Strange Bedfellows

Islamic State of Khorasan Province [ISPK] and Lashkar-e-Taiba [LeT] are two of the several proscribed jihadist terrorist groups operating in the Indian subcontinent. While the former seeks to forcibly establish a global caliphate, the operations of latter are restricted to India in keeping with its stated objective of using violence to ensure that J&K becomes a part of Pakistan. It hasn’t articulated any global ambitions.
As there’s no convergence in the core ideologies of between these two terrorist groups, a photograph of ISPK's Balochistan coordinator Mir Shafiq Mengal presenting a pistol to LeT’s Nazim-e-Ala [supreme leader] Rana Mohammad Ashfaq circulating on the internet has shocked the uninitiated. But ever since the Taliban took control of Kabul, Pakistan watchers were sanguine that seemingly improbable alliance was inevitable.

The ‘Marriage Makers’

The credit for getting ISPK and LeT together goes to Pakistan army’s spy agency Inter Services Intelligence [ISI] and was impelled by an attempt to reduce if not undo Rawalpindi’s humongous blunders. It’s no secret that though America’s ally in its war on terror, the Pakistan army brazenly hosted the Taliban for nearly a decade under the belief that by becoming Taliban’s benefactor, once in power its protégé would serve as a minion and help Rawalpindi realise its long awaited dream of acquiring ‘strategic depth’.
But things didn’t work out as the Pakistan army’s top brass had envisioned.
Firstly, US President Donald Trump called out Pakistan’s duplicity on terrorism in his 2018 scathing attack on social media, by bluntly mentioning that “They [Government of Pakistan and its army] give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan.” This led to rapid deterioration in US-Pak relations and an embargo on US financial aid that triggered the country’s economic crisis.
Secondly, once it seized power in Afghanistan, Taliban refused to play second fiddle to Rawalpindi. It outrightly disregarded Islamabad’s requests to hand over terrorists of anti-Pakistan terrorist group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan [TTP] lodged in Afghanistan jail and instead, released hundreds of them, including former TTP deputy emir [commander] and founding member Maulawi Faqir Muhammad Bajauri.
Thirdly, Rawalpindi entered into secret talks with TTP in an attempt to negotiate a peace deal, and to woo the perpetrators of the heinous 2014 Army School Peshawar attack, even unconditionally released more than a hundred TTP fighters convicted for terrorist activities, including TTP commander Muslim Khan who had been sentenced to death by a military court for killing 31 Pakistani security personnel and civilians.
However, the ISKP-TTP amalgam wouldn't have succeeded had Washington not decided to intentionally look the other way while this alliance was being fixed. Hence the US too deserves due credit for fructification of the nexus between two of the most violent terrorist groups in the region, orchestrated by ISI.

ISKP-Rawalpindi Nexus

The Pakistan army’s close links with ISPK is no secret. It has been talked about by the Afghan Taliban, former US special representative to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, former TTP spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan and many others closely monitoring ISKP activities and an ear to the ground.
Sheikh Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost, a former ISKP founding member who subsequently defected to the Afghan Taliban disclosed that in 2015, LeT had given a sum of Rupees 50 lacs to the then fledgling ISKP. Last year, while speaking at the UN sponsored side event on “Human Rights Violation in Pakistan,” Baloch National Movement chairman Dr Naseem Baloch had also raised this issue.
Even if one was to doubt the credibility of these assertions, can the report titled “The Islamic State-Khorasan: Capacities and Future Prospects” updated just three months ago and published in the Government of Canada’s official website also be summarily dismissed? Some shocking facts revealed in this report:
IS-K’s military council signaled a major shift in its geopolitical positioning when it selected Aslam Faruqi [nom de guerre] as its governor in May 2017. Faruqi was an advocate of appeasement with Pakistan, in exchange for being granted a safe haven by the Pakistani authorities.
According to IS-K sources, Pakistani intelligence have even started providing some financial support to the organisation.
Undoubtedly, the relationship with the Pakistani authorities has allowed the IS-K to become more resilient.
Since May 2017, the IS-K has carried out only occasional attacks in Pakistan, usually against non-state targets, and there have been a few small waves of repression by security agencies against the IS-K as well. This suggests that either both sides constantly are trying to renegotiate the terms of the agreement or that its implementation is a matter of dispute.
IS-K has been able to move its main base from Afghan territory, where it was vulnerable to US air strikes, to the Tirah Valley in the tribal areas of Pakistan. It is also able to maintain several training camps in various locations throughout the tribal areas.

Outsourcing Anti-ISKP Operations

What’s most surprising is that even though the US and Canada are part of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network alliance, Washington doesn’t seem to have faith in Ottawa’s seminal report revealing the Pakistan army-ISKP nexus. Instead, it believes Islamabad and largely relies on Pakistan to ferret out ISPK terrorists holed up inside Pakistan-a serious lacuna that Rawalpindi is adroitly exploiting to its advantage, paying lip service to war on terror by undertaking selective actions against this terrorist group.
Surprisingly, while Trump has hailed Islamabad as “a key ally in the war on terror,” Former Commander of US Central command Commander Gen Michael Kurilla described Pakistan as a “phenomenal partner” in counter-terrorism efforts. These comments came after Pakistan apprehended and handed over Mohammad Sharifullah an ISKP operative believed to be involved in the 2021 attack on US troops at Kabul airport. While this action has rightly been widely praised, it needs to be remembered that Sharifullah's arrest came about after US Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] Director John Ratcliff made Rawalpindi an offer that it couldn’t refuse.
Speaking to Fox News, Ratcliff revealed that having shared information regarding Sharifullah’s location with DGISI Lt Gen Asim Malik, he told him that if Pakistan wanted to work with President Trump and “have good relations with our country,” it needed to accord “a high priority” to the capture of this accused. That the CIA Director had to indulge in subtle arm-twisting to get things moving doesn’t quite match the President of the US [POTUS] or former CENTCOM commander’s extraordinary adulation for Rawalpindi’s counter-terrorism efforts.

Humouring POTUS

Pakistan’s wily army chief Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir knows very well that for the way to US President Donald Trump’s heart is through his ears- and that’s exactly what he did. With Trump himself mentioning that the Pakistani Field Marshal had praised him for saving millions of lives by stopping “the war [Indo-Pak faceoff] from going on,” and that he had “loved the way he [ Munir] said it,” it’s evident that the Field Marshal’s lavish flattery helped him win the day for Pakistan.
So, just like in the past, neither Washington nor the Pentagon have asked Islamabad as to why high-value terrorists on the run invariably seek refuge in Pakistan, and with no questions asked, the Pakistan army’s barefaced counter terrorism façade remains intact.

Rawalpindi’s Game Plan

Fighting home grown terrorism and waging shadow wars in neighbouring countries with proxies has been the standard strategy used by Rawalpindi. It has created vigilante groups in Balochistan [referred to as ‘death squads’ by locals] to fight armed groups opposing illegal occupation of their land and exploiting its natural resources as well as intimidating civilians. Not satisfied with their performance, the Pakistan army has now gone for overkill in Balochistan by enlisting support of LeT and ISKP.
What is the proof, one may ask?
Here’s the answer. In May, ISPK had issued a 36 minutes long video in Pushto formally declaring war against armed Baloch groups, citing an alleged attack carried out earlier by Balochistan Liberation Army fighters on its camp in Mustang district of Balochistan. The Balochistan Post has reported that in its video, “The ISKP has warned civilians, especially the relatives of missing persons that they should not participate in the protests and rallies for Baloch rights because such gatherings have now become an important target for ISKP.”
Isn’t ISKP parroting exactly what Rawalpindi wants? And since this unprecedented warning to grieving family members of disappeared Baloch people has nothing at all to do with this terrorist group’s stated objective of establishing a caliphate, isn’t it unambiguously evident that ISKP is acting as Rawalpindi’s mouthpiece?
Most importantly, the fact that more than half of the ISKP video is devoted to disproving that this terrorist group is a proxy of the Pakistan army and its puerile attempt to convince the world that it was able to establish camps in Mustang due to lack/absence of government control and not under some covert arrangement facilitated by the Pakistan army leaves no room for doubt that ISKP is indeed serving as Rawalpindi’s proxy in Balochistan.
For Rawalpindi, the ground rules relating to dealing with ISKP are absolutely clear- while the factions that toe ISI’s line and restrict their operations to Balochistan as well as J&K would continue being provided with protection by the ‘establishment’ [as was done with the Afghan Taliban before it seized Kabul]. However, those ISKP terrorists whom Washington perceives as a threat would be neutralised or promptly handed over to the US to keep Uncle Sam happy and appreciative of Pakistan’s counter terrorism efforts.
On the face of it, this approach is a win-win situation for Rawalpindi. However, keeping snakes in one’s backyard has its own perils and since ISKP’s fundamental ideology is at odds with the Islamic outlook propagated in Pakistan, there’s a distinct possibility that this terrorist group may be playing ball with the Pakistan army merely to gain access to weapons, finances and time for further strengthening its military capabilities, consolidating logistics infrastructure and broadening its recruitment base.
Didn’t TTP do the same thing by entering into ceasefire with the Pakistan army?

Email:---------------------------nileshkunwar.56@gmail.com