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Panel at USIP Considers
Counterterrorism in Pakistani TribalAreas
Counterterrorism efforts, including strikes at suspected
militants by
unmanned U.S. drone aircraft, are worsening already damaged
relations
between tribal areas of Pakistan and the countrys central
government, andthe approach should be rethought, a leading scholar
of Islamic studies said
recently at USIP.
Counterterrorism efforts, including strikes at suspected
militants by unmanned U.S. drone
aircraft, are worsening already damaged relations between tribal
areas of Pakistan and the
countrys central government, and the approach should be
rethought, a leading scholar of Islamic
studiestold an audience at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP)
and those watching a live webcast
on April 15
Akbar Ahmed, the Ibn Kahldun chair of Islamic studies at
American University in Washington
and former Pakistan high commissioner (ambassador) to the United
Kingdom and Ireland,
discussed his new book, The Thistle and the Drone: How Americas
War on Terror Became a
Global War on Tribal Islam, which draws on 40 case studies. It
is the third in a trilogy of books.
Ahmed said that after nearly a decade of stepped-up
counterterrorism efforts, including both U.S.
operations and those of Pakistans Army, the situation in the
tribal areas in northwestern Pakistan
is a grim one. Said Ahmed, We dont hear the ordinary people of
Waziristan, the people who
are caught up in this violence.Is this how we are helping the
people we are meant to help?
Waziristan, one of Pakistans Federally Administered Tribal Areas
(FATA), is a mountainous
region along the Afghan frontier that is populated by ethnic
Pashtuns; it is a key area in the
Pakistani governments counterterrorism campaign, as well as U.S.
efforts. The strikes are
deeply unpopular among people in the region and in Pakistan
generally.
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Ahmed, who once served as the Pakistani governments political
agent in the South Waziris tan
Agency, said that the pattern in the tribal areas is that
killings prompt yet more killings. We
need to sit back, pause and come up with long-term solutions, he
said. The entire society
cannot be condemned in this broadbrush manner. The U.S.
approach, he argued, is broadly seen
by Pakistanis as an infringement on national sovereignty. The
drone has become a dreadful
symbol of violence, he said.
The answer has to come from within the tribal society, Ahmed
added. There has to be a local
solution to a local problem.
Peter Bergen, director of national security studies at the New
America Foundation, cautioned
that at times drone strikes represent the least bad choice in
areas thick with extremists. He
noted that militants used earlier withdrawals by Pakistani
forces to expand their reach in the
tribal areas.
New America Foundation statistics indicate that the number of
U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan is
falling dramatically, with 122 in 2010, 73 in 2011 and 48 last
year. According to New America,
six such strikes have occurred so far this year. It estimates
that between 1,990 and 3,308 people
have been killed in Pakistan drone attacks. Bergen cited better
intelligence and smaller payloads,
among other factors, as resulting in more accurate targeting of
militants and a reduction of
civilian deaths as the campaign proceeds. NAF estimates that two
percent of total deaths in 2012
were civilians in comparison to an estimated 54 percent to 61
percent in the period 2004-07.
Bergen also cited a 2010 public opinion survey of 1,000 FATA
residents funded by USIP. Thesurvey found that nearly nine out of
10 people in FATA oppose the U.S. military attacking al-
Qaida and the Taliban in their region, and more than
three-quarters oppose U.S. drone strikes.
Hamid Khan, an Afghanistan specialist and senior program officer
in USIPs Rule of Law
Center, raised other issues related to the use of drones,
including whether the principle of
anticipatory self-defense will be used by other countries
considering drone attacks in the
future. Khan said anti-U.S. sentiments in the Pakistani tribal
areas reflect a perception that
Pakistani national sovereignty is being violated, and those
views need to be taken at face
value.
The perception, Khan said, is that drone strikes, by their
nature, appear to be weapons of
terror. They have been used by militants to promote a narrative
that the United States has been
conducting a war against Islam, he said, adding, It feeds a
larger extremist ideology.
