow citizens due to a multi-dimensional nexus that points towards Indian financial support to the Afghan Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the violent attitude of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) that is also backed by the Afghan Taliban regime. It is now absolutely clear that the Afghan Taliban regime is harboring Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorists and providing them with all kinds of material and logistical support to wage war on Pakistan. The Bannu incident that initially started with the aim of demanding peace in the province was hijacked by the PTM and Afghan terrorists who started provoking the military camps nearby by throwing stones and created a dangerous and challenging situation. A group of miscreants also looted sugar and wheat from the ration depot. The PTM menace used full support from Afghan refugees and tried creating a law-and-order situation. Earlier, the militant suicide attack on the Bannu garrison was an act of war on July 15th when at least four soldiers were killed and more injured after an explosion and gunfire at a military barracks in Bannu city.
An unknown group called Jaish-e Fursan-e Muhammad claimed responsibility for the attack in a WhatsApp message to media outlets as per reports. Later local security officials said that all five attackers had been killed. A few days ago the same tactics were used by Mahrang Lango in trying to create so-called awareness about missing persons and now she plans to pursue further processions in the province. On July 20, a group of Afghans in Germany stormed the Pakistan Consulate General in Frankfurt, caused property damage in the consulate and later tried to burn the Pakistani flag. This was an unacceptable situation and the Pakistan government has demanded from the German government to take stern measures to rein them in. Pakistan armed forces are determined and strong enough to deal with such challenges but the three front war waged on Pakistan is predominantly targeting the Pakistan Army and its unity of command.
Throughout Pakistan’s history, regardless of political chaos, wars with India, USSR and terrorism, an unshaken bond existed between the people of Pakistan and its armed forces. Due to this strong bond Pakistan was able to come out of many severe challenges. However, the challenges of 5th generation hybrid warfare are quite tactical in nature since TTP terror groups are somewhat familiar with Guerrilla tactics by using Afghan soil against Pakistan, initiating separatist sentiments by saying Lar aw bar yaw Afghan and handling Baloch terror groups like the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), etc. Pakistan each time was able to manage the pressures and emerged out of such challenges and one of the major factors was the close bond with people of Pakistan. The challenge Pakistan is facing now is the most lethal and optimized version of hybrid/5th generation warfare and this is trying to create deep divisions within rank and files amongst not only our families and the society but also within armed forces.
As said above, the key point of 5th generation warfare is to utilize the flow of popular sentiments that could potentially be bought from within various sections of the population. For example, in the 80s era MQM movement utilized popular sentiments of quota system, urban and rural resources division, etc. The famous SWAT TTP insurgency used Shariah law as basis of their struggle and FATA based TTP used Pakistan’s involvement in war on terror and drone attacks collateral damage as an excuse.
Currently social media is being used to target Pakistan army’s unity of command that cannot be tolerated at any cost. The collaborators of such campaign are mostly young generation that knows nothing about history of the country and related provincial sensitivities. The main purpose of this type of campaign is to weaken the country’s soft image, infrastructure, and economy. Unfortunately, many social media trolls from hostile nations are helping this vicious campaign with Indian and Afghani trolls supporting this campaign overtly and covertly.
The hostile nations and their agencies had failed badly in the past decade trying to wage a proxy war on Pakistan under the TTP and BLA shadow, but Pakistan army was able to handle this huge challenge with its might and unity of command. Normally, to achieve such objectives, the hostile powers use many means and maneuvers to execute their vicious plans like igniting any religious or ethnic sentiments usually mishandled by incompetent government officials, conflicting media reporting to create chaos, elaborate negative imaging to harm the economy, widen the socio-ethnic differences between country’s population and the current political anarchy under corruption slogan is being used and this seems a new type of model is being tried.
In this new hybrid warfare, it is utmost important to create counter narrative groups for handling anti-Pakistan or anti-Army trend on social media. No harmful trend should be allowed to be transmitted/spread under any external agenda. Now with the installation of latest technology firewalls, this SM trolling and propaganda will be limited finally.
World observers keep a close eye on social media trolling and build narratives based on filthy and flimsy trends. Also, there must be a counter and a close eye must be kept on those media anchors who ignite the situation by frequently switching their versions, posting negative trends, and acting much like SM troll collaborators. It must be noted that media groups and some of their personnel are one of the key tools being used in such type of warfare. We need to develop counter capabilities of civil law enforcement agencies quickly and aggressive Intelligence Based Operations (IBOs) must be continued on long term basis. IBOs are proving to be extremely effective and must be extended to all domains wherever necessary.
Anti-Riot Forces (ARF) need to be developed or upgraded keeping in mind recent trend of utilization of massive mobs to pursue negative political achievements, as such mob management capabilities must be mastered by and within our law and enforcement agencies. In this regard, the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) is supposed to lead for initiating and managing effective coordination amongst various agencies. NACTA should be a leading institute countering enemy hybrid warfare tactics, sadly we have not seen any evidence to support this or be in full effectiveness. This is a critical step to fight 5th Generation warfare enemy tactics. Lately, we had lost an exceptional ISI Brigadier Mustafa Kamal (Shaheed) who was the victim of hybrid 5th generation warfare. While the sacrifice of this brave soldier can never be forgotten, the point of concern is that proxies are still able to maneuver particularly in the Pak Afghan border area proximities. Although, for countering 5th generation proxies and in order to safeguard Pakistan’s interests, Pakistan finally took a rightful measure and started building a dual sided fence along the 2500+ km long Pak-Afghan border.
As of now, a considerable portion of the fence has been completed along with military settlements and is fortified by check posts. The immediate impact all over the country was a considerable reduction in major terror attacks in Pakistan. This single fact indicates quite clearly that almost all notorious actors were hiding in Afghanistan and that this was being used as a launching pad against Pakistan since a long time. But the recent attacks suggest some very strict measures need to be taken to close the loopholes for effectiveness of the border fencing arrangement.
In addition to fencing the border with Afghanistan and keeping in mind the late Brig. Mustafa Kamal incident, we must be ready to take some additional steps in the coming future. This is the sole right of a country to protect its interests and safeguard its citizens from any uncertainty due to a war like situation just next door to us. We can leverage just a recent example from Turkey.
Turkey launched an assault on Syria against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)/Peoples Protection Unit (YPG) terror groups. Turkey enforced a zone of influence about 30 km wide along its border with Syria and northern Iraq so that Turkey could be protected from ISIS, PKK and YPG terror groups. The same tactics can be exercised by Pakistan to protect its borders from all types of terrorism coming from TTP. The TTP hideouts are within a few miles from the Durand Line so keeping this option on the table will certainly help to control this Lar aw Bar Yaw Afghan and PTM menace once and for all. The entire world knows that Afghanistan is a war-torn country and is the sanctuary for all kinds of terrorist networks. So, fighting against terrorists acting from inside Afghan soil is the right of a sovereign country like Pakistan. We should also keep in mind that this is a world where only the powerful prevails.
I am suggesting immediate steps as taken by Turkey and sending troops the same way inside Afghanistan. There are ways on how to establish a buffer zone and I am convinced the time is fast approaching when our planners must keep this option on the table. For instance, or active or semi active-duty special flanks can be present permanently beyond the Durand Line thereby preventing any imminent threat towards Pakistan. These are not steps we have not exercised previously but we also have vast experience in of the 1980 era Afghan War where many tactical procedures were developed and factually utilized.
In order to be more effective, the intelligence networks need more resources (state of the art technology tools) and rigorous training keeping in mind various internal and external fronts. It includes all levels of assets starting from additional resources for defence agencies to civil law enforcement agencies. In addition, Joint Intelligence Collaboration with SCO member states along with utilizing Remote Access Trojans (RATs) capabilities that can be extremely helpful for handling challenges. This collaboration will further benefit when additional economic activities like CPEC, North South Gas Pipeline will be matured in the next few years hopefully, if the hurdles somehow will be removed.
Pakistan is the only country that has fought foreign imposed lethal hybrid warfare in the past couple decades resulting in tremendous monetary and physical losses, yet it emerged victorious while many countries were hugely affected by such warfare tactics. After the proxies from SWAT and FATA were defeated, the sports grounds in Pakistan returned to normal and we started enjoying cricket series with foreign teams visiting Pakistan, the recently conducted Pakistan Super League (PSL) cricket matches being case in point. All this indicates the positive development towards a better Pakistan as far as the country’s image is concerned.
One of the key aspects of social media is how to utilize it positively and effectively to Pakistan’s benefit. We have been noticing a negative and useless troll-type discussion in social media like YouTube, twitter/spaces, Facebook and Instagram, despite the fact that these platforms could be used for healthier outcome-based debates. We have challenges everywhere and in every sphere of life, and usage of social media for healthy debates/topics could be very helpful for formulating foreign policy, strategic paradigm maneuvering and geo-economics.
Pakistan has to play a key role in future events that will occur regionally as well as globally. There are certainly spiritual dimensions that dictate the Pakistan Armed Forces to get ready with maximum deterrent and optimum power to handle requirements of such divine events. The creation of Pakistan is itself a miracle during the scared month of Ramadan that saw the cold-blooded killing of migrants in 1947 and this is the baseline and spiritual backbone of the ideology of Pakistan Armed Forces. We cannot forget our martyrs of 1947 when a brutality was unleashed that was terrifying and if Pakistan has been able to sustain so many difficult situation throughout the course of its history, it is due to the memories and hidden prayers of Shaheeds of the 1947 Partition. This is the spiritual dimension that cannot be quantified by any foreign analytical study.
We must never forget what’s cooking in our neighborhood in the form of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that gave rise to Hindu extremism. The RSS Akhund Bharat ideology is visible to everyone and its cadres openly say that the division of the sub-continent was not right and that one day this division will be eliminated. This means simply that Pakistan and Bangladesh are still in their minds to become part of greater subcontinent under RSS rule. The problem in this hare-brained scenario is that Pakistan stands as the main roadblock in their way. RSS leaders believe that once Pakistan is dealt with, Bangladesh has no power to stand against India and it will be captured within no time. That is why all their negative efforts and evil energies are focused towards Pakistan.
The Indian hybrid warfare tactics against Pakistan were lately exposed by the apprehension of a serving Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadav in Balochistan area and the quantum and level of details that emerged from Mr. Jadav’s investigation are quite alarming. It seems as if India is working at the State policy level to weaken Pakistan and that any project or plan for Pakistan’s future progress such as CPEC is just not acceptable to the Indian government/establishment. The point to make is that this is only possible when one predominant sect of political ideology takes a major role spreading and proliferating this ideology at all levels of state sectors like the military, police, judiciary, etc and in this case, RSS has successfully done that and is now very much focused on its expansionist plan westward. This is exactly where scholars indicated the spiritual dimension in terms of a divine battle and well-known scholars like Dr. Israr believes that Allah Almighty may have chosen Pakistan and its Armed Forces to play a key role in such divine events. If we compare RSS developments in India, then the puzzle can be solved easily. This is the reason that India is on the forefront to destabilize Pakistan in all fronts including hybrid tactics, separatist training, guerilla attacks on armed forces and civilians etc.
The rapidly changing geo political situation in the region needs to be carefully examined in the Foreign Policy domain and right decisions needs to be taken for positive outcome for Pakistan. We were facing negative consequences of Russo-Ukraine war in terms of food security and global supply chain issues that are directly impacting regional geo-economics. Yet another important development occurred just recently and that is the Saudi-Iranian peace negotiations and restoration of bilateral relations with the mediation of China. This is a huge development that will definitely change the regional geo politics as well as geo-economics. Pakistan had faced a troubling situation due to the Saudi-Iran rivalry however Pakistan was still being seen as a strategic balancer in the region in the light of Saudi-Iran rivalry. This Saudi – Iran paradigm shift in terms of restoration of diplomatic ties will certainly ease the knots for Pakistan in many ways.
In the end, we must pay very close attention internally to eradicate elements of lethal hybrid warfare that is trying to create deep divisions amongst our masses and we must stand firm for our army’s unity of command that is utmost essential for the survival of Pakistan.
In additional, as suggested above, we must support and make every effort to strengthen other civil and law enforcement institutions so that reliance on our armed forces for almost everything under the sun could be minimized and they could focus only on external threats. It will be a good idea to raise two full Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) corps with highly trained personnel equipped with latest weaponry and training. One Corps can be dedicated to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the other to Balochistan. The role of the Rangers must be focused on the borders and the CTD and ARF must take care of civil law enforcement matters.
Another important paradigm that impacts the foreign policy is the economic model and removal of hurdles that restrict economic wellbeing of the nation for which education and health reforms are a must along with formation of prestigious educational and health institutions. Basic system reforms need to be done in field of taxation, land reforms, social justice and above, all corrupt elites must be punished.
Pakistan must develop a mix of economic model that covers sale of military hardware, tourism, agriculture and regional connectivity projects for revenue generation. After all, this can only be achieved if Pakistan eradicates internal threats, mainly those imposed by adversaries in the form of lethal hybrid warfare and we must handle it as a nation, standing side by side with Pakistan army and its current leadership.
Having said all of the above, it is worth mentioning that Pakistan is a nuclear state and this fact must be sealed into the minds of all our enemies. It has been specifically noticed that the Afghanistan Taliban government and its related PTM affiliates are underestimating the enormous power of Pakistan.
This power is the guarantee of our freedom and sovereignty. Once this freedom be at stake, things can go anywhere and take any shape. India has very well understood this dangerous paradigm but it seems Afghanistan is still under some utopia of Lar Aw Bar Yaw and needs to be cautioned in a very, very clear manner and to me, the time has arrived to do exactly this.
