Understanding the Threat of Al Qaeda and various Insurgency groups in northwest Pakistan
While Pakistan cannot be considered a completely lawless state, large sections of its territory, particularly those bordering Afghanistan, are under the control of various insurgency groups particularly the Taliban and Al Qaida which have been labeled an international threat by the U.S. and numerous other foreign governments. Not only that the mountainous region along the northern mountains in Pakistan contains the largest illegal arms market in the world where guns, bullets, and ammunition are made, bought, and sold on an almost daily basis. With Pakistan invariably having little military strength to effectively control its borders as well as various parts of the country this creates a situation where the country could act as a base of operations where insurgency groups can train, stock up on weapons and ammunition and effectively cause bloodshed on various states connected to Pakistan.
The extent of the Security Challenge
What must be understood is that the current pro-democratic uprisings that are engulfing the Middle East have the potential of rapidly spiraling out of control should extremist groups suddenly insert themselves into the various protesting populations. While the regimes that are currently in place are somewhat friendly to various international business interests it cannot be said that the new regimes that will come into power via uprisings will be just as friendly. There is the potential that certain uprisings would themselves be a method by which members of Al Qaeda insert themselves into powerful government positions by which they could dictate the foreign policy of the Arab world. It has already been established that organizations such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban have access to various automatic, semi-automatic, and RPG’s all of which are supplied by Pakistan’s illegal arm’s market. All uprisings require some form of military backing and should members of Al Qaeda pose themselves as members of the uprising with access to weapons it is highly plausible that such individuals would rise quickly to become leaders of the uprisings and thus become part of the new regime once the dust settles and the old regime is no longer in power. While it may be true that Al Qaeda and various insurgency groups are not concentrated primarily in the northwestern region in Pakistan the fact remains that enough individuals are there that the region becomes a haven for various Al Qaeda and Taliban group leaders. During the invasion of Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom, the U.S. military stated that they would attempt to hunt and destroy every single leader of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in their supposed “war against terror” While to date they have only been marginally successful the fact remains that enough leaders are out there, possibly in Pakistan, that various terror plots can still be planned, funded and carried out by Al Qaeda agents who are under the command of such leaders. The near bombing of a passenger jet over Detroit by an Al Qaeda operative supposedly under order by an Al Qaeda leader is proof enough that should the situation in Pakistan as well as in other countries where such leaders are hiding remain unresolved there continues to remain a significant global threat from terrorism which could affect not only the U.S. but other countries around the world as well.
Current Approaches to dealing with this Security Challenge
Various U.S. military commanders have called Pakistan “the epicenter of terrorism” citing that it is a location where terrorists gather and deploy their forces to carry out acts of terror on civilian populations. As a result, the U.S. has partnered with the Pakistan Intelligence community to track down terrorists in their cells and send in remote-controlled drones or missiles to attack the structures directly. While such methods have been proven to be effective the inherent problem with what the U.S. is doing is that it is fighting an ideology rather than an organization of individuals. As such with all ideologies it can easily be passed down from one person to the next with the succeeding individual being the latest member of the terrorist organization. Domestically Pakistan does not have anywhere near enough resources to deal with the various terror cells in the country due to limited budgets and the fact that the yearly monsoon seasons leave such an impact on the country that the government is usually more concerned with helping victims of typhoons than they are at hunting down Al Qaeda members. Other methods employed have been to place rewards for the capture of information leading to the capture of various terror group leaders, a largely unsuccessful technique. On the other hand, the U.S. and various European countries are trying to build good relations with various sectors in the Middle East by supporting the various uprisings that are occurring which should in theory help to foster better relations in the future.
Flaws in the Approach
The problem with the current approach in dealing with Muslim extremism is that at times foreign actions in Middle Eastern countries, such as those done by the U.S., oftentimes lead to bad relations with various Muslim groups due to the civilian casualties affected by the various interventions the U.S. has done throughout its actions in the Middle East. Not only that targeting terrorists in the mountains in Pakistan is useless when people within your borders can become terrorists themselves as was seen in the potentially horrific Detroit airplane bombing where a U.S. citizen was the primary suspect in the case. To resolve this issue what must be targeted is not the people themselves but rather the ideology they represent. When Al Qaeda started killing Muslims in Muslim countries they lost a lot of support in numerous countries in the Middle East due to their actions. As such to prevent the “beast” so to speak from growing the best way is to first cut off support in the form of tactics aimed at vilifying Al Qaeda and its methods TO the majority of the Muslim population through mass media. such a method has the potential to remove all financial support and prevent more people from joining the ranks of Al Qaeda. Not only does this prevent the organization from growing but eventually it should result in the organization going into remission.