TWO widely reported events in recent days struck hard at Pakistan's strategic depth policy in Afghanistan and Central Asia.

The first event occurred when the Swat Taliban and Afghan Taliban attacked a local check post and local installations killing dozens of people, including the security forces, in a joint operation in the Barawal (Shaltalu) area of Upper Dir bordering the Afghan province of Kunar on June 1, 2011. (It is still not known whether a similar attack by militants in South Waziristan was linked to the Afghan Taliban).

The second event was the reported killing of militant commander, Ilyas Kashmiri, in a drone attack in South Waziristan. Kashmiri was believed to have been working as commander of the Al Qaeda-affiliated Harkat-ul Jihad al Islami and believed to be the mastermind behind the GHQ attack in Rawalpindi and that on the Mehran naval aviation base in Karachi.

According to reports by the local people, the apple orchard where the militant group along with Ilyas Kashmiri was hit by a US drone in the outskirts of Wana, South Waziristan, belongs to another Wana-based militant commander, Maulvi Nazir. The security establishment of Pakistan had so far considered Maulvi Nazir a 'good Taliban' active only in Afghanistan and not involved in attacks on Pakistani security forces and military installations.

According to the locals, Maulvi Nazir had been enjoying cordial relations with the security establishment of Pakistan which apparently believed that, besides the Haqqani network and Mulla Omar, Maulvi Nazir could be useful for gaining 'strategic depth' in Afghanistan and Central Asia. And hence the policy appears flawed and strategically miscalculated.

A look at history at this point may not be out of place. The strategic depth policy envisaging a co-opted Afghanistan and a march into the Central Asian Republics was initially envisioned by Gen Ziaul Haq in the early 1980s. Realising the immense strength of a religious emotional appeal, the security establishment of Pakistan perceived that by supporting non-state actors and militant militias, Pakistan could achieve its objectives for political influence and resource exploration in Afghanistan and Central Asia.

The security establishment perceived, in defiance of all logic and objective reality, that through the use of non-state actors Pakistan could defeat India in political influence, explore the energy reservoirs in Central Asia and expand control over a large swathe of the planet to be considered a regional power.

For this to happen, the security establishment adapted proxies, supported the Taliban government in the 1990s as well as the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan after the government was dislodged by the Security Council's mandate granted to Nato and Isaf forces.

Analysts and policy experts have since been pointing out the inherent flaws in the construct of the strategic depth policy but to no avail. All the years of the decade of the '90s and into the 21st century, the security establishment of Pakistan had engaged with non-state actors and private militias active in Afghanistan and India, with no consideration being given to the policy's socio-cultural and socio-political impacts.

Though things on the security front substantially changed after 9/11 around the globe, the security establishment of Pakistan stuck to its outdated paradigm — favours to elements like the Haqqani network, the Maulvi Nazir group, the Afghan Taliban leadership, the Jamaatud Dawa and several others continued throughout the '90s to date. At the same time, the security establishment of Pakistan captured dozens of Al Qaeda operatives and handed them over to the US besides cracking down on those organisations which frequently attacked state installations and the security establishment of Pakistan.

The security establishment's media manipulation duly advocated the strategic depth policy by dividing the Taliban into good (the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistan militant militias believed to be active only in Afghanistan) and bad Taliban. Three crucial and simultaneous dynamics were ignored in this whole construct.

First, the growing ideological and non-state militaristic infrastructures in the settled and tribal belt of Pakistan started taking root in the socio-cultural and socio-economic dynamics of the communities around Pakistan. The militant organisations were able to develop mechanisms for social permeation of their extremist discourse winning a section of the population, especially the youth through the use of radios, websites, daily newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, posters and banners besides the use of the electronic media. This phenomenon had helped gain them social control in certain communities.

The security establishment was looking the other way when all this was happening. The Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM) had brought about the whole Malakand division under its influence back in 1994 and the first-ever reported stoning to death event by the Taliban took place in 1998 in Orakzai Agency, which means that militant organisations already had social control of large areas in both the settled and tribal belt long before 9/11.

Second, the Salafi jihadis (Al Qaeda and its affiliates), Deobandi organisations, the Afghan Taliban and the Punjabi Taliban had been developing strategic alliances in addition to ideological alliances. Ideologically, they together brought about a shift in the religious authority of jihad thus allowing the militant militias to use religious discourse for social permeation and social control.

Strategically, they planned together to use their networking for strategic attacks on the states of Pakistan, Afghanistan and India achieving substantial strategic gains in the region. While the security establishment remained perpetually in a state of denial, the two widely reported events mentioned in the beginning substantiate the belief that the militant alliance has entered into a tactical alliance consummating alliance-building by militants active in the region.

Third, the security establishment of Pakistan conveniently neglected strategic interests and counter-espionage by the regional states of Iran, India, Afghanistan, China, Russia and Nato. This neglect led Pakistan to political and economic isolation in the region. The Pak-Afghan grand jirga and the Saarc forums were conveniently rendered useless. These could otherwise have provided suitable avenues for interaction and brainstorming among regional stakeholders. It seems the international jihadi network and militant militias in the region have proved to be strategically more audacious than the states of the region.

The writer is a researcher and analyst.

Khadim.2005@gmail.com