The Scorpion's Tail: The Relentless Rise of Islamic Militants in Pakistan-And How It Threatens America

by Zahid Hussain

The war in Afghanistan has raged on longer than any war in U.S. history, and far from suppressing the insurgency being waged by radical Islamic militants, it has led to stronger alli­ances among al Qaeda, the Taliban, and a host of once-autonomous militant groups and has inspired a flood of new recruits. In addition to reclaiming control of substantial territory in Afghanistan, the militants have now taken the fight deep within Pakistan—threatening to totally destabilize that nuclear-armed state—and are launching attacks on the U.S. homeland. Why has the insurgency been so irrepressible? Is this a war that can be won? Can we expect a wave of attacks within the United States more sophisticated than the attempted bombing in Times Square? Nothing can be understood about the prospects for the war and the threat to the U.S. homeland without understanding how Pakistan has become the epicenter of the insurgency and why the rise of militant groups there has escalated out of control despite major offensives by the Pakistani military and an intensive secret U.S. Predator drone war against them. Based on extensive reporting inside Pakistan’s dangerous lawless regions and exclusive interviews with militant leaders as well as high-level military and intelligence sources, Zahid Hussain, one of the most respected reporters working out of Pakistan, chronicles how and why the Islamic extremist groups based in Pakistan’s remote tribal territories have greatly increased their power since the start of the war and unleashed a reign of terror on U.S. forces in Afghanistan and on both the military and civilian population within Pakistan. He is the first to reveal how a loose constellation of tribal groups has now come together to form a distinctive Pakistani Taliban, working closely with al Qaeda and the Afghani Taliban to launch increas­ingly sophisticated and deadly attacks on both sides of the Af-Pak border. He discloses how they draw support and a steady flood of recruits from deeply entrenched support networks in major Pakistani cities, and how they have recruited would-be U.S. attackers, including Faisal Shahzad and Adnan Shukrijumah, accused of plotting to bomb the New York City subway. He is also the first to chronicle in detail the still unacknowledged U.S. war carried out in Pakistan by remote Predator drones, and, reporting from the scenes of a number of drone missile strikes and interviewing a number of attempted suicide bombers, he reveals the shocking extent of anti-Americanism the strikes have stoked in Pakistan, across the range of the population, due to civilian deaths, driving a new breed of highly educated, professional, and middle-class Pakistanis into the militant groups. His gripping and revelatory account is an urgent wake-up call about the blowback effects of the U.S. war in Afghanistan and the drone campaign in Pakistan, about how volatile the situation in the Af-Pak region has become, and about the deeply troubling limitations of the current military strategy in ever gaining decisive ground against the insurgents.

Genres: Nonfiction, Pakistan

256 pages, Hardcover

First published November 16, 2010

Reviews

[ahmad afridi · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is written in a journalistic style and covers the time period between 2000 to 2009 with a summary of some events in the last decade of the previous century related to the rise of civil war among different factions of Afghan Warlords and the resultant settling of these factions in tribal areas of Pakistan.

In my view book had two themes, first was general reporting of militant activities and response by Pakistan and American officials to handle those threats. This majority portion contains mostly news reports and may be helpful for those who haven't followed these news reports at the time or have no basic knowledge of militancy. The second portion, and a small part of this book, contains his own analysis. During these opinions, I noticed from the start, writers' overemphasis to picture this whole militancy a Pashtun phenomenon, ignoring the deep-rooted ideology of jihad Patronized by the state for obvious reasons and which is not limited to any ethnicity. Then, in conclusion, he wrote something which shows the confusion about militancy and why we failed to root out extremism. It says

There have been two fundamental flaws in the approach to the war against the Islamic extremists in the region. One has been the failure to understand that this is so largely a Pashtun war and that the Pashtuns in Pakistan would become so strongly allied with both al Qaeda and the Taliban.

This is a common mistake made by many journalists and analysts. Even the above couple of sentences are incoherent. If this was a Pashtun war the author couldn’t link the second sentence as to why and how they become strongly allied with both al-Qaida and Taliban when the former has non-ethnic Wahabi affiliation and considers global jihad the only way of Islam. In another instance, the author referred to the opposition to the Taliban by Awami National Party who are Pashtun nationalists. how would he explain the Taliban's considering ANP their bitter rivals even more than military forces. There are many more examples and each one more absurd than the other for eg writer claimed that initial operations against militants angered many Pashtun officers and they refused to act against their people and were court-martialed (no reference is given).

However, I agree with his second conclusion stating

The second fundamental flaw has been the failure to appreciate that combating the militant threat required something far more than a military campaign. It required—and still does—a comprehensive social and political plan, as well as strong political leadership. Both have been sorely lacking.

But this social and political plan would be as useless as military campaign unless the root cause of this mess is pointed out and that is political Islam with jihad as its central theme. Still, in 2020 there is a huge number of potential militants justifying religious jihad in one way or another. And I am not talking about religious seminaries but prestigious universities. And if you want to check this ask someone about the legitimacy of jihad and specifically in Afghanistan and you will get your answers.

[Aarish Khan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I always read books authored by journalists in anticipation of interesting insights, quotes, and anecdotes that would enhance my understanding of a particular subject through first-hand accounts of the author. This particular book is a great disappointment in that respect. Zahid Hussain, a journalist by profession, has unsuccessfully pretended to be a researcher. The book is bland, uninteresting, superficial, and even erroneous at places. It is a roller-coaster ride in the political history of militancy and terrorism in Pakistan. It is such a quick-paced version of events that at times the author also seems to have lost grip of reality. There are some factual errors in the book. The biggest of them all is on p. 43 of the book that Jinnah founded the Muslim League, which is a blunder one doesn't even expect a 5th-grader to commit. Once again, on p. 53, the author refers to the Hudood Laws as Islamic Penal Code, while nothing like that exists in Pakistani laws. Page 60 of the book is one of the most confused pages. The author talks about "strategic depth" and doesn't bother to explain it for the reader. On the same page, he then jumps to the post 9/11 developments in FATA without even mentioning the 9/11 (by far the most important turning point in the history of militancy in Pakistan or across the world). On p. 78, he refers to tribal jirga as "military council", while it actually is a tribal council. There are some others as well, but those are the ones I could record with references. In brief, you can learn a lot more about the militancy in Pakistan by reading a good four-page article rather than this book.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading this book and the Democracy in the Middle East book, I am convinced that neoconservatives assertion of assuring democracy in the world primarily with military means was a failure in policy. The reason it is impossible to "plant democracy" in the middle east is that in the end the Islamic countries are the ones that have to rule their own government not us. A more successful policy in combating terrorism not to mention cheaper is to help indigenous democratic forces with the US playing a shadow role while increasing special ops targeting high-ranking terrorist Islamic militant leadership. It seems Obama is following this low key approach to planting democracy in the middle east which in the end is the more successful route.

Foreign policy intervention in the 80's vs the Soviet unwittingly caused the present problem Islamic militant fundamentalism of today. Carter/Reagan policy of funding and giving logistical support to militant Islam which eventually led to the fall of the Soviet Union gave rise to Al-Qaeda and nuclear Pakistan by easing sanctons against Pakistan b/c they became allies versus the Soviet. The question is, is there away to avoid unforseeable governmental policy disasters from trying to fix the here and now. I think the answer to this is one has to fix problems of the here and now and let tomorrow's leaders fix tomorrow issues.

I like how he takes a historical view of how the Taliban became the menace that they are today. According Hussain, the Taliban came about from the mixture of American CIA, Pakistani ISI, Saudi financiers backing during the waning years of the cold war and the Pashtun penchant for traditonalism and fiercely independence from foreign rule.

After 9/11, Bush took out the Taliban and their Al-Quaeda allies in Afghaniston and pushed the remenants into Wazaristan Pakistan. Instead of exterminating the militants and terrorist into oblivion and keeping up the pressure on the Pakistani's to do their part, Bush's neconservative administration chose to invade Iraq and attack the ultimate cause of terrorism, the lack of democracy in the middle east. If I were Bush, I would concentrated the heat on AfPak and concentrated on the proximal cause of 9/11 before refocusing on "democracy project" in the middle east. Although it was a ballsy move by neocons in trying to change the game in the middle east, the results are equivocal and costly in terms of money, soldiers killed/injured, and possibly destabilizing Pakistan by allowing the militants to fester unchecked. The ultimate test to whether democracy in Iraq was worth getting distracted from the "war on terror" is whether or not: 1) Iraq and Afganistan will have a thriving liberal democracy after the US troops pull out 2) Terrorist plot succeeds on American soil, again 3) Nuclear Pakistan avoids falling into militant hands.

Musharaff on the other hand tried to root out Al-Quaeda while continuing to support militants in his country thus the possibility is very real that nuclear Pakistan will fall into militant hands. Bush should have pushed the secular Musharaff harder in trying to root out Islamic militancy from within Pakistan since Pakistan had a pretext to clamp down due the militant fighting the Pakistani military.

Chapter 2 deals with the intimate history of Islamist with the modern state of Pakistan. Basically, the Deobandi and JI forced throughout Pakistani government to become more and more an Islamic Republic. With the advent of the rule by Zia Haq dictatorship, his government allowed the Pakistani military to be more Islamized to the point that officers and the ISI had to profess loyalty to Islam ideology to move up in the ranks. Zia was able to get US military funding by siding with the mujahadeen vs the Soviet military. Musharaff took it further and increased militant funding for the Kashmiri issue. So for Pakistan funding the Islamist militants became and national security imperative against the "Indian threat". But what they failed to realize is Islamist can destabilize Pakistan at any time.

Pakistan constant military alert and funding fundamentalism underscores the dangers of constant military state in that it allows society to clamp down on innovation and civil liberties. Also, religion that is codified is also dangerous in terms of a free society. America need not look further for this example than the difference between mainstream Mormons living in an American secular state versus their Fundamentalist brethren who live their life that is codified by Mormonism law. Mainstream Mormons tend to be successful in a secular society because their religion tends to make them upstanding citizens who contribute to society but the FDLS who insist on codifying their religion in their day-to-day lives tend to be backwards and static as a society. The lesson here is that religious people tend to do well in secular state whereas a religious state stifles innovation within society. Now if Muslims only realizes this within their own countries then maybe their countries can move forward instead of backwards.

By insisting on Pakistani strategic alliance with militants, Musharaff allowed the militants to fester and grow its support as well as make American look bad by increasing our drone attacks against Al-Qaeda and the militants; thus by 2007 he was caught b/w a rock and a hard place b/c he is faced by rising popular support of Islamic militants due to American drone attacks, disenfranchised military who are sympathetic to the Islamist cause, and pissed off US for Pakistan not taking care of the Pashtun Pakistani Taliban issue.

As a result on Musharaff's leniency toward Islamist militant groups, these groups began to take control over governing. I think Musharaff should have declared marshal law once Islamist militant groups started to kill government officials and people who represented law enforcement officials. Instead, he turned the other way allowing the militants to enforce Sharia law in Pakistani soil. This is a lesson that one cannot negotiate with any totalitarian ideologies, thus they must always be destroyed.

It is clear that Bush should have pushed Musharaff to fight the Pashtun Taliban in Pakistan at the same time that NATO was conducting an offensive in Afghanistan. Not crushing the totalitarian enemy while their down has allowed them to thrive in Pakistan and may eventually overtake Afghanistan again. Instead of crushing the militants when the US was suppose to, Obama was forced into increasing drone attacks to get rid of the militants thus fanning anti-American sentiments toward the Islamic lands while the Pakistan hedges its bets in funding militants abroad while tramping down local militants. The problem that the Pakistani seem not to grasp is that Islamist militants are Islamic militants everywhere. An increasing disturbing trend is that highly-educated middle class, disillusioned Pakistani military and ISI are joining the Pashtun tribal clansmen in their war against NATO and the West. Thus, it was a great idea that Obama bypassed Pakistani military in killing Osama Bin Laden considering that half of the Pakistani military are Islamic sympathizers that would have protected Osama at all cost.

I understand the reason for the diverging strategy between America and Pakistan in fighting militants. While America wants to crush all militants in AfPak so all Islamic jihadist operatives engaged in global jihad would be crushed, Pakistani military want popular support on their side versus militants within Pakistan while supporting them due to their strategic interest in keeping a sphere of influence in Kashmir and Afghanistan. The idiocy of all this is of course as more and more of their middle class become sympathizers of global jihad, India their mortal enemy becomes more entrenched in the global supply chain making them formidable enemy because they are the richer neighbor.

Extremism and war is really the enemy global trade and prosperity thus as Pakistan becomes more extreme, India will surpass them in prosperity because they are partaking in the global supply chain whereas Pakistan is not.

[Haider Budin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best analysis on terrorism in pakistan and its root causes. This book will be a reliable reference source for people interested on the topic. Unbiased and impartial critique on the events.

[Talha Kidwai · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good document of a decade long struggle of a country to tackle militancy through a confused policy, power struggle and inconsistency. Though I feel, the author used a very mechanical approach in laying out the sequence of events and did not form a particular opinion per say. The first half of the book is more gripping while the later half is just bland.

Coming from a journalist of his reputation, I expected much deeper insight than what i found in this book. Nonetheless captures the dark pages of Pakistani history.

[Ayesha U · Rating 4 out of 5]

This may not be an ultimate book out there on the subject of militancy but I liked it because it chronicles the brief history of what happened in Pakistan, post 9/11.

This book discusses the military operations in FATA, the failed negotiations and the subsequent formation of TTP.

It deserves 4 stars in my view.

[Kishwar Jaffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very topical for these times - the author obviously has a wealth of first hand knowledge of his subject matter.