JSOU Report 09-9 Pakistan’s Security Paradox Mullick

Pakistan’s 

Security Paradox:

Countering 

and Fomenting 

Insurgencies

Haider A. H. Mullick

JSOU Report 09-9

December 2009
Joint Special Operations University

and the Strategic Studies Department

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Eastern & South Asian History 

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Russell D. Howard

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James Kiras

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Space Studies, Air University and JSOU 

Associate Fellow 
On the cover

The photograph is an artistic depiction of the COIN-FOIN paradox 

by Aisha Chowdhry and Haider A. H. Mullick. The soldier on the 

left attacks the insurgent while the one on the right supports the 

insurgent; both claim to be equally patriotic. 

JSOU Report 09-9

The JSOU Press

Hurlburt Field, Florida

2009

Pakistan’s 

Security Paradox: 

Countering

and Fomenting

Insurgencies

Haider A. H. Mullick
Comments about this publication are invited and should be forwarded to Director, 

Strategic Studies Department, Joint Special Operations University, 357 Tully Street, 

Alison Building, Hurlburt Field, Florida 32544. Copies of this publication may be 

obtained by calling JSOU at 850-884-1569; FAX 850-884-3917. 

*******

The JSOU Strategic Studies Department is currently accepting written works relevant 

to special operations for potential publication. For more information please contact 

Mr. Jim Anderson, JSOU Director of Research, at 850-884-1569, DSN 579-1569, 

james.d.anderson@hurlburt.af.mil. Thank you for your interest in the JSOU Press. 

*******

This work was cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.

ISBN 1-933749-41-5
The views expressed in this publication are entirely those of the author 

and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy or position of the United 

States Government, Department of Defense, United States Special 

Operations Command, or the Joint Special Operations University. 
Recent Publications of the JSOU Press

Private Security Infrastructure Abroad, November 2007, 

Graham H. Turbiville, Jr. 

Intelligence in Denied Areas, December 2007, Russell D. Howard

Is Leaving the Middle East a Viable Option, January 2008,

Thomas H. Henriksen

Retaining a Precarious Value as Special Operations Go Mainstream,

February 2008, Jessica Glicken Turnley

Disrupting Threat Finances, April 2008, Wesley J.L. Anderson

USSOCOM Research Topics 2009

India’s Northeast: The Frontier in Ferment, September 2008, Prakash Singh

What Really Happened in Northern Ireland’s Counterinsurgency,

October 2008, Thomas H. Henriksen

Guerrilla Counterintelligence: Insurgent Approaches to Neutralizing 

Adversary Intelligence Operations, January 2009, Graham H. Turbiville, Jr. 

Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line,

February 2009, Joseph D. Celeski 

Contemporary Security Challenges: Irregular Warfare and Indirect 

Approaches, February 2009, Richard D. Newton, Travis L. Homiak, 

Kelly H. Smith, Isaac J. Peltier, and D. Jonathan White 

Special Operations Forces Interagency Counterterrorism Reference 

Manual, March 2009 

The Arabian Gulf and Security Policy: The Past as Present, the 

Present as Future, April 2009, Roby C. Barrett 

Africa: Irregular Warfare on the Dark Continent, May 2009, 

John B. Alexander

USSOCOM Research Topics 2010

Report of Proceedings, 4th Annual Sovereign Challenge Conference 

(16-19 March 2009)

Information Warfare: Assuring Digital Intelligence Collection,

July 2009, William G. Perry

Educating Special Forces Junior Leaders for a Complex Security Environment, July 2009, Russell D. Howard 

Manhunting: Counter-Network Operations for Irregular Warfare,

September 2009, George A. Crawford 

Irregular Warfare: Brazil’s Fight Against Criminal Urban Guerrillas, 

September 2009, Alvaro de Souza Pinheiro
In memory of more than 2,000 Pakistani soldiers 

who fought with complete dedication 

for an incomplete country. 

ix

Contents

Foreword ................................................................................xi

About the Author ..................................................................xiii

Acknowledgements................................................................xv

Abbreviations and Acronyms ................................................ xvii

Executive Summary ...............................................................xix

1. Examining Pakistan’s Policies to Counter and 

 Foment Insurgencies............................................................ 1

2. Pakistan: COIN and FOIN Theory and Praxis 

 in Brief (1948 to 2001) ........................................................11

3. The COIN-FOIN Paradox (2002 to 2008): from COIN to 

 FOIN and Back ..................................................................33

4. Policy Guidelines: New Realities, New Policies....................61

Appendix A. Terrorist Attacks on U.S./Western Targets 

 in Pakistan 2001 to 2008....................................................71

Appendix B. Pakistan: Selected Timeline 2000 to 2008 .......... 73

Endnotes................................................................................81

xi

Foreword

This JSOU publication affords the reader an opportunity to look into 

Pakistan’s national security policy and strategy through the lens of 

a Pakistani loupe. Author Haider Mullick, born in Islamabad and 

educated in the United States (U.S.), provides his interpretation of Pakistani 

strategic behavior in terms of the geostrategic interests of that nation. 

Mr. Mullick’s discussion of the strategic setting in Southwest Asia is 

particularly timely as the U.S. is diverting strategic resources from the Iraqi 

theater of war to the effort in Afghanistan. Concurrently, the new administration of President Obama is refocusing the national security strategy away 

from notions of a global war on terrorism to a security policy of a “broader 

engagement” with the countries of the world and particularly the Muslim 

world.1 As one part of this strategic vision, a particular effort will be made 

to dismantle or destroy Al Qaeda and its associates. 

In discussing what Mr. Mullick calls “strategic spread,” he relates Pakistan’s national interests for protecting the nation against internal (separatism) and external (nuclear India) threats. Strategic spread is a mix of 

policy objectives that guide offensive, defensive, preemptive, and irregular warfare. These policy approaches include nuclear/military parity with 

India, quelling internal dissent, strengthening religious cohesiveness, and 

making foreign aid plentiful and certain. The geographic dimension of this 

is “strategic depth,” seen as Pakistani influence in Afghanistan to counter 

Indian and Iranian proxies there, to hedge against a future occupying force, 

and to provide a base for irregular warfare against India in Kashmir. The 

problem for U.S. military planners is that there is no strong correlation 

among Pakistan’s regional interests and those of the U.S. or other countries. 

Mr. Mullick’s insights highlight the shortcoming of attempting to fight a 

regional war one country at a time with different approaches in interests and 

strategies. The ambiguity of Pakistan’s security strategy generates enormous 

strategic angst for the would-be peacemaker: how can one achieve a regional 

solution when Pakistan foments insurgency in southern Afghanistan while 

it counters insurgency in northern Pakistan with and against people of the 

same mores—the Pashtuns. What makes it more complicated is that now 

the insurgency in Pakistan has spread beyond predominantly Pashtun areas 

to the country’s central province of Punjab and the southern provinces of 
xii

Baluchistan and Sindh. The situation suggests what Mr. Mullick terms, a 

COIN-FOIN paradox.

Pakistan has both countered and fomented insurgency to maintain its 

strategic interests, not unlike the dominant countries during the Cold War. 

Currently, Mr. Mullick observes, Pakistan is helping the U.S. to root out Al 

Qaeda and associated Pakistani Taliban in the northern tribal areas, while 

it indirectly abets Afghan Taliban in southern Afghanistan. Pakistan wants 

to maintain influence in southern Afghanistan as a defense against India’s 

strategic encirclement and a way to maintain strategic depth. National 

security leaders of the region’s countries will need to find another way to 

allay Pakistan’s concerns about its strategic depth, and only an improvement 

of the Pakistan-India relationship along with a resolution of the Pashtun 

insurgency in Northern Pakistan will have significant impact over the long 

term. 

To secure Pakistan against insurgency and dismantle Al Qaeda, Mr. 

Mullick suggests that a program is needed to restore the pride and mores 

(Pashtunwali) of the Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line. He 

advocates launching “Operation PRIDE.” This acronym calls for political 

reconciliation, reconstruction and reform, improving intelligence and cooperation, deterrence, and endurance. This falls neatly in line with President 

Obama’s new strategic approach to help nations advance programs for political, economic, and social development. One must question if the strategic 

environment in Southwest Asia will allow the desired outcomes. Certainly 

the strategic issues outlined above will have to be tackled first. 

This monograph provides a regional perspective that is useful to the 

Special Operations Forces (SOF) community. It further reflects that counterinsurgency is not well understood on either side of the Afghanistan-Pakistan 

border. What is useful to the SOF reader is the enhanced appreciation of the 

problems, political intrigues, and missed opportunities in the fight from the 

Pakistan view. These insights will enable the operator to guide operations 

with both sides of the border in mind.

Kenneth H. Poole

Director, JSOU Strategic Studies Department 
xiii

About the Author

Haider Ali Hussein Mullick, a 

JSOU associate fellow, conducts 

research on U.S. foreign policy 

toward South Asia and the Middle East. 

During his career, he has focused on 

U.S.-Pakistan relations and broader issues 

of security, socioeconomics, and the geopolitics of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and South 

Asia. In October and November 2009, Mr. 

Mullick traveled in South Asia in support 

of writing a white paper for General David 

Petraeus on ways to improve the U.S.-Pakistan security partnership. 

Mr. Mullick is also a research fellow 

at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) in Michigan; 

research associate at the Pakistan Security Research Unit, University of 

Bradford, United Kingdom; and part of the Panel of Experts at Spearhead 

Research, Pakistan. Haider recently presented his ongoing research on Pakistan’s national security policy at a conference organized jointly by JSOU

and the Carr Center for Human Rights, Harvard Kennedy School; at the 

Brookings Institution; and U.S. Army’s Directed Studies Office.

Previously, Mr. Mullick conducted research at the Brookings Institution’s Foreign Policy Studies (U.S.-Pakistan Relations), Woodrow Wilson 

International Center for Scholars (Pakistan’s Political Economy and 

Reviving Failed States), and the Hudson Institute’s Center on Islam, Democracy and the Future of the Muslim World (Madrassa Education and Links 

to Islamist Militancy). For others, see www.haidermullick.com. 

Mr. Mullick’s policy briefs or articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, 

Yale Global, World Politics Review, Georgetown Journal of International 

Affairs, Smith Richardson Foundation’s Pakistan Report, Oxford Analytica, 

Pakistan Security Research Unit, University of Bradford’s Policy Brief, Jane’s 

Policy Brief, Woodrow Wilson Center Afghanistan Report, and the Heritage 

Foundation’s Backgrounder. His editorials have appeared in Newsweek, The 

Washington Post, Foreign Policy magazine, The Nation (Pakistan), The Daily 
xiv

Times, The News International, The Times of India, Indian Express, Gulf 

News, and Pakistan Link. His TV appearances and media interviews have 

been with CNN International, Al Jazeera English Riz Khan Show, Voice of 

America, PBS News Hour, CBS News, Washington Independent, and Time

magazine. (For details, visit www.haidermullick.com.)

Haider earned his B.A. in Economics and M.A. in Public Policy from the 

Robert E. Cook Honors College at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He 

was born and raised in Islamabad, Pakistan and currently resides with his 

wife in Washington, D.C. 
xv

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the Strategic Studies Department, JSOU Press for 

sponsoring and editing this monograph. Special thanks to the former 

director, Lt Col Michael C. McMahon (now a professor at the U.S. Air 

Force Academy). Michael showed great interest and bolstered my confidence 

from the very beginning when I first presented the idea in the spring of 2008. 

Michael also encouraged me to present my initial findings at a JSOU-Carr 

Center for Human Rights (at Harvard Kennedy School) conference in late 

2008. 

While the main idea of the monograph—Pakistan’s policy to counter 

and foment insurgency and its effects on U.S. security interests—matured 

over time, the moment of epiphany emerged in late 2007 while conducting 

research under Dr. Stephen P. Cohen at Brookings. With the canny eye of 

an academic and rationality of a policy analyst, Dr. Cohen was instrumental 

in shoring up the idea and directing me to the right experts, foundation, 

and think tanks. Their comments were indispensable. Also, a close friend 

and brilliant U.S. grant strategy analyst, Jonathan Ruhe, provided valuable 

comments on better integrating U.S. security interests with my analysis of 

Pakistan’s counterinsurgency policy.

My sister, Mushaal, and mother, Rehana, are beacons of hope in my life, 

and they provided a shield of unbridled support, frequently introducing 

me to nuanced analysis and experts from Pakistan. My loving wife, Rabia, 

provided poignant comments and was encouraging even while fearing her 

husband’s passion for national security. Zebun Chowdhry, my mother in 

law, provided critical insights from the Pakistani baby-boomer generation 

and helped transliterate hundreds of articles from the Urdu press. Aisha 

Chowdhry, my sister in law, stoked my ego by saying, “I think now I’ll read 

more about national security.” I am lucky to have all of them on my side.

Last, but not the least, my two mentors—Lawrence K. Pettit, my intellectual constant and Dighton M. Fiddner, my guide to national security; I 

am honored to have you in my life. I hope this monograph is a reflection of 

lessons they taught and I retained. 

xvii

Abbreviations and Acronyms

ANP ..................Awami National Party

AQA ..................Al Qaeda and associates

CENTCOM .....Central Command (United States)

COIN................Counterinsurgency

FATA ................ Federally Administered Tribal Area

FC ..................... Frontier Corps (Pakistan)

FOIN ................ Fomenting insurgency

HeM .................Harkat-ul-Mujahideen

HN ....................Haqqani Network (Jalaluddin and Sarajuddin groups)

HuM .................Hizb-ul-Mujahideen

IED ...................Improvised explosive device

IMU ..................Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan

ISAF ..................International Security Assistance Force (for Afghanistan)

ISI .....................Inter-Services Intelligence (Directorate of Pakistan)

JeM ...................Jaish-e-Mohammad

JI........................Jamaat-e-Islami

LeT .................... Lashkar-e-Taiba

MMA ...............Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (2002 coalition of Islamist parties)

NATO...............North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NC ....................National Conference (Indian-administered Kashmiri Party)

NWFP ..............Northwest Frontier Province

PML-N ............. Pakistan Muslim League, Nawaz group

PML-Q ............. Pakistan Muslim League, Quaid-e-Azam group

PPP ................... Pakistan Peoples Party

SOF ................... Special Operation Forces (United States)

SSG ................... Special Services Group (Pakistan’s SOF)

TSNM ..............Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Mohammadi

TTP ..................Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan

UAV ..................Unmanned Aerial Vehicle 

xix

Executive Summary

Most American and Pakistani political and military leaders 

agree that without a credible U.S.-Pakistan partnership, victory 

against Taliban and Al Qaeda is impossible. For such a partnership, shared goals must be matched by shared threats, and perceptions must 

follow demonstrable action. Washington and Islamabad agree that Al Qaeda 

must be defeated. Pakistan’s national security calculus—based on India’s 

influence in Afghanistan—however, treats Afghan Taliban as leverage and 

Pakistani Taliban as enemies of the state. Consequently, Afghan Taliban 

are provided asylum in Pakistan while they wreak havoc in Afghanistan, 

and Pakistani Taliban are attacked. While Pakistan has countered and 

fomented numerous insurgencies, this is the first time that it has done 

both to achieve its national security goals. This dual policy and disconnect 

between American and Pakistani threat perceptions is at the heart of Pakistan’s security paradox. Pakistan continues to indirectly counter (COIN) and 

foment (FOIN) insurgency in Afghanistan. Without acknowledging, explicating, and eventually changing this paradox, Afghanistan and Pakistan 

will continue to descent into chaos. 

While many researchers and analysts focus on the current security situation in the region, too few have examined the historical development of 

Pakistan’s national security strategy and how it must be center stage in 

developing a sustainable long-term U.S.-Pakistan partnership. In 2009, the 

United States shifted focus from Iraq to Afghanistan, and Pakistan provided 

more resources and personnel. The Afghan Taliban—patrons of Al Qaeda—

and their Pakistani counterparts (Pakistani Taliban and terrorists from 

Punjab) control most of southern Afghanistan and parts of northern and 

southern nuclear-armed Pakistan. These terrorist sanctuaries are conduits 

for narco-dollars, recruits, weapons and ideal locations to plan 9/11-type 

attacks against the United States and its allies. Relying on inexperienced 

Afghan security forces, American military struggled to regain the initiative 

against the Afghan Taliban all year. Pakistani military, however, delivered 

a surprising blow to the Pakistani Taliban in 2009 taking back the strategic 

Swat Valley and South Waziristan. While questions of holding areas after 

they cleared them of insurgents remain, Pakistani soldiers regained the 

initiative against the Pakistani Taliban by the end of the year. In December 
xx

2009 President Barak Obama announced sending 30,000 additional troops 

to regain control of southern Afghanistan in 2010—the heart of the Afghan 

Taliban insurgency. 

Success demands a holistic approach toward Afghanistan and Pakistan 

that recognizes geopolitical realities—India and Pakistan—and Afghanistan’s future vulnerability to becoming a terrorist sanctuary once coalition 

and American troops leave. The debate must be focused on bringing about 

long-term political and socioeconomic development to Pakistan’s north 

and Afghanistan south on the backs of short- and medium-term visible 

and credible reforms that center on increased security and political and 

economic well being of the people. 
1

Pakistan’s Security Paradox: 

Countering and Fomenting Insurgencies

1. Examining Pakistan’s Policies to Counter and 

Foment Insurgencies

By most accounts, the tripartite—United States (U.S.)/ North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization (NATO), Afghanistan, and Pakistan—counterinsurgency (COIN) response in the last 8 years has failed.2

 This 

monograph examines the factors behind such failure by analyzing Pakistan’s 

policies to counter and foment insurgencies in the region and attempts to 

answer this question:

After examining Pakistan’s policies to counter and foment 

insurgencies, what might be the best U.S.-Pakistan strategic 

partnership to defeat the transnational insurgency? 

The Debate

President Obama has had little trouble placing Pakistan at the top of U.S.

national security priorities. A 180-million-people-strong, Muslim, nucleararmed Pakistan is battling a virulent insurgency in its northwest that is 

inextricably linked to Afghanistan’s southeastern insurgency. Pakistan 

shares a border with an ambitious and near-nuclear Iran, a towering India 

that is increasingly drawn toward America, and a rising economic giant 

and American creditor in China. The myriad of local, regional, and global 

extremist Islamist groups embedded and proliferating in Pakistan’s tribal 

belt are a clear and present danger to the shaky government in Pakistan. 

A destabilized Pakistan, populated with nuclear-weapons-hungry Al 

Qaeda operatives, will make gaining control over Afghanistan look like a 

cakewalk. 

In Pakistan a variety of insurgent and terrorist groups, inspired by 

religio-political goals and ideology coalesced around Al Qaeda and the 

Taliban, have effectively erased any semblance of government control over 

and beyond the areas near the 1,650 mile-long porous border with Afghanistan. The spring 2009 Swat peace deal between Islamabad and the local 
2

JSOU Report 09-9

Pakistani Taliban chapter TSNM was an example of the rise of the umbrella 

insurgency’s control in Pakistan.3 The subsequent Pakistani military operation (Righteous Path) dismantled, disrupted, and destroyed most of the 

Taliban’s command and control and recruitment infrastructure in the Swat 

valley. By late 2009 Pakistan’s military was engrossed in tough, pitch battles 

with Taliban insurgents in South Waziristan, Kyber, Kurram, and Orakzai 

agencies replicating successful tactics from the Swat operation. 

In the last 8 years, the U.S., Afghan, and Pakistani COIN efforts have 

struggled to achieve the objective of eliminating Al Qaeda and associates (AQA), notably Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, their bases of operations, arms caches and recruitment, and their financial networks on both 

sides of the border, known as the Durand Line.4 Initial military success in 

Afghanistan and Pakistan against a Taliban and Al Qaeda in disarray was 

gradually wiped away when they firmly nested their bases in the southeastern provinces of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s northwest, notably the 

Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA). A virtual bond of solidarity 

and operational assistance between local, regional, and global extremist 

Islamist groups, abetted by mainstream Islamist parties and sympathetic 

Pakistani intelligence officers, proved increasingly difficult to untangle, let 

alone break. 

The prevailing wisdom is that a flawed U.S. military policy—unduly 

focused on airpower over troop strength and short-term security over development in Afghanistan mixed with Pakistan’s reluctance to go after the 

Afghan Taliban—unequivocally led to mission failure. The largely accepted 

reason is that Pakistan has a duplicitous policy toward the Afghan Taliban 

that ensures the insurgency’s survival in south Afghanistan. It is so that the 

Taliban, as they did during the Soviet-Afghan war 1980 to 1989, can ensure 

a Pakistan-friendly (and Indian-averse) regime in Afghanistan. Afghan 

President Hamid Karzai is very critical of Pakistan’s policy, but is realizing 

that some form of political dialogue between the government and the reconcilable Taliban insurgents is necessary—and increasingly unavoidable—for 

sustainable peace and development.5

For most of the last 8 years, political upheaval, rising economic woes, 

and past failures to sell the war to the Pakistani people have made a united 

national front on the war difficult. Pakistani military and law enforcement 

agencies have lost more than 1,900 personnel from 2002 to 2008.6 However, 

mistrust between the U.S. and Pakistan has increased due to lack of COIN
3

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

training, equipment, and alleged Pakistani duplicity in pursuing insurgents. For the longest time strategic goals of the U.S. and Pakistan did not 

coincide. 

Figure 1. Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) and Northwest 

Frontier Province (NWFP). Base map © 2007 by World Trade Press; all rights 

reserved. Used with permission. 

Pakistan 

(Northern Areas)

Pakistan

(Punjab)

Pakistan 

(Balochistan)

India

Afghanistan

Tajikstan

Chitral

Dir

Kohat

Karak

Mohmand 

Agency

Bajaur 

Agency

Tank

Lakki 

Marwat

Hangu

Khyber Agency

Bannu

Swat

Buner

Nowshera

Orakzai Agency

Peshawar

Swabi

Mardan

Malakand 

Agency

Kohistan

Dera Ismail 

Khan

South 

Waziristan

North 

Waziristan

Kurram

Agency

Shangla

Haripur Charsadda

Abbottabad

Battagram

Mansehra

Federally Administered Tribal Area 

Northwest Frontier Province
4

JSOU Report 09-9

On balance, the U.S. objective “to prevent Afghanistan [and Pakistan] 

from being used as a base for terrorists and extremists to attack the U.S. and 

its allies,” cannot be achieved by a “transactional” U.S.-Pakistan partnership.7

President Barak Obama has changed course by applying a regional approach, 

increasing nonmilitary aid to Pakistan, increasing troop strength in Afghanistan, and appointing new military and civilian leaders to better integrate 

U.S. and ally resources in the region.8 The U.S. policy goal is to dismantle, 

disrupt, and disarm Al Qaeda, conduct COIN operations under the rubric 

of whole-of-government stabilization operations under U.S. command inside 

Afghanistan, and continue to outsource COIN operations in Pakistan’s east 

to the Pakistani military albeit with more oversight and accountability.9

The new American administration shows promise for change; however, 

for now, President Obama is continuing the existing U.S. military strategy of pursuing and interdicting AQA inside Pakistan through unmanned 

aerial vehicle (UAV) drone attacks and occasional Special Forces hot pursuit missions; recent reports suggest an increase in the frequency and area 

of operations.10 On the political side, a push exists for dialogue between 

Kabul, Islamabad, and the Taliban. In late 2008, a group of Afghan Taliban—ostensibly with the blessing of their cleric leader Mullah Omar—was 

joined by the Afghan President’s emissaries in Saudi Arabia to begin the 

long overdue process of political reconciliation. In early 2009, President 

Obama sent Richard Holbrooke as his chief envoy for South Asia to gauge 

the political currents. 

In the midst of a resurgent Taliban, there is guarded optimism. A recent 

survey puts 80 percent of Afghanistan under their control.11 Also, an increase 

in suicide bombings to more than 100 in the first 6 months of 2008 has 

caused more U.S. deaths in Afghanistan than in Iraq in the last 2 years.12

General David Petraeus, widely credited with writing and applying the 

new innovative COIN strategy of winning hearts and minds, is head of U.S.

Central Command (CENTCOM) that directs all U.S. forces in the region. 

In trying to custom fit the Iraq COIN strategy to Afghanistan, Petraeus is 

hoping to apply the important lessons of Iraq, albeit cautiously. 

Unlike Iraq, which is a largely urban insurgency fought by closely bonded 

tribes, Afghanistan is largely rural. It is home to a population that exists 

largely without healthcare or education. This population is organized into 

tribes that have fought each other for centuries, and they find themselves 

united only under a religious leader (e.g., Taliban Mullah Omar). Most 
5

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

important, historically Afghan mores are an anathema to a strong central government. Thus, Petraeus is arguing for a homemade mix of COIN

strategies.13

General Petraeus and his commanders on the ground understand the 

important differences between Iraq and Afghanistan. Furthermore, in a 

recent interview with Foreign Policy magazine, he noted that low literacy 

rates make the communication campaigns different: unlike their Iraqi 

counterparts, most Afghans do not have access to radio or satellite television. One remedy around that limitation is providing hand-crank radios for 

communication, General Petraeus said, and building more roads for better 

military, political, and socioeconomic operations. 

Moreover, governance is a major issue in Afghanistan, as are corruption 

and the grievances of the general population. Hamid Karzai’s administration is perceived to be increasingly corrupt and incompetent in providing 

basic services such as jobs, clean water, electricity, and healthcare clinics. 

Figure 2. United National Accessibility Afghanistan Map 2008 and 

Insurgency-Infested Areas in Southern and Northern Pakistan. Base map 

© 2007 by World Trade Press; all rights reserved. Used with permission. 

Turkmenistan Usbekistan

Pakistan

Iran

India

Tajikistan

Balochistan

FATA

Swat

NWFP
6

JSOU Report 09-9

An influx of more foreign troops is not a sustainable solution; the surge, by 

definition, is an increase of U.S. troops that is designed to tilt the balance 

of legitimate power in favor of the state. The surge is part of the strategy, 

not a strategy in itself. U.S. policymakers are hoping more U.S. boots on the 

ground will help protect the population, which will in turn provide better 

intelligence, develop trust, and help in stabilization operations including 

socioeconomic infrastructure building. Once that is accomplished, the hope 

is that the Afghan government can broker peace with reconcilable elements 

within the insurgency, allowing Afghan troops to carry on COIN operations. Local partnerships, especially in policing and governance, will be 

paramount. More is needed, however, for this ideal outcome. An effective 

government is key to convince the population that the state is on their side, 

can protect them, and will provide them security, development, and speedy 

justice. Today, for the most part, the Afghan Taliban in the southern and 

eastern provinces are in control and providing these services, notably speedy 

justice through tribal and religious customs.

How these changes are viewed in Pakistan is unequivocally important. 

General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the head of Pakistan’s army (chief of staff), 

and the Intelligence chief, General Shuja Pasha of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate, are working hard to bring about an overhaul in 

the Pakistani military to effectively fight the insurgents in FATA and NWFP. 

There has been significant success in ongoing operations in the Swat Valley 

in May and June and in south Waziristan in November of 2009. General 

Kayani is encouraging U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) trainers to 

help the struggling Frontier Corps (FC)—a light infantry unit historically 

equipped and trained for border security, countersmuggling, and counternarcotics operations and since 2002 actively involved in COIN operations. 

However, the Pakistani military’s No. 1 demand so far is equipment, especially Cobra helicopters that have so far fared well in COIN operations in 

the region’s conflict theater. 

While the debate about aiding FC is ongoing, the Pakistani military has 

decided that FC will take center stage in providing the most boots on the 

ground with significant help from regular army battalions and Special Services Group (SSG) commandoes. Currently there are 150,000 troops—75,000 

are FC, 73,000 regular troops, and 2,000 SSGs.14 An additional 60,000-man 

police force is in the region (approximately 20,000 in FATA, and the rest in 

NWFP).15 A concerted effort is being undertaken to purge rogue ISI agents 
7

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

with sympathies for AQA (140 were dismissed since August 2008), increase 

policing, and initiate effective political reconciliation with the moderates to 

win public support away from AQA, notably the Pakistani Taliban, Tehrike-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).16 Political unity against the Taliban is strong but 

tenuous; it must be sustained.

U.S.-Pakistan Relations in Brief

The current patron-client relationship between U.S. and Pakistan is shaped by 

prior defense and economic agreements during the Cold War and the recent 

partnership in the war against AQA in Afghanistan. Pakistan joined security 

pacts, the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), and the Southeast Asia Treaty 

Organization (SEATO) in the 1950s; spied on the Chinese (1960s), then facilitated dialogue between the Chinese and the Americans (1970s); participated 

in the largest international covert operation to oust the Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan in the 1980s; and after 9/11, became a vital U.S. partner in 

the war against AQA and a notable recipient of U.S. aid ($11 billion from 2002 

to 2008). However, long spells of unmet expectations, mistrust, and broken 

promises occurred between the two partners, most notably when Americans 

felt betrayed by Pakistan’s effort to make Afghanistan a constant proxy, its 

continuous development of nuclear weapons, and its selective cooperation in 

the war against AQA. Pakistanis, on the other hand, found America’s sporadic 

and unreliable largess, reluctance to aid Pakistan against India in 1965 and 1971, 

disinterest in Afghanistan’s contagious insecurity after the Soviet withdrawal in 

1989, military and economic sanctions against Pakistan’s nuclear program, and 

ignorance of Pakistan geostrategic obligations both disingenuous and condescending. It is, however, a troubled marriage of convenience that has made both 

partners realize over time that their common national security interests in the 

region (eliminating terrorist threats to America and Pakistan in Afghanistan) 

outweigh their diverging ones: 

a. U.S.—unequivocally eliminating all terrorist and insurgent groups, notably the Afghan Taliban; supporting a U.S. friendly India as counterweight 

to a rising China, taming a recalcitrant Iran

b. Pakistan—selective elimination of terrorist and insurgent groups in 

Afghanistan and Pakistan in line with national security imperatives, 

which include offsetting India, protecting nuclear weapons, and fomenting insurgency (FOIN) as instruments of foreign policy; increasing 

energy trade with Iran; and strengthening relations with China and the 

Middle East. 

There are no cut-and-dried alliances in the 21st century, and the U.S.-Pakistan 

situation is no exception. While U.S. and Pakistan may disagree on broad 

regional security and economic interests, the resurgence of a virulent Al Qaedasupported Taliban insurgency in southeastern Afghanistan and northwestern 

Pakistan is forcing reluctant partners to see eye to eye.17 
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JSOU Report 09-9

Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, heads a weak coalition government 

that is constantly challenged by his arch rival Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan 

Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) group, the largest party in Punjab (Pakistan’s largest province in population). Despite the passage of two bipartisan 

legislations on a united front against the insurgency—emphasizing political 

reconciliation over brute military force—and the creation of the National 

Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), the two parties have locked horns, sending out shockwaves of political instability.18 Consequently, the Pakistani 

military has taken center stage in drafting and implementing Pakistan’s 

COIN policy, much in the way it did from 2002 to 2008 under then-President 

Pervez Musharraf (Pakistan’s military ruler and later President from 1999 

to 2008). 

Moreover, policy confusion has lead to desperate measures.19 Asif Ali 

Zardari of the Pakistan Peoples Party is stuck between a rock and hard 

place. On one side are 180 million Pakistanis, less than a third of whom 

support the U.S.; however, close to 80 percent support the Pakistan army 

against the Taliban.20 Most of the last 8 years Pakistanis were perplexed by 

a myriad of insurgent groups with similar ideologies and political goals and 

saw the Washington-Islamabad combine as the root of all evil. Believing a 

quick and complete American exit would end the insurgency, they question 

America’s motives. Some media pundits and Islamist parties are propagating 

what they consider to be a U.S. hidden agenda to weaken and, at worst, break 

Pakistan, stripping it of its nuclear weapons and perhaps transmuting it into 

a forward base to closely monitor a rising China and a recalcitrant Iran. 

Pakistani supporters of military operations in the FATA and Afghanistan 

have advocated owning the war by building national consensus, and now 

they are in a majority. 

Acknowledging the complex idiosyncrasies of the present threat, most 

Pakistanis want their government to create a holistic COIN policy. Such 

a policy must define national sovereignty while punishing internal and 

external violators. It must settle on a mix of “dialogue, deterrence, and 

development” toward the denizens of the tribal belt to halt the expanding 

insurgency. 21 Pakistan’s military, in charge of Pakistan’s COIN policy, is 

acting with certainty against insurgents in Swat and FATA. In most of the 

last 8 years Pakistani military and intelligence has acted with ambivalence 

against insurgents in Afghanistan’s southeast, but policy duality has run 
9

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

its course as more in Islamabad realize 

the costs are not worth the benefits of 

interdicting Taliban in one theater and 

supporting them in another.22

Pakistan’s political upheaval and its 

duplicitous approach to COIN in the 

FATA have increased U.S. mistrust. From 

the summer of 2008 to early 2009, U.S. military and intelligence agencies 

were sharing minimal intelligence with the ISI. Instead, the U.S. launched 

Hellfire missiles from UAV drones targeting Al Qaeda members and causing collateral damage inside Pakistani territory. The population, the grand 

prize for both insurgents and counterinsurgents, is either displaced from the 

FATA or joining the insurgency against the Pakistani military, frequently 

targeting army convoys. This is very alarming because 80 percent of all 

NATO supplies come through Pakistan’s tribal badlands; recent attacks on 

NATO supply lines are a shocking reminder of the insurgency’s threat to the 

NATO/International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan.23 On balance, because an overhaul of the regional and 

transnational COIN is needed, this monograph provides an understanding 

of the security situation and recommends policy revisions.

Chapter 2 briefly mentions major COIN and FOIN schools of thought and 

Pakistan’s COIN and FOIN policies from 1948 to 2001. Chapter 3 examines 

the COIN-FOIN paradox; how Pakistan’s COIN policy was made, implemented, and altered as the situation on the ground changed; and identifies 

the major actors who drove the insurgency and COIN in Pakistan from 

late 2001 to late 2009. Chapter 4 lays out policy guidelines based on lessons 

learned and Pakistan’s emerging COIN policy. 

...more in Islamabad realize 

the costs are not worth the 

benefits of interdicting Taliban 

in one theater and abetting 

supporting them in another.

11

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

2. Pakistan: COIN and FOIN Theory and Praxis 

in Brief (1948 to 2001)

This chapter briefly mentions broadly accepted COIN theory and the 

degrees and variations that Pakistan practiced from 1948 to 2001. In 

addition, it examines Pakistan’s policy of fomenting an insurgency 

(FOIN) to achieve its national security goals. 

Brief Discussion of COIN Theory and Practices

David Galula—a French military officer who served in China, Greece, Southeast Asia, and Algeria and who commanded troops who fought insurgents—

heavily influences classical COIN theory and practices.24 After completing 

his service, Galula received a Harvard University fellowship to write about 

his COIN experiences. He wrote his magnum opus on COIN, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, providing a “compass” for future 

counterinsurgents. 25 More than 40 years after its publication, the U.S. Army 

and Marine Corps began an ambitious project to write a new COIN manual. 

It was released in December 2006 as the U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5). Three years later an 

equally ambitious team published the U.S. Army Stability Operations Field 

Manual (FM 3-07), reiterating its predecessor’s crucial observation: without 

an integrated “whole of government and unity of effort,” the military solution was no solution.

Galula argued that counterinsurgents represent institutions of state 

power—levels of government, legislature, and military—and consequently 

enjoy a monopoly of a state’s tangible assets, notably legitimate power. On 

the other hand, insurgents do not have the state’s assets, but do have an 

advantage over intangible assets, such as ideology or a religio-political cause. 

Counterinsurgents must uphold law and order, but insurgents are often 

free to violate state laws, their promises, or social mores. Galula made the 

case that the best way to defeat an insurgency is to maximize the strengths 

of the state and minimize the advantages of insurgents. He presented four 

important principles that have been included in the current FM 3-24/MCWP

3-33.5:

a. People are the grand prize. 
12

JSOU Report 09-9

b. Using all elements of power, the state should go after the active minority by persuading the relatively neutral majority to sever ties with the 

insurgency. 

c. The state should use force judiciously because public support can be 

ephemeral and easily lost if there is excessive collateral damage or if 

the state pulls out after clearing an area. 

d. Mapping the threats and selectively going after the worst as opposed 

to being everywhere is very important for sustaining COIN gains—

what Galula called “intensity of effort and vastness of means.”

Detecting the specific lifecycle stage of an insurgency is crucial for success, Galula argued. There are two distinct stages, cold and hot. Cold insurgencies are “on the whole legal and nonviolent”; in such an environment, 

Galula recommends emphasizing covert intelligence operations against 

the insurgent leadership and organization, reinforcing the state’s “political 

machine,” co-opting the insurgent’s cause, and creating division within the 

insurgency.26 On the other hand, hot insurgencies are previously dormant 

insurgencies now grown into full-blown rebellions against the state. The 

best ways to win against such an insurgency are:

a. Apply enough military force to interdict the main body of the armed 

insurgents.

b. Have sufficient troops to deter an insurgency’s comeback.

c. Cut off the main body from supporting groups.

d. Break links of support.

e. Bring lasting order by organizing self-defense units—for example, 

Concerned Local Citizens (CLCs) in Iraq related to the awakening 

movement.27

f. Create national political consensus for the COIN policy. 

While the above remedies still make up the core of COIN strategies that 

have been shown to eradicate conditions propitious to an insurgency, the 

insurgencies of today have become more complex and require adjusting both 

strategies and tactics. David Kilcullen, former adviser to General Petraeus, 

contests in his “Counterinsurgency Redux” article that today’s insurgents 

can create a virtual sanctuary on the Internet, and their area of influence 

may need to include all neighboring countries while their area of interest 

may need to be global.28 AQA and Taliban in Pakistan, for example, have 
13

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

developed an extensive Web presence and frequently use satellite phones 

and multiple subscriber identity module (SIM) cards in cell phones.

Kilcullen says that classical COIN theory still “views the conflict as 

a binary struggle between one insurgent (or confederation) and one 

counterinsurgent (or coalition).” In today’s insurgencies, various competing insurgent forces are fighting each other as well as the government, and 

the government’s COIN interests may differ in key respects from those of 

its allies. Hence, Kilcullen argues, “we might conceive of the environment 

as a ‘conflict ecosystem’ with multiple competing entities seeking to maximize their survivability and influence. The counterinsurgent’s task may no 

longer be to defeat the insurgent, but rather to impose order (to the degree 

possible) on an unstable and chaotic environment.”

Altering strategies and tactics for 21st century insurgencies notwithstanding, there is agreement on the two main COIN schools of thought.29

The first is the “winning the hearts and minds” school that supports the 

now-ubiquitous model of “clear, hold, and build.” Fundamentally, it focuses 

on using military force to clear the worst of the insurgents and gaining 

control of the heart of their operational center, then using political reconciliation and a strong troop presence to hold that area. Finally, it uses a mix of 

socioeconomic and law enforcement projects to build that area and create a 

mechanism for the sustainment of order, justice, and economic wellbeing to 

deter future insurgency operations. The assumption is that the main focus 

of the military in COIN is to protect the populace, the grand prize in the 

competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents. 

In agreement with the clear, hold, and build strategy to win hearts and 

minds, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps COIN Field Manual stresses the 

careful application of force and stepping up to the task of providing security, building roads, and providing jobs if local policing and governance 

are unable to do so. Moreover, political victory is paramount to winning 

the hearts and minds of the populace: to lose politically is to lose.30 This 

is an ardent task; the government must provide a combination of artful 

governance dedicated to social welfare, including meeting basic needs for 

food, water, shelter, clothing, and medical treatment amidst violence and 

instability, thus requiring military personnel to become nation builders.

The second school of thought is based on coercion, where legitimacy of 

power is viewed as “an unattainable—and wholly unnecessary—goal.” 31

It operates on the notion of out-terrorizing the terrorist—that is, a state’s 
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JSOU Report 09-9

military raises the costs of supporting an insurgency to offset recruitment 

efforts. This stems from what militaries do best. The U.S. Army applied 

the coercion school of COIN to defeat the Filipino insurrection (1899 to 

1902) after the Spanish-American War (1898) and to destroy the Native 

American insurgents. Pakistan has applied the coercion school in numerous insurgencies, notably East Bengal (present day Bangladesh) and Baluchistan. Other examples are Russia in Chechnya (1994 to 1996) and Serbia 

against Bosnian Muslim insurgents (1992 to 1995). Unlike the hearts-andminds school of thought, the coercion school does not consider eliminating 

extremists without alienating the populace a necessary goal.

Certain aspects of the U.S. COIN field manual, highly influenced by 

Galula and the hearts-and-minds school of thought, work remarkably 

well: 

a. Unity of action, limitation of violence, and the need for the military 

to accept risk in population security

b. Importance of human intelligence and adaptive small-unit 

leadership

c. Accounting for the greater difficulty of logistics 

d. Understanding the local society and culture, whether the conflict is 

ideological, ethnic, sectarian, or merely criminal. 

There are some caveats, however. The people may not always look up to the 

state when the state is winning against the insurgents in religio-political 

insurgencies. They may turn to co-ethnics or co-religionists for survival 

because the state may fail in holding the area after clearing it. For example, 

in the initial stage of COIN efforts in Pakistan’s northwest Swat region in 

2009, most of the population was siding with the insurgents due to past 

COIN failures. Drying up the insurgents’ base is also tricky, especially when 

the government’s ethnic or sectarian identification means that it will be seen 

as a threat to the security of rival internal groups. This also may be true 

where there is “little or no supracommunal, national identity to counterpose 

to the subnational identities over which the war is waged by the time the U.S.

becomes involved.” 32 For example, most denizens of Pakistan’s northwest 

find brute military tactics by a mostly Punjabi army an anathema to their 

Pashtun identity. 
15

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

Pakistan’s COIN Policy

Since gaining independence from the British in 1947, Pakistan has fought 

11 major insurgencies, many of them more than once, and two that are still 

ongoing (Pashtun and Baluch). Only once has the state lost completely to 

the insurgents: in 1971, Indian-backed East Bengali insurgents defeated the 

Pakistani army, leading to the creation of Bangladesh. For the rest of the 

time, the state has successfully converted full-blown hot insurgencies into 

cold dormant ones, keeping the possibility of resurgence alive. Pakistan 

has primarily followed the coercion school of thought: seldom focusing on 

socioeconomic development to gain the population’s trust, instead prioritizing brute military tactics over political reconciliation. 

In addition to countering insurgencies, Pakistan has also fomented several insurgencies in South Asia as part of its national security doctrine and 

in protection of the geographic dimension of its strategic spread in the 

region (Indian-administered Kashmir, Indian Punjab, and Afghanistan). 

A short history of Pakistan’s national security doctrine and its subset, strategic spread, is required to understand why Pakistan has both fought and 

created insurgencies, followed by a discussion of how Pakistan drafted and 

implemented policies to counter and create insurgencies between 1948 and 

2001. 

Pakistan’s Uber-National Security Strategy

Pakistan’s Uber-National Security Strategy is a function of the conditions 

surrounding the creation of the nation state, its multiethnic population, and 

the prevailing geostrategic and socioeconomic threats and opportunities. 

Its main purpose is to protect the territorial, geopolitical, and economic 

interests of the country. After a protracted nationalist movement against 

the British Empire’s claim over the Indian subcontinent, India and Pakistan 

gained independence in 1947. The British partition plan, based on religious 

division, was erroneously simple and poorly implemented, creating two 

warring, incomplete nation states. Pakistan was bisected by India. Provinces were broken (e.g., Punjab) and several states, notably ones close to the 

borders like Kashmir, were given the choice to pick their patrons—India or 

Pakistan. A Hindu Maharaja ruled a predominantly Muslim Kashmir; he 

chose to accede to India, triggering the first war between India and Pakistan. 
16

JSOU Report 09-9

This conflict led to the bifurcation of the province into two disputed territories, forever sowing the seeds of instability in the region and making 

India Pakistan’s enemy No. 1.

Pakistan has four provinces, and it borders China in the north, Afghanistan and Iran in the west, and India in the east. A fifth province, East 

Bengal (present day Bangladesh), gained independence in 1971 after a prolonged Indian-backed Bengali insurgency. Amongst a 180 million population, Punjab (44 percent) ranks the largest, then NWFP (15 percent), Sindh 

(14 percent), and Baluchistan (4 percent). 33 In addition, there are four federally controlled territories—FATA, Northern Areas, Azad Kashmir, and the 

capital Islamabad. 

Since independence, continuous socioeconomic and political woes have 

exacerbated inherited multiethnic and sectarian strife. In a country where 

some want a theocratic 

Sunni Islamist republic 

while others argue for a 

loose federation, Pakistanis have struggled to 

build consensus on a broad 

common national purpose 

and identity. For most of its history (intermittent periods of shaky democracy notwithstanding), a Punjabi-dominated military and civilian bureaucracy elite has governed Pakistan. At different times, military and civilian 

leaders have used combinations of fear of Indian hegemony, reliance on 

Islamic identity and external aid from the Middle East, China, and the 

U.S. to keep the country intact—the basis and core objective of the national 

security doctrine. Pakistan has fought three conventional wars with India 

(1948, 1965, and 1971), eleven insurgencies at home (Bengali, Sindhi, Mohajir, 

Pashtun, and Baluch), and fomented five insurgencies in India (Kashmir and 

Punjab) and Afghanistan (1980 to 1989, 1989 to 2001, and 2003 to present). 

In summary, Pakistan’s Uber-National Security Strategy—dictated and 

implemented by the military—emphasizes the protection of the country’s 

territorial boundaries by ensuring socioeconomic viability against internal 

dissent (ethnic, separatist, and religio-political insurgencies) and external 

threats (India) where the formation of a constitutional democratic system is 

accidental, not a desired outcome. Hence, Pakistan, at its core, is a security 

In a country where some want a theocratic 

Sunni Islamist republic while others argue 

for a loose federation, Pakistanis have 

struggled to build consensus on a broad 

common national purpose and identity.
17

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

state fearful of India, wary of democracy, intolerant of religio-ethnic strife, 

inclined to use religion (Islam) as a unifier, and dependent on the U.S., 

China, and the Middle East for military and economic aid. 

Guaranteeing the direction of the Uber-National Security Strategy, the 

National Defense Strategy emphasizes the external and internal threats to 

national security and highlights defense priorities that are then operationalized in various national defense policies. Taken together these defense 

policies make up Pakistan’s strategic spread.

34 Strategic spread facilitates the 

implementation of the National Defense Strategy through a mix of military 

and political policies (protecting military and nuclear parity against Indian 

encirclement, quelling internal dissent, strengthening religious cohesiveness, and making foreign aid plentiful and certain) with the use of offensive, 

defensive, and preemptive regular and irregular warfare. 

An important subset of national strategic spread is Pakistan’s national 

strategic depth. National strategic depth—described as the area between 

the frontline and an enemy’s military and industrial base—has changed 

over time. Strategic depth as policy was first used within the context of the 

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1980 to 1989) and Pakistan’s aim to contain 

the Soviet threat, then eliminate it by fomenting a protracted insurgency. 

After the Soviet withdrawal, an Afghan civil war ensued, leading to the rise 

and ultimate victory of Pakistan’s proxy, the Taliban. Before support for 

the Afghan Taliban diminished—a consequence of the post-9/11 U.S. invasion—strategic depth was redefined in the 1990s as indirect Pakistani rule 

in Afghanistan against a future occupying force or competing Indian and 

Iranian proxies and as an irregular war factory against India in Kashmir. 

A mix of these military and political policies makes up Pakistan’s national 

strategic spread, a stretchable blanket of protection of core national security 

priorities extending beyond national boundaries and sometimes contracting 

to accommodate external (U.S. and India) and internal (left-leaning political 

movements, and India-Pakistan peace initiatives) change.

In summary, Pakistan’s national security strategy and subordinate supporting strategies focus on protecting the homeland from internal and external threats. Pakistan’s National Defense Strategy is operationalized by a set 

of politico-military policies under the rubric of national strategic spread, 

most importantly Pakistan’s policies to counter and foment insurgencies. 
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JSOU Report 09-9

COIN in Pakistan 1948 to 2001

Pakistan has a long and troubling experience with COIN. For more than 

six decades, Pakistan has relied heavily on the coercion school of thought, 

albeit with sporadic and episodic incidents of political reconciliation after 

intense military operations. At present there seems to be a shift away from 

coercion to the winning the hearts-and-minds school (e.g., Swat Valley in 

the northwest). In the “clear, hold, and build” line of thinking, Pakistani 

counterinsurgents have historically had little trouble clearing an area of 

insurgents, but have failed to hold and build it. Most of the time the holding 

and building parts—encouraging sustainable political reconciliation and 

socioeconomic development—have fallen behind higher priorities (clearing 

the area of hard-core insurgents) for COIN policy. What follows is a brief 

review of major insurgencies from 1947 to 2001. 

Figure 3. Pakistan’s Uber-National Security Strategy and Subordinate Supporting Strategies
19

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

Bengali Insurgency (1971)

As mentioned, retaining national territorial integrity has been the cornerstone of Pakistan’s national security doctrine, to include initially East 

Pakistan. More than 90 percent of Pakistanis are Muslim, but the sole use 

of Islam as a unifying force failed when in 1971 Pakistan became the first 

former colonial state to break into two: East Pakistan became Bangladesh, 

and West Pakistan became present day Pakistan. Since independence in 

1947, Bengalis have felt they received the raw end of the deal. Aside from a 

common religion (Islam), they found themselves culturally, ethnically, and 

linguistically aloof from West Pakistanis dominated by Punjabis. Burgeoning grievances reached the boiling point when West Pakistanis imposed 

Urdu and not Bengali as the national language and categorically discriminated against Bengalis for government and military jobs. After the election 

of 1971, the Bengalis won a clear majority, but were not allowed to form a 

government; soon after, Pakistani military launched a brutal campaign to 

suppress political dissent. The insurgency that ensued attracted Indian support; within months 90,000 Pakistani soldiers had surrendered, and 8,000 

were killed in action by an overwhelming Indian force backing the Bengali 

Mukti Bahini guerillas. Close to 3,000 Indian soldiers were killed, but the 

Figure 4. Pakistan’s COIN Policy (1947 to 2001) from Enemy Centric COIN to 

Population Centric COIN

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Bengali (1971) Sindhi

(1950s–1990s)

Mohajir

(1990s)

Baluchi (1947;

1958; 1963–70s)

Pashtun

(1947–1958; 70s)

0=Coercion School of Thought

10=Clear, Hold, & Build
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JSOU Report 09-9

number of Bengalis killed is debated to be between 1 to 3 million. While the 

West Pakistani military created local support forces such as the Razakars 

and Shanti Committees, the use of coercion and unfettered brute force left 

no room for political reconciliation, and Pakistan was bifurcated.35

Actor Goals Strategy Tactics

Pakistan Protect territorial 

integrity

Win through indiscriminate coercion; support 

state-friendly paramilitary 

forces

Indiscriminate brute force 

through infantry deployment, supporting local 

militias, extralegal detentions, and killings

Bengali 

insurgents

Complete independence from Pakistan 

not open to provincial 

autonomy

Guerilla warfare; solicit 

external (India) support 

in terms of finances, 

arms, and training

Classic guerilla tactics—

hit and run, avoid large 

scale one-on-one operations; ambushes, urban 

warfare

Sindhi Insurgency (1950s to 1990s)

Although Sindhi ethnic discrimination and economic grievances against a 

Punjabi-dominated central government began in the early 1950s, the breaking away of Bangladesh in 1971 gave renewed vigor and hope to Sindhi secessionists. More than 40 percent of Sindh’s land was owned by non-Sindhis, 

mostly Punjabis and Mohajirs (the immigrants from India to Pakistan after 

independence in 1947). The rationale of the insurgency was simple: decades 

long economic, political, and cultural prejudices by the central government 

were reasons enough to wage an insurgency for a separate homeland, Sindhudesh. The insurgency was largely cold and quickly quelled when it became 

hot intermittently. After pursuing a short but effective coercion-centered 

but politically sensitive COIN policy, Islamabad brought Sindhi dissidents 

on board for the drafting of the fourth, and most widely accepted, national 

constitution of 1973 that ensured greater provincial autonomy. As the gap 

between the constitution on paper and practice increased, ethnic and provincial divisions reemerged and persisted. 

Most recently, the Sindhi insurgency was at the edge of becoming hot 

when Benazir Bhutto, two-time Pakistan’s prime minister from Sindh, was 

assassinated in late 2007. At present, the movement for the separate homeland of Sindhudesh is largely marginalized.36
21

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

Actor Goals Strategy Tactics

Pakistan Protect territorial 

integrity

Win through selective 

coercion, encourage 

political reconciliation, 

promise enhanced 

provincial autonomy

Deploy infantry to root 

out insurgents’ leadership; coerce insurgents 

to become informers 

and reconcilables 

Sindhi 

insurgents

Independence from 

Pakistan but open to 

provincial autonomy

Guerilla warfare; solicit 

external (India) support 

in terms of finances, 

arms, and training

Classic guerilla tactics—

hit and run, avoid large 

scale one-on-one operations; ambushes, urban 

warfare

Mohajir Insurgency

Mohajirs, immigrants from India, are present in large numbers in the port 

city of Karachi and its outskirts. Having played a significant role in the 

creation of Pakistan, Mohajirs were rewarded with high civil and military 

posts. Over time, their influence diminished as Pashtuns and Sindhis challenged their political monopoly. In response, Mohajirs created a Leninist 

political party, the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), open to the use 

of violence to reach their political and economic goals. When civil unrest 

reached uncontrollable levels, and some MQM insurgents demanded the 

creation of a separate homeland (Jinnahpur), the Pakistani military was 

deployed to battle the primarily ethnic insurgency. Several military operations were conducted periodically between 1985 and 2003, but lasting peace 

came from shifting tactics from coercion to sporadic efforts to win the 

hearts and minds of the Mohajirs. For example, by the late 1990s, military 

rangers began to disengage from populous urban areas after spending years 

guarding check posts with local police, wining local support, and improving 

the collection of actionable intelligence.37 
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JSOU Report 09-9

Actor Goals Strategy Tactics

Pakistan Protect territorial 

integrity

Win through selective 

coercion, encourage 

political reconciliation, 

promise enhanced 

provincial autonomy

Deploy infantry to root 

out insurgents’ leadership; coerce insurgents 

to become informers 

and reconcilables 

Mohajir 

insurgents

Independence from 

Pakistan but open to 

provincial autonomy

Urban guerilla warfare; 

solicit external (India) 

support in terms of 

finances, arms, and 

training

Classic guer illa 

tactics—hit and run, 

avoid large-scale 

one-on-one operations; ambushes, urban 

warfare, kidnappings, 

targeted killings

Baluchi Insurgency

While the Pakistani military ensured its strategic spread after the separation 

of Bangladesh, it began to slowly shift toward adding political reconciliation to the mix of COIN tactics. However, the coercion school of COIN was 

still paramount. The Baluchi insurgencies (1947, 1958, 1963, 1973 to 1977, 

and 2004 to 2007) have particular relevance to U.S. COIN operations in 

Afghanistan in that they emanate from the Baluchistan province that borders Afghanistan and Pakistan’s northwest tribal areas.38 Baluchistan also 

hosts a large Pashtun population—almost half of 10 million denizens are 

Pashtun.It provides 40 percent of all Pakistan’s energy needs, specifically 

natural gas, and it is widely known to host Afghan Taliban leaders, part of 

the Quetta Shura that frequently meets and plans attacks on NATO and U.S.

troops.39 However, many Baluchis are not colluding with the mostly Pashtun 

Taliban and detest the usurpation of their land by Pashtun tribes coming 

down from the northern tribal and settled areas. Their beef with the central 

government is largely based on ethnic and economic discrimination, and 

most Baluchis loathe being coupled with the Taliban.

The Baluchi insurgencies are antiannexation and focus on the struggle 

for separate statehood. The last two insurgencies (2004 to 2007 and 1973 

to 1977) have had surprisingly similar ethnic and economic autonomist 

demands: self-determination and resource allocations, not religious extremism. On the fear that the two sardars (heads of tribes) of Bizenjo and Mengal 

tribes, Mir Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo and Sardar Ataullah Khan Mengal, were 

obtaining weapons from Sadam Hussein’s Iraqi regime in the 1970s, Zulfikar 
23

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s prime minister, dismissed the Baluch provincial government. The third tribe, Bugti, headed by Nawab Bhugti supported the 

government, but later joined the separatists. Helicopter gunships from Iran 

and 80,000 troops brutally suppressed the rebellion, leading to a 25-year 

truce.40

In early 2003, Baluchi dissidents, decrying continuous political and economic discrimination, began attacking natural gas pipelines and FC units, 

a light infantry border patrolling force. Pakistan began a major military 

operation after a half-hearted effort at negotiations failed. Amidst significant 

collateral damage, massive internally displaced populations, and continuous 

insecurity, the insurgency began to die out in 2007 when several Baluchi 

leaders, notably Nawab Bhugti (1927 to 2006), were killed. Since the February 2008 national elections, the insurgency has morphed into a political 

movement and is largely dormant.41

Actor Goals Strategy Tactics

Pakistan Protect territorial 

integrity

Win through selective 

coercion, encourage 

political reconciliation, 

promise enhanced 

provincial autonomy

Deploy infantry to root 

out insurgents’ leadership; coerce insurgents 

to become informers 

and reconcilables 

Baluchi 

insurgents

Independence from 

Pakistan but open to 

provincial autonomy

Rural guerilla warfare; 

solicit external (India) 

support in terms of 

finances, arms, and 

training

Classic guer illa 

tactics—hit and run, 

avoid large-scale 

one-on-one operations; ambushes, urban 

warfare, kidnappings, 

targeted killings

Pashtun Insurgency

What has become the pattern in Pakistan’s COIN policy is to first use unfettered military force, then reluctantly opt for political reconciliation after 

military operations fail. The current transnational Pashtun insurgency (2001 

to present) shares both important similarities (ethnic and economic discrimination) and differences (the post 9/11 religio-political, anthropological, 

and governance-related changes) with past Pashtun insurgencies (1947 to 

1958 and 1973 to 1977). 

Before independence (1947), the NWFP and the FATA—home to 20 million Pashtuns—had a popular leader, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, head of 
24

JSOU Report 09-9

the Red Shirts—a nonviolent secessionist movement that wanted a separate 

homeland for the Pashtuns (Pashtunistan) rather than join Pakistan. As 

envisioned by Khan, Pashtunistan at a later stage would encompass all the 

Pashtun-majority areas in Afghanistan. Notwithstanding political movements that sporadically became violent in the 1970s, the Pakistani military 

and their allies—Islamist and Islamist-leaning political parties—were able 

to quell the political movement. 

Actor Goals Strategy Tactics

Pakistan Protect territorial integrity

Win through selective 

coercion; then encourage 

political reconciliation; 

promise selective provincial autonomy

Deploy infantry to root out insurgents’ leadership; break political 

ranks of the nationalists parties; 

coerce insurgents to become 

informers and reconcilables 

Pashtun 

insurgents

Independence 

from Pakistan 

but open to 

territorial 

autonomy

Rural and urban guerilla 

warfare; solicit external 

(India) support in terms 

of finances, arms, and 

training

Classic guerilla tactics—hit and 

run, avoid large-scale one-on-one 

operations; ambushes, urban 

and rural warfare, kidnappings, 

targeted killings

Over the years, the Awami National Party (ANP), a reformed structure 

of the old Red Shirts movement led by Askandar Khan Wali, Khan’s son, 

has demanded more provincial autonomy but not complete independence.42

In the February 2008 national election, the ANP defeated the Islamist parties on the promise of bringing peace to NWFP and FATA, minimizing 

military operations, and maximizing political reconciliation and economic 

development. By early 2009, the ANP had failed on all three counts, and the 

insurgency was burgeoning. Table 1 is a summary of these ethno-linguistic/

separatist insurgencies.

Table 1. COIN in Pakistan, 1947 to 2001

Name Outcome

Bengali (1960s to 1970s) Insurgents won43

Sindhi Insurgency (1950s to 1990s) State won

Mohajir (1985 to 2001) State won

Baluchi (1947, 1958, 1963, 1973 to 1977, [2004 to 200744]) State won

Pashtun (1947 to 1958, 1973 to 197745) State won
25

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

Although Pakistan’s record in COIN is a mixed one, it is important to 

review. The evolution of Pakistan’s COIN policy from an emphasis on coercion to political reconciliation is demonstrated by recent policy changes (e.g., 

late 2008 to 2009 in the Swat Valley47). Past assumptions of national unity 

based on religion alone were reviewed but rarely recalibrated into official 

policy. Political reconciliation remained a necessary evil and not a desired 

outcome. Pakistani counterinsurgents have given undue credence to India’s 

clandestine support to insurgents while paying little attention to the genuine 

ethnic, political, and economic grievances behind the insurgencies. To some 

degree this pattern still continues (2001 to the present). 

India did abet insurgencies in Pakistan, the most painful of which was 

the Bengali insurgency that would forever make India Pakistan’s existential 

threat. While India was fomenting the Bengali insurgency in the 1960s, 

young and new counterinsurgents in Pakistan began reading the classic 

COIN theorists and accounts of practitioners of both counterinsurgencies 

and insurgencies. Studies were made of Algeria, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, and 

particularly China; several of them concluded that guerrilla warfare was a 

strategic weapon, a “slow but sure and relatively inexpensive” strategy that 

was “fast overshadowing regular warfare.” 48 The idea that supposedly illequipped and out-numbered guerilla fighters could inflict heavy casualties 

on a conventional army (given proper training and the pervasive appeal of 

the insurgent’s political or ethnic goals) was very attractive to the Pakistanis 

and the Indians. Thus began an era in South Asia’s power geopolitics where 

“one’s own national security and rival state’s domestic insecurity [would] 

go hand in hand.” 49

Cold Insurgencies that Can Become Hot

While Pakistani insurgencies (except Bangladesh) have shown the ability to reassert themselves, other minor dissident ethno-nationalist movements could erupt 

into full-blown ethnic and sectarian insurgencies. The Siraiki-speaking region 

and northern Sindh—Gilgit and Baltistan—is where Shia in the northern areas, 

represented by the Northern Areas Thinkers’ Forum, support the formation of 

two independent states in the northwest region of the subcontinent that would 

include the Indian- and Pakistani-administered Kashmir, Gilgit, Batlistan, and 

Ladakh.46
26

JSOU Report 09-9

Fomenting Insurgencies: FOINs

Stretching its national security strategic spread, Pakistan began fomenting 

insurgencies in the mid-1980s in Indian Punjab and Indian-administered 

Kashmir.50 In the 1990s, both countries locked horns in Afghanistan, the 

first time India and Pakistan simultaneously fomented two distinct insurgencies (Pakistan supported the Taliban and India supported the Northern 

Alliance) in a third country (Afghanistan). FOIN became an official policy to 

achieve national security imperatives for India and Pakistan. In Pakistan’s 

case, it ensured the longevity and protection of its national strategic spread 

against threats from India. 

Historically, FOIN came to prominence after World War II when the 

U.S. and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) began supporting 

insurgencies in other countries (e.g., Vietnam and Afghanistan) against 

the other to pull a state into the free world or the Soviet bloc. In a seminal 

study at the RAND Corporation, researchers put together an extensive database of insurgencies around the world and their state patrons from 1970 to 

2001.51 For example, the study showed that Pakistan supported the Taliban 

in Afghanistan, Punjabi separatists in India; India supported the Northern 

Alliance in Afghanistan; Russia supported Vietcong in Vietnam; and the 

U.S. supported Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iraq.52

In addition, the RAND Corporation had several reports on the U.S. role in 

abetting insurgencies abroad to offset the Soviet influence especially through 

Maoist/communist insurgencies. For example, in 1990 Stephen T. Hosmer 

prepared a report for the U.S. Army advocating support for Latin American 

insurgencies against their communist-funded states. He detailed a strategy 

that included “the provision of training, advisory, materiel, and other noncombat support to indigenous Third World [insurgent] forces.” 53

While FOINs as modern state policy initiated with the Cold War rivalry 

between the U.S. and USSR, it soon spread to conflicts between various 

countries including China and the U.S. in the battleground of Korea (1950s) 

and in South Asia. India and Pakistan have abetted insurgent movements 

inside their rival countries (Punjab and Kashmir) and locked horns through 

their proxy insurgencies in other countries in the region (Afghanistan and 

Sri Lanka). A formal construct of FOIN similar to that of COIN, however, 

does not exist. This monograph presents a formal construct of FOIN, then 

discusses several Pakistan-India related FOIN cases. 
27

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

The Rationale and Stages of FOIN

Soon after World War II, the Soviet Union tested a nuclear bomb, igniting a vicious nuclear arms race with the U.S.54 In the next decade the two 

countries produced enough weapons to destroy each other several times, 

leading some experts to believe there was little incentive to continue the 

arms race in the presence of mutually assured destruction.55 If the option 

of an all out conventional or nuclear war was off the table, one could use 

unconventional warfare through proxies. FOIN is the process of supporting 

an insurgent group or groups by a state to achieve a specific national security 

objective of weakening another state. The target state may be supported by 

a rival state, or the state itself may be a rival. Such a national defense policy 

is fomenting insurgency. 

The U.S. and the Soviet Union opted for reciprocal FOIN because both 

countries could gain leverage against the other by draining each other’s 

military and economic resources with little financial and personnel commitment and with a high degree of plausible deniability. 

Initially a state must conduct market research to explore the viability of 

a FOIN campaign. For example, learn the appeal, scope, and range of an 

insurgent group and its short, medium, and long-term capability to damage 

a rival state’s legitimacy, governance, and socioeconomic infrastructure. The 

second phase involves a supporting country that provides finance, arms, 

training, and advisors to the insurgent group. Once training and communication centers are built and the insurgent group begins to increase recruitment from the local population and is able to lure in more people to its side 

than the government can, the third phase begins. That is when an insurgent 

group matures into a shadow government with a functional military directly 

competing with the military of the rival state. Plausible deniability of the 

supporting state becomes increasingly difficult as the FOIN reaches the 

last stage. Moreover there are specific ‘triggers’ that indicate the change in 

state of FOIN operations and the stage of the insurgency; for example, if in 

the first phase the insurgent group scores low on viability, the next phase 

is impossible. Figure 5 explains the FOIN framework from the general to 

the specific. 
28

JSOU Report 09-9

Figure 6. Pakistan FOIN Policy toward India (Kashmir and Punjab) 

Figure 5. FOIN Framework 

• Conduct market 

research: does a 

particular insurgent group or 

groups have the 

capability, scope, 

and range to run 

a FOIN campaign 

successfully? 

• What are possible 

opportunities and 

dangers? 

• What is the insurgents to population ratio?

• Insurgency 

is worth 

supporting. 

• Insurgent 

group(s) has the 

capability, scope, 

and range to 

challenge rival 

state. 

• Abet by 

finances, training, arms, etc. 

• Provide materiel 

and advisors. 

• Set up communication, media, 

military, and 

political wings 

of the insurgent 

organization. 

• Insurgents show 

great potential 

to challenge the 

rival state’s key 

institutions.

• Insurgents to 

population ratio 

has increased 

over time. 

• Rival state is 

deploying

resources 

toward the 

insurgency 

continuously. 

• Challenge state, 

political, and 

governance 

institutions by 

creating a shadow 

government. 

• Eliminate law 

enforcement. 

• Target state 

military directly 

and continuously. 

Phase I:

Assess

Insurgency Triggers

Phase II:

Support

Insurgency Triggers

Phase III:

Replace

State

• Conduct market 

research: does a 

particular insurgent group or 

groups have the 

capability, scope, 

and range to run 

a FOIN campaign 

successfully? 

• What are possible 

opportunities and 

dangers? 

• What is the insurgents to population ratio?

• Kashmir and 

Punjab have 

strong historical autonomist 

movements. 

• Insurgent 

group(s) has the 

capability, scope, 

and range to 

challenge rival 

state. 

• Kashmiri 

and Punjabi 

insurgents 

are trained, 

equipped, and 

financed. 

• Both are provided materiel 

and advisors. 

• Pakistani 

military and 

intelligence help 

set up insurgent 

communication, 

media, military, 

and political 

wings of the 

insurgent organization. 

• In the mid-1980s 

(Punjab) and late 

1980s (Kashmir) 

insurgents show 

great potential 

to challenge 

the rival state’s 

key institutions 

and writ of the 

government. 

• Insurgents to 

population ratio 

increased over 

time but was not 

sustainable. 

• India began 

deploying maximum military 

resources 

toward the 

insurgency continuously. At one 

time more than 

600,000 troops 

were deployed. 

• While Kashmiri 

and Punjabi insurgents challenged 

state, political, 

and governance 

institutions and 

attempted to 

create a shadow 

government, 

overwhelming 

force and effective police action 

quelled the insurgency in Indian 

Punjab. 

• After 9/11 and 

intense international pressure 

after 2002 and 

2008 terrorist attacks in 

India, Pakistan 

significantly toned 

down its FOIN 

policy toward 

Kashmiri insurgents.

Phase I:

Assess

Insurgency Triggers

Phase II:

Support

Insurgency Triggers

Phase III:

Replace

State
29

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

FOIN in Indian Punjab – The Khalistan Movement 

(1984 to 1992)

In the mid-1980s, certain Punjabi Sikhs launched an indigenous separatist movement based on political grievances to form the independent state 

of Khalistan. Before the Golden Temple was attacked, the insurgency was 

actively supported by Pakistan’s flagship intelligence agency, the ISI.

56 The ISI

set up training camps in Pakistani Punjab, garnered public support for the 

Sikhs (who were fellow Punjabis), and provided weapons. By the late 1980s, 

after thousands of Sikhs were displaced and killed and Sikh bodyguards 

of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi assassinated her, Delhi backed a strong 

policing effort made up of pro-government Sikhs that finally defeated the 

insurgency. By 1992 Pakistan reduced its support, and today the movement 

for Khalistan has largely died. Pakistan would continue to foment insurgencies in India, the most dramatic of which would be in the disputed region 

of Kashmir. 

During the same decade another theater of insurgencies and COINs 

attracted the attention of both India and Pakistan, along with countless 

other countries. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 pulled India 

and Pakistan into Afghanistan, as both countries reluctantly supported 

two distinct groups against the Soviets, and later supported their fights 

against each other to gain control of Afghanistan. The pattern of support 

has continued.57

FOIN in Afghanistan (1980 to 1989 and 1989 to 2001)

In the 1980s, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence and military assets worked 

closely with the Afghan freedom fighters (Mujahideen) against the Soviets. 

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Pakistan’s ISI, and the Saudi 

Government Intelligence Directorate (GID) fomented the Afghan insurgency 

and pushed out the communist threat by the end of the decade. Shortly 

afterwards, the U.S. left the region abruptly. There was no “Marshall Plan” 

for Afghanistan, and Pakistan was left to deal with the mess and its political 

and ideological aftershocks. It would take another 12 years and a massive 

terrorist attack for the U.S. to return to the region.58

Having defeated the Soviet-supported government in Kabul, the Mujahideen lashed out at one another while regional powers Pakistan, India, 

Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan picked their proxies among the warring 

factions. Pakistan’s proxy, the Taliban, won. A group of young Pashtuns 
30

JSOU Report 09-9

from the southern and eastern provinces of Afghanistan, educated in certain 

Deobandi madrassas in Pakistan (religious seminaries linked with abetting 

violent Islamist religio-political movements), rose to prominence when they 

began replacing corrupt Afghan warlords with the promise of a stable theocratic state. Supported by Pakistan’s ISI and JUI (Jamait-ul-Ulema-e-Islam, 

religious political party, Pakistan), they won numerous battles.59

By the late 1990s, the Taliban controlled Afghanistan, except for the 

northern regions loosely ruled by the Northern Alliance and its charismatic 

Tajik commander, Ahmed Shah Massoud. The Northern Alliance, a mix 

of Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara tribes, was supported by India, Iran, Russia, 

Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab 

Emirates (UAE) recognized the Taliban regime. Underlying this support 

was the hope that Afghanistan would develop along Saudi lines: a nomadic 

culture of warring tribes evolving into an economically liberal, culturally 

conservative, and politically repressive theocracy supported by energy 

exports. They were all wrong.

The Taliban made Afghanistan an international pariah through gross 

human rights violations and providing sanctuary to terrorist organizations 

such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Mullah 

Omar, head of the Taliban regime, gave refuge to Osama bin Laden and 

Dr. Ayman Al Zawahiri. Influenced by Syed Qutub’s extremist interpretation of jihad,

60 they actively planned and implemented terrorist attacks 

against what they called a Christian-Zionist cabal of nations opposing the 

global community of Muslims (umma). The near enemy—dictators such 

as President Mubarak of Egypt, King Saud of Saudi Arabia, and President 

Musharraf of Pakistan—were linked to the far enemy (the U.S. and Israel) 

that supported them.61

The objectives of Pakistan’s FOIN policy were achieved. The external 

threat from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was eliminated, and by the 

mid-1990s Pakistan had de facto control of most of Afghanistan through 

their proxy Taliban. Moreover, Pakistani military and intelligence officers 

used battle-hardened Pashtuns to foment another insurgency (almost simultaneously) in Indian-administered Kashmir. 

FOIN in Indian-Administered Kashmir (1989 to 2002)

Although Pakistan waited until the late 1980s to foment a full-scale religiopolitical insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir, the disputed territory 
31

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

had all the ingredients from the early days of independence. A Muslim 

majority state, ruled by a Hindu Maharaja, opted to join India in 1947, 

defying the voice of many Muslims who wanted to join Pakistan or seek 

complete independence under a partition plan that validated the Maharaja’s 

decision. Soon after, war broke out in 1948 and again in 1965 until a tentative 

agreement was reached to allow for a United Nations-supervised plebiscite 

in the Indian-administered Kashmir. While the plebiscite was never held, 

reasonably free and fair elections in 1977 brought Sheikh Abdullah into 

power as chief minister whose administration focused on socioeconomic 

and educational reform. In 1983 his son took over his National Conference 

(NC) Party, won the election, and became chief minister, but was dismissed 

ahead of time by Delhi on charges of inciting separatism. His second term 

in 1987 was marked by massive corruption as unemployment soared. The 

NC’s chief rival, the Muslim United Front (UF), broke the secessionist movement into a pro-Pakistan religio-political faction that attracted militant 

organizations such as Jammu and the Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), 

Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), and Jaish-e-Mohammad 

(JeM). JKLF’s leader, Yasin Malik, later renounced violence and continues to 

advocate for a secular independent state of Jammu and Kashmir.62

Pakistan’s ISI actively supported the religio-political pro-Pakistan organizations that eventually took over the movement and sidelined the secular 

secessionists. In addition to state-funded weapons and guerilla training centers, Islamabad highlighted the brutal Indian COIN response that focused 

on coercion and the gross violation of human rights.63 In turn, Pakistanibacked insurgents frequently killed Hindu pundits and planned terrorist attacks in and outside Kashmir. The Pakistani military-backed Kargil 

Operation (1999) inside Kashmir almost brought the two nuclear nations to 

full-scale war. Similar crises would engulf the region when terrorist attacks 

on India’s parliament in Delhi (2001) and Mumbai (2008) were traced back to 

militants in Pakistan and Pakistani-administered Kashmir.64 Amidst strong 

U.S. pressure and increasing distaste for countries supporting insurgents 

committing terrorism against U.S. allies, Pakistan scaled back its support 

in 2002, and in early 2009 admitted that certain nonstate actors did indeed 

plan and execute the Mumbai blasts of 2008.65

These nonstate actors were prior clients of the Pakistani state, abetted by 

the ISI, and with strong sympathies from the Pakistani people who saw them 

as freedom fighters against an unjust Indian occupation of the Kashmir 
32

JSOU Report 09-9

Valley. Active support for the Afghan Taliban, and by extension Al Qaeda, 

was stopped after Pakistan joined the war on terror in 2001. However, within 

a few years, political changes in Afghanistan made Islamabad rethink its 

prior commitment. Pakistan’s strategic spread was at stake; Afghanistan’s 

new government disenfranchised most Pashtuns—Taliban or not—and 

became close to the Indians. India provided economic aid to Kabul and 

built several consulates near Afghanistan’s eastern border with Pakistan. 

Pakistanis found these developments to be clear signals of a covert war 

against Pakistan and its strategic depth in Afghanistan. 

Pakistan found itself precariously insecure and unable to achieve the 

objectives of its national security doctrine. The Taliban were gone and so 

were important proxies in Pakistani-administered Kashmir; additionally, 

elements within abandoned proxies (e.g., the Taliban, Let, and JeM) were 

calling for blood, making little distinction between the far enemy (U.S.) and 

the near enemy (Pakistan).66 In summary, Pakistan FOIN policy reflected 

its national security concerns and produced results that altered strategies 

but never abandoned FOIN altogether.

Table 2. FOIN in Pakistan, 1980 to 2002

Name Type Outcome

Punjabi (1984 to 1992) Ethnic/separatist Pakistan’s proxy lost 

Indian state won

Afghan (1980 to 1989, 

1990 to 2001)

Religio-politica/

autonomist

Pakistan’s proxies won 

Soviet-backed Afghan state lost 

Pakistan’s Taliban won

Iran/Indian/Russian proxies lost

Kashmiri (1989 to 2002) Religio-political/

secular secessionist

Pakistan’s proxies lost

Indian state won

The next chapter describes Pakistan’s vast experience with COIN and 

FOIN, and how it effected post-9/11 U.S. and Pakistan COIN operations. A 

detailed look at the theater of war, major actors and policy implementation 

follows. 
33

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

3. The COIN-FOIN Paradox (2002 to 2008): 

from COIN to FOIN and Back

On 12 September 2001, Pakistan—then led by the military regime of 

General Pervez Musharraf (October 1999 to August 2008)—made 

a choice: 

National security interests were best ensured if Pakistan partially gave up some of its strategic reserves (the Taliban in 

Afghanistan and in 2002, proxies in Kashmir) to safeguard 

more valuable strategic assets (a nuclear-equipped army and 

a stable economy). 

The message from a bleeding Washington was pointedly simple: “You are 

either with us or against us.” 67 Pakistan decided to be with the U.S., albeit 

with an asterisk: Pakistan would go after Al Qaeda ruthlessly, but selectively target—and in later years abet—the Afghan Taliban in the hope of 

rekindling strategic depth vis-à-vis India under the blanket of its strategic 

spread. 

At first the Afghan insurgency was concentrated in Afghanistan’s northeast and Pakistan’s northwest tribal areas (FATA). Most defeated Taliban and 

Al Qaeda operatives fled to FATA and were welcomed by local tribes with 

common ethnic bonds and a history of insurgency in Afghanistan (SovietAfghan war 1980 to 1989). Some of them went south into the provinces 

of Nimroz, Uruzgan, Helmand, and Kandahar, the homeland of defeated 

Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar (1994 to 2001). In the next 8 years 

(October 2001 to July 2009) a confluence of failed political, military, and economic policies on both sides of the Durand Line (Afghan-Pakistan border) 

sustained, hardened, and expanded the insurgency. Political reconciliation was ignored or poorly handled, the signs of effective governance were 

fading, and the Taliban insurgents were constantly gaining ground with 

their mantra of order and speedy justice for all. 

The transnational, mostly Pashtun insurgency, however, was not without fractures. In 2004 the Mullah Omar-led insurgency, operating from 

Quetta in Baluchistan, decided to concentrate on Afghanistan’s southern 

provinces. The de facto Pakistani Taliban (who became official in late 2007) 

in the tribal areas would fight Pakistani troops and simultaneously send 
34

JSOU Report 09-9

insurgents across the line to attack U.S. and NATO forces. The two fronts, 

it was decided, would support each other, but as loose federating units of a 

greater insurgency that would unite as one large force once the Americans, 

Afghans, and Pakistanis were sufficiently defeated. These two fronts are still 

active. While the Afghan Taliban provide most of the funding for the dual 

fronts of the insurgency through opium sales, the Pakistani Taliban provide 

the more lethal tactics and have strong operational bonds with Al Qaeda 

and several Sunni extremist organizations such as LeT and JeM. Both Taliban organizations want the Americans out and the Pakistanis to recall the 

troops and tolerate a strict religio-political system parallel to the Pakistani 

constitution with the hopes of eventual expansion. Al Qaeda wants to gain 

access to Pakistani nuclear weapons technology. 

The American, Afghan, and Pakistani governments are committed to 

defeating the insurgency, but 

within such broad common 

security goals, several diverging goals exist. The Americans 

have realized that the ideal goal 

of bringing peace and stability to 

Afghanistan by interdicting most 

of the Taliban via unfettered air power is woefully unattainable, and efforts 

are now underway to apply the hearts-and-minds school of COIN by clearing, holding, and building. The Afghans went to the polls in late 2009 to pick 

a more effective and less corrupt government ready to share the benefits of 

the foreign aid and willing to negotiate with reconcilable Taliban. Instead, 

most Afghans saw the election as a fraudulent exercise and are cautiously 

optimistic about President Karzai’s pledge to change course. The Pakistanis 

are also reviewing their COIN policy and have decided to apply more holding and building after brute military operations against insurgents in the 

Swat Valley; this could be a sign of an emerging pattern. 

Amidst this guarded optimism is another reality that has been hitherto 

ignored—the precarious Pakistan-India relationship that is vulnerable to 

terrorist attacks (the November 2008 Mumbai attack is a case in point) 

and is being tested on the Afghan chessboard. Historically India and Pakistan have supported proxies to gain control of Afghanistan (as have Russia 

and Iran), resulting in a perennial competition between India’s strategic 

encirclement of Pakistan and Pakistan’s strategic depth against India. While 

The American, Afghan, and Pakistani 

governments are committed to 

defeating the insurgency, but within 

such broad common security goals, 

several diverging goals exist. 
35

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

India supports the U.S.-backed Hamid Karzai’s government in Kabul, Pakistan abets the Afghan Taliban led by Mullah Omar as a competing force 

for influence. The Pakistani military believes that the Pakistani Taliban, 

a more heterogeneous cabal of Al Qaeda and associates, will considerably 

weaken when the Americans and Indians leave Afghanistan, and subsequent 

political reconciliation will sustain itself. Within the northwestern front the 

Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Haqqani Network, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen 

(HuM), TSNM, and the Sunni extremist organizations LeT and JeM have 

coalesced around Al Qaeda, still providing the best organizational, operational, and technological support to the Pashtun insurgency. Over time, 

the Pakistani military, and recently the civilians, have tried to fracture the 

cabal by co-option (e.g., the Haqqani network, considered a strategic asset 

for the Pakistani military, is less likely to attack Pakistani troops than U.S.

troops in Afghanistan).68 Such efforts have been marked with acute failure, 

leading to a continuous loss of Pakistani territory to Al Qaeda and associates, making the support of the Afghan Taliban increasingly important so 

that one day they may impose on the Pakistani Taliban to stop attacking 

the Pakistani military. 

From 2002 to 2008 the Pakistani military indirectly supported the Taliban in the Afghan southeast and fought them in the Pakistani northwest 

to offset Indian encirclement, to retain influence on Kabul, to prepare for 

the possibility of a precipitous U.S. withdrawal, and to regain governmental 

control over Pakistan’s tribal areas. This paradox of simultaneous COIN and 

FOIN policies—seeking to simultaneously defeat the Pakistani Taliban and 

abet Afghan Taliban directly threatening U.S. COIN efforts—is the subject 

of this chapter. 

Pakistan’s COIN Policy, 2002 to 2008

Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) forced Al Qaeda’s leadership and personnel to flee to Pakistan’s northwestern tribal areas. The Pakistani military 

worked hard to seal the border, interdicting and capturing several Al Qaeda 

leaders during the ensuing months. However, the Taliban’s leadership was 

only selectively targeted: some of them were given refuge in Quetta (Baluchistan). Gaining access to territorial, intelligence, military, and economic 

assets of Pakistan was essential for the success of OEF. An old, yet fickle, 

ally of the U.S. in the Cold War and former patron of the Afghan Taliban, 

Pakistan was forcibly persuaded to join the United States. Refusal would 
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JSOU Report 09-9

mean economic sanctions and military operations inside Pakistan against 

fleeing Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders. In addition, in case Islamabad 

threatened to retaliate militarily, the U.S. could take control of Pakistan’s 

nuclear weapons. 

On the other hand, cooperation meant lifting U.S. sanctions, increasing military and economic aid, and supporting the securing of loans and 

grants from international donors and banks. A hasty but important national 

security calculus pushed Pakistan to accept U.S. demands without much 

discussion or delay.69 Pakistan could not afford to resist American pressure head-on; if it did, its geostrategic and domestic security and economic 

conditions would worsen beyond repair. Consequently, Pakistan’s military 

and intelligence agencies successfully and categorically went after Al Qaeda 

Central (AQC) for five main reasons: 

a. AQC was providing logistical, intelligence, and military support to 

Pakistan’s sectarian, local, and regional jihadist groups that targeted 

the Pakistani state: Sipah-e-Sahaba (SeS), JeM, LeT, and Lashra-eJhangvi (LeJ). In 2002 and 2008 these groups, now de facto franchises 

of AQC, brought India and Pakistan to the brink of nuclear war. 

Destroying the nexus between anti-Pakistan jihadist groups and Al 

Qaeda was essential for Pakistan’s national security. 

b. Sectarian jihadist organizations such as LeT caused hundreds of casualties by turning major Pakistani cities into sectarian battlegrounds, 

causing more than 1,518 deaths between 1989 and 2001.70 During the 

next 7 years, the toll would increase by 1,258 deaths.71 Going after 

them was imperative for Pakistan’s security. 

c. Every high value Al Qaeda capture yielded American financial and 

military largesse, something the military regime in Islamabad needed 

to shore up political support. Paradoxically, the government’s legitimacy was undermined by popular opposition to the war against AQA. 

Thus, Islamabad kept the country in the dark about the extent of its 

commitment to the war against AQA.

d. Consistently going after Al Qaeda created a buffer against a unilateral 

U.S. attack on FATA. 

e. Attacking AQA lessened U.S. fears of AQA gaining access to Pakistan’s 

nuclear weapons.
37

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

After the initial success in Afghanistan, the war against AQA was 

extended to Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s regime was suspected of possessing 

weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) with the alleged intent to transfer 

them to Al Qaeda. Major divisions of U.S. troops and SOF were diverted 

from Afghanistan to Iraq in 2003.72 Iraq would become a hotbed of ethnosectarian insurgency for the next 4 years. By 2007 Afghanistan was not 

much better.73

Splitting into two major fronts, the Afghan Taliban reemerged with 

a vengeance as it took control of most of the Afghan southern and eastern provinces (including Helmand and Kandahar) and allied itself with a 

plethora of terrorist and nationalist organizations in Pakistan’s northwest. 

Moreover, it actively used hideouts in Pakistan’s tribal belt to plan and carry 

out attacks on U.S. and NATO forces. 

Figure 7. Senlis Estimate of Rise in Fatal Attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan 

in 2007. Used with permission of the International Council on Security and 

Development (ICOS), formerly known as the Senlis Council. 
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JSOU Report 09-9

The U.S. provided Pakistan $11 billion in military and economic aid 

from 2001 to 2008 to fight AQA—more than all U.S. aid to Pakistan from 

1947 to 2000.74 However, Washington argued that there was little return 

on this investment. While numerous Al Qaeda operatives were captured 

or killed (up to 700 were arrested from 2001 to 2008), three major international terrorist attacks after 9/11 were traced back to AQA’s new base of 

operations in the Waziristans and Bajaur.75 There were reports of training 

facilities, banking operations, media and Internet support systems, and 

heavy recruitment exercises aimed at madrassas (Islamic seminaries) and 

Afghan refugee camps. A 2007 U.S. national security estimate stated that 

Al Qaeda was based in Pakistan and had established operational bases in 

FATA’s seven agencies, Punjab (e.g., Rawalpindi and Gujrat), and Sindh (e.g., 

Karachi). Furthermore, a resurgent Afghan Taliban was supported by brethren in Pakistani Baluchistan. Pashtuns in Baluchistan supported the Taliban 

and certain Baluch separatists who formed bonds of convenience with the 

Taliban. Working from cities such as Quetta and Loralai, they sought to I R A N

P A K I S T A N

T U R K M E N I S T A N

UZBE K I S T A N

T A J I K I S T A N

C H I

November 2008

AFGHANISTAN MAP

NIMROZ

HELMAND

ZABUL

GHAZNI KHOST

PAKTYA

LOGAR

WARDAK KABUL

NANGARHAR

KUNAR

NURISTAN

LAGHMAN

BADAKHSHAN

BAGHLAN

BALKH

GHOR

DAYKUNDI

PARWAN KAPISA

PANJSHIR

TAKHAR

KUNDUZ

SAMANGAN

JOWZJAN

SARI PUL

FARYAB

BAMYAN

HERAT

FARAH

BADGHIS

URUZGAN

PATIKA

KANDAHAR

Jalalabad

Lashkar Gah

Kabul

Lashkar Gah

Faizabad

Mazar-i-Sharif

Herat

Kandahar Legend

Area with heavy Taliban/insurgent activity

Area with a substantial Taliban/insurgent activity

Area with a light Taliban/insurgent activity

MAPS

72%

21%

7%

Figure 8. Taliban Control/Presence in November 2008 in Afghanistan’s 

Southeast and Pakistan’s Northwest and Southwest. Used with permission 

of the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS), formerly 

known as the Senlis Council. 
39

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

overthrow Hamid Karzai’s U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan. By 2008 

the Taliban were targeting Karzai himself and gaining popular support from 

ungoverned provinces in southern and eastern Afghanistan. In September 

2008 Admiral Michael Mullen, head of U.S. CENTCOM, summarized it: “I 

don’t think we are winning in Afghanistan.” 76

In addition to second-hand insecurity from Afghanistan, Pakistan was 

facing a more dangerous storm of political instability. Between multiple 

assassination attempts on Musharraf, a near nuclear showdown with India 

in 2002, international condemnation of A. Q. Khan’s nuclear proliferation 

ring in 2004, and a massive earthquake in the country’s Northern Areas 

and Kashmir in 2005, the political situation became tumultuous. In 2007, 

under pressure, Musharraf resigned his army command; a few months later 

Benazir Bhutto—the popular leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, ready to 

share power with the president after U.S. pressure and support—was assassinated; and in August 2008 Musharraf resigned the presidency to avoid 

impeachment. In a milieu of political uncertainty, rising terrorism, and 

economic woes, Asif Ali Zardari, widower of Benazir Bhutto and chairman 

of Pakistan’s Peoples Party, was elected president. By late 2008, under U.S.

pressure and the continuous failure of past COIN policies, the Pakistani 

military began moving away from a coercion-based to a development-based 

COIN policy of clear, hold, and build, the results of which are too early to 

predict. The following is a brief historical discussion of the major actors—

Pakistan’s military and AQA—and the stage (Pakistan’s tribal areas/northeastern/northwestern) in an attempt to better understand Pakistan’s COIN

policy 2002 to 2008. 

Pakistan’s Northwest Tribal Areas, the Heart of the Insurgency

The tribal belt includes seven tribal agencies (FATA), frontier regions, 

and Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA); recent fighting has 

expanded the battlefield to the settled regions of NWFP, notably Swat. Moreover, major metropolitan cities such as Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Lahore, 

Karachi, Quetta, and Gujrat have become major conduits for weapons and 

recruits for AQA.

For centuries, FATA’s political and economic orientation has been shaped 

by a classical competition between FATA’s tribal roots and culture and an 

imposing central authority. FATA is a constitutionally and politically semiautonomous territory divided into seven tribal agencies along a 300-mile 
40

JSOU Report 09-9

border with Afghanistan and six frontier regions (Peshawar, Kohat, Tank, 

Banuu, Lakki Marwat, and Dera Ismail Khan).77 The Afghan-Pakistan 

border is 1,640 miles long. Over the last several decades demographic, 

socioeconomic, and religio-political developments have shaped constitutional battles with Islamabad. Literacy levels, socioeconomic indicators, and 

human rights indices all show a grim picture for the region (see Table 3). 

Created by the British as a buffer against Russia, the seven tribal agencies 

are home to 60 major tribes and approximately 400 subtribes.78

Table 3. Selected Development Indicators for Pakistan, NWFP, and FATA 2003

Indicator Pakistan NWFP FATA

Literacy ratio (both sexes, %) 43.92 35.41 17.42

Male literacy ratio (%) 54.81 51.39 29.51

Female literacy ratio (%) 32.02 18.82 3.00

Population per doctor 1,226 4,916 7,670

Population per bed in health institutions 1,341 1,594 2,179

Roads (per sq. km) 0.26 0.13 0.1

Source: www.fata.gov.pk (FATA Secretariat)

The FATAs maintain a special constitutional arrangement with the federal government. The President indirectly administers the FATA through 

a subordinate NWFP governor, who in turn designates the tasks of daily 

administration to political agents (one for each tribal agency). In addition to 

governance, a colonial-era judicial system is enforced by the political agents. 

The Frontier Crimes Regulation allows the tribes to settle their disputes 

through the old pre-Islamic jirga (tribal judicial council) system, a process 

that involves maliks (male elders of the tribe) who make decisions regarding awards and punitive actions. Unlike Baluchis who invest their sardars 

with dogmatic powers, the Pashtuns consider maliks as primus inter pares. 

The malik carries considerable weight in council and village affairs, but is 

essentially a democratically selected spokesperson for the clan, a position 

that in some cases is hereditary. Mullahs (clerics) historically were present in 

jirgas as religious supporters of the council’s decision, did not lead lashkars

(tribal militias), or have any significant political clout. Today Al Qaeda’s 

mullahs and Pakistani Taliban, who lead prayers and lashkars alike, have 

replaced most of the maliks in FATA. 
41

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

The court system of the Pakistani constitution—including lower, high, 

and supreme courts—does not apply to FATA’s denizens. The government 

gives out moaji (financial offerings from the state) to the tribal maliks; in 

addition, government gives malaki (hereditary) and lungi (political services) 

allowances.79

The jirga, a consultative and deliberative process, is part of a wider net 

of Pashtun mores (Pashtunwali) that guides the lives of Pashtuns and is 

preferred over complex and sophisticated western state structures and legal 

codes. Intrinsically flexible and dynamic, Pashtunwali has core tenets that 

include self-respect, independence, justice, hospitability, forgiveness, and 

tolerance. In the perception of most Pashtuns, group consensus remains 

the primary source of power, and the salah-mashwarah (discussion) is the 

main forum where all important issues are talked about and resolved.80

This discussion is very similar to Islamic concepts of shura (democratic 

principles of consultation), ijma (consensus), and ijitehad (collective judgment), which facilitated the Taliban’s attempt to effectively amalgamate 

strict Sharia laws with Pashtunwali.81 Moreover, the judgment of the jirga 

is as good as its participants and legitimacy of the presiding tribal leaders. 

If it is perceived that the council has been compromised by a strong bias 

toward the state (e.g., Afghanistan or Pakistan), it loses all credibility. The 

Taliban were successful in retaining the jirga’s credibility because they were 

members of Pashtun tribes. They successfully combine their religio-political 

objectives with Pashtun cultural mores (Pashtunwali).

A large jirga also deliberates peace between tribes or subtribes (khels), 

and a smaller jirga can ask one tribe to create a lashkar (tribal militia) to 

avenge or retain the tribe’s honor against another. Usually, according to 

Pashtunwali, tribesmen in a particular khel(s) agree to follow the military 

leadership of an appointed member of their clan because the position of the 

military commander is both temporary and elective. This theme of fierce 

individualism within tribes and of tribesmen is the hallmark of Pashtunwali. The sole exception is a jihad (holy war) against those who threaten 

indigenous religio-political values and—more importantly—the way of the 

Pashtun-Pashtunwali.82 It is not dishonorable to fight with several tribes 

under a charismatic mullah who is perceived to have received divine inspiration and great military prowess. Mullah Omar of the Talban was such a 

leader in the early 1990s when he rallied hundreds of Afghan tribes—many 

with blood feuds—to fight a common enemy, the Northern Alliance.
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JSOU Report 09-9

In summary, Pashtuns are primarily split between the hill and farmland tribes that practice variations of Pashtunwali, a mix of tribal mores 

dispensed through the jirga system. Pashtuns value individual and tribal 

honor and unite under elected tribal elders for short periods of time to 

impose the deliberation of a jirga; the only time they coalesce around one 

leader—never a single tribe—is when the leader is considered divine and 

leading a jihad.83

As mentioned earlier, Pakistan controlled the tribal areas through a 

collective punishment system delivered through political agents and their 

local law enforcement personnel (Khassadars and Levies) with on-demand 

support from the FC and regular army units. The political agents worked 

closely with elected maliks to organize jirgas legislating local matters. In 

the last 7.5 years, AQA in FATA effectively altered the system in their favor 

and took control away from the state. They killed more than 650 maliks, 

replaced jirgas with parochial shuras (councils) that had no appeal process 

but were able to garner local support and legitimacy because the AQA leaders 

portrayed themselves as having “divine purpose” and were fighting against 

“foreigners.” 84

Political developments in FATA and NWFP abetted this cultural and 

governance change in the tribal areas. After winning national elections 

in 2002, Mutihida-Majlis-Amul (MMA)—a coalition of Islamist parties, 

notably Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Jamiat-e-Ulema-Islam (JUI)—openly supported the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. JI and 

JUI continue to maintain close ties to Taliban leadership. Party officials 

believed that the situation in Afghanistan will rapidly deteriorate, and the 

U.S. will have to negotiate bringing back the Taliban as strong partners in a 

Pakistan and Islamist-friendly government in Kabul. Until recently, FATA

was an almost impregnable base for command and control, fundraising, 

recruiting, training, and the launching and recovery of military operations 

and terrorist attacks.

The denizens of FATA received adult franchise in 1998, but candidates 

cannot campaign under the banner of a political party because the Political 

Parties Act of 1962 does not apply. In practice, however, four major parties have supported candidates indirectly: the left leaning Centrist Party, 

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP); the left leaning Nationalist Party, Awami 

National Party (ANP); and from 2002 to 2007 a coalition of two Islamist 

parties, JI and JUI. In the last 7 years, a coalition of Islamist parties, MMA
43

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

that included JI and JUI, governed NWFP, FATA, and Baluchistan. They won 

on an anti-American vote in 2002 and supported the Taliban insurgency 

in Afghanistan despite Islamabad’s clear stance of allying with the United 

States. Their term ended in 2007, and ANP was elected in 2008 on a promise to quell the insurgency and bring about much-needed socioeconomic 

development in the FATA, NWFP, and Baluchistan. The election results are 

shown in Table 4.

Table 4. Elections in FATA and NWFP, 2002 and 2008

National 

Election 

Year

Political 

Parties

National Assembly 

Members 

(Total 340)85

NWFP Provincial 

Assembly Members

(Total 99)

FATA 

Members 

(Total 12)86

Number % Number % %

2002 MMA 63 18.5 48 48.5 Majority

ANP 1 0.3 8 8.1 <30

2008 MMA 7 2.1 10 10.1 <30

ANP 13 3.8 31 31.3 Majority

The Actors, AQA and Pakistan Security Forces

Pakistan’s Security Forces. There are currently 150,000 troops in FATA and 

NWFP fighting Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their splinter groups. The army’s 

XI Corps, responsible for NWFP and the Afghan border, is headquartered in 

Peshawar. It consists of two divisions, the 7th and 9th. In order to deal with 

the upsurge in violence in the tribal areas, the 14th division reinforces the XI

Corps operations, notably in 2007 and 2008. In addition to police, paramilitary, and army forces, Pakistan’s intelligence services also play important 

roles. The FC (approximately 80,000 troops) is doing the bulk of the fighting, 

while SSGs (Pakistan’s Special Forces) are performing search-and-destroy 

missions against high value Al Qaeda targets in FATA and NWFP.
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JSOU Report 09-9

Table 5. Annual Casualties of Terrorist Violence in Pakistan, 2003 to 200887

Year Terrorists/Insurgents Security Force Personnel Civilians

2003 25 24 140

2004 244 184 435

2005 137 81 430

2006 538 325 608

2007 1,479 597 1,523

2008 3,906 654 2,155

Total: 6,329 1,865 5,291

Figure 9. Annual Fatalities, 2003 to 200888
45

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

Table 6. Fatalities, January through November 200989

Month

Security Force 

Personnel Civilians Terrorists/Insurgents

January 69 250 245

February 31 216 430

March 67 168 171

April 89 132 297

May 155 279 1,590

June 109 177 1,205

July 58 156 768

August 34 155 531

September 77 111 662

October 118 255 1,001

November90 93 175 792

Total: 900 2,074 7,692

Figure 10. Fatalities, January through November 200991
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JSOU Report 09-9

Table 7 is a summary of major events in all seven agencies from 2002 to 

2008, the tribes that inhabit the agencies, and their respective affiliations 

with local, regional, and global insurgent/terrorist groups.

Table 7. Major Events and Tribal Affiliations with 

 Insurgency in FATA, 2002 to 200892

Tribal Agencies, Dominant Tribes and Major Events Support

South Waziristan

Ahmedzai Wazir, Mehsud

Major Pakistani COIN operations from 2004 to 2008

Birthplace of Tehrik-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP)

Al Qaeda/

Haqqani Network 

(HN)/IMU/ TTP

North Waziristan

Utmanzai Wazir, Daur

Major Pakistani COIN operations from 2004 to 2008

Headquarters of the HN

Al Qaeda/TTP/

IMU

Kurram

Toori, Bangash

Center of Sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia tribes in 2005 

to 2007. Currently home to TTP and extended battleground for 2009 

COIN operation.

Al Qaeda

Orakzai

Orakzai

Rattled by spillover from the conflict between Lashkar-e-Islam and 

Ansar-ul-Islam from neighboring Khyber Agency. Currently home to 

TTP and extended battleground for 2009 COIN operation.

TTP

Khyber

Afridi, Shinwari

Intra-Sunni conflict between the Mufti Muni Shakir (Deobandi) led 

Lashkar-e-Islam and the Ansar-ul-Islam 

TTP/HN

Mohmand

Mohmand, Safi

Tribal leadership structures were destroyed as maliks were assassinated and mullahs took power; Hakeemullah Mehsud TTP regional 

chapter is led by Umar Khalid; implementation of “qazi” courts in the 

region enforcing strict Shariah. 

TTP/HN

Bajaur

Tarkani, Utmankhel

Known as the poppy kingdom. Battleground for numerous COIN 

operations from 2004 to 2009 and the place where Pakistan’s COIN 

approach changed in 2008—the Bajaur Experiment. 

Al Qaeda/HN/

TTP/ IMU/TSNM

NWFP Districts and Active Insurgent Groups Side with the

Dir, Malakand, and the Swat Valley

Minimum presence of Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TSNM) Al Qaeda/TTP
47

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

Nature of the Enemy 

Acknowledging the fractures between antigovernment groups in Pakistan’s northwest, this monograph groups them as AQA, recognizing that 

their common goals outweigh their divergent ones. The major groups are 

Al Qaeda, TTP, TSNM, HeM, Let, and JeM. As a whole, they create a fluid 

network that abets and/or inspires operations both in Pakistan’s northwest 

region and inside Afghanistan. The following section describes the structure of AQA.

Most academics and policy analysts describe Al Qaeda’s evolution as 

chaotic and random. According to Harvard’s Jessica Stern, Al Qaeda has 

dispersed into numerous factions that cover the globe and are held together 

through “virtual links.” 93 She further states that presently Al Qaeda’s members and affiliates work independently, not reporting “to a central headquarters or single leader for direction or instruction.” Stern notes that Al Qaeda’s 

core leadership no longer issues specific orders, but instead through broad 

policy guidelines: “they inspire small cells or individuals to take action on 

their own initiative.”

Shaul Mishal and Maoz Rosenthal argue that AQA are part of a worldwide organization best described by the Dune Model. They reject the notion 

that Al Qaeda is a typical hierarchical or networked organization. The hierarchical approach assumes that social identities, boundaries, and actors’ 

choices are fixed, stable, and consistent, and the network approach requires 

groups of actors and affiliates to constantly synchronize their operations 

such that none can achieve its goals without the involvement of others. These 

two approaches cannot be applied to AQA. 

Instead, Mishal and Rosenthal approach AQA as a Dune organization; 

it is because the strategic behavior of Al Qaeda relies on a process of vacillation between territorial presence and mode of disappearance. Territorial 

presence is defined as nation states, global markets, or ethnic communities. 

Disappearance tactics are related to the Dune organization, whereby globalization in the 21st century has enabled terrorist organizations to adopt 

dune-like dynamics. Al Qaeda is best characterized as a fast-moving entity 

that associates and dissociates itself with local elements while creating a 

global effect.94

In support of the Dune model, terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman likens 

AQA to a shark. Sharks must keep moving forward, no matter how slowly 
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JSOU Report 09-9

or incrementally, or die. Al Qaeda must constantly adapt and adjust to 

its enemies’ efforts to stymie its plans while simultaneously identifying 

new targets. Moreover, Hoffman believes that AQA will ensure its longevity by constantly marketing its message—ideological, religio-political, and 

economic. 

Where Hoffman sees AQA’s strengths, Marc Sageman sees weaknesses: 

“the present threat has evolved from a structured group of Al Qaeda masterminds, controlling vast resources and issuing commands, to a multitude 

of informal local groups trying to emulate their predecessors by conceiving 

and executing operations from the bottom up.” These groups, Sageman 

suggests, end up supporting a “leaderless jihad.” 95

In summary, AQA is a fluid organization without a permanent home and 

forced to rapidly adapt to stay alive. AQA is also a hybrid network system: 

a. A mix of chain networks where people, goods, or information move 

along a line of separated contacts 

b. Where end-to-end communication must travel through intermediate 

nodes and hub-and-spoke networks; actors are tied to a central—but 

not hierarchal—node and must go through that node to communicate 

with each other. 

This gives it tremendous advantages to conduct operations, form splinter 

groups, and recruit.96

In addition to adaptability, AQA is decentralized, which makes communication and information processing more efficient. AQA has also shown 

great resilience in replacing leaders such as Naeem Khan Abu Hamza Rabia 

and Abu Faraj Al Libbi.97

A decentralized system has disadvantages, however. Limited information exchange keeps everyone minimally informed, and the lack of a central 

authority makes reliable information sharing difficult. On balance, however, 

AQA has used Web sites, Web forums, and e-mail to retain some format 

of a central information database that allows splinter cells to gain useful 

operational assistance. Today it provides extensive support to the Pakistani 

Taliban, Haqqani Network, and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) in Pakistan’s 

northwest and some support to the Mullah Omar-led Afghan Taliban in 

Helmand and Kandahar. 

As mentioned above, various models demonstrate how AQA operate 

in an amorphous network that, with all its disadvantages, is proliferating. 
49

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

One main reason is its modus operandi, its ability to inflict harm to its 

enemy (U.S. and Pakistani troops) by strategically employing chaos. A mix 

of communication, operational and ideological support, and smart and 

lethal tactics such as suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices 

(IEDs) makes up the AQA strategic chaos.98

Figure 11. Suicide Attacks in Pakistan, 2002 to 200899

Figure 12. Suicide Attacks in Pakistan January through November 2009 (63)100
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JSOU Report 09-9

In 2002 Al Qaeda was in disarray and vulnerable. It had to swiftly create 

a strong base in South and North Waziristan and Bajaur. Spending large 

amounts of cash to attract sympathetic tribes for safeguarding their local 

AQA operatives, Al Qaeda began to reopen training centers and stepped up 

recruitment efforts in madrassas inside the tribal belt and beyond. Local and 

regional extremist Islamist groups joined in, and this quid pro quo helped 

Al Qaeda reestablish its base of operations (established across Pakistan 

from FATA to Karachi, Quetta, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, 

and so on). In 2002 Al Qaeda Central moved into the North and South 

Waziristan tribal agencies of Pakistan where it established communication 

networks with local and regional extremist Islamist groups such as the JeM 

and LeT. It also hired webmasters, Web forum administrators, and other IT

personnel to run a sophisticated yet clandestine intranet of Web sites with 

imbedded videos, chat rooms, and e-mail accounts (decentralizing all planning, operational, communication, and intelligence operations into smaller 

systems and networks). In addition to outsourcing specific operational tasks, 

various systems of publicity, support, and operations were virtually built 

after 2001 with a strong center in the tribal belt, but with backup bases in 

Gujarat, Faisalabad, and Karachi. The strategic chaos systems were able to 

synchronize operations through virtual communication networks such as 

encrypted Web forums and Web sites around the world. Assistance flowed 

from technological and intelligence support networks joining local, regional, 

and global religio-political groups such as those linkages between JeM and 

Al Qaeda Central. What follows are a few examples of how AQA has spread 

and employed strategic chaos to attain its objectives.

The first example is that AQA initiated an International Terrorists’ 

Asylum Program. Towards the end of 2001, more than 1,000 Al Qaeda operatives had fled U.S. bombers in Afghanistan. The Arabs, Uzbeks, Chechens, 

and Sudanese took shelter in the Pakistan tribal areas, while others settled in 

major cities such as Rawalpindi, Karachi, and Lahore. Al Qaeda had previously formed operational bonds with local and regional jihadists involved in 

sectarian and jihadist terrorism inside Pakistan and Kashmir. These bonds 

became stronger after 9/11. Pakistani local and regional jihadists provided 

Al Qaeda with logistical support, safe houses, forged identification documents, and occasionally, ready recruits. According to Pakistani intelligence 

agencies, Ayman al Zawahari—Al Qaeda’s No. 2 leader—became the main 

contact between Al Qaeda and local and regional jihadists in Pakistan. 
51

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

Many of them had attended Al Qaeda-run training camps in Afghanistan 

before 9/11; now they would come together to help Al Qaeda survive and 

then to become deadlier and more difficult to combat.101

In addition to Uzbek, Chechen, and Kashmiri terror-insurgent groups, 

others were attracted to the tribal areas for building alliances of support. 

Hasan Mahsum, a.k.a Abu-Muhammad al-Turkestani a.k.a Ashan Sumut, 

was the founder and leader of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, considered an Islamic terrorist organization by China and the U.S. and suspected 

of having ties with Al Qaeda. The Pakistani army shot him dead in a counterterrorism operation on 2 October 2003 in South Waziristan.102

In addition to protecting Afghan and Pakistani AQA members, foreign 

terrorists were also harbored by the local tribes. Among them, Tahir Yaldashev of the IMU was the most prominent. On 29 April 2004, Uzbekistan 

President Islam Karimov said in Tashkent that terrorists responsible for the 

coordinated series of attacks during March 2004, which killed at least 47 

people, were based in Pakistan along that country’s border with Afghanistan. “The main base where the terrorists found refuge is South Waziristan,” 

Karimov told a press conference during a parliamentary session. Suspects 

detained after a series of suicide bombings, explosions, and assaults in the 

capital Tashkent and the central region of Bukhara had confessed that they 

had been in South Waziristan and had links to people operating there, said 

the President.103

Another example of AQA chaos is when they began using brute tactics in 2004. They attacked Pakistani military checkpoints, placing land 

mines, firing antiaircraft weapons, rocket propelled grenades (RPGs), rocket 

launchers, and mortars and detonating remote-control bombs. AQA shared 

information regarding operations and weapons through the Internet, paper 

pamphlets, and word of mouth. Over time, regional extremist groups such 

as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Turkistan Islamic Party of China, 

and Al Qaeda in Iraq improved the quality of their operations and weapons, creating specialists in second generation IEDs and plastic explosives. 

A summary of major AQA tactics follows:

a. AQA established rewards for killing Pakistani security personnel. 

Beginning in December 2003 according to local media reports, AQA

distributed pamphlets promising financial rewards for denizens of 

South Waziristan. The pamphlet stated that local jihadists, presumably 
52

JSOU Report 09-9

AQA, would offer more than $8,000 for killing a Pakistani, U.S., or 

foreign soldier and more than $3,000 for a Pakistani spy. Unspecified 

amounts would be granted to anyone who attacked army installations—for example, checkpoints and communication installations—

and “any interests inside Pakistan.” 104

b. In 2004 AQA members began recruiting female suicide bombers. On 

17 May the widow of an Uzbek terrorist, Ubaidullah Aziza—an active 

member of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan—began training 

female suicide bombers at a base in Bajaur, FATA.

105

c. AQA abducted Chinese engineers in 2004. On 10 October former 

Taliban commander and chief of the militants in South Waziristan, 

Abdullah Mehsud, reportedly claimed to have abducted two Chinese 

engineers who were working on the Gomal Zam Dam project.106

d. AQA increased recruitment from the refugee camps in 2005. On 19 

July, Afghan refugees living in North Waziristan were asked to leave 

the area within 6 weeks because, according to an official from the 

Afghan refugee directorate in Miranshah, many of the refugees were 

alleged to be signing up with AQA.

107

e. AQA attacked girls’ schools. On 3 January 2006, suspected militants 

bombed a security checkpoint in the Ladah subdivision and a girls’ 

school at Sher Muhammad Kot in South Waziristan, but no deaths 

occurred. Both incidents were in the Sararogha area where the tribal 

militant, Baitullah Mehsud, is dominant. By late 2008 AQA-linked 

insurgents had burned down 180 girls’ schools in the settled area of 

Swat.108

f. AQA abducted parliamentarians and chief diplomats. In 2008 the 

Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, was abducted 

along with his bodyguard and driver in the Jamrud subdistrict of 

Khyber Agency, FATA.

109

2008, Winter of Content: the Bajaur Experiment

In May 2009 the Taliban, defying a peace deal that was struck with the 

government in the Swat Valley, advanced dangerously close to Islamabad.

In the past, the Pakistani military’s response to the Islamists had been 

disastrous. Caught off guard by their onslaught, the army had responded 

with brute force, trying, in the words of one officer, to “out-terrorize the 

terrorist.” Such heavy-handed tactics had alienated locals, even while the 
53

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

intelligence services played a double game, trying to crack down on local 

Taliban while supporting them in Afghanistan so as to counter Indian influence there (COIN-FOIN paradox). 

On arrival, General Tariq Khan realized he needed a new approach, one 

that emphasized holding and building areas after freeing them of Taliban 

gunmen. He began eating and bunking with his men to improve morale 

and seeking the counsel of his officers—not a common practice in the hierarchical Pakistani military—on how best to engage the enemy and attract 

local support. In August 2008 he launched Operation Shirdil (Lion Heart), 

similar to the U.S. surge strategy in Iraq. Khan encouraged his troops to 

work with local tribes, shrewdly dividing pro-Taliban from pro-Government 

elements; and to gain legitimacy, he backed tribal militias and sought the 

consent of local jirgas (tribal councils). 

Officers involved in Operation Shirdil said the new strategy brought 

Bajaur and the neighboring district of Mohmand back “under the writ of 

the government,” setting up a “counterwave” of government victories that 

has prevented “the Taliban marching to the capital.” In March, several 

key Taliban warlords surrendered, disbanding their militias and handing 

over heavy weapons. And some 200,000 internally displaced people have 

returned home.110

By spring of 2009 the Pakistani military was ready to export the Bajaur 

experiment to other areas. Opportunity came when Taliban in the Swat 

Valley broke the peace agreement in May 2009. The army moved Bajaur 

veterans into Swat. A pride-centric COIN doctrine began to spread in the 

officer corps and the FC units. 

2009, Spring of Hope: Pakistan Fights Back and Scores Victories

Four weeks after Taliban were 60 miles from Islamabad, Pakistani military—using helicopter gunships, fighter jets, and Special Forces—destroyed 

Taliban strongholds, pushing them north and 2.5 million refugees south 

of the Swat Valley. A new hybrid COIN strategy emerged that centers on 

military institutional pride contingent upon political support and brought 

about by both protecting the population and interdicting the enemy. 

The strategy emerged last fall when General Tariq Khan, abetted by junior 

officers, radically changed tactics and strategy for Operation Shirdil (Lion 

Hear) in Bajaur, the tribal area abutting Afghanistan and former hub of Al 

Qaeda. Initially relying on out-terrorizing-the-terrorist model, he shifted 
54

JSOU Report 09-9

to population security by ordering patrolling, supporting tribal lashkars 

(militias) and jirgas to identify irreconcilable Taliban, encouraging camaraderie between primarily Punjabi officers and Pashtun soldiers, and most 

importantly building troop morale—what I collectively call the Bajaur 

experiment.

In March 2009 the gamble paid off even while questions of replication 

and sustainability remained. Although the Pakistani government and military—to the horror of the world—capitulated to the Taliban in the Swat 

Valley, top Taliban commanders surrendered unconditionally to the Pakistani army FC in Bajaur and Mohmand. This year when Pakistani military 

launched Operation Righteous Path in late April to expel Taliban from in 

and around Swat, excited Bajaur veterans were ready to share their experience. After years of unwillingness to conduct COIN against Pakistanis, the 

Pakistani junior officers were ready for change, even if the central command 

was not. 

The change came in the ongoing Operation Righteous Path Part IV, the 

name clearly indicating that the previous three had failed. The reason for 

past failure was the army did an excellent job of clearing the area but was 

reluctant to hold it, instead outsourcing to inept policing and using degenerate governance—ignoring security, roads, jobs, and schools. A weak local 

government would negotiate with local Taliban; when granted asylum, the 

Taliban would return and kill government collaborators, igniting another 

search-and-destroy military operation. 

In early 2008, General Ashfaq Kiani, head of the Pakistani military—

indispensable member of Pakistan’s leadership Troika (President, prime 

minister, army chief)—initiated a decisive shift toward COIN in arms procurement and military curriculum, symbolically calling 2008 “The Year of 

the Soldier” and 2009 “The Year of Training” and buttressing the Directorate 

of Military Operations (army’s strategy think tank) and intelligence reform. 

The top-down approach, however, was slow and made worse by a dysfunctional Defense Ministry, turf-conscious Interior Ministry, and ineffective 

Defense and National Security Parliamentary Committees. The real change 

would be driven bottom-up, by junior officers, and the impetus would come 

from popular support for war.

While the Bajaur experiment clearly bolstered troop morale, Pakistani 

military needed broad political consensus to apply the lessons learned. The 

opportunity came when Taliban occupied Swat’s environs (e.g., Buner and 
55

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

Shangla) in April, calling Pakistan’s constitution un-Islamic and granting 

Osama bin Laden safe passage. In a seemingly preplanned way, the military 

did not react instantly; instead it waited for the government to build political 

consensus under a Taliban onslaught and international pressure. Religious 

organizations representing missionary groups (Tabligi Jamaat) and mullahs 

(Jamiat-ul-Ulema-Pakistan) came on board even while mainstream Islamist 

parties protested (JI and JUI). Soon after a 150,000 troop-strong military 

operation (the largest since 2001) kicked off, centering on Swat but covering 

all of the northern frontier and tribal areas, notably the Waziristans.

Predictably, “clearing” operations were easy; however, developing a winning mix of Special Forces, intelligence operations, infantry patrols, cobra 

gunships, fighter jets, and artillery was difficult. Junior officers were tired of 

applying counterproductive brute force tactics for 6 years, pinning hopes on 

swift delivery of high technology U.S. gadgets and frustrated by U.S. failure 

to control Afghanistan. Bolstered by newfound popular support for the 

war, they identified Taliban as the existential threat to their nuclear-armed 

country (momentarily placing arch rival India on the backburner). Numerous captains, majors, lieutenant colonels, and colonels became the bearers 

of change in military culture and tactics.

Not having published COIN manuals helped field commanders to operate 

freely. Using the precedent of the Bajaur experiment, junior officers asked 

to become part of decision-making—especially FC officers, usually considered incompetent—and compromised because of their ethnic links to a 

predominantly Pashtun Taliban. In a country torn by religious, nationalist, 

and ethnic fissures, racism was the last thing the Pakistani army needed. 

Consequently, Punjabi officers began courting Pashtun soldiers. 

Junior officers soon realized that battle fatigue was not just a function of 

a halfheartedly owned protracted war against your own people but also most 

importantly lack of pride. While encouraging, the push for a more inclusive 

military culture that values innovation and dissent is nothing more than 

a dent on the military colossus. That did not deter junior officers bent on 

ingenuity, however. Unlike past operations—when selective kinetic action 

was taken on the Taliban’s mountainous hideouts after clearing major cities 

and without blocking escape routes—this time the military applied a corner, 

choke, and contain operation.111 Army-Air Force joint operations precisely 

interdicted the Taliban’s high altitude hideouts, forcing them down to hide 

in mosques, houses, and schools, behind human shields, thus enraging the 
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JSOU Report 09-9

local population. This resulted in better human intelligence and continued 

political support for the military operation.

Second, while the military is still contemplating a broad holding strategy, 

for the first time since 2001, the military has executed a presence-oriented 

approach: cleared areas, established small bases inside populated areas—

instead of going back to large Forward Operating Bases—enforced curfews, 

and aided a fledging local government. 

Third, junior officers began using existing weapons and equipment in 

innovative ways. In northern Buner, for example, Major Bilal helped refugees escape before using heavy artillery against Taliban strongholds. He also 

increased precision by building better human intelligence and using global 

positioning system (GPS) trackers and satellite photos. Defying outdated 

Azad 

Kashmir

Punjab

FATA

Nangarhar

Northwest 

Frontier Province

Pakistan

Afghanistan

Islamabad 

Capital 

Territory

GilgitBalistan

Nurestan

Kunar

Khost

Chitral

Dir

Bajaur

Mohmand

Swat

Buner

Figure 13. Pakistan’s Northwest. Base map © 2007 by World Trade Press; all 

rights reserved. Used with permission. 
57

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

conventional war manuals, Captain Fahd used his tanks in urban areas by 

targeting watch towers in houses against hidden snipers. “The book says 

do not use tanks in cities...well they [Taliban] kept killing my men and I 

had to remedy the situation...now the Brig Gen agrees and we’re sharing 

this tactic,” he explained. The process of sharing field experience and lessons learned was helped by U.S.-led “train the trainer,” and Frontier Corps 

program graduates were active in the battlefields of Swat, Bajaur, and the 

Waziristans. 

Fourth, while distinguishing between mainstream Taliban and local 

population was nearly impossible, junior officers realized that trained snipers, commanding officers, explosive experts, and Taliban information officers were primarily Uzbeks, Chechens, or Arabs and local Pashtun leaders 

were almost always with them. Many were killed using improved human 

intelligence, a product of increasing anti-Taliban sentiment, leaving the rest 

to flee or “die like headless chickens.” Those that escaped to the mountains 

of the Swat Valley faced stiff resistance from local lashkars (militias) where 

the Taliban’s pleas to live and die together were brutally rejected.

Although this emerging pride and innovation centric bottom-up COIN

model is a welcoming change from the past and must be supported by the 

U.S., it is anything but complete or sustainable. Without support from the 

military headquarters and the Pakistani people, which will depend on the 

future of millions of refugees, this offshoot of the Bajaur experiment will 

fail. Successful tactics championed by individual leaders can go only so far 

without a consistent effort that must be institutionalized, such as intelligence 

and information operations and civil-military coordination, all under a 

whole-of-government doctrinal shift.

2009, COIN-FOIN Paradox Phasing Out

Pakistan’s national security policy mix changed from a large dose of countering, fomenting insurgencies, and sustaining a nuclear-armed military to 

a large dose of COIN and nuclear weapons development and de-emphasis 

of FOIN. Here are the reasons why:

a. FOIN backfired. Many insurgents and their organizations fomented 

by Islamabad either turned against the state (e.g., Nek Mohammad, 

Abudullah Mehsud and Baitullah Mehsud, TTP, and JeM) or became a 

liability (LeT planned and executed Mumbai attacks, bringing Pakistan 
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JSOU Report 09-9

and India close to a nuclear showdown, hurting Pakistan’s struggling 

democracy and economy, and further increasing the U.S.-Pakistan 

trust deficit).

b. COIN-FOIN paradox was discovered. By 2008 U.S. intelligence estimates 

were unequivocally pointing fingers at indirect support of Afghan 

Taliban by Pakistan’s state apparatus, especially the ISI.

112

c. India developed Cold Start doctrine to stop Pakistan FOIN operations. 

Cold Start is the Indian military’s stated doctrine against a Pakistansponsored group’s terrorist attack inside the Indian homeland. Rapid 

action teams stationed close to the border would be dispatched with 

rapid air support to neutralize perceived terrorist training camps 

inside Pakistan.

d. Pakistan has begun searching for an alternative: better COIN and 

nuclear weapons. As the costs of COIN and FOIN began to outweigh 

its benefits, Pakistani military and civilian heads began brainstorming 

for alternatives. Conversions with senor military leaders suggest that 

a decision was made to slowly phase out FOIN and invest heavily in 

the expansion and potency of nuclear weapons.

While this monograph exclusively focuses on Pakistan’s COIN policy and 

the nature and characteristics of the major threat, it is important to review 

AQA’s operations in Afghanistan because of AQA’s involvement in a transnational insurgency. What follows is a cursory look at COIN in Afghanistan 

during the past 8 years.

COIN in Afghanistan, 2002 to 2008

Most analysts agree that the No. 1 cause of the insurgency in Afghanistan 

is the lack of an effective and pluralistic central government that respects 

provincial autonomy and provides infrastructure and guidance for socioeconomic development. The opium drug trade is not a cause of the insurgency, but the source of its sustainment. More importantly, the sanctuary 

in Pakistan’s northwest provides constant rejuvenation and support for the 

insurgency. 

In the early years that followed the initiation the U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom, most Afghans were happy to get rid of the Taliban regime, 

which had ironically lost credibility due to poor governance and rising 

corruption.113 The new government, led by Hamid Karzai—first appointed 
59

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

and then elected in 2004 for another 5 years—was unable to initiate political reconciliation quickly. Vast areas of the country remained ungoverned 

due to a lack of U.S. and NATO troops; therefore, the Taliban began to fill 

the void by promising better governance and speedy justice. In summary, 

U.S.-led COIN operations failed because the clear, hold, and build model 

was supported by too few troops to effectively hold, let alone build, Afghanistan’s rural landscape. Second, the Pakistan northwest served as a sanctuary 

that continued to provide a lifeline for the insurgency. Finally, and most 

disturbingly for the U.S., was Pakistan’s FOIN policy whereby Pakistan’s 

intelligence officers actively abetted the Afghan Taliban under the leadership of Mullah Omar against coalition troops in Afghanistan’s southeast 

provinces (Nimroz, Farah, Helmand, and Kandahar).114

The most important point of this chapter, and by extension this monograph, is that while acknowledging past mistakes and relearning lessons of 

effective COIN to sustain a victory against insurgents is important, recalibrating Pakistan’s strategic spread against AQA’s strategic chaos is the single 

most important precondition for victory. Pakistan countered insurgencies 

(e.g., Al Qaeda, HuM, Haqqani Network, TTP, and LeT) and FOIN (Mullah 

Omar’s Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan’s southeast) from 2002 to 2008, but 

now it is de-emphasizing the COIN-FOIN paradox. The sooner U.S. military 

and policy makers exploit this, the quicker U.S., Afghan, and Pakistani 

forces can defeat the scourge of the transnational Taliban. The next chapter 

lays out policy prescriptions. 

61

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

4. Policy Guidelines: New Realities, New Policies

For more than 8 years, the Pakistani military, with limited resources 

and public support, has fought a very difficult war of attrition against 

an elusive enemy. About 2,900 security personnel and 7,500 civilians have been killed, and 5,000 have been wounded (see Table 5); and more 

than 3.5 million people have been internally displaced.115 The transnational 

Pashtun insurgency within Pakistan is spreading its tentacles from the tribal 

areas to major cities, funded and supported by a whole host of local, regional 

and international groups—AQA, notably the Taliban. In Afghanistan, the 

situation is much worse: most of the country is currently controlled by, or 

has a significant presence of, Afghan Taliban led by Mullah Omar and his 

deputies from the southern Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar 

and the city of Quetta in Baluchistan, Pakistan. 

This monograph poses the question: After examining Pakistan’s policies 

to counter and foment insurgencies, what might be the best U.S.-Pakistan 

strategic relationship to defeat the transnational insurgency? The remaining pages summarize the attendant issues and suggest policy guidelines for 

establishing regional security.

Pakistan’s COIN policy is a product of its Uber-National Security Strategy that emphasizes internal religio-political cohesiveness and a strong 

nuclear-armed defense against all internal and external threats, notably 

separatism and India. A mix of military, political, and economic policies 

make up Pakistan’s strategic spread that ensures the achievement of its 

national security doctrine. Further still, Pakistan’s COIN policy, historically based on the coercion school of thought, is a function of its strategic 

spread and is aimed at removing all threats to the Pakistani republic from 

an enemy that employs strategic chaos to achieve its goals: the removal of 

all U.S. and allied troops and the imposition of Taliban-style governments 

in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

Although Pakistan has FOINs in the past (Afghanistan, Kashmir, and 

India), for the first time Pakistan countered and fomented a transnational 

insurgency—COIN-FOIN paradox—in Pakistan and Afghanistan to achieve 

its national security goals of retaining control of Kabul by promoting Pashtun leaders, offsetting Indian influence, and a precarious spillover in case 

of a precipitous U.S. withdrawal. 
62

JSOU Report 09-9

This monograph questions existing policy assumptions. These include 

the following: 

a. Pakistan’s FOIN policy makes it a suspect partner and not a vital 

resource to dismantle insurgencies in the region.

b. Pakistan’s experience with COIN should be ignored.

c. Despite more than $10 billion in U.S. aid (2002 to 2008), Pakistan was 

a reluctant partner and is now incapable and unwilling to employ a 

robust COIN policy against the northern and southern fronts of the 

transnational Pashtun insurgency.

d. Better Pakistan-India relations are focused on bilateral trade, and 

outstanding security issues such as Kashmir are immaterial to longterm success in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

The findings of this monograph challenge and debunk all of these policy 

assumptions. Pakistan has extensive experience in COIN and FOIN and 

without a viable solution to Pakistan and India’s national security objectives 

in the region, specifically Afghanistan, all U.S.-led regional COIN efforts 

will fall into the past trap of policy disconnect and failures.

This monograph recommends bolstering the current efforts of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the U.S. to apply the hearts-and-minds school of COIN

focusing on clearing, holding, and building. However, the fundamental 

policy recommendation for the U.S. is to review the degree and nature of 

support from Pakistan. That includes reexamining the emerging structure 

of AQA, then applying lessons learned to recalibrate Pakistan’s strategic 

spread while exploiting AQA’s strategic chaos, the ultimate goal being to 

employ a new and effective regional COIN policy. 

Second, Pakistan will not yield effective cooperation unless its strategic 

spread vis-à-vis India is safeguarded by a resolution of the Kashmir dispute and a broad regional “influence-sharing formula” between India and 

Pakistan for Afghanistan. Afghanistan stretched in multiple directions by 

allies and foes alike will have to extend effective governance (not necessarily 

governmental control) through less corrupt socioeconomic programs (e.g., 

schools, hospitals, jobs, and roads). 

Third, Pakistan must develop political unity with regard to its security 

interests. On 23 October 2008, Pakistan’s elected parliament and senate 

unanimously passed a counterterrorism resolution in an attempt to build 

consensus on Pakistan’s COIN policy. The 14-point resolution emphasizes 
63

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

the present government’s policy of the three Ds—dialogue, deterrence, and 

development—but fails to provide an effective implementation mechanism, 

falls short in describing the causes and nature of the threat from the tribal 

belt, ignores the need for intelligence reform, and puts undue emphasis on 

political reconciliation with the Taliban without acknowledging past mistakes and suggesting remedies to prior failed attempts. U.S.-backed Pakistan’s COIN may once again fail. 

Fourth, Pakistan has a well-developed COIN policy, although traditionally focused on coercion and not the clear, hold, and build model. Relearning some of the lessons from previous insurgencies, such as the Baluch 

insurgency, will help Pakistan develop a more effective COIN policy. More 

important, however, is boosting the morale of the troops that has continuously declined; many soldiers believe they are hired guns vs. fighting their 

own war. A concerted effort to sell this war, not only to the people of Pakistan but also to the regional and international community, is essential.

Fifth, realize that COIN techniques are often best used in combination 

and that methods can overlap; frequently more than one technique has 

been employed to respond to a given group at different times. The hazards 

of the “out-terrorizing the terrorist” approach present long-term challenges 

to civil liberties and human rights, undermine domestic support, polarize 

political parties, and undercut the state’s ability and willingness to respond 

effectively to future terrorist attacks. 

Sixth, terrorist groups that coalesce with the ethnic separatist movements, such as AQA, have had the longest average life span; religiously 

oriented and motivated groups have the longest staying power. Insurgent 

groups have traditionally been defeated by the capture or assassination of 

the leader, failure to transition to the next generation, transition to a legitimate political process, and undermining of popular support. In the case of 

AQA, killing operational commanders has not helped because the leaders 

of Al Qaeda planned for this contingency and the organization has shown 

great resilience in producing new leaders. A similar pattern is observable 

in the Taliban, although to a lesser extent. Al Qaeda’s demands and its 

intolerance for negotiations with a state makes it impossible to bring it to 

the negotiating table. However, Al Qaeda’s major partners, such as the TTP

and the Afghan Taliban, are more divided, willing to negotiate, and have 

political goals (Pashtun representation and exit of foreign troops) that can 

be attained in the long term. 
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JSOU Report 09-9

A recent RAND report states—from a sample of 648 terrorist groups in 

existence between 1968 and 2006—that a transition to the political process is 

the most common way in which terrorist groups end (43 percent).116 Against 

terrorist groups that cannot or will not make a transition to nonviolence, 

policing is likely to be the most effective strategy (40 percent). Consequently, 

narrowing the insurgents’ goals may quell the insurgency. An example could 

be the TSNM in Swat, where the group seeks to impose Sharia law; if the 

state agrees to implement a hybrid judicial system with the eventual goal 

of integrating the system into the national judicial system, the insurgency 

may disappear. Moreover, religious groups rarely achieve their objectives. 

No religious group that has ended achieved victory since 1968. Nearly 50 

percent of the time, groups ended by negotiating a settlement with the government; 25 percent of the time they achieved victory, and 19 percent of the 

time military forces defeated them.117

Seventh, defeating the AQA network is equally important. AQA depends 

heavily on the Internet for communication. Consequently reducing the 

flow of communication and information through the network, hampering 

decision-making and consensus formation, and exploiting collective-action 

problems and security vulnerabilities will weaken AQA’s network. A good 

example is better cyber security in Pakistan and restricting Internet access 

to AQA’s Web sites and Web forums. 

Pakistan is inextricably attached to Afghanistan’s insurgency. A failing COIN policy in Afghanistan (2001 to 2008) is a collection of strategies 

that have ignored the anthropological and historical characteristics of the 

population, while under-allocating and mismanaging U.S. funds. Pakistan 

must be linked with Afghanistan—counterinsurgents cannot win in one 

without winning in both. 

A successful regional effort to bring about victory against AQA, secure 

Pakistan, and build Afghanistan must focus on restoring the pride of the 

Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line. Pride, honor, loyalty, and integrity are hallmarks of Pashtun culture and have major impacts on their 

relationship with the central government and socioeconomic development 

efforts by foreign aid workers. To convert the act of restoring pride into a 

policy model, it is both defined as a word and an acronym and is prescribed 

for the Pashtun insurgency-hit areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan. To this 

end, Pakistan security policy should encompass Operation PRIDE.
65

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

Launch Operation Restoring PRIDE 118

Political Reconciliation/Peace Initiative. Pakistan’s greatest weakness has 

been that its military operations have never followed up with an integrated 

plan in which all elements of national power are brought into play. After 

clearing an area of insurgents, the Pakistani army has rarely stayed behind 

to build trust and provide socioeconomic relief, thus causing the local population to lose faith in the government and resulting in damaged government 

credibility.

Breaking the AQA virtual conglomerate by organizing a major regional 

peace initiative with the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban is essential. If Kabul 

and Islamabad are able to provide political and constitutional space to reconcilable Taliban members, then local, regional, and global jihadists will, 

over time, lose their recruitment base and appeal. The current peace initiative between Kabul, Islamabad, and both Talibans, under the auspices of 

Saudi Arabia and U.S., is a step in the right direction, but careful attention 

should be placed on an implementation mechanism that has been lacking 

in prior peace initiatives. 

Reform and Reconstruction. Pakistan must synchronize all COIN-related 

strategies and policies in one central government agency that is dedicated 

to COIN and contains representatives from military and civilian government agencies along with policy analysts and academics. This effort should 

be headed by a COIN czar and linked with all three intelligence agencies—

Military Intelligence (MI), ISI, and Intelligence Bureau (IB); the defense 

committees of the Parliament and the Senate; the Ministry of Defense; and 

the Intelligence Corps and other military commands such as the SSG command. This new COIN secretariat would draft, monitor, and later adapt 

COIN policy per the results and changes in the COIN environment. At present, Pakistan lacks an effective forum to formulate/debate its basic defense 

policy. Pakistan must learn from past failures. The newly created National 

Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), still a pilot state bureaucracy, is a good 

idea, but its success will depend on the people picked, the final mission 

statement, and the purview of the institution.

Pakistan must abolish or reform archaic laws such as the Frontier Crimes 

Regulation (FCR). While an overnight shift to the British common-lawinspired legal system of Pakistan is ill-advised, a roadmap toward governance and judicial reform with regard to tribal mores should be initiated. 
66

JSOU Report 09-9

The Taliban have effectively disrupted the old tribal leadership structure, 

and the denizens of FATA unanimously reject the FCR in its current form. 

However, there is appeal for Sharia-based reforms and not because most 

Pashtuns are religious; it is rather mostly a matter of convenience and a 

lack of knowledge of Pakistan’s Penal Code. The Taliban have been successful in replacing some of the old leadership structures of legislation and 

jurisprudence because they have effectively amalgamated Sharia into Pashtunwali by replacing jirgas with shuras. If Pakistan can create a roadmap 

whereby certain jirgas would be converted into shuras in the short run 

to gain public trust, it could implement a roadmap that would eventually 

connect Pashtunwali to the Pakistani constitution. One possible roadmap 

is shown in Table 8.

Table 8. Politico-Constitutional Roadmap for Pakistan’s FATAs

Short-Term Medium-Term Long-Term

FCR Pashtunwali

Pashtunwali 

plus Sharia

Sharia-Based 

Courts

Pakistan 

Penal Code

Collective 

punishment 

of tribes—

e.g., appeal 

process

Supreme jirga Supreme Shura Supreme Court 

Shariat Appellate 

Bench; Federal 

Shariat Court

Supreme 

Court 

Single tribe jirga Mid-level Shura Provincial 

Shariat Bench

High Court

Khel (subtribe) 

jirga/subkhel 

jirga

Low-level Shura Local Shariat 

Bench

District Court

Moreover, the Political Parties Act of 1962 that was recently expanded 

to FATA must be completely executed. Finally, the denizens of FATA should 

be given a timeline within the next 5 to 10 years whereby they can decide 

their constitutional status as a federally administered unit, province, or 

become part of NWFP. 

In the field, provincial and district reconstruction teams should be 

formed and promoted. These teams must be ready to provide security, economic development, and a speedy makeshift judicial system in the short 

run. After a semblance of sustainability, the military should be replaced by 

police and civil bureaucracies. 

In this regard, police reforms need to be implemented. The Pakistan 

police, created by colonial Britain to control dissenters in a rather brutal 
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Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

manner, have historically been a backwater in Pakistan’s national security 

apparatus. Until recently, salaries were dramatically lower than the military and its intelligence agencies. Vicious intelligence turf wars also exist 

where the big-budgeted and more influential ISI and MI suppress the Federal 

Investigative Agency (FIA) and the IB, and there is little to no cooperation 

between the police and the military. 

Islamabad is also focusing its budgetary resources toward effective 

policing.119 The chief ministers of Punjab and NWFP recently announced 

increasing police pay by 100 percent, and there are efforts to implement a 

nonpartisan bill (Police Order 2002).120 Pakistan should abet police policymaking through strengthening the police think tank, the National Police 

Bureau, and it should increase citizens-police liaison committees. It should 

buttress the FIA and IB to coordinate efforts with ISI and MI in “holding” 

operations after areas are cleared of insurgents. In support, U.S. congressional bills tap $100 million toward police reform in Pakistan, and there is some 

effort from U.S. government agencies to train Pakistani police officers.

Pakistan’s needed reforms have a long way to go before a demonstrable 

effect is realized. Support for them from inside Pakistan and by the world 

community is crucial for success.

Improve Intelligence and Information Operations. Increase the quality 

and exchange of intelligence across the Durand Line. Washington has come 

down hard on Pakistan’s ISI, accusing it of abetting the Taliban—and, by 

extension, Al Qaeda—by allowing former ISI personnel to become AQA

consultants. Islamabad has responded by appointing new ISI officers and 

purging the organization of jihadist-friendly ones. More is needed to control 

all aspects of ISI operations, including those related to external activities in 

Kashmir and internal meddling in local politics, with the ultimate goal of 

placing ISI under elected civilian control. Better intelligence cooperation 

will improve operations by raising the effectiveness and reliability of U.S.-

Pakistan joint operations, including, but not limited to, U.S. UAV attacks. 

U.S. ground troops must be used as a last resort, given the nature of the local 

opposition in FATA and its potential spillover effects in terms of national, 

political, and military (including nuclear) instability.

While ISI and MI have provided extraordinary support to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, and Federal Bureau 

of Investigation against top Al Qaeda operations since 2001, broad joint 
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JSOU Report 09-9

coordination has decreased. Pakistan’s unwillingness to provide actionable intelligence against the Afghan Taliban (planning and executing 

attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan from safe havens in FATA and 

Baluchistan) and subsequent U.S. reliance on unmanned predator attacks 

against Al Qaeda and Taliban inside Pakistan (perceived to be violating its 

sovereignty) have widened the U.S.-Pakistan trust deficit.

On the home front, Pakistani intelligence has suffered from an 8-year-old 

partial national security shift from disowning former assets/clients—Taliban 

and by extension Al Qaeda—to training and equipping intelligence officers 

that would actively interdict their operations. Though they have been experts 

in fomenting insurgent and terrorist groups as leverage against India and its 

influence in Afghanistan from the late 1970s to early 2000s, Pakistani intelligence is only recently becoming effective in actionable human intelligence. 

Moreover, civil and military efforts at protecting civilians and growing 

anti-Taliban sentiment have increased the quality and quantity of human 

intelligence. This change is evident in better intelligence from two recent 

operations (Operation Lion Heart in Bajaur and Operation Righteous Path 

in Swat), but it is not a result of increased budget, training, and equipment, 

rather a realization in the military command that the Taliban may be a 

bigger threat than India. How long this strategic shift will last remains to 

be seen. 

Pakistani military and civilian leaders should convince rogue ISI agents 

to consult with the government against AQA if financial gain is the main 

motive. This would bolster Pakistan’s intelligence operations and weaken 

AQA’s strong reach inside ISI’s alumni network. 

Pakistan’s emerging COIN strategy is based on building national pride 

that will encourage soldiers to destroy hard-core Pakistani Taliban insurgents and protect the Pakistani people. Islamabad must devise an information campaign that starts with the current string of successes but eventually 

incorporates a message of American-Pakistani friendship that will resonate 

on the Pakistani street.

Deterrence. After the military has successfully routed out the worst of 

the worst through a process of political reconciliation, a massive policing effort, reconstruction of roads, hospitals, and schools should follow to 

deter reemergence of the Taliban and their like. The Pashtun transnational 

insurgency will not be quelled quietly or quickly, but a continuity of state 
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Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

engagement will act as a deterrent against the insurgency’s return when it is 

defeated by a combination of socioeconomic development, political pluralism, and judicial reforms.

The judicial system is a key factor for maintaining a visible government 

presence among the people. COIN in Pakistan since late 2001 has unduly 

focused on counterterrorism operations leading to extrajudicial detainment, 

rendition, and abuses.121 The famous missing-people cases brought to the 

Pakistani Supreme Court since 2003 became a vexing thorn between then 

President Pervez Musharraf and Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikar Ali 

Chaudhry. This resulted in a pitched battle between the executive and judicial branches in 2007 and ended with the reinstatement of Chaudhry—who 

was twice removed—and the resignation of Musharraf in late 2008. 

Endurance. Once a multifaceted policy is agreed upon, the difficulties in 

implementing it must be endured. COIN in Pakistan—now moving away 

from the coercion school to the hearts-and-minds school and centered on 

the principle of clear, hold, and build—will only succeed if all political, diplomatic, economic, military, and governance-related reforms are sustained 

and a long-term commitment exists from Islamabad, Washington, and other 

regional stakeholders.

Despite the failure of peace deals between the Pakistani Taliban and 

Islamabad, political reconciliation is still the only logical long-term solution for sustaining a long-term peace. Future efforts, while sensitive to local 

demands—for example, better governance and speedy justice—should be 

monitored by specific metrics for COIN success such as areas under control, 

economic development factors, and attacks on security personnel. 

A strong trustworthy strategic relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan 

will be instrumental for the success of the COIN effort. Security cooperation 

must be founded upon Pakistan’s newfound COIN strategy and change in 

its Uber-National Security Strategy and national defense policies. Pakistan’s 

military-political complex is fast realizing the disadvantages of its previous 

COIN-FOIN paradox and is showing signs of embracing population-centric 

COIN against internal threats and investing heavily in nuclear weapons as 

deterrence against external threats. 

The U.S. needs Pakistan more today than it did in late 2001. However, the 

new American administration has made it clear that trust will come after 

verification. Consequently, future American aid comes with conditions, 
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targets socioeconomic development of Pakistan’s northwest and northeast 

regions—especially prone to anti-American insurgencies. Next year, 2010, 

can be a watershed year in the complex U.S.-Pakistan relationship. There 

is strong potential for a renewed alliance that is determined to effectively 

interdict the Taliban-led and Al Qaeda-related transnational insurgency by 

simultaneously draining the swamp, protecting the population, and providing enduring socioeconomic development and governmental efficacy.

In conclusion, the transnational Pashtun insurgency can best be defeated 

through a reexamination of key policy assumptions and learning from past 

failures, notably Pakistan’s COIN-FOIN paradox. With the support and 

leadership of the U.S., a new regional COIN effort should be put forward to 

all stakeholders (e.g., Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India) with clear, realistic, 

and locally sensitive best practices of grand strategy COIN. 

COIN

Fight insurgents by securing population, 

development initiatives, intelligence; countering propaganda, separating hard-core 

insurgents from population, providing 

better governance, judicial services, policing the insurgents

80% political, 20% military

Grand Prize: Population

FOIN

Discreetly support insurgency

80% military (e.g., training and equipment)

20% political (e.g., communication operations and aiding international recognition)

Grand Prize: Population

Figure 14. COIN vs. FOIN
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Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

Appendix A. Terrorist Attacks on U.S./Western 

Targets in Pakistan 2001 to 2008

28 October 2001 Catholic Church, Bahawalpur

Police personnel and 17 persons, including 5 children, killed

23 January 2002 Karachi

U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl abducted

17 March 2002 Protestant Church, Islamabad

5 persons killed

8 May 2002 Sheraton Hotel, Karachi

9 French and 5 Pakistanis, including the suspected suicide bomber, killed

14 June 2002 U.S. Consulate, Karachi

10 persons, including 5 women, killed

13 July 2002 Archaeological site, Mansehra

12 persons, including 7 Germans, injured

5 August 2002 Christian Missionary School, Murree

6 Pakistanis killed

9 August 2002 Mission Hospital, Taxila

3 women, 1 alleged Al Qaeda operative, killed

25 September 2002 Idara Amn-o-Insaaf (Institute for Peace and 

Justice), a Christian charity, Karachi

7 persons killed and 3 others injured

25 December 2002 United Presbyterian Church near Sialkot, Punjab 

province

3 women killed and 15 persons injured in a grenade attack

28 February 2003 United States (U.S.) Consulate in Karachi

Two policemen guarding the Consulate are killed and 5 others injured by an 

unidentified gunman
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15 May 2003 21 British and U.S. gas stations owned by Royal 

 Dutch/Shell Group and Caltex

5 persons injured during serial bomb blasts at 21 gas stations

3 May 2004 Chinese nationals working on a sea-port project 

 in Gwadar

3 Chinese engineers killed and 11 persons, including 9 Chinese nationals, injured 

in a car bomb attack

26 May 2004 Pakistan-American Cultural Centre and residence 

 of the U.S. Consul-General in Karachi

2 persons killed and at least 33 others, mostly police and media personnel, wounded 

when two car bombs explode in succession

15 November 2005 KFC restaurant in Karachi

At least 3 people killed and 20 others, including 2 South African women, injured 

in a powerful car bomb explosion in front of restaurant

2 March 2006 U.S. Consulate in Karachi

A U.S. diplomat—identified as David Fyfe, his Pakistani driver, and a Rangers official killed and 54 persons injured in a suicide car bombing near the U.S. 

Consulate

15 March 2008 Luna Caprese restaurant in Islamabad

A bomb blast at the Italian restaurant killed a Turkish woman, Inder Baskar, who 

worked for a Turkish relief agency, and wounded about 15 other foreigners, including some U.S. diplomats

2 June 2008 Danish embassy, Islamabad

A suspected suicide bomber blew up his car outside the Danish embassy, killing 

at least 8 people and injuring 30 others

•	 The Danish Foreign Minister said a Pakistani cleaner employed at the embassy 

and a Danish citizen of Pakistani origin died and 3 other local employees were 

injured, but the 4 Danish staffers of the embassy were unharmed

26 August 2008 The U.S. Consulate’s Principal Officer Lynne Tracy

Lynne Tracy escaped a gun attack in Peshawar, capital of the NWFP; she was en 

route to the consulate situated on the Rehman Baba Road in a bulletproof car 

when gunmen opened fire

•	 Even as her car managed to speed away to safety, an auto-rickshaw driver 

was injured
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Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

Appendix B. Pakistan: Selected Timeline 2000 

to 2008

Source: British Broadcasting Company (BBC)122

2000 April Nawaz Sharif sentenced to life imprisonment on hijacking and 

terrorism charges. 

December Nawaz Sharif goes into exile in Saudi Arabia after being pardoned by military authorities. 

2001 June On the 20th, General Pervez Musharraf names himself president while remaining head of the army. He replaced the figurehead president, Rafiq Tarar, who vacated his position earlier in 

the day after the parliament that elected him was dissolved. 

July Musharraf meets Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee 

in the first summit between the two neighbors in more than 

2 years. The meeting ends without a breakthrough or even a 

joint statement because of differences over Kashmir. 

September Musharraf swings in behind the U.S. in its fight against terrorism and supports attacks on Afghanistan. U.S. lifts some 

sanctions imposed after Pakistan’s nuclear tests in 1998, but 

retains others put in place after Musharraf’s coup. 

Kashmir tensions 

2001 October India fires on Pakistani military posts in the heaviest firing 

along the dividing line of control in Kashmir for almost a 

year. 

December India imposes sanctions against Pakistan to force it to take 

action against two Kashmir militant groups blamed for a suicide attack on parliament in New Dehli. Pakistan retaliates 

with similar sanctions. 

India, Pakistan mass troops along common border amid 

mounting fears of a looming war. 

2002 January President Musharraf bans two militant groups—Lashkar-eToiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad—and takes steps to curb religious extremism. 

Musharraf announces that elections will be held in October 

2002 to end 3 years of military rule. 

April Musharraf wins another 5 years in office in a referendum criticized as unconstitutional and fraught with irregularities. 
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May 14 people, including 11 French technicians, are killed in a suicide 

attack on a bus in Karachi. The following month 12 people are 

killed in a suicide attack outside the U.S. consulate in the city. 

Missile tests 

2002 May Pakistan test fires three medium-range surface-to-surface 

Ghauri missiles, which are capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Musharraf tells nation that Pakistan does not want war 

but is ready to respond with full force if attacked. 

June Britain and U.S. maintain diplomatic offensive to avert war, 

urge their citizens to leave India and Pakistan. 

August President Musharraf grants himself sweeping new powers, 

including the right to dismiss an elected parliament. Opposition forces accuse Musharraf of perpetuating dictatorship. 

October First general election since the 1999 military coup results in a 

hung parliament. Parties haggle over the make-up of a coalition. Religious parties fare better than expected. 

November Mir Zafarullah Jamali is selected as prime minister by the 

National Assembly. He is the first civilian premier since the 

1999 military coup and a member of a party close to General 

Musharraf. 

2003 February In Senate elections, the ruling party win most seats in voting 

to the upper house. Elections are said to be the final stage of 

what President Musharraf calls transition to democracy. 

June NWFP votes to introduce Sharia law. 

Kashmir ceasefire 

2003 November Pakistan declares a Kashmir ceasefire, which is swiftly matched 

by India. 

December Pakistan and India agree to resume direct air links and to allow 

overflights of each other’s planes from the beginning of 2004 

after 2-year ban. 

President Musharraf survives an attempt on his life; bombs 

explode under a bridge seconds after his car passes over it. 

2004 February Leading nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan admits to 

having leaked nuclear weapons secrets. Technology is said to 

have been transferred to Libya, North Korea, and Iran. 

April Parliament approves creation of military-led National Security 

Council. Move institutionalizes role of armed forces in civilian 

affairs. 

May Pakistan is re-admitted to the Commonwealth. 
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Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

Factional violence in Karachi: senior Sunni cleric shot dead; 

bomb attack on Shia mosque kills 16, injures 40. 

June Military offensive near Afghan border against suspected Al 

Qaeda militants and their supporters after attacks on checkpoints. Earlier offensive, in March, left more than 120 dead. 

August Shaukat Aziz is sworn in as prime minister. In July he escaped 

unhurt from an apparent assassination attempt. 

December President Musharraf says he will stay on as head of the army 

having previously promised to relinquish the role. 

2005 January Tribal militants in Balochistan attack facilities at Pakistan’s 

largest natural gas field, forcing closure of main plant. 

April On the 7th, bus services—the first in 60 years—operate between 

Muzaffarabad in Pakistani-administered Kashmir and Srinagar in Indian-controlled Kashmir. 

More than 200 suspected Islamic extremists are detained at 

premises that include religious schools and mosques. The move 

comes after deadly attacks in the British capital; three of the 

bombers visited Pakistan in 2004. 

August Pakistan tests its first nuclear-capable cruise missile. 

Kashmir quake 

2005 October On the 8th, an earthquake—with its epicenter in Pakistaniadministered Kashmir—kills tens of thousands of people. The 

city of Muzaffarabad is among the worst hit areas. 

2006 January Up to 18 people are killed in a U.S. missile strike, apparently 

targeting senior Al Qaeda figures, on a border village in the 

north. 

February More than 30 people are killed in a suspected suicide bomb 

attack and ensuing violence at a Shia Muslim procession in the 

northwest. 

April A suspected double suicide bombing kills at least 57 people at 

a Sunni Muslim ceremony in Karachi. 

August Security forces kill prominent Balochistan tribal leader, Nawab 

Akbar Bugti. Protests over his death turn violent. 

October A raid on an Islamic seminary in the tribal area of Bajaur 

bordering Afghanistan kills up to 80 people, sparking antigovernment protests. The army says the madrassa was a training 

camp for militants. 

December Pakistan says it has successfully test-fired a short-range missile 

capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. 
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2007 January Islamabad rejects an assertion by the head of U.S. National 

Intelligence that Al Qaeda leaders are hiding out in Pakistan. 

January–June Tension mounts between the government and the radical Red 

Mosque in Islamabad. 

February Bombings in different parts of the country, including at Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel and the international airport, kill a 

number of people. 

68 passengers, most of them Pakistanis, are killed by bomb 

blasts and a blaze on a train travelling between the Indian 

capital New Delhi and the Pakistani city of Lahore. 

Pakistan and India sign an agreement aimed at reducing the 

risk of accidental nuclear war. 

March President Musharraf suspends the Chief Justice Iftikhar 

Mohammed Chaudhry, triggering a wave of anger across the 

country. 

First joint protests held by the parties of exiled former Prime 

Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. 

March–April Officials say around 250 people have been killed in fighting 

between South Waziristan tribesmen and foreign militants 

said to be linked to Al Qaeda. 

May Several are killed in Karachi during rival demonstrations over 

dismissal of Chief Justice Chaudhry. Subsequent strikes paralyze much of the country. 

A bomb blast in a hotel in Peshawar kills 24. 

June President Musharraf extends media controls to include the 

Internet and mobile phones amid a growing challenge to his 

rule. 

July Security forces storm the Red Mosque complex in Islamabad 

following a week-long siege. 

Supreme Court reinstates Chief Justice Chaudhry. 

Ms. Bhutto, President Musharraf hold a secret meeting in Abu 

Dhabi on a possible power-sharing deal. 

August Supreme Court rules Nawaz Sharif can return from exile. 

September Mr. Sharif returns but is sent back to exile within hours. 

October Musharraf wins most votes in presidential election. The 

Supreme Court says no winner can be formally announced 

until it rules if the general was eligible to stand for election 

while still army chief. 
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Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

Nearly 200 people die in fighting with Islamic militants in 

North Waziristan, stronghold of pro-Taliban and Al Qaida 

groups. 

Ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto returns from exile. Dozens 

of people die in a suicide bomb targeting her homecoming 

parade in Karachi. 

November General Musharraf declares emergency rule while still awaiting 

Supreme Court ruling on whether he was eligible to run for 

reelection. Chief Justice Chaudhry is dismissed. Ms. Bhutto is 

briefly placed under house arrest. 

A caretaker government is sworn in. 

New Supreme Court—now staffed with compliant judges—

dismisses challenges to Musharraf’s reelection. 

Pakistan’s Chief Election Commissioner announces that general elections are to be held 8 January 2008. 

Nawaz Sharif returns from exile again. 

Musharraf resigns from army post and is sworn in for second 

term as President. 

December On the 15th, the state of emergency is lifted. 

On the 27th at an election campaign rally in Rawalpindi, 

Benazir Bhutto is assassinated. 

2008 January Elections are postponed to 18 February. 

Suicide bomber kills more than 20 police officers gathered 

outside the High Court in Lahore ahead of an antigovernment 

rally. 

Up to 90 fighters are killed in clashes in the tribal region of 

South Waziristan, near the Afghan border, where militants 

have been openly challenging the army. 

February In parliamentary elections, the two main opposition parties gain a clear majority. They later agree to form a coalition 

government. 

March Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) nominee Yusuf Raza Gillani 

becomes prime minister. 

May The disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist, Dr. Abdul Qadeer 

Khan, says allegations he passed on nuclear secrets are false 

and that he was made a scapegoat. 

August The two main governing parties agree to launch impeachment 

proceedings against President Musharraf. 

Mr. Musharraf resigns. Senate Speaker Muhammad Sumroo 

becomes acting President. 
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PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari—Benazir Bhutto’s widower—says 

he will be the party’s candidate in the presidential election set 

for 6 September. 

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif pulls his PML-N out 

of the coalition government, accusing the PPP of breaking its 

promise to approve the reinstatement of all judges sacked by 

former President Pervez Musharraf. 

September Asif Ali Zardari elected by legislators as Pakistan’s new 

President. 

Marriott Hotel in Islamabad is devastated in a suicide truck 

bombing that leaves at least 50 dead. An Islamist militant 

group claims responsibility. 

October Earthquake in southwestern province of Balochistan leaves 

hundreds dead.

November President Zardari warns the U.S. military that missile strikes 

on Pakistani territory are counterproductive.

The government borrows billions of dollars from the International Monetary Fund to overcome its spiraling debt crisis.

December India says militants who carried out the Mumbai terrorist 

attacks in November had Pakistani links, and it urges Pakistani action. Islamabad denies any involvement in the attacks 

but promises to cooperate with the Indian investigation.

2009 February Government agrees to implement Sharia law in northwestern 

Swat Valley in an effort to persuade Islamist militants there to 

agree to permanent ceasefire.

March Gunmen in Lahore attack a bus carrying the Sri Lankan 

cricket team. Five police officers are killed and seven players 

injured. 

After days of public protests, the government gives in to opposition demands and announces the reinstatement of sacked 

former Chief Justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry and other judges dismissed by former President Pervez Musharraf. The main opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, calls off a mass protest march. 

At least 40 people are killed when gunmen storm a police academy in Lahore. 

April Swat agreement breaks down after Taliban-linked militants 

seek to extend their power base. Government attempts to 

reimpose its writ over northwestern districts controlled by 

militants. 

July The Pakistani and Indian prime ministers pledge to work 

together to fight terrorism at a meeting in Egypt irrespective of 
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progress on improving broader relations. The Supreme Court 

acquits opposition leader Nawaz Sharif of hijacking charges, 

removing the final ban on his running for public office.

August Pakistan issues a global alert for 13 suspects over November’s 

attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai. Interpol said the alert 

asks member countries for help in locating the fugitives and 

to report any leads to Pakistan. President Zardari orders the 

suspension of judges appointed under emergency rule in 2007, 

after the Supreme Court ruled the emergency declared by 

former President Musharraf to have been unconstitutional.

The leader of Pakistan’s Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, reported 

dead in U.S. drone attack. Ali Sher Hyderi, head of Pakistan’s 

largest extremist organization Sipah-e-Sahaba, killed by 

militants.

October New Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud meets journalists 

from his clan in South Waziristan to counter reports of his 

death. He pledges revenge for the drone attack that killed 

Baitullah Mehsud.

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Endnotes

1. Barrack Obama, “A New Beginning” (Cairo speech), Cairo, Egypt, 4 June 2009, 

available at www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-atCairo-University-6-04-09/; accessed October 2009.

2. All indicators of COIN (security and socioeconomic situation) are heading in the 

wrong direction. See for example:

a. Senlis Estimate of Rise in Fatal Attacks in 2007/2008, available at http://

csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/080917_afghanthreat.pdf, slide 20; accessed 

October 2009.

b. NATO-ISAF Metrics Brief 2007-2008, referenced in The Afghan-Pakistan 

War: The Rising Intensity of Conflict 2007-2008 (pp. 19, 23, and 24), available at http://csis.org/files/publication/burke/090803_RisingIntensityConflict20072008.pdf; accessed October 2009.

c. United Nations Accessibility Map 2008: East and South Afghanistan, available at www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWFiles2009.nsf/FilesByRWDocUnidFilename/

SNAA-7V9345-full_report.pdf/$File/full_report.pdf, slide 29; accessed October 2009. 

3. Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Mohammadi is a local insurgent group demanding Sharia 

(Islamic law) in place of the Pakistani constitutional legal system in the Malakand Division of Pakistan, near the tribal areas and home to the Swat Valley. The 

February 2009 Swat peace selectively cedes to TSNM demands. 

4. AQA refers to a virtual network of local, regional, and global extremist Islamist 

groups using chaos and violence to further common religio-political goals.

 The Durand Line is the de facto border between Afghanistan and Pakistan that 

was drawn up by Sir Durand in 1890 in hopes of making Afghanistan a buffer 

state between Tsarist Russia and British India.

5. Strategic Forecasting, Inc. (STRATFOR) Intelligence Report, “Afghanistan: Moves 

Toward Negotiating with the Taliban,” 1 October 2008, available at www.stratfor.com/analysis/20081001_afghanistan_moves_toward_negotiating_taliban; 

accessed October 2009.

6. See South Asia Terrorism Portal, Casualties of Terrorist Violence in Pakistan, 

Annual Fatalities in Terrorist Violence in Pakistan, 2003-2009—www.satp.org/

satporgtp/countries/pakistan/database/casualties.htm; accessed October 2009.

7. See “Congress did not approve Biden-Lugar bill for Pak,” The Nation (Pakistan), 31 

January 2009, available at www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-dailyenglish-online/Politics/31-Jan-2009/Congress-did-not-approve-BidenLugar-billfor-Pak; accessed October 2009.

 Mary Louise Kelly, “With New Boss, Gates Shifts Focus to Afghanistan,” 

NPR, 27 January 2009, available at www.npr.org/templates/story/story.

php?storyId=99906717; accessed October 2009.
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8. General Stanley McChrystal, former head of the United States Joint Special Operations Command, replaced General David McKiernan on 15 June 2009 as head 

of all U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and Richard Holbrooke was appointed special 

envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan by President Obama in early 2009.

9. See White Paper of the Interagency Policy Group’s Report on U.S. Policy toward 

Afghanistan and Pakistan, 27 March 2009, www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/Afghanistan-Pakistan_White_Paper.pdf; accessed October 2009.

 See U.S. Government Counterinsurgency Guide, United States Government Initiative, January 2009, www.state.gov/documents/organization/119629.pdf; accessed 

October 2009. 

“Full Transcript: President Obama’s Speech on Afghanistan,” ABC News/Politics, 

1 December 2009, available at http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/full-transcriptpresident-obamas-speech-afghanistan-delivered-west/story?id=9220661; accessed 

December 2009. 

10. Hot pursuit missions are those conducted by U.S. Special Forces inside Afghanistan against high profile AQA operatives that occasionally end up having U.S. 

Special Forces follow them into Pakistan’s northwest tribal areas. 

11. Mark Mazzetti and David E. Sanger, “Obama Expands Missile Strikes Inside 

Pakistan,” The New York Times, 20 February 2009, available at www.nytimes.

com/2009/02/21/washington/21policy.html; accessed October 2009.

 See International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) press release, 

“Eight years after 9/11 Taliban now has a permanent presence in 80% of Afghanistan,” available at www.icosgroup.net/modules/press_releases/eight_years_

after_911; accessed October 2009.

12. Anthony H. Cordesman, “Suicide Bombs: 2001-First Six Months of 2008” in The 

Afghan-Pakistan War: The Rising Threat: 2002-2008, CSIS, 11 February 2009, p. 

23, available at http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/090211_afghanthreat.pdf; 

accessed October 2009.

 Anthony H. Cordesman, “Total U.S. Casualties: Patterns in Total KIA and WIA 

in Iraq and Afghanistan 2001-2008” in The Afghan-Pakistan War: The Rising 

Threat: 2002-2008, CSIS, 11 February 2009, p. 37. (“KIA” is Killed in Action, and 

“WIA” is Wounded in Action.)

 Also Jason H. Campbell and Jeremy Shapiro, Afghanistan Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction and Security in Post 9/11 Afghanistan, Brookings, 23 September 2009, p. 5, available at www.brookings.edu/foreign-policy/~/media/Files/

Programs/FP/afghanistan%20index/index.pdf; accessed October 2009.

13. “Counterinsurgency Field Manual: Afghanistan Edition,” The FP Interview with 

General David H. Patraeus, Foreign Policy magazine, January/February 2009, p. 

4, available at www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4587&print=1; 

accessed October 2009. 

14. These numbers are best estimates and based on numerous media reports and 

interviews with former military and intelligence officers and security analysts, 
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Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

since information regarding exact troop numbers and deployment are confidential. See these examples: 

a. Stephen P. Cohen and Shuja Nawaz, “Mastering Counterinsurgency: A Workshop Report,” The Brookings Institution, available at www.brookings.edu/

papers/2009/0707_counterinsurgency_cohen.aspx; accessed October 2009.

b. “U.S. Transfers $365m for FATA war support,” Dawn/The News International (Karachi), 6 September 2008, available at www.karachipage.com/news/

Sep_08/090608.html#US; accessed October 2009.

15. Zulfiqar Ali, “The ragtag police system in FATA,” Dawn, 19 July 2008, available 

at www.dawn.com/2008/07/19/fea.htm#2; accessed October 2009.

16. Sami Yousafzai and Mark Hosenball, “Predators on the Hunt in Pakistan,” Newsweek, 9 February 2009, available at www.newsweek.com/id/182653; accessed 

October 2009. 

17. For a detailed analysis of U.S.-Pakistan relations see these examples:

a. Stephen P. Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2006).

b. Husain Haqqani, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military (Washington, D.C.: 

Brookings Institution Press, 2005).

c. Dennis Kux, The United States and Pakistan, 1947-2000: Disenchanted Allies 

(Washington, D.C.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).

18. Both resolutions (October and December 2008) emphasize political reconciliation with antigovernment elements in FATA and NWFP (such as TTP, TSNM), 

aid for internally displaced citizens, and condemnation of U.S. drone attacks. 

Despite official announcement by the Prime Minister of its creation, the National 

Counterterrorism Commission is a work in progress, and questions remain over 

its purview, budget, and place in Pakistan’s COIN policy-making bureaucracies, 

specifically the Pakistani military. See www.embassyofpakistan.org for text of 

antiterrorism resolutions. For more information on NCC, see “Pakistan government to set up body to deal with terrorism,” The Daily Times, 3 January 2009, 

available at www.allvoices.com/news/2149790-bangladesh-govt-pak-terrorismunite; accessed October 2009.

19. For a credible analysis of mistrust in post 9/11 U.S.–Pakistan relations, see Tariq 

Ali, The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Plan of American Power (New York: Scribner, 

2008).

20. See for example, “Results of a New Nationwide Public Opinion Survey of Pakistan 

before the June 2008 Pakistani By-Elections,” Terror Free Tomorrow The Center 

for Public Opinion, Washington, D.C., available at www.terrorfreetomorrow.

org/upimagestft/PakistanPollReportJune08.pdf; accessed October 2009. It states 

that only 19 percent of Pakistanis favor military action against antigovernment 

elements in Pakistan, and only 12 percent support U.S. unilateral military action 

in FATA. 
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 Also see:

a. Masood Haider, “Government has popular support for its actions: Gallup 

survey” 13 May 2009, available at www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawncontent-library/dawn/news/pakistan/06-govt-has-popular-support-for-itsactions-gallup-poll-08-rs; accessed October 2009.

b. “IRI [International Republican Institute] Releases Survey of Pakistan Public 

Opinion,” OmEr Jamil, 22 December 2008, available at www.haqeeqat.

org/2008/12/22/iri-releases-survey-of-pakistan-public-opinion/; accessed 

October 2009.

 See “Pakistani Public Turns Against Taliban, But Still Negative on U.S.,” World 

Public Opinion Pakistan poll, 1 July 2009, available at www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brasiapacificra/619.php?nid=&id=&pnt=619&lb=; accessed 

October 2009.

21. For more on the three Ds, see Syed Irfan Raza, “Dialogue only with those who 

don’t challenge writ: Zardari,” Dawn, 23 January 2009, available at www.dawn.

com/2009/01/23/top3.htm; accessed October 2009.

22. See Pakistan President’s statement on Islamabad’s historic role in abetting religiopolitical insurgencies and his government efforts to half them—for example, 

“Zardari blames Islamabad for extremism,” United Press International, 8 July 

2009, available at www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/07/08/Zardari-blames-Islamabad-for-extremism/UPI-32111247078836/?pvn=1; accessed October 2009.

23. Percentage of supplies calculated by interview with military officers; for susceptibility of supply lines, see for example, “Pakistan supply line attacks show U.S. 

vulnerability,” The Daily Times, 15 November 2008, available at www.dailytimes.

com.pk/default.asp?page=2008\11\15\story_15-11-2008_pg7_12; accessed October 

2009.

24. Other respected works on COIN theory and practices include the following:

a. Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency, and Peacekeeping (Stackpole Books, 1971).

b. Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency (Palgrave Macmillan, 

1978).

c. Roger Trinquier, Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency (Praeger, 2006).

25. David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (Westport, CT: 

Praeger Security International, 1964).

26. Ibid., p. 43.

27. For an analysis on CLCs, see Bill Roggio, “Mapping Iraq’s Concerned Local Citizens programs,” The Long War Journal, 12 December 2007, available at www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2007/12/mapping_the_concerne.php; accessed October 

2009.
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Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

28. David Kilcullen, “Counterinsurgency Redux,” Survival Vol. 48, No. 4, December 

2006, pp. 111-130. Available at http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/kilcullen1.pdf (accessed October 2009); see pp. 9-10. 

29. See Jeffrey C. Isaac et al., “The New U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual as Political Science and Political Praxis, Review Symposium, 

Counterinsurgency Manual,” June 2008, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 347-350. Available at 

www.apsanet.org/imgtest/POPJune08CounterInsurgency2.pdf; accessed October 

2009.

30. Ibid., 354.

31. See Edward Luttwak, “Dead end: Counterinsurgency warfare as military malpractice,” Harper’s Magazine, February 2007, pp. 33-42, available at www.harpers.

org/archive/2007/02/0081384; accessed October 2009.

32. Ibid., p. 350.

33. Tod Preston, “Pakistan’s Daunting—and Deteriorating—Demographic Challenge,” first published in The New Security Beat, Population Action International, 

30 April 2009, available at www.populationaction.org/blog/2009/04/pakistansdauntingand-deterior.html#more/; accessed October 2009. 

34. Strategic spread, a conceptual construct developed in this monograph to explain 

Pakistan’s national security doctrine, is not endorsed by the Pakistani military 

or used in its official parlance. 

35. For more, see:

a. Hasan Zaheer, The Separation of East Pakistan: The Rise and Realization of 

Bengali Muslim Nationalism (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1994)

b. G. W. Choudhury, The Last Days of United Pakistan (London: C. Hurst & 

Co., 1974).

36. For more, see:

a. Theodore P. Wright, “Center-Periphery Relations and Ethnic Conflict in Pakistan: Sindhis, Muhajirs, and Punjabis,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 23, No. 3 

(April 1991), pp. 299-312.

b. Rounaq Jahan, Failure in National Integration (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972). 

37. For more, see:

a. Christophe Jaffrelot, Pakistan: Nationalism Without a Nation? (New Delhi: 

Zed Books, 2002)

b. Owen Bennett-Jones, Pakistan: Eye of the Storm (London: Yale University 

Press, 2002).

38. A semimilitant autonomist movement turned into a full-blown insurgency in 

mid-2004 when Baluchistan Liberation Army, Baluchistan Liberation Front, and 

People’s Liberation Army joined forces under the leadership of Nawab Akbar 

Khan Bugti and Mir Balach Marri. On 26 August 2006 Bugti was killed, marking 
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the end of a large-scale insurgency, which currently remains dormant albeit with 

high probability of redux.

39. Pepe Escobar, “The shadow war in Baluchistan,” Asia Times, 4 June 2009, available at www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KF04Df04.html; accessed October 

2009.

 Naveed Ahmad, “Baluch Unrest in Pakistan: Strife Between Rights and Resources?” 

CACI Analyst, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, 8 March 2006, available at www.

cacianalyst.org/?q=node/3799; accessed October 2009.

40. See Frederic Grare, “The Resurgence of Baluch Nationalism,” Carnegie Papers, 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, No. 65, January 2006, available 

at www.carnegieendowment.org/files/cp65.grare.final.pdf; accessed October 

2009.

41. For more, see:

a. Taj Mohammad Breseeg, Baloch Nationalism: Its Origins and Development 

(Karachi: Royal Book Company, 2004).

b. A. B. Awan, Baluchistan, Historical and Political Processes (London: New 

Century Publishers, 1985).

42. For more on pre-9/11 Pashtun insurgencies in Pakistan, see Rodney Jones, “The 

Prospects for State Failure in Pakistan: Ethnic Regional and Sectarian Fissures,” 

(paper) quoted in Stephen P. Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan (Washington, D.C.: 

Brookings Institution Press, October 2004), p. 217. The paper was presented to a 

seminar on the Future of Pakistan, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 1 

May 2001. 

43. Primarily, winning is described as the state’s ability to hang on to territory.

44. Post-2001 Baluch insurgency is mentioned to provide background information 

for the next chapter on Pakistan COIN policy 2002 to 2008.

45. In the current Pashtun insurgency (2002 to the present), all COIN indicators show 

the insurgency is growing strong and the state is losing. 

46. Touqir Hussain et al., The Islamization of Pakistan, 1979-2009, The Middle East 

Institute, available at www.mei.edu/PakistanCenter/ViewpointsIslamizationofPakistan19792009.aspx; accessed October 2009.

47. See Inamullah Khattak, “Swat deal to promote peace,” Dawn, 20 February 2009, 

available at www.dawn.com/2009/02/20/text/nat5.htm; accessed October 2009.

48. See for example, these references quoted in Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan, p. 104:

a. Major S. A. El-Edroos (Frontier Forces Regiment), “A Plea for a People’s 

Army,” Pakistan Army Journal 4, June 1962, pp. 19-25.

b. El-Edroos, “Afro Asian Revolutionary Warfare and Our Military Thought,” 

Pakistan Army Journal 4, December 1962, pp. 35-41.

c. Major Mohammad Shafi, “The Effectiveness of Guerilla War,” Pakistan Army 

Journal 5, June 1963, pp. 4-11.

49. Ibid., p. 105.
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Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

50. Fomenting Insurgency policy or FOIN is a conceptual construct produced here 

to explain Pakistan’s support for creating insurgencies. FOIN is not endorsed by 

the Pakistani military or used in its official parlance. 

51. See Daniel Byman, Peter Chalk, Bruce Hoffman, William Rosenau, and David 

Brannan, Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements (Santa Monica, CA: 

RAND Corporation, 2001).

52. Ibid., p. 14.

53. See Stephen T. Hosmer, The Army’s Role in Counterinsurgency and Insurgency

(Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1990).

54. Soviet Union tested its first nuclear bomb in 1949. For a brief history of the Soviet 

nuclear bomb project, see “Cold War: A Brief History,” available at www.atomicarchive.com/History/coldwar/index.shtml; accessed October 2009. 

55. See “Mutually Assured Destruction,” Nuclear Files: Project of the Nuclear Age 

Peace Foundation, available at www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclearweapons/history/cold-war/strategy/strategy-mutual-assured-destruction.htm; 

accessed October 2009.

56. For detailed analysis of ISI, see:

a. Ishtiaq Ahmed, “The Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence: A Profile,” ISAS 

Insights, Issue 36 (15 August 2008), Institute of South Asian Studies, National 

University of Singapore.

b. Shaun Gregory, “The ISI and the War on Terrorism,” in Studies in Conflict 

and Terrorism, Vol. 30, Issue 12 (December 2007), University of Bradford, 

United Kingdom.

c. Eben Kaplan, “The ISI and Terrorism: Behind the Accusations,” Council 

on Foreign Relations, 19 October 2007, available at www.cfr.org/publication/11644/ as updated 28 May 2009; accessed October 2009.

d. STRATFOR, “Pakistan: Anatomy of the ISI,” Toronto, 11 August 2008, available at www.stratfor.com/analysis/pakistan_anatomy_isi; accessed October 

2009.

57. See Meredith Weiss, The Khalistan Movement in Punjab, Globalization and SelfDetermination, The Macmillan Center, Yale University, 25 June 2002 (work in 

progress), available at www.yale.edu/macmillan/globalization/publications.html; 

accessed October 2009.

58. For more information, see Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, 

Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (New 

York: Penguin Press, 2004).

59. For more on this issue, see:

a. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central 

Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1 March 2001).

b. Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New 

York: Alfred A. Knopf, 8 August 2006).
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60. See Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia (New York: 

Penguin Group, 31 December 2003).

61. For more on this issue, see Bruce Riedel, The Search for Al Qaeda: Its Leadership, 

Ideology, and Future (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1 September 

2008).

62. See Simon Jones, “India, Pakistan, and Counterinsurgency Operations in Jammu 

and Kashmir,” Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 19, Issue (1 March 2008), pp. 

1-22.

63. For more on the ISI-insurgents in Kashmir nexus, see Shuja Nawaz, Crossed 

Swords: Pakistan Its Army, and the Wars Within (London: Oxford University 

Press, 2008).

64. For an analysis of the Kargil 1999 and New Delhi terrorist attacks of 2001, see P. 

R. Chari, Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema, and Stephen P. Cohen, Four Crises and a Peace 

Process (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2007), pp. 118-130 and 

149-170. 

 See Bill Roggio, “Analysis: Mumbai attack differs from past terror strikes,” The 

Long War Journal, 28 November 2008, available at www.longwarjournal.org/

archives/2008/11/analysis_mumbai_atta.php; accessed October 2009.

65. See “India terms Pakistan probe into Mumbai attacks positive,” The News, 12 

February 2009, available at www.geo.tv/2-12-2009/35024.htm; accessed October 

2009.

66. For more, see Hassan Abbas, Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army, 

and America’s War on Terror (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2005), p. 226.

67. See CNN, “You are either with us or against us,” 6 November 2001, available at 

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/11/06/gen.attack.on.terror/; accessed October 

2009.

68. See David E. Sanger, The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power (New York: Harmony, 13 January 2009), p. 248.

69. See Hassan Abbas, Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism, p. 218.

70. See “Sectarian Violence in Pakistan” at www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/database/sect-killing.htm; accessed October 2008. This South Asia Terrorism 

Portal is maintained by India’s Institute of Conflict Management.

71. Ibid.

72. For more on this issue, see Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos: The United States 

and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia

(New York: Viking Adult, 3 June 2008).

73. For more on this issue, see Seth E. Jones, Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan (Santa 

Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, May 2008).

74. See Craig Cohen, A Perilous Course: U.S. Strategy and Assistance to Pakistan

(Washington, D.C.: CSIS, 21 December 2007).

75. For more, see:
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Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

a. Pervez Musharraf, In The Line of Fire: A Memoir (New York: Free Press, 25 

September 2006).

b. Zahid Hussain, Frontline Pakistan: The Struggle with Militant Islam (New 

York: Columbia University Press, 26 January 2007).

76. See Admiral Michael Mullen’s interview by Associated Press on 8 December 2009, 

www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1260181018583&pagename=JPArticle%2FS

howFul ; accessed December 2009. 

77. See FATA Secretariat’s Web site, www.fata.gov.pk.

78. See Hassan Abbas, “Profiles of Pakistan’s Seven Tribal Agencies,” Terrorism Monitor, 19 October 2006.

79. See Mahmood Shah, former Secretary of FATA, “Tribal Areas of Pakistan, 

Afghanistan Interconnectivity and Spillover Effects,” 23 July 2008, available at 

www.mahmoodshah.com; accessed October 2009.

80. See Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason, “No Sign until the Burst of Fire: 

Understanding the Pakistan-Afghanistan Frontier,” International Security, Vol. 

32, No. 4 (Spring 2008), p. 60, available at http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/

files/IS3204_pp041-077_Johnson_Mason.pdf; accessed October 2009. 

81. See Fazlur Rahman, “The Principle of Shura and the Role of the Ummah in Islam,” 

in Mumtaz Ahmad, ed., State, Politics, and Islam (Indianapolis: American Trust 

Publications, 1986), pp. 90-95.

82. See Akbar S. Ahmed, Resistance and Control in Pakistan (London: Routledge, 24 

August 2004).

83. See Johnson and Mason, “No Sign until the Burst of Fire,” pp. 58-62.

84. Number estimated after interviewing two senior former Pakistani military officers; a similar number was quoted in Shuja Nawaz, A Most Dangerous Place: FATA 

Explained (Washington, D.C.: CSIS, January 2009), p. 15.

85. Out of 340 seats, 272 are contested for Pakistan’s National Assembly; the rest 

are “reserved” for women and minorities and allocated to the political parties 

according to the number of victorious candidates.

86. The Political Parties Act of 1962 of Pakistan’s Constitution—Article 184 (2)—does 

not apply to the FATA that does not allow for party-based elections. All candidates are constitutionally nonpartisan; however, most seek and receive political 

patronage from the major parties (PPP, PML-N, PML-Q, ANP, JI, JUI-J, and 

Jamiat Ulema-Islam Sami-ul-Haq Group [JUI-S]). For more, see “BB moves SC for 

politicking in FATA,” Daily Times, 31 July 2007, available at www.dailytimes.com.

pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C07%5C31%5Cstory_31-7-2007_pg1_6; accessed 

October 2009.

87. See “Casualties of Terrorist Violence in Pakistan,” at www.satp.org/satporgtp/

countries/pakistan/database/casualties.htm (South Asia Terrorism Portal); 

accessed October 2009.

88. Ibid.
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89. Ibid.

90. Data available until 14 December 2009, and source is South Asia Terrorism Portal, 

www.satp.org. 

91. See “Casualties of Terrorist Violence in Pakistan.” 

92. Sources are as follows: 

a. Hassan Abbas, “Increasing Talibanization in Pakistan Seven Tribal Agencies,” 

Terrorism Monitor, 27 September 2007, pp. 7-9.

b. Imitiaz Ali, “Khyber Tribal Agency: A New Hub of Islamist Militancy in 

Pakistan,” Terrorism Monitor, 29 May 2008, pp. 9-11, available at www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=4952; accessed 

October 2009.

c. Imtiaz Ali, “Baitullah Mehsud – The Taliban’s New Leader in Pakistan,” 

Terrorism Focus, 9 January 2008, pp. 5-7, available at www.jamestown.org/

single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=4637&tx_ttnews%5Bbac

kPid%5D=61&cHash=43616afaa6; accessed October 2009.

d. Imtiaz Ali, “The Emerging Militancy in Pakistan’s Mohmand Agency,” 

Terrorism Monitor, 25 January 2008, pp. 5-7, available at www.jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=4681&tx_

ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=167&no_cache=1; accessed October 2009.

e. Imtiaz Ali, “The Haqqani Network and Cross-Border Terrorism in Afghanistan,” Terrorism Monitor, 24 March 2008, pp. 4-6, available at www.

jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=4804&tx_

ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=167&no_cache=1; accessed October 2009.

f. James Revill, “Pakistan’s Tribal Areas: An Agency by Agency Assessment,” 

Pakistan Security Research Unit (PSRU), Brief No. 42, University of Bradford 

Press, United Kingdom, 29 September 2008, available at www.humansecuritygateway.com/documents/PSRU_PakistansTribalAreas_AgencyByAgencyAssessment.pdf; accessed October 2009.

93. See Jessica Stern, Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill (New 

York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2003).

94. For an authoritative account of the Dune Model, see Shaul Mishal and Maoz 

Rosenthal, “Al Qaeda as a Dune Organization: Toward a Typology of Islamic Terrorist Organizations,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 4 July 2005, pp. 275-293, 

available at www.shaulmishal.com/pdf/sm_academic_04.pdf; accessed October 

2009.

95. For an authoritative debate between Sageman and Hoffman see:

a. Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 

18 July 2006).

b. Marc Sageman, Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century 

(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 3 January 2008).
91

Mullick: Pakistan’s Security Paradox

96. See Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni and Calvert Jones, “Assessing the Dangers of 

Illicit Networks: Why Al Qaeda May Be Less Dangerous Than Many Think,” 

International Security, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Fall 2008), pp. 12-13, available at http://

belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/IS3302_pp007-044_Networks.pdf; accessed 

October 2009.

97. Zahid Hussain, Frontline Pakistan: The Struggle with Militant Islam (New York: 

I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2007), p. 136.

98. Al Qaeda’s strategic chaos, a construct developed here to explain Al Qaeda’s 

modus operandi and combination of tactics, such as suicide attacks and media 

propaganda, is not endorsed by Al Qaeda or its affiliates.

99. South Asia Terrorism Portal, “Fidayeen (Suicide Squad) Attacks in Pakistan” 

at www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/database/Fidayeenattack.htm; 

accessed October 2009.

100. Ibid.

101. Zahid Hussain, Frontline Pakistan: The Struggle with Militant Islam, p. 150.

102. Ibid., p. 144. 

103. South Asia Terrorism Portal, “FATA Timeline 2003-2009,” FATA Timeline section, available at www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/Waziristan/index.

html; accessed October 2009.

104. Ibid.

105. Ajai Sahni, “Counterterrorism: A New Government, a New Incoherence,” 

South Asia Intelligence Review, 24 May 2004, www.satp.org/satporgtp/sair/

Archives/2_45.htm; accessed December 2009.

106. “Two abducted Chinese engineers now safe,” China Daily, 10 October 2004, www.

chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-10/10/content_381099.htm; accessed December 2009.

107. Hassan Abbas, “Pakistan’s grip on tribal areas is slipping,” Asia Times, 4 October 

2007, www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IJ04Df02.html; accessed December 

2009.

108. See “Civilian exodus on in Swat,” The News International, 3 February 2009, available at www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=20057; accessed October 

2009.

109. See “Give us Dadullah, Take Tariq: Taliban,” The Daily Times, 13 February 2008, 

available at http://server.kbri-islamabad.go.id/index.php?option=com_content&

task=view&id=3935&Itemid=43; accessed October 2009.

110. See Haider A. H. Mullick, “Where Pakistan is Winning,” Newsweek, 2 May 2009, 

available at www.newsweek.com/id/195702; accessed October 2009.

111. See Haider A. H. Mullick, “Lions and Jackals: Pakistan’s Emerging Counterinsurgency Strategy,” Foreign Affairs, 15 July 2009, available at www.foreignaffairs.com/

articles/65191/haider-ali-hussein-mullick/lions-and-jackals; accessed October 

2009.
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112. Interview with a senior Pakistani military official, March 2009. 

113. For details, see Seth Jones, Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan (Santa Monica, CA: 

RAND Corporation, 2008), available at www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/

RAND_MG595.pdf; accessed October 2009.

114. Interviews with several local journalists, analysts, and former military and intelligence officers that wish to remain anonymous. 

115. Based on interviews with local journalists and media report—for example:

a. “U.N. refugee agency seeks $17 million for displaced Pakistanis,” The Daily 

Times, 24 September 2008, available at www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.

asp?page=2008\09\24\story_24-9-2008_pg7_13; accessed October 2009.

b. “U.S. Congress okays $1.4 billion Pakistan aid,” The Daily Times, 20 June 

2009, available at www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\06\20\

story_20-6-2009_pg1_4; accessed October 2009.

116. See Seth C. Jones and Martin C. Libicki, How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for 

Countering Al Qaeda (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2008), available 

at www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG741-1.sum.pdf; accessed 

October 2009.

117. Ibid.

118. PRIDE is used both as a word and acronym. 

119. In a April 2009 meeting with the chief of the Pakistani Intelligence Bureau in 

Washington, D.C., the principal investigator was given a briefing on the needs of 

the Pakistani police.

120. See “Notification of increase in police salaries issued: Increase in ration allowance 

declined,” Daily Times, 3 May 2009, available at www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.

asp?page=2009\05\03\story_3-5-2009_pg13_3; accessed October 2009.

121. See various reports of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan at www.hrcpweb.org; accessed October 2009.

122. BBC, “Timeline: Pakistan,” 15 July 2009, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/

world/south_asia/country_profiles/1156716.stm; accessed October 2009.