battlefield
Collision course
With the military and the Taliban fighting head to head, the outcome of the operation is still unknown
By Mushtaq Yusufzai
"This year we were celebrating the bumper wheat crop," said Haji Habib-ur-Rahman, a displaced resident of Sultanwas village of the Buner Valley. He is among the 1.5 million people from Lower Dir, Buner and Swat, forced to flee their villages. Hundreds of thousands of people had left their homes and taken shelter in the nearest Mardan and Swabi districts.

From one situation to another
There needs to be more dialogue and discussion between stakeholders in Karachi
By Kamal Siddiqi
On May 12, 2007, more than 50 people lost their lives as a result of clashes between supporters of the MQM and the ANP. The issue at hand was the imminent visit of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry at the invitation of the lawyers of Karachi. While the MQM also wanted to hold its rally on the same day, two 'competing' rallies created havoc in the city -- something not unusual for Karachi, a city of about 18 million.

A book that goes under the heavy title of Tehzeebi Narigisiyat or Civilisational Narcissism is likely to be ignored. One either needs to hear Mobarak Haider, the author, speak about it or someone whose opinion one values to recommend it very strongly before getting to actually read it.

The book itself is a pleasant shock -- thought-provoking, provocative, scholarly and journalistic at the same time. The scope may be narrow -- Pakistan in the grip of Talibanisation -- but the diagnosis and the solutions offered are universal. It is almost cathartic to see that someone finally gathered courage to say what needed to be said and, surprisingly, in a language that the majority in this country understands.

Mobarak Haider seems in a hurry to put on paper many of his thoughts. This book too is hastily produced (but luckily very well-edited). It appeared in January this year, has already sold two editions and is well in its third one. This is unheard of in a country like Pakistan. He is all set to publish another one and then maybe many more. The degeneration of Muslims as a civilisation and their social awakening will perhaps be the running theme of each one.

These days, Haider is giving public talks in places that he deems important, even if they are risky. He is talking directly to people who are likely to oppose his thoughts and this is exactly what he seeks from the Muslims -- to oppose and to tolerate.

It turns out that the book is not a "think tank-sponsored study" and is only a consequence of general discussion among friends who coaxed him into writing it.

Born and bred in a backward village of Sargodha, Mobarak Haider went to Montmorency College Sargodha, and graduated in 1961 after having learnt to dream about building the future nation. At Gordon College Rawalpindi, as president of Post Graduate Students Union, he got the opportunity of inviting the "inspiring young handsome" Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, then a minister in Ayub Khan's cabinet. He took the opportunity to grill him for becoming a stooge of the dictator. Bhutto took him aside and said he would deliver and prove to him that he is no stooge. Gordon College transformed Haider from "the Nasim Hijazi hero" to the "modern man" that he has stayed ever since.

Sitting for this interview in his lounge in Lahore's Upper Mall, Haider's eyes light up as he talks about ZAB. After Gordon College, he became a rebel young lecturer involved in forming student unions and agitating against Ayub. The then governor Amir Mohammad Khan, in a famous incident, ordered his removal from lectureship along with a few others including Eric Cyprian, Amin Mughal, Prof Manzoor Ahmed and Masoodullah Khan.

Later, when ZAB was looking for potential cadre for his party, Haider's name was mentioned. Bhutto was in Lahore in 1966 when he was called and Bhutto immediately recognised him and by name. He decided to join him there and then.

Mobarak Haider had been involved in the political activity of the Left before he joined ZAB. The present day splinter groups were all in the making in those days and that makes him the best person to comment about the disarray and division of the Left in Pakistan. Interestingly, he blames it on "the romantic egotism of the leaders". "We never accepted the need to be together and to be an organisation. Each one of us was a leader and I have no hesitation in accepting that I was the most egotistical. Lack of emphasis on the final destination and more on self-projection is the malady of the Left in Pakistan."

He is now ready to go to the United States to communicate with the law-makers and intellectuals to mobilise their support for the issues of development and intellectual freedom in Pakistan. He is even prepared to participate in American politics from the Democratic Party's platform to draw attention to problems back home. Excerpts follow:

The News on Sunday: Is it correct to use the term civilisation for the entire Muslim population, considering their multiple identities. By doing so, aren't you predicting a clash of civilisations in some way?

Mobarak Haider: Yes, I do feel there is an imminent threat of such a clash. The malady i.e. narcissism is civilisational because the thought process of Muslim society everywhere is based on certain misconceptions. For example, the imperialistic impulse to rule the world is not just visible in the subcontinent; it was felt in the earliest parts of Islam, in the first period of caliphate, when it was given out to the world that we are the best people, ordained by divine authority, to rule the world. I have tried to show that there is hardly any evidence of it in the Quran or teachings of the prophet.

Then there are the two basic concepts of identity that the Mulsim civilisation preached to its believers -- the tribal and the Ummah identity. These two identities do not allow for an analytical or critical thought process. It was the intention of the rulers who conquered the world to keep people less informed and less critical. And therefore the tribal authoritative tradition became the Ummah tradition in which there is no questioning of the elders or rulers or superiors. In such a state, naturally, narcissism sets in. The subjugation of mind allows a certain pride to compensate for intellect. The rulers as well as the public are made to believe that they are superior; they need not think or question their identity and should go on aspiring for a world empire as a civilisation.

This civilisation as a whole, ideological as it was, believed that it was very superior, had a right to rule the world, had a duty to wage war whenever there was an opportunity. Unfortunately, in the present day world there is little opportunity and we do not understand that. We are in the habit of thinking that the world is ready to be conquered.

TNS: How do you make a comparison with the Christian experience of Enlightenment? Has the clergy-people relationship been so good in the Muslim world that it has prevented an Enlightenment-like movement?

MH: Islam perhaps was a definite advancement on Christianity that it carefully denounced an organised clergy which strangely has become the most organised. In the earlier stages of Islamic civilisation, there were only individuals with outstanding ability or merit who would be leaders of religious interpretation but there was no organised clergy. In Christianity there was an organised clergy almost from the start and it still exists as a patronised, centralised structure.

Why the Christian organised clergy succumbed to the pressure of times and became answerable to questions and why our clergy did not is the most interesting question. It was because of the prolonged wars between France and England that enabled a rethinking of issues different than religion. The people from the same religion fighting for a thousand years, thinking of weaknesses as pertaining to mundane realities and not divine issues, would naturally start thinking about worldly investigation or research. Even though we think the research or renaissance came as a result of the existing knowledge that came from the Arabs that came from the Greeks, basically it was the objective conditions that sowed the seeds of free thinking or intellectual awakening. This allowed the human mind to think in terms of concrete innovation and invention.

The Islamic ruling class was ruling comfortably; never engaged in a constant or long war. One destructive war that came upon them was Halaku's when Tartars came and destroyed the Muslim civilisation or Arab imperialism but that came only as a shock, instead of coming as an awakening.

One movement which could have led to Mulsim renaissance before even the Europeans could rise was crushed by the fundamentalist Muslim thinking. The powerful scientific and intellectual currents in the intellectual movement of the eighth century coming right to the time of Halaku in the thirteenth century were showing the possibility of a renaissance.

TNS: What were the other factors that excluded the possibility of research in Muslim societies?

MH: Renaissance is possible in a society that benefits from its fruits. In Arab society, trade was the rewarding activity and it was not necessary for people to benefit from new thinking and possible inventions. For instance there were inventions like the camera by Ibn al Haitham but these things did not attract the investor; actually there was no class that could benefit from these inventions. In Europe there was that class because of thousand years of war; a class manufacturing weapons, the class that we call manufactory, which benefited from the inventive genius of renaissance thinking.

The Muslim clergy remained in a strong position because it easily defeated the intellectual currents and because it was patronised by the kings; there was no material condition in Islamic society to uproot, overthrow or challenge it. The king-clergy relationship which was disturbed in Europe remained very strong in the Muslim world.

There are only one or two examples in the entire Mulsim history where the religious leaders challenged the Sultan. But these were individual differences of outstanding religious leaders, not a movement; some people say they arose more as a clash of personality. Perhaps this is true. If it were a difference of opinion based on movement of ideas, then the issue would have remained. But they did not.

TNS: What about the present times, when the Muslims are using the fruits of scientific advancements?

MH: Every transcendent, powerful civilisation or society tries to maintain its superiority programme. The present Anglo-American civilisation or the G-8 culture that is in control is very conscious of what can happen and what ought to happen. They have put the world to a systematic disintegration through religious revival. It's a very pertinent question. Many people are asking why did all religions start their revivalist activity in the latter half of the twentieth century. Is there a conspiracy in the heavens that these three four religions will fight?

TNS: The way you are putting it make it seem like another conspiracy by the G-8 countries. Isn't this a logical outcome of globalisation where people are asserting their various identities including religious ones?

MH: I don't call it conspiracy. I call it plan and it is an open plan. There is hardly any secret about it. They preach that there should be more space for religions to exist together. It is very instructive to know that the nations which are secular or democratic are not committed to secularism or democracy; they are openly committed to diversity which is cheating themselves and cheating the world.

TNS: But secularism does not mean no religion. It also means co-existence of religions?

MH: When I say that there should be no restriction on thinking, I will preach that restrictions be removed. They are preaching religion in that sense. They are not saying that it is wrong to promote religion because it clashes with other religions. They say let there be co-existence whereas they did not co-exist with socialism. They were determined to uproot and destroy each other.

TNS: But you make it seem as if socialism too is a religion?

MH: My point is that difference of opinion was not accommodated and now the sharpest difference of opinion which is religion is being accommodated. They have even accommodated dictatorships when it suited them. I don't say it is a conspiracy; it's a planned, well-established position. They are letting religion grow as an alternative to correct thinking which, in my view, will be where people take religion on a personal level. What is happening is that the Hindus, Muslims, Christians and even the once peaceful Buddhists are coming into the arena to establish their identity as the only identity. That is preparing the world for clash.

This status has made people of Pakistan and people of the Muslim world less eager and less competent to go for the standards that the world has achieved. We are very happy with the retrogressive stance that our religion provides everything and as Muslims it is okay for us to be in the medieval ages, to have no modern civilisational benefits.

TNS: Don't you think the people in the Muslim world are helped in their analysis by the critique of modernity which is emerging from the West itself. Your book holds modenisation as the key to ultimate happiness while we have seen capitalism has not made people ultimately happy, has it?

MH: That brings us to a very interesting debate of how modern world has made human beings unhappy and how it was brilliant and good to be in the medieval ages. This is naïve and absolutely unworkable.

In medieval ages, we did not have possibility with capital 'P', we had abnegation with capital 'A'. Abnegation was the philosophy of Sufis who preached contentment because there was no recourse to solution. Then came renaissance and man's first ability in human history to address a problem directly. We are in an intellectual era of attainment. When there is Possibility, there is more desire. This is what has happened in the modern life. So the modern man is impatient with the world he lives in. It is not because he is deprived or he is in pain. He is in the excitement of abundance.

Sometimes the pace with which new things come in our life confuse us and make us tense. It is not something bad. It makes us viable, more capable of producing, multiplying, more capable of ruling our world than nature and more creative.

Today out of those six or seven billion people that we are, we do not allow four hundred people to die of an epidemic unlike a few centuries ago when half of the world would die of an epidemic. We cannot say these are bad times, or that we have been taken over by evil developments. We have been taken over by our work which is wonderful. We are doing very well.

TNS: At some places in the book, you seem to be justifying the American position in the international system. How do you respond?

MH: I think there is a legitimate concern on my not strongly joining the anti-imperialist chorus that is futile and out of time. The actual time when we lost our struggle against US imperialism was when ZAB was fighting against American hegemony here. He decided to have his military might and national economy built on modern lines and he represented the people's will. Then the forces which stood with extremely clenched fists against America now stood in its favour under Pakistan National Alliance (PNA). Bhutto told them in detail that they represent the enemy.

We then became instrumental in the abolition of that balancing super power i.e. Soviet Union and China. We destroyed them and were amused and happy over our victory.

Now that America is a perfectly-placed single superpower, with all its resources and support from other client nations, when G-8 is so organised, it is meaningless to wage a war of independence. My emphasis is on the viability of a struggle.

I do not take it as the main issue, not because I do not believe in my national independence. I fought for a very long time, went to jail and was known as a committed anti-imperialist. I am an anti-imperialist. I believe in a world where nations live in absolute equality. My disagreement with the present situation is that it is fighting the US with wrong tools. You have withdrawn from the knowledge and industrial race. Instead of becoming a viable, industrial, modern nation, you have adopted the course of religious revivalism which is not the right way to fight imperialism. The imperialist, corporate America has to be fought strongly, but it must be undertaken through modern knowledge which we have refused. We have to become industrially and economically powerful before we can claim our independence.

TNS: How do you perceive the Indian threat to our existence?

MH: India is not a threat to us. It has been taken as a Nus which is an Arabic word meaning that it has been taken as an unchallengeable ordinance of a divine authority that India is our enemy. Who has decided it? If you start educating yourself and your people that we can live with dignity without fighting India, things will be fine. We could not hold our own one half, Bangladesh, and lost it. We cannot hold our Balochistan, our North, and we insist that we will fight India and have Kashmir. That is the dichotomy of our thinking.

Secondly, the world is capable of diplomatic manipulation. Many nations of the world today, unlike America, do not go and possess other people. India can be deterred from attacking us by our diplomatic activity. India will never attack us if we have national unity, a popular regime, a military that obeys the will of the people, and remains in barracks, and can be curtailed in number and size and if we can build an economy on viable lines. We can manipulate world opinion in our favour even on issues like Kashmir.

TNS: Why did you choose this psychological terminology of civilisational narcissism. By doing so, aren't you excluding certain other important factors. And thirdly, if indeed the entire Muslim civilisation is afflicted with this disease, what is the cure that you suggest?

MH: Other factors that you are alluding to and which have been pointed out to me in the debates on this book are that of persecution -- that Muslims are being persecuted in Palestine, Afghanistan and Kashmir -- and colonial persecution. The issue is how are we, as Muslims, responding to the an international reality which is also being faced by other peoples?

My point is that we do not respond to international realities [through terrorism and violence] in a healthy way. The evidence of a healthy response is in the results that it attains. Vietnam, China, whole of Europe and Russia fought against fascism, which we all agree is the worst form of imperialism, and many nations are still struggling for independence.

My analysis is that our attitudes have been markedly different from those of healthy nationalist independence movements. For example, we are the only people in the world who refused to be a part of the nationalist movement in India on the basis of our religious identity. And now we have responded to imperialism again in a religious way which is not a correct analysis. Nations are not being subjugated on the basis of religion. Nations of Europe, all Christians, fought each other, Buddhists fight Buddhists, Muslims are also fighting Muslims.

When we seek identity in religion, it is a sickness because in it we find a pride with reference to the past. We refer to nostalgia and build a certain ego instead of addressing the problems existing today. The normal response will be build your economy, knowledge, your ability to match them, but we go to Hizbullah, Hamas, the Iranian phenomenon.

TNS: But Hamas emerged only as a consequence of PLO's corrupt practices?

MH: The national movements of the Muslim world failed not because they were not religious enough. They failed because they were wrongly nationalistic. They were corrupt in their nationalism. The answer is not in reverting towards a backward stance. The answer is in clearly defining your position as a nationalist movement, in becoming more modern and viable.

TNS: But the answers will not always be to our liking?

MH: Yes but how does a wrong answer permeate our identity and intellect. Why we as a people go for solutions that are narcissistic. It is because we are sick.

TNS: So what's the solution?

MH: The solution is to strongly pull out from our past nostalgia and false pride. Start thinking with modesty, humility and eagerness to know. That is the answer. We need very good education and extremely brutal self-criticism. Everything will fall in place if we allow strong disagreement on everything, without restricting our intellectuals from criticism, so that we start becoming more tolerant. We must not exclude our religious beliefs as sacrosanct, we must allow even a child to question us.

TNS: Is that kind of a solution possible from within Islam, by Ijtehad. Can you also tell us about your upcoming work which talks about the punishment for disagreement in Islam?

MH: There should be permission for disagreement and debate. The question is: does our faith allow that? It's a pertinent question because it is very difficult for people to agree to give up their faith if the faith does not allow them to discuss things. In my next book Ikhtelaf ki Saza Maut I have discussed the question of apostasy; apostasy has been condemned as punishable by death in our tradition. The last authoritative writer to write on it was Maulana Maudoodi of Pakistan and I have tried to prove that Quran and the Prophet do not condemn the apostate; even the most rabid apostate, to death.

So disagreement with your religion is not punishable in any way. If shariah and tradition and Quran allow disagreement to the degree of apostasy then how can it not allow disagreement on one simple question -- that religion will remain a private matter and will not interfere with the issues of the state.

If it stops being the guiding or the interfering principle and the clergy is pushed back as ordinary citizenry then we can start developing as a people. To me, as long as religion in the hands of clergy is the decisive force and everything is viewed with their eyes, we will never be able to understand the world around us. Quran does not ask us to put religion as the state authority. This I have proved and I will continue to do so from the texts.

This agreement is possible within the framework of religion. Once it is allowed, you are free to move with your human consciousness. The only thing you have to guard against is your religious freedom. If a society obstructs your religious freedom then you have a right to fight.

I've spent the long weekend in India. The wife reminded me that we still have the all-purpose visa enabling us to go any where we want for a year, so we made our way to Wagah, which lies along the Lahore canal over which we are building two bridges. So the way to the border is a series of diversions and what should have taken us half an hour took one and a half.

But it did not matter as this seems to be the off season and the whole place was empty. We were shoved through the Pakistan Section of immigration, walked through the long section of no man's land into another gate which was the Indian Section of immigration. We were shoved through this one even more smartly than the last one. In half an hour we were on the road to Amritsar.

The first thing one notice is the inordinate number of young girls going round on bicycles or on scooters, many with their younger sisters, in dark glasses. One notices this because this is a scene hardly ever seen on the other side of the border. The second thing that struck one was that this was a country firmly in the grip of election fever. There were election hoardings all over, although no one seemed to have had inkling about who was going to win.

Our hosts had got us into one of the dozens of brand new hotels on a brand new road just on the edge of town. We asked them if we were the first guests, they said no they had already had a week of guests. Then we asked if we were the first Pakistani Guests. Yes we were! That brightened up the welcome!

The first order of business was to make our way to the oldest yogurt shop in town. This is right in the centre of the town and is busy twenty four hours a day. Their speciality is mixing in 'peras' into the yogurt, which are just milk heated until they dry up, and peras bunged into the yogurt and water mixed together forms a wonder concoction, with oodles of yogurt cream mixed in.

The thing about the elections was that it seems no one party is going to win a majority. So the whole question is which two, or three, parties are going to form a coalition. The consensus seems to be a copy of the scene in Pakistan where the two largest parties were forced to form a coalition, only to have it fall apart, and come together again. By the time you get to read this it will all have settled and I bet it will be a lesson in democracy for the rest of the world!

"This year we were celebrating the bumper wheat crop," said Haji Habib-ur-Rahman, a displaced resident of Sultanwas village of the Buner Valley. He is among the 1.5 million people from Lower Dir, Buner and Swat, forced to flee their villages. Hundreds of thousands of people had left their homes and taken shelter in the nearest Mardan and Swabi districts.

More than half of these internally displaced persons (IDPs) have taken shelter with their relatives or friends, and in some cases with strangers, in various villages of Mardan, Swabi, Nowshera and Peshawar. The rest have been accommodated in makeshift camps in Mardan and Swabi districts.

The ongoing military swoop is, so far, one of the most hard-hitting military campaigns Pakistan army has launched against the Taliban in Malakand region, particularly the Swat valley. The operation was launched in three Malakand districts of Lower Dir, Buner and Swat simultaneously.

Security forces including Pakistan's regular army, paramilitary Frontier Corps and Frontier Constabulary (FC) -- equipped with aircrafts, gunship choppers, tanks and artillery guns -- were ordered to take on the well-trained 4,000 militants in a desperate move to restore the government writ.

Senior government officials told TNS that the operation was planned after Maulana Fazlullah-led Taliban, despite a peace accord with the ANP-led Frontier government, did not stop their militant activities. Also, for the first time almost all religious and political parties -- except Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf (PTI) -- backed the current military drive against militants. Both the leadership and the masses, however, fear the repercussions of the possible failure of this operation.

In the past, the several rounds of security forces' operations against the Taliban remained futile in eliminating the Taliban or their armed activities in Swat. For the past two years clashes between the militants and law-enforcement agencies, continuous road blockades and extended curfew durations had not only disrupted the valley's peace but also affected tourism, one of the main sources of Swatis' bread and butter.

The new battlefields for the security forces were Dir and Buner where Maulana Fazlullah-led Taliban had set up their strongholds. Led by a Swati young cleric, Maulana Khalil-ur-Rahman, a small group of Taliban took over the valley on April 5 without facing any resistance from the law-enforcement agencies. But after the operation was launched here on April 28, the military claims to have so far been successful in reclaiming Buner. On April 26, the Frontier Corps (FC) launched another operation in Lower Dir's Maidan area against the militants, who had killed a district police officer and had been kidnapping people for ransom. Backed by helicopter gunships, the troops swung into action and pounded suspected positions of the Taliban.

Among the 160 militants that the security forces claim to have killed in Maidan is Maulana Kifayatullah, the elder son of the chief of Tanzim Nifaz Shariat-i-Mohammadi (TNSM), Maulana Sufi Mohammad. TNSM spokesman Ameer Izzat Khan claimed that Maulana Kifayatullah always kept himself at a distance from his father's religious movement.

Talking to TNS, Maj-Gen Athar Abbas said that instead of ending their terrorist activities, the militants continued their barbaric actions, including attacks on military convoys, kidnappings and beheadings of security personnel and peaceful citizens in Swat.

Defending full-size military drive against the militants, military spokesman and Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Maj-Gen Athar Abbas said it was time the government took action against the militants who had crossed all limits of barbaric activities including publicly beheading people, looting and plundering. He said that the militants refused to "give up militancy, cease their militant activities and also stop their parallel administrative set up" which they had pledged in the peace accord.

"They even extended their armed activities out of Swat valley and captured neighbouring Buner district, which was last nail in the coffin of peace accord. This was sheer violation of the deal which forced the government to react," the military spokesman explained. According to Abbas, more than 751 militants have so far been killed in the military operations in the three districts. In Swat, he said, some senior Taliban militants have been killed and several others taken into custody. He said the bodies of the militants will not be shown to the media because it is against their principles.

The operation has also proved to be the deadliest-ever so far for the security forces and according to the ISPR chief, 29 military personnel have been martyred. The military spokesman said that almost 80 percent of Buner has been cleared of militants and the troops were now moving towards Sultanwas, Pir Baba and Jeewar areas, where militants were still hiding. He said that besides local militants, Afghan and Uzbeks are also fighting alongside Swati Taliban.

Taliban spokesman, Haji Muslim Khan, told TNS by telephone that their leadership was still intact and present in Swat. He refused the media reports about their losses in the operation. He also claimed that the military has been using excessive airpower in pounding residential areas of Dadhara and Shamozai in Kabal tehsil, Shah Darra and Malookabad in Mingora, Venai and Gat Peochar in Matta tehsil.

For the first time, however, Muslim Khan confirmed the loss of his 20 fighters. Khan alleged that US forces are directly involved in the operation against them.

"US Black Water secret agency which is infamous for extreme torture has been interrogating our people detained before and during the operation. Their people are present at Hayatabad in Peshawar and are helping Pakistani officials in interrogating Taliban," the militants' spokesman claimed.

He denied the reports of the deaths of Ibne Aqeel, brother of senior Taliban commander Ibne Amin, famous for beheading their rivals. He said he was injured and under treatment at their secret health centre in Swat.

Also, the fighting and artillery shelling caused heavy losses to the civilians in Swat and Buner. Around 200 injured many of them and children had so far been shifted to the ill-equipped District Headquarters Hospital Mardan (DHQ). These people complained the security forces targeted them when they were fleeing their homes during relaxation in curfew durations. Despite claims by the government, the injured people had not been provided free treatment and medicines.

On May 12, 2007, more than 50 people lost their lives as a result of clashes between supporters of the MQM and the ANP. The issue at hand was the imminent visit of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry at the invitation of the lawyers of Karachi. While the MQM also wanted to hold its rally on the same day, two 'competing' rallies created havoc in the city -- something not unusual for Karachi, a city of about 18 million.

The people of Karachi remember May 12 because on that day the state withdrew and let the city be held hostage by armed men, regardless of their affiliation. People saw how, overnight, the city turned into a lawless land with no one in control. There was not one policeman, Ranger or army man on the roads of Pakistan's economic nerve centre.

It was against this backdrop that the ANP announced a strike on May 12 this year. Their stand was that the victims of May 12 violence, primarily transporters and small traders, have so far not been compensated. The ANP claims to represent the large Pakhtoon community that now is a part of Karachi. For the party that is now facing a threat to its vote bank, this move was seen as a step to assert its popularity amongst the Pakhtoons of the city.

What deflated the ANP's strike-call balloon was the violence that shook the city in April 2009 when about 30 people died in violence that erupted following clashes in the Northern parts of the city. Police officials, in a report to the PM, held the MQM responsible for instigating the violence. The MQM, for its part, said that the land mafia and the other mafias in the city, who had become active and wanted to disturb the peace in the city, caused the bloodshed.

What is interesting is that this time around, the MQM did not blame the elements of the Taliban for the violence. Prior to this, the MQM persistently took the line that the Taliban elements were a threat to the security of the people and the city. In fact, they also ascribed some incidents of violence prior to the April flare-up.

After the April violence, MQM once again demonstrated its street power. Altaf Hussain's call for peace, later in the day, had the desired effect on the city, serving as a signal to all to stop the violence. In doing so, the MQM managed to diffuse the situation. To its credit, the ANP also did not react violently to the incidents of attacks on Pakhtoon businesses which were hard hit. Shops were shut down, transporters were pulled off roads, and even the small traders were not spared. And also, there was a reaction by the Pakhtoon in areas dominated by them.

In the midst of all this, when the ANP announced its strike call on May 12, the tensions rose. The fears that the same episode of violence will be repeated were accompanied by the rumours that arms are being piled up in the city. The tension resulted in skirmishes in areas where Pakhtoon and Urdu speaking communities bordered each other. It was a recipe for more violence.

Sensing the fear and the possibility of violence, the MQM took the move of announcing its own strike. In effect, this was an endorsement of the strike of the ANP. It helped calm and diffuse a potentially explosive situation. Political pragmatism won.

What was missing, however, was the role of the ruling party and the government which remained silent. Ministers insist that they played an important part in background sessions and discussions. The cream on the cake seemed the announcement of the CM to declare May 12 a holiday for Karachi. The crisis was averted.

However, Karachi continues to move from one explosive situation after another. So far, common sense and willingness on the part of the political stakeholders have helped. One can only wonder how long this state of affairs will continue.

There needs to be more dialogue and discussion between stakeholders in the city. Analysts say that the main issue is that the PPP government has withdrawn from its lead role and has ended up playing referee instead.

RIPPLE EFFECT

By most accounts it seems that the Pakistani military is serious this time about fighting the Taliban and the militancy. One says this given the daily briefing by the ISPR director-general where he goes in some depth on the operations and the high losses inflicted on the Taliban that are claimed on a daily basis by the military's spokesman. Having said that, as a professional journalist, one has to assess the quality of such information by scrutinising its source or resources and ascertaining their credibility. Since the military itself is a party involved in the conflict, it would be necessary to have some independent confirmation of the death toll that the Taliban have suffered as well as the reported gains made by the military.

As of writing this (May 12), the interior minister has claimed that over 700 Taliban insurgents have been killed in the campaign so far -- a significant jump from the 140 or so that the ISPR had claimed up till that point. Also, as has already been pointed out in the media (and by professional journalists) there is no way to a) independently verify the veracity of these claims because the media is more or less barred from the theatre of conflict and b) no explanation has been given so far for the wide divergence in the figures quoted so far by the ISPR and by the interior minister.

Hence, in this overall context, it is crucial that the death tolls be independently verified, especially given our past experience where military operations against militants and the Taliban have begun, then paused, and stopped altogether, and peace deals signed. Also, it is a matter of record that the military has used the Taliban for its own objectives vis-à-vis the theory of 'strategic depth' and also as a kind of a threat against the Indians and hence the people of Pakistan -- who desperately want the Taliban out of their midst for good -- need to know that the operation is achieving precisely what the government and ISPR are saying it is.

The discussion on the flow of information is essential because the people of Pakistan -- who, for a change, seem to be behind the campaign against the Taliban -- need to be reassured that the operation is being pursued with seriousness of purpose. They also need to know that the operational tactics -- without going into specific details of course -- are such that they will hit the Taliban where it hurts them most. For example, as already pointed out on the editorial pages of this newspapers by many a letter writer and indeed by many refugees interviewed on private television channels, there is concern at the use of artillery and airpower given that such weapons are not as effective as boots on the ground in fighting counter-insurgency warfare, especially in terrain such as Swat and Malakand.

So the question remains, where is the infantry and why isn't it being used in greater numbers? We did see early on army commandoes being airdropped into Daggar in Buner and more recently in Peochar in Swat. One hopes that this is just the beginning of a larger deployment.

Use of soldiers on the ground is preferable to shelling by artillery or jets/gunship helicopters because it allows for more precise targeting of the militants and their leadership besides minimising civilian casualties to a great extent. The issue being raised is that the intelligence agencies should now be used to pinpoint the hideouts of the Taliban leaders and they should be effectively neutralised. After all, that is precisely what they did in Waziristan -- where they killed nearly 350 tribal elders -- and later on in Swat where they targeted the local agrarian and political leadership. Why isn't the government impressing upon the armed forces to do the same now? And in any case, it has always been a most potent weapon used in wars immemorial.

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The follow-up on the military operation comes from a popular internet source -- take it with a pinch of salt because it comes from a website allegedly close to the Israeli military. Excerpts are being reproduced verbatim, without comment: "While by no means a phoney war, DEBKA file's military sources report that accounts of a major Pakistan military offensive launched to flush Taliban out of their strongholds in the northern Swat Valley are generally inflated. This is not to say that hundreds of thousands of civilians are not fleeing the valley. Some half a million are on the move and will join the same number displaced since August, generating a large-scale humanitarian catastrophe. According to our sources, the Pakistani army has so far not fought a single pitched battle with the Taliban. Neither have the insurgents been rooted out of any of the cities and villages under their control.. Pakistani prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani's statement of May 6 that the "armed forces were being called into to eliminate the militants and terrorists" is locally assessed as intended for Western ears rather than their own commanders. It was made when president Asif Ali Zardari was in Washington warding off criticism for not doing enough to fight Islamist terror. However, our military sources do not at this point see the 15,000 Pakistani troops poised in the Swat Valley actually launching a major offensive against the 5,000 Taliban fighters standing against them.. Furthermore, according to DEBKAfile sources, the Islamabad government and local insurgent chiefs are in secret negotiation to arrange for the army to move "victoriously" into the main Swat towns of Mingora and Kambar without facing resistance. Taliban would retreat to the countryside, undefeated and with minimal losses. Both sides would then revert to the original deal for the imposition of Sharia law in the province in return for a ceasefire. The negotiations also provide for Taliban to pull out of Buner province which is 90 kilometers from Islamabad. Both sides allowed a refugee catastrophe to develop to generate an eve-of-battle climate - hence the lifting of the curfew for a few hours Sunday, May 10, to encourage the civilian exodus. A breakdown of these talks may well result in the much-publicized Pakistani military push actually taking off. At the same time, military experts estimate that at least double the number of Pakistani troops deployed at present will be needed to regain control of the Swat Valley from Taliban and its allies."

The writer is Editorial Pages Editor of The News.

Email: omarq@cyber.net.pk