Swat: Only military action not enough

Yesterday’s terrorist attack in Lahore comes as the Pakistan Army says that it expects to regain control of Mingora, the provincial capital of Swat, within a few days. However, as a senior officer noted recently, victory over the insurgents cannot come about simply by military means. There must also be negotiations.

The problem for President Asif Ali Zardari’s administration is that the Taleban-allied militants have already demonstrated their bad faith. After Zardari agreed to the application of Shariah law in Swat in an attempt to appease them, the insurgents merely used the concession to consolidate their hold on the province and begin a southwestern military push toward the capital, Islamabad.

The way in which the militants were given an inch by the government and then seized a mile, bore out the widespread protests in Pakistan, as well as predictably from Washington, that the militants could not be conciliated in this way. The action may also have had an impact in Afghanistan where NATO has been urging talks, at least with some tribal leaders who are currently supporting the Taleban insurgency there.

However, for the Pakistani authorities, it is apparent that there is considerable popular support for the present military showdown with the militants. Even among those Pakistanis who were prepared to welcome the insurgents’ call for Shariah law, there has been widespread revulsion at the string of terror attacks they have launched. At the moment the government has the backing of all right-thinking citizens. But that support is not open-ended.

The manner in which the military is retaking seized territory is important. Reported carpet bombings of areas where civilians are still trapped are unlikely to win hearts and minds. Nor will the poor treatment in hastily set up camps of, by official estimates, more than two million refugees from the Swat Valley be overlooked or ignored. Initially the government appeared not to have appreciated the implications of thousands of people fleeing the conflict area, even though it warned them to leave.

There can be little doubt that the well-armed and well-trained military will prevail against the militants in the urban areas of Swat. The question is how well the army can control the rural areas to which the militants will retreat and from which they will renew their campaign as a guerrilla war with terrorist attacks.

The evidence of recent outrages, in particular on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore and again on a key police building yesterday, is that the security forces are still lax and complacent. Nor do they seem to have yet been able to mount an intelligence offensive against the militants, to penetrate their ranks and find out their plans. This might seem surprising given the close links that the country's top intelligence agency, the ISI, once had — and some assert still has — with the Taleban.

Defeating the insurgency will require more than just cooperation from the country’s bitter political rivals. It also needs stronger discipline by the security forces, both against the terrorists and on behalf of innocent citizens caught in the cross-fire.