Karachi plot reveals plenty about the political landscape

The foiled bid by terrorists to seize a naval frigate is alarming because 17 of the plotters were radicalised military personnel, writes Tom Hussein

A group of terrorists attempted to seize a Pakistani naval frigate moored in Karachi last month. Reuters

In early September, a group of terrorists attempted to seize a Pakistani naval frigate moored in Karachi. The vessel had been scheduled to sail out into the Arabian Sea, where it was to have served as the command ship of the multinational task force that patrols the western Indian Ocean to deter seaborne terrorism and piracy. Their plan was to stow aboard the warship, wait until it joined the flotilla, seize control and then fire its anti-shipping missiles at participant American naval vessels. The key to the success of the highly imaginative terrorist plot was the participation of 17 navy seamen, officers included. Their knowledge of the applicable military protocols supposedly would have prevented detection until it was too late.

Realistically, the plan was naive and doomed to failure because it was based on a long list of assumptions, starting with the element of surprise and concluding with the ability of the ship’s crew to identify their mates. Predictably, the non-naval element of the terrorist band was detected at the get-go by the ship’s gunner as they approached in a motorised dinghy. The ensuing exchange of fire sounded the alert and the credentials of the treacherous naval personnel aboard were immediately challenged, prompting an onboard battle that lasted several hours, but that could only ever have one outcome.

Nonetheless, the episode was alarming in the extreme. The aim of its Al Qaeda planners extended far beyond the mere sinking of American ships. Had their operation gone to plan, it would have been recorded as the worst modern-day act of maritime terrorism, eclipsing by far the October 2000 suicide ramming of the US Navy destroyer USS Cole in the port of Aden. The subsequent political fallout would have been disastrous: Congress and the American media would have bayed for blood with a ferocity akin to the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

If the plan had succeeded, Pakistan would have probably seen the suspension of all direct western financial assistance, bilateral and through the International Monetary Fund, and the imposition of debilitating sanctions, leading to the country’s bankruptcy in a matter of weeks.

As fantastical as such scenarios are, they are relevant because of the involvement of 17 serving military personnel in the conspiracy to seize the Pakistani frigate.

Radicalised soldiers have been involved in several attacks on major military facilities and high-ranking personnel. The fact that they were designed mostly for propaganda effect, rather than the seizure and control of assets, is evidence enough that the scale of terrorist infiltration of the Pakistani military is relatively small.

That isn’t the issue here. The issue is that the threat of radicalisation is a consequence – direct or indirect – of the military’s use of religious doctrine to motivate its soldiers. The practice was introduced in the early 1980s by Gen Zia ul Haq who replaced the military’s almost-secular motto of “unity, faith, discipline” with “jihad fi sabilillah” or “holy war for God’s sake”. His motivation for doing so was purely political: it enabled him to portray both his domestic enemies and Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan as infidels worthy of death.

The narrative has since been tweaked, but not abandoned. Faced with the “with us or against us” ultimatum in September 2001, the Musharraf administration declared jihad could only be declared by a Muslim state and not by non-state actors. The futility of that narrative has been exposed by the blinding light of the insurgency that has debilitated Pakistan for more than a decade. The country remains the stage for the most obscene of ironies: soldiers fighting militants, both launching themselves into battle with the same war-cry of Allahu Akbar.

The abuse of religion for political ends has severe consequences, and cannot be condoned in any circumstances. What is lacking in Afghanistan and Pakistan is a genuine sustained counter-narrative that defines abuse of the term “jihad”.

Time and again, the Quran cautions Muslims to beware of “munafiqeen”, or hypocrites, quoting the scriptures to create chaos and conflict. Those doing so, irrespective of their declarations of faith, are damned to eternity in hell. The message could not be clearer: politics in God’s name is blasphemy.

The sad fact is that the region is so divided that intermittent attempts to promote a narrative true to the Quranic context cannot be heard amid the deafening noise of politics.

Tom Hussain is a freelance journalist and political analyst based in Islamabad