| News Details |
| Another charade of ban on LeT | | 
By Farooq Ganderbali
A news item appeared out of nowhere suggesting that the government of Pakistan was thinking of banning Jamat-ud Dawa (JuD), the parent body of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) and the Haqqani Network. The news article went to great lengths in imagining the `paradigm shift` such a decision would mean to Pakistan. It quoted several anonymous intelligence officials and identifiable experts to suggest that it was a great move by the government which faced the challenge of dealing with growing terrorism threat to the country.
The response from the US was even more surprising. The US official spokesperson said his government welcomed such a move if it was true. When was the last time the US government responded to a speculative story? It was undoubtedly pure fiction, and here are the reasons why.
Both the groups mentioned in the news article are Pak Army loyalists and key instruments of its policy towards India and Afghanistan. Without LeT and Haqqanis, the army would find itself lost in dealing with India and the unraveling situation in Afghanistan, more so after the withdrawal of foreign troops. The LeT, as is now well known, has been a weapon for the army to launch a proxy war against India. The Mumbai attack of November 2008 was carried out by LeT with the active support of Pakistan Army. It was an attack, like other attacks in the past, that was aimed at damaging India’s credibility and image. The LeT has also been used to target Indian interests in Afghanistan for the past several years.
The LeT is also used to suppress dissent and insurgency within Pakistan. The LeT has been effectively deployed in the tribal areas to challenge the TTP which has been targeting the army since 2007. The LeT groups have also been used to take on Baloch insurgent groups as well Shia groups in different parts of the country. In fact, the LeT with its vast human resources act as an effective paramilitary force for the army.
The Haqqani Network is even more precious. Without the Haqqanis, Pakistan Army has no leverage over the Afghan Taliban or in Afghanistan. The Haqqanis are key to Pakistan Army’s Afghan policy after the foreign troop withdrawal. The Haqqanis have also helped the army to keep a semblance of authority in the vast tribal areas where different tribal and terrorist groups thrive with impunity. The army has in fact invested heavily in protecting the Haqqanis from the US military strikes all these years to get leverage in Afghanistan post-US drawdown. Banning them at this stage would come at a great cost to Pakistan.
Imagine if the LeT and the Haqqanis were to be banned? It would first mean the army would have to make a u-turn on its India and Afghan policy. It will have to make friends with the Afghan government which means it will have to turn against the Taliban which is threatening to undo years of painfully slow and nebulous democratic process which has taken root in Afghanistan.
In simple terms, banning the Haqqani Network would mean shunning the Afghan Taliban. Without the Haqqanis, the Taliban would find it difficult to challenge the Afghan forces and are likely to either remain confined to a smaller area or break up. Can the breakup of the Taliban facilitated by Pakistan Army be imagined?
Banning LeT is not that difficult. It can be done. The state can take over the educational and other social welfare activities of the terrorist group. The state can also lock up Hafiz Saeed and his family and seize their property. The problem would be in dealing with the hundreds of cadres who have been trained in armed warfare roaming around freely in Punjab and other provinces. They would find easy employment with al Qaeda or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or any other group which would employ them and pay them some monthly remuneration and keep their guns running.
But all these future scenarios, howsoever challenging, would depend on one simple thing: is there a shift in the army’s thinking? A newspaper article is too flimsy an excuse to believe so. Till Saeed is locked up and his group dismantled and the Haqqanis sent to the gallows by the military courts, it would be a grave mistake to rely on a journalist’s fantasy.
(Opinions expressed in write-ups/articles/Letters are the sole responsibility of the authors and they may not represent the scoopnews.in)
Editor, Scoop News
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