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Pakistani spy agency’s relations with militants blamed for school massacre
Some see ISI’s ambiguous approach towards different groups in effort to counter Indian influence as fuelling attacks.
Within days of a militant attack earlier this year on the Indian consulate in the western Afghan city of Herat, intelligence officials in Kabul and Delhi were told by their US counterparts that communication intercepts indicated that the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba group (LeT) was responsible.
A lucky shot from a guard had hit the leader of the assault team, giving defenders time to prepare and the four attackers had all been killed. US officials said they had aimed to take hostages and cause a drawn-out crisis intended to destabilise India’s new prime minister, Narendra Modi, just days after his landslide election win.
The new details of the operation will be seen as further evidence of the close relationship between LeT and Pakistan’s security establishment.
LeT was responsible for a 2008 attack on the Indian commercial capital of Mumbai in which around 170 people were killed by militants who had arrived by boat from the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi. A key figure in the attack told US and court officials that middle-ranking officials from the Pakistani military’s Directorate of InterServices Intelligence (ISI) had at very least facilitated the assault.
Western intelligence officials also believe the ISI has close relations with the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network, an insurgent faction which has repeatedly struck international targets in Afghanistan.
“There have been intelligence reports that link the ISI particularly to the Haqqani network,” Joseph Dunford, the commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, said in April.
The ISI also maintains links with a range of sectarian groups within Pakistan and outfits primarily focussed on fighting Indian security forces in Kashmir.
Some blame these continuing relationships for the carnage at the army-run school in Peshawar on Tuesday.
The link is indirect. Few say that there is any connection between the Pakistan Taliban (TTP), the rough coalition of groups that has claimed responsibility for the attack, and the country’s security establishment.
“The military formally and institutionally considers the TTP as an enemy of the state as it has killed many soldiers over the years,” said Michael Kugelman of the Woodrow Wilson centre in Washington.
Pakistan’s use of certain militant groups as strategic assets, however, makes concerted action against others impossible, according to Ajai Sahni, an Indian security analyst.
“If you allow space for armed Islamist groups you can’t really distinguish one from another,” Sahni said.
The policy of using militants as auxiliaries goes back to the earliest days of the new Pakistani nation and its partition from India following independence from Britain. Such forces were seen by the new country’s military commanders as an effective way of countering their eastern neighbour’s huge demographic, economic and military advantage. They have played a key role in Pakistan’s four wars with India. Auxiliaries were also deployed in Kashmir in the 1990s. When hundreds of Pakistani militants infiltrated across the de facto frontier in the disputed Himalayan territory in 1999, they sparked the most recent overt conflict.
Indian police documents seen by the Guardian reveal LeT’s logistical assistance to militant networks engaged in acts of terrorism in recent years in the emerging economic power.
In Afghanistan, the ISI has long tried to use often fractious Afghan insurgents to extend Pakistani influence and restrict India’s in the country. In the winter of 2001, as thousands of fighters fled into Pakistan, the country’s policymakers drew a clear distinction between Afghan Taliban, seen as assets and allies, volunteer fighters often from hardline Pakistani sectarian groups who were sent home, and al-Qaida operatives who were held and given to the US in return for bounty. Over the next decade, Afghan insurgent groups, bolstered by fighters from LeT and other Pakistan-based outfits, were then “managed” as they fought international troops.
Angry US officials warned Pakistan of the potential consequences of its policies.
“You can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbours. Eventually those snakes are going to turn on whoever has them in the backyard,” Hilary Clinton, then the US secretary of state, told reporters on a 2011 visit to Pakistan.
The Pakistani army, increasingly a target of homegrown militants, has been fighting the Pakistan Taliban since 2008 in a series of bitter campaigns along the frontier with Afghanistan. Casualties have been heavy and officers cite the many killed to rebut accusations that they are soft on terrorists. Many commanders believe that India backs their enemies. Recent statements by senior Pakistani soldiers and a long-awaited offensive launched in June into the key militant redoubt of North Waziristan, where the Haqqani network is based, has led some to argue that a major change in policy was already underway before this week’s attack on the school.
Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister, has said that henceforward there would be “no differentiation between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban” and that “the war against terrorism [will go on] ‘til the last terrorist is eliminated.” Despite the tacit admission of previous errors, many onlookers remain unconvinced.
“The strategy will continue until there’s a peace deal with India, and that won’t be soon,” said Kugelman.
For Sahni, Pakistan’s policy of using militants as proxies is “entrenched”.
“They will go after the TTP hammer and tongs, and leave the rest untouched,” he said.
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