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From symbolic to soft targets
By Faris Islam
'Attacks like the truck bombing outside the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad betrayed the terrorists’ determination to maximize damage on symbolic – rather than soft – targets.' (File Photo)
As Operation Rah-e-Rast spills beyond the SwatValley and towards South Waziristan, the Pakistani Taliban are shifting tactics.
Before the army moved into Swat, terror attacks in Pakistan’s cities were focused on prominent targets with heavy security. The choice of these targets was intentional and aimed at specific strata of society as well as our security forces. The attacks were part of a broader attempt by the militants in Pakistan to divide public opinion. In their selection of targets, the Taliban followed a pattern different from the casualty maximizing methods favoured in terror attacks from Jaipur to Jerusalem.
Traditionally, terror attacks push for a goal, using violence as a coercive tool to convince the populace to subscribe to a particular viewpoint. Robert Pape of the University of Chicago describes terrorism in The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,[1] saying ‘suicide terrorism follows a strategic logic… designed to coerce modern liberal democracies to make significant… concessions.’
By focusing attacks on civilians and terrorising them, militants try convincing the populace that not acquiescing to their demands will cost too much – in the form of a body count, lost investment or living in fear – and thereby compel people to pressure governments to capitulate to their demands. This, according to Pape, will ‘cause mounting civilian costs to overwhelm the target state’s interest in the issue of the dispute and so it causes it to concede to the terrorists’ political demands.’
From Madrid to Mumbai terror attacks have attempted to follow this model, targeting public spaces filled with lots of people and little security. Such attacks target ordinary people doing ordinary things, thus hyping their sense of fear. Pape explains that ‘suicide terrorism generates coercive leverage both from the immediate panic associated with each attack and from the risk of civilian punishment in the future.’
By conventional terrorist logic, buying groceries, commuting or eating out all begin to carry with them the possibility of becoming victims of terrorism. No one knows where or when they might be in danger.
Before the Swat offensive, however, Taliban and extremist militants in Pakistan showed little interest in maximising injury and fear while minimising chances of failure during terror attacks. Instead, a precise targeting was at work, with government institutions and establishments associated with the country’s westernised elite coming under fire most frequently. Although mosques and transport infrastructure have been hit in the past, those attacks were generally conducted by sectarian or secular-based militant groups with ideologies and agendas that differ from the Taliban.
And so it was that the Taliban’s reign of terror targeted security guards, hotel patrons, moviegoers, labourers at an army ordinance factory – anyone who, in the eyes of fanatics, could be perceived as collaborators of the institutions the Taliban are at war with. Interestingly, most of the targets -- fortified embassies and hotels, vehicles carrying military personnel, law-enforcement offices and dignitary motorcades – are secured, and do not have the relatively lax protection that is typical of a café in Haifa or a marketplace in Baghdad, the preferred targets of international terrorists.
Even as security around high-risk targets was increased, attacks like the truck bombing outside the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad betrayed the terrorists’ determination to maximize damage on symbolic – rather than soft – targets. Fifty-three people were murdered in the blast, as 1000 kg of explosive power was detonated. Using that much firepower against a fortified target, rather using fewer explosives against another, less-protected target, highlights that the Taliban were not interested in simply maximising casualty rates.
Pape addresses this logic as well, highlighting the danger for extremists of injuring too many civilians, saying that ‘maximizing the number of enemy killed alienates those in the target audience who might be sympathetic to terrorists cause.’ This fine line – between coercing the public and ensuring that they don’t unify to condemn terrorists – was the calculus the Taliban attempted to embrace. By attacking well-chosen targets, attempts were made to convince the public that the fight against fanaticism is not Pakistan’s fight, even though the majority of those killed were Pakistanis.
But as they find themselves cornered in the Frontier province, extremists are shifting the targets of their terror strikes, opting for the more conventional logic of mass casualties. Videos of beheadings and the infamous Swat flogging incident illustrate that terrorising all aspects the populace was the hallmark of the Taliban in conflict zones, despite previously differing tactics in the cities. This mode of terrorism has expanded to all of Pakistan now, as traders in Peshawar’s Qissa Khwani Bazaar, mosque-goers from Jamrud to Nowshera and Dir and supporters of the late Maulana Naeemi found.
This shift in terror tactics also provoked a shift in public sentiment - and policy - towards the militants. As everyone become a potential victim, the authorities realised that the situation could not be dealt with through negotiating and reconciliation. No longer could extremism be written off as a threat that only targeted a select few. It is for this reason that we now see the nation backing the army as it closes in on South Waziristan.
[1] Pape, Robert. 'The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism'. American Political Science Review. Vol. 97, No. 3. August 2003
DAWN: Thursday, 25 Jun, 2009
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