Pakistan: Real issue ignored: Drone strike in Hangu

SEEN from any perspective, it is an alarming development: the first drone strike in the settled areas of KP in five years. As ever, however, the reasons for the alarm in Pakistan are misplaced. Start with the embarrassment that the government will be suffering a day after the prime minister’s senior-most adviser on foreign policy told a Senate committee that the US had indicated a willingness to suspend drone strikes for the duration of talks with the TTP. Sartaj Aziz’s words were carefully chosen: he spoke only of the

TTP not being targeted while talks were under way — which they are not. So the killing of an alleged militant linked to the Haqqani network does not, strictly speaking, fall within the ambit of the reported US assurance to Pakistan. Still, such an attack while the government keeps insisting to already hostile Pakistanis that drone strikes will end soon, will force the rulers to adopt a condemnatory mode. Even if that condemnation is mild, it will, yet again, steer the national conversation away from militancy and towards the undesirability of drones. Meanwhile, the real questions will go unaddressed. For one, after the killing of a senior Haqqani leader in Islamabad last week, the Hangu drone strike is the second attack targeting the Haqqani network on Pakistani soil. If a long-running shadowy war is growing even murkier in the run-up to the Afghan handover in 2014, who is on which side and what does any of it mean for Pakistan’s national security? In addition to the perceived need to protect certain assets in North Waziristan, the state’s reluctance to launch an operation in the agency has often been attributed to a worry about blowback inside Pakistan proper. Does the targeting of Haqqanis inside Pakistan increase the possibility of friction with a group with the proven ability to launch devastating strikes in the region? Is there anyone in the Pakistani state apparatus, uniformed or civilian, who can handle these new developments with skill? More broadly, though no less importantly, what is the government’s strategy on talks with the TTP and its policy on militancy? Simply lamenting the alleged damage drones do to the possibility of talks is no strategy. The militancy threat is real and immediate. There are far too many areas of the country that have become sanctuaries and hideouts for militants. No people or state can be strong or secure with such internal threats. Is anyone in the state apparatus willing to show any leadership?