Pakistani Strategy on War against Terror

Despite facing a decade-long spate of terrorism after 9/11 attacks on US landmarks, Pakistan still lacks an effective anti-terrorism policy to tackle the monster which has left over 30,000 civilians and 5,000 security personnel dead in hundreds of suicide bombings and other acts of terror.

Both Anti-Terrorism Amendment Bill 2010 and National Anti-Terrorism Authority Bill are pending in parliament and there is no hope these will be turned into acts for implementation in near future.

Ironically, the government is following the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997, which has become obsolete and outdated and required immediate amendments to cope with new challenges.

“The multi-party Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) has been authorised to take up pending Anti-Terrorism Amendment Bill 2010 and NACTA Bill,” the chairman of the committee, Raza Rabbani, told Dawn.

Earlier, some of the committee’s members belonging to religious parties had raised objections that the parliamentary committee could not take up the Anti-Terrorism Amendment Bill 2010 because it had already been discussed by Senate Standing Committee on Interior. “However, now all members of the PCNS have unanimously mandated the committee to discuss the bill and the committee is meeting in a couple of weeks to give recommendations to the government about effective amendments for better anti-terrorism steps,” Mr Rabbani said.

The NACTA is lying dormant as the NACTA ordinance introduced in 2009 is yet to be tabled in parliament, pending approval of the cabinet. The authority, set up with much fanfare, was to act as a research organisation for which the European Union had pledged 15 million euros. A draft was also being framed to provide a legal cover to it.

The NACTA bill is lying pending with the federal cabinet because the government could not take decision whether the authority should have an independent or autonomous status or it should work as a subordinate organisation of the interior ministry with Interior Minister Rehman Malik as its head, a member of the committee said.

Experts believe that after the 18-hour occupation of the Mehran Naval base by terrorists, the government should revert to the idea of reactivating the NACTA immediately which should launch its own counter-terror force. They said it was certainly time to act because terrorists were organised and well-funded.

Experts are of the opinion that after defeat in Swat and tribal areas, terrorists of Tehrik-iTaliban Pakistan (TTP) are now moving to urban guerilla warfare and the government must develop some mechanism to address this challenge. Senior journalist and security analyst Zahid Hussain said the government had no counter-terrorism policy and, as a result, the country was facing the worst spate of terror attacks.

“Unfortunately, there is no counter-terrorism strategy to deal with the situation we are facing because of lack of commitment and professionalism in the government.” He said the government must realise that it could not tackle the problem through the military means and needed to strengthen its intelligence organisations and civil armed forces to get better results.

Last month, the mandate of the multi-party parliamentary committee to make recommendations to the government on legislations dealing with issues related to terrorism came under question when its members, Senator Prof Mohammad Ibrahim of Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and Maulana Fazlur Rehman of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam stopped the committee from reviewing two bills which had been pending before a Senate committee and the federal cabinet for approval for the past over one year.