Smoldering volcano of terrorism: Terrorism trends in 1980-1989 (a case study of Pakistan)
Introduction:
Terrorism is a phenomenon which has varied trends in every passing year, while
considering the datum we will come to notice that, will terrorism persist or
not or what are its potential origins; whether it magnifies in volume as well
as in violence, and whether these political fanatics modify their weapons,
targets and tactics. These trends changed dramatically, first, after the
post-cold war period and second, through the advent of globalization because
form then onwards, it no longer remains a localized episode of violence but it
has a global outreach. In addition to this, the institutionalization of the
process of ‘globalization’ with technological advancements has, inter alia,
boosted transnational activities.
The constant war against terrorism in Pakistan is a state of
disenchantment at all sides. Thus, with the diverse trends, terrorism in
Pakistan have attracted worldwide attention. That is why an innumerable amount
of literature has been published on its root causes, on the very famous jihadi
and madrassah culture, and on the sectarian terrorism. So, this paper unravels empirically the details on the underlying trends of
terrorism in Pakistan in the 80s decade by using statistical tool. The data
available in this study consolidate the series of incidents and causalities
within the domestic and geo-political scenario.
Research
question:
The paper is focused on these important questions i.e. What
are the historical and spatial categorization of targets, weapons used,
terrorist groups involved, and the no. of people killed and wounded? And what
are the effects on Pakistan due to such patterns of terrorism in 1980s?
Research
hypothesis:
Pakistan experienced the rise of this theatrical violence in
the start of 1980’s. The essentiality of such experiences is concealed in those
historical events which were happening in the international political arena.
Such incidents like, the Iranian revolution in 1979 left a long-lasting
impression on the geo-political landscape of the country.
The terrorism in Pakistan during the coup of General Zia ul
Haq was due to the spilling over of Afghan conflict in the state. Those who are
believed to be behind this attack are Russian (KGB) and Afghan Intelligence
(KHAD). They are blowing explosives in the public localities to cause utmost
causalities and their main target was the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Research
methodology
The proposed paper is there to analyze the trends empirically. I used a dataset to study the temporal and spatial patterns of this phenomena from 1980 to 1989, which elaborate and ponder the insights of the selection of targets, choice of weapons, sponsorship of terrorist’s groups etc. The data so gathered will measure terrorism by using an open-source record about the full fledge information of terrorists’ events across the globe since 1970 i.e. Global Terrorism database (GTD).
Historical
background:
The phenomena of terrorism go back to the French Revolution,
in which the Jacobians suppress the aristocratic conduct of Maximilien Robespierre;
that was known as ‘terror’ and from thereby, the term is used to explain the
terror which is instigated by the state itself on its subjects. But the
contemporary connotation of this word transforms over the last century as its
character changed greatly because now it is used in the opposition of the
state. This means that over the time not only its methods evolved dramatically but
also in its aims for the struggle and the description of people involved in
this heinous act. Despite
the variation of the term from its previous understanding, some characters of
both the terrorism i.e. terrorism of past and terrorism of today, are still
familiar such as, indiscrimination, organization, deliberation or the
justification of its very goal for the creation of a new and better society. The
UN first concerned and debated about this subject when in 1960 the cases of
plane hijacking happened.
Since the inception of Pakistan in 1947, the country has
been moving from one crisis to another and among those challenges, terrorism is
one of them. Thus, unfortunately terrorism and its numerous other forms entrapped
Pakistan’s 207.96 million citizens into its vicious circle for several decades. Due to which the state and society
of Pakistan became internally crippled and also faces contagious security
threats. This poses an international image of a nuclear armed country as one of
the most perilous places to visit in the world.
The story starts when the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
prompted the U.S. and Saudi
Arabia to invest approximately six billion dollars in the region namely
Afghanistan and Pakistan to organize, train and armed the Muslims fighters there,
in the name of jihad, against the Soviets. Consequently, the bundle of money
coming from Americans and Saudis pushed the Mullahs (Islamic religious
scholars) in both the countries for the establishment of madrassahs (religious
schools), which further promote the sanctuary of jihad culture. In addition to
this, the exponential growth of these institutions further garners the
unchecked flow of funds.
The madrassah federation in the early 1980s, set up by
Jamaat-e-Islami, apparently harvest support for the Afghan militia against SU
to prepare numerous volunteers for war. Thus, to ensure the flow of human
resources to the war front was the deliberate intent of big powers especially
U.S. It is a general belief that the madrassah boom started in the era of
General Ziaul Haq. Which is true somehow, as the political leadership of the
state under him did not even question the sources of funding of these
madrassahs e.g. the Jamia Hafsa in Islamabad waged an armed conflict that
resulted in score of deaths.
Another factor also contributed in the debate of the boom of madrassah sector i.e. to consolidate his authority through the so-called process of Islamization, he put a huge focus on the transformation of the madrassah sector. The official record in the initial years of Zia era shows that 151 new madrassahs were created, mostly in the then north west frontier province (now KPK). But, when the afghan war gained momentum, another 1000 madrassahs were established.
This variable also emerges sectarian violence in Pakistan because after the introduction of Zia’s Islamization policies, the Shia assembles themselves and then marched towards Islamabad to show their strength and thus, demand their rights. This political movement was named as ‘Tahrik-i-Nifaz-i Fiqh-i Jafariyya’ which is a Shia community who after Iranian revolution want to dismay Sunnis. To counter them Sipah-i-Sahaba was established in 1985 which is a Sunni based community. Due to their clashes in the early 1980s TNFJ leader Arif Hussain was murdered. The same assassinations occurred in 1987 of Maulana Habib-ur-Rehman and Allama Ehsan Elahi in a meeting near Minar-e-Pakistan.Trends from
1980-1989:
1)
The distribution of no. incidents and no. of
killed
So, the trends of terrorists’ violence follow an uphill trajectory
which is seen in the graph 1. The curves in the graph shows the lethality these
incidents and its peak coincides with the major happenings across the globe.
Graph 1: Terrorism
trends
The peak in the graph shows that the number of incidence as
well as number of casualties increased in the years 1985-1989, which is 18
times more than the previous years. This violence changes dramatically when the
foreign powers were interfering the country’s political matter. This trend describes
two very important points: First, such ferocious terrorism is an expression of
indiscriminate detestation towards the state and society and Secondly, by
identifying their restraints, terrorist groups have applied the most cost-
effective approach i.e. suicide bomb, to accomplish their desired objectives.
Pakistan’s involvement in the Afghan jihad opened a violent segment of history of terrorists’ activities for the first time in the history of this country. There was a waves of terrorist violence throughout this period as most of the attacks were planned by Afghan and Soviet intelligence agencies just to compel the country to withhold its backing for Afghan rebels. The table below gave us a clear picture that the total no. of incidence from 1980-89 is 191 in which 473 and 2043 individuals were killed and wounded respectively.
Table1: terrorism
statistics
1)
The regional distribution of terrorism
In the next section I will display a figure for the spatial distribution of incidents at country, province and location level. These terrorism incidents mostly occurred in famous capitals of Pakistan’s provinces such as in Karachi (46, 24%), Peshawar (54, 28%), Lahore and Rawalpindi (12, 6.3%).
Graph 2: of
terrestrial distribution of incidents
The bars visibly show that KPK has the maximum no. of incidents (71, 37.2%), followed by Sindh (50, 26.2%), Punjab (31, 16.23%), Baluchistan (11, 5.75%) and last but not the least is the capital of the country Islamabad (18, 9.42%). These spatial patterns show that some provinces and the districts attracted more terrorism than the others. Probably, because in them the terrorism makes the location more dramatic, and symbolic. An additional variable which make them more attracted is their bigger size which allows the availability of more targets and coverage by media.
3)
The categorization of target and attack type
The distribution of target type like citizens,
property and private business shows that how these soft targets manipulate the
public to yield the demands of terrorists. Private citizens and property
remained at the top with 60 incidents, followed by the second highest target
which is transport with 42 incidents, business with 32, government with 26 and
airport and aircraft with 17 incidents.
Thus, we infer from these major trends that:
• The State gets straight away confronted when these violent
terrorists or their groups target and attack on those cities where the
governmental institutions were based.
• Then the higher population density of such locations, compelled
the larger audience by inculcating fear and anxiety among them, by this they
are sponsoring not only their terror but their message to the large no. of
masses.
• in addition to this, their foremost objective was to cause
maximum casualties.
1)
The categorization of weapon type
The graph below indicates that that in this decade the main
weapon in 150 cases is nearly 87% of the explosives, followed by 34 cases of
firearms i.e. 19% and 3 cases of incendiary are found. Thus, according to the
data analysis if the core weapon is explosive then a foreign power is behind it,
as the explosives are difficult to handle because they require careful planning
comparatively to firearms. Moreover, they are exclusively used to destabilize
and panicked the government directly.
Graph 4: based on
weapon types used for terrorism
Effects of these
changing patterns on Pakistani soil:
Soviet invasion in Afghanistan cause devastated impacts on
Pakistan’s security dilemma. In this setting some originating factors of Afghan
jihad contributed in creating a destabilizing condition for Pakistan.
First, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan by its
red army, millions of Afghan refugees migrated to Pakistan and make KPK, FATA
and Baluchistan their hub. These refugees increased the process of
radicalization in the country and harm the very fabric of our religio-social
state.
Secondly, these refugees brought unaccustomed culture in our society like drugs, militants and weapons. The result of these culture directly changes Pakistan’s crime statics and trends
Thirdly, those foreign Muslims brought in the fight to
confront the red army in the name of Allah. Due to this, it became a global
jihad and later war on terror which blowback the fabric of Pakistan and
magnifies the notions of fundamentalism, extremism, coupled with intolerance.
Fourthly, in the Zia’s regime, who is already politicizing
Islam through his policies, the religious seminaries contribute in the
political and sectarian bickering among different school of thoughts.[6]
Fifthly, this decade sees increase in the Foreign Direct
Investment which means that terrorists events had a
significant impact on these investments i.e. those investors diversified their
portfolios in SEM and increase
their investment instead of direct investment.
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