ISIS Trying To Move Into Pakistan–What Does It Mean?

By Kiran Nazish

Propaganda messages by the Islamic State, splashed on street walls across Pakistan have been making everyone nervous inside and outside the country.

From the northern province in Khyber Pukhtoon Khwa or KPK to the southern cities of Karachi and Quetta, graffiti with IS slogans and hundreds of pamphlets distributed in different parts of the country have been tapping on local jihadi “talent.” Some of the distributors found were former local militants who now claimed to have worked with IS. Last month a former Al-Qaeda militant who was found distributing pamphlets in Peshawar told me in a phone interview that he had returned from Syria. He said he had come to Pakistan after spending about two years in Syria where he was first with Al-Qaeda offshoots and then joined IS as it was formed. “I have returned to Pakistan to expand ISIS (or ISIL, now called Islamic State) recruitment to the country,” he said. Since then, there has been no news on how many Jihadis he took back with him, but many local groups including high profile commanders in the Pakistani Taliban have pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Sporadic evidence reveals that there are in fact militants who are going or coming from IS, while commanders in Pakistan are assigned to recruit in Pakistan and find local jihadis who could join IS.

A country exhausted from militancy at home

Such revelations have punctured the air for people in Pakistan who are exhausted from the brunt of militancy at home. Worrying about the fate of minorities—including Shias and Christians, who have suffered first hand from the buttery of Sunni militant groups—the local media is pulsating with new questions. Militant groups in Pakistan have also been responsible for getting the country in trouble with its neighbors like in high profile attacks such as the Mumbai Attack also known as 26/11, and others in Afghanistan.

India and Afghanistan are therefore nervous, knowing there is evidence of sympathetic elements within their own crop of militants, too.

The fret is that IS in Pakistan would be encumbering for both internal and external security in South Asia. Its exponential tendency of violence and desire to conquer territories will spill over and hurt the whole region, whether it successfully achieves its territorial goals or not.

Meanwhile, the IS graffiti that aims to spirit militant largess in a country that is already home to at least 48 militant groups, seems to be gaining at least virtual support from many local militants.

Jihadis from all creeds and politics have benefited

Pakistan is a country where Jihadis from all creeds and politics have benefited. The motherland, so to speak, gave birth to the pioneering global jihadis like Al-Qaeda and then the inimitable Pakistani Taliban, who have survived the U.S. drone campaign and aggressive military operations in the country. Still, they reemerge and grow. It is in Pakistan where their top commanders and chiefs have lived, instituted and have been occasionally found and killed. Bin Laden was just one of them.

Experts say, many banned militant groups that have changed the dynamics of politics in the region, have originated from and have thrived in Pakistan only because of the logistical ease and cultivating manpower the country offers. It’s an ideal country for terrorism propaganda: minorities and borders are used as ammunition for political gain by militants; religion, hostility and idealism are creeping into its democracy, paralyzing its non-military institutions.

It would not make sense for a group like IS to not pursue the rich resources Pakistan has to offer. Everybody knows this, so everybody is nervous—except perhaps, the country’s establishment and other stakeholders.

Pakistan’s establishment and stakeholders aren’t nervous

During his recent visit to Washington D.C., Pakistan Army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, remained calm and collected on the issue of ISIS’s recruitment campaign in Pakistan. He candidly assured the U.S. that the course is under control and promised he would not allow Islamic State’s manifestations to reap in the country. Fair enough Washington thought, and never asked again.

Those who are settled in the business know well enough that there is no scope for an independent, self-serving group like IS in a country like Pakistan where militant groups have only survived under the tutelage of someone or the other. That’s why Pakistan has good Taliban and bad Taliban. Those who may help with a back channel to bad Taliban are also friends with the good Taliban, making the network flexible and procuring.

For them, what IS is doing is nothing new. Many groups and militants pledging allegiance to IS from Pakistan are the ones who have done much of the same things locally as IS does in the Middle East. That includes attacks on minorities, public lynching and beheadings, many of which took place in Swat, the same town where Malala was attacked.

Pakistani militants are used to mutual cooperation (even rivals scratch each other’s back from time to time). They have different goals in the region and Caliphate is not one of them. While they wouldn’t let IS hijack their hard-earned status and stability for a mere puffery, there is no harm in window dressing. So, off they go, pledging their allegiances and seeking connections with IS.

Conditions of mutual benefit

It is important to understand, when Pakistani Taliban says, ‘they (IS) are our brothers and we will support them,’ they are doing so on conditions of mutual benefit—to get something in return. Their support for IS now makes them look stronger, especially after being disbursed and displaced in recent military operations. In perhaps one of the weakest times for Pakistani Taliban—after the killing of their top commanders in drone strikes and internal fights within the group that has caused many splits—a friendship with Islamic State has emerged as an incendiary promise. They are telling the world, “We’re around and we have friends you can’t handle.” This allegiance is going to be good PR for local Pakistani groups, and will land them on the better end of negotiating tables.

Still, it doesn’t all make sense. IS wants to be the single driving force in spreading the caliphate, conquering swathes of land to spread Islam. They have generated their own resources and funding in the Middle East, thanks to oil to stolen ammunition. They can’t do the same in South Asia and especially in Pakistan, a country scarce of all such resources.

Their plea for Afia Siddiqui in exchange for James Foley and Steven Sotloff was just another propaganda tool. They obviously did not expect the U.S. government to make the deal, but they knew this proposal would give them a virtual power over a greater region.

Is IS strong enough?

But, IS itself is not an entity strong enough to penetrate borders or overcome political obstacles, skills that local Pakistani groups have honed over a busy decade. It also shouldn’t be ignored that the brutal extra judicial killings that back-fired for Al-Qaeda, are also back firing for IS. Many of its fighters are defecting and many militant groups declining to join. It isn’t necessarily true that IS would gain the same strength in the future as it did in the recent past.

Pakistani militant groups will be happy to work with IS, only if the relationship brings a better enterprise for them in the region. And that too is only possible if they can trust IS enough—and if IS is the one listening to them, not the other way around. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of the Caliphate, the primary goal instilled in the core of the Islamic State?

So, yes, many Pakistani boys may continue to become attracted to these recruitment efforts. They may join just like Germans, French, Caucasians and others who are already doing so. But, these Pakistani recruits will not be able to bring IS to Pakistan, unless they have the permission and logistics within the country.

http://en.shiapost.com/2014/12/17/isis-trying-to-move-into-pakistan-what-does-it-mean/