The Terrorism Cycle

The first American drone hit the tribal areas of Pakistan in 2004, in which 4 to 5 people were killed, almost all of them terrorists. After that the number of drone strikes per year rose constantly, and in 2010 at least 118 drones attacked the tribal areas. Apart from the increment in the number of drone strikes, the number of civilian deaths also elevated. According to an estimate, in 2009 alone, some 700 civilians were killed by American drones. For unknown reasons, the drones constantly lost their accuracy and in each successive strike, they killed more civilians than before.

A very similar trend was seen in the rates of suicide attacks in Pakistan. There were 7 suicide attacks in 2004, and after that, almost in every successive year the number of suicide attacks increased, and in 2009 alone, there were 83 such attacks in Pakistan. Again for some unknown reasons, the suicide attacks, that previously used to kill more civilians and were mostly sectarian in nature, got concentrated on police and security forces of Pakistan.

For a person outside Pakistan these might be separate events, but for a person who is living inside Pakistan and is observing all the events very closely, these events are too much interlinked. It is a cycle, in which all the steps cause the other step and all events are linked to each other. Let’s see the cycle step by step:

Step 1:

More terrorist activity; when terrorist organizations get enough recruits, they start attacking the Pakistani cities.

Step 2:

More drone strikes; US government instantly increases drone attacks in the areas where the terrorists are supposed to be hiding i.e. the tribal areas, assuming that the surge in terrorist activity indicates that the terrorists are growing stronger in their havens.

Step 3:

More civilian casualties; As usual, the drones kill more civilians than terrorists and thus elevate the number of civilian deaths in the tribal areas.

Step 4:

More terrorists; Due to the increasing drone strikes, more and more people lose their loved ones, and thus they join anti government forces to avenge their dead relatives. And this of course leads back to step 1, and in this way the cycle goes on. The cycle can start from step 2 as well, but in the end the results are the same.

Why the terrorists shifted from sectarian attacks to targeted attacks against the Pakistani government and military? The reason is very much clear, these are revengeful attacks. The problem is that this is not only a cycle, it is a snow ball effect as well. Increasing suicide attacks increase the drone strikes and increased number of drone strikes in turn increases the suicide attacks again, and in this way the number of both attacks keeps on increasing. Intentionally or unintentionally, the US government is creating more and more terrorists, and similarly the terrorists are causing more drone attacks. Unfortunately only the people of Pakistan are on the receiving end. The terrorism from both sides has made their life apprehensive.

The Roots of Extremism

The roots of religious extremism in Pakistan are deeper than what is usually conceived. The masterminds of terrorism have fabricated a whole ideology to lure in those people who tend to have a firmer belief in Islam. The second target is those people who are illiterate and don’t actually have any significant knowledge about their religion. It’s not very difficult to convince such people, especially when the convincers are very proficient in their job. Third are the people who are dying of poverty, and they already hold a grudge against the government. Fourth are the children of the tribal people who lose their parents in the American drone strikes. The alliance of the Pakistani government with the US is enough for them to declare war on it. Pakistan is full of these four kinds of people, so there is no difficulty for the terrorist groups to find recruits. The Pakistani and American governments themselves are indirectly making the task of recruitment easier for the terrorists.

Let’s take a look at the first kind of people. They are the so called fanatics who can do anything for their religion, from killing themselves to killing others. These people are the easy target for the terrorist recruiters. Such people might be very harmless in normal circumstances, but when they are told that the Pakistani government is allied with such governments which have killed thousands of Muslims and are still dropping bombs upon them, they won’t hesitate to grab a gun and start a war that they think is actually ‘Jihad’. Now, what is the cure for these people? Should the military hunt for them all around the country and wage war in the areas where such people are thought to be concentrated. This seems to be the least affective method, because killing people will increase the number of the fourth kind of people. Instead of killing the people, the ideology should be killed. People should be taught what the real Islam is. What are the rules for ‘Jihad’ and when is it needed, and how Islam teaches its followers to express themselves and fight against the evil using pen instead of gun. And then the most important thing, the government should really revise its policies. Their policies are serving as a tool for the augmentation of extremism in the country. They should adopt more friendly policies towards religion and limit their cooperation with the US.  Pakistan was created for Muslims of subcontinent so that they could freely practice their religion without anyone opposing them, but unfortunately the government and media of this state itself has started opposing them.  The nation hasn’t yet forgotten the blood that was spilt for the creation of this country and in the name of Islam. So, they have every right to demand the state to be Islamic instead of secular, but of course peacefully.

Now about the second type of people who are frequently recruited by terrorists. They are the illiterate ones, and due to lack of education they have a lack of understanding and thus can easily be fooled by the cunning recruiters of the terrorist organizations. These people don’t understand that the so called ‘Jihad’ that the terrorists are using for their own benefit hasn’t been benign to Islam. Rather it has disgraced Islam all around the world. The only cure for such people is of course education. Illiteracy is the root cause of many social evils, and thus a society with a literacy rate less than 60% would suffer from all types of crimes. The government should focus more on education of the Pakistani population and build more schools in those areas where literacy rate is too low and where people tend to join terrorist organizations due to their ignorance. Spending on education can be more profitable for a country like Pakistan than spending on its military.

The third type of people can be recruited for money. Poor countries all around the world face more insurgency from within the population because the insurgents can easily recruit poor people by offering money to them or to their families. Almost 23.1% people in Pakistan live below the poverty line according to the government of Pakistan, and just like illiteracy, poverty is also instrumental for rising crime rates in a society. Government of Pakistan has to create more job opportunities and should establish an effective system to financially help the poor and needy citizens.

Let’s now take a look at the role of USA in fueling the extremism by continuously attacking tribal areas of Pakistan with its drones that kill more civilians than insurgents. According to Brookings Institute, drones kill almost 10 civilians for 1 terrorist. This collateral damage is totally unjustified. The tribal people are usually very aggressive when it comes to avenging their murdered relatives, and the best way for them to take the revenge is to join the anti government forces and start an armed struggle against the murderous government of USA and its ally, the Pakistani government. Although it is rarely admitted by the authorities, but drone strikes have been a major contributor to the hatred that has spread among the Pakistanis for the US government.

Albeit its obvious that the governments of USA and Pakistan are being run by people who are quite smart and astute, and of course they don’t need any kind of advice from a blogger whose posts are rarely read by anyone, but apparently they don’t seem to adopt any policy that could improve the current situation. May be because they don’t care whether someone dies in a drone strike or in a suicide attack. All they care is how much money they make and how much power they attain.